M&D - Chapter 16 - Peach and Silk

[Johnny Marr]

On rereading M&D, it now strikes me that TRP's written Mason as something
of a synaesthetic gnostic visionary, whose vocational love of astronomy
stems not from a love of cartography and a desire for rational order, but
from a deep rooted longing to experience this world - and the world's
beyond - in their full, unadulterated rich textures.

I look forward to group reading chapter 17 tonight, although I'm struck by
a lack of responses to my posts. Are my comments leading us down blind
alleys rather than rabbit holes?

On Tuesday, March 24, 2015, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Johnny Marr points to sheer beautiful writing beautifully:
> "Savage flowers of the Indies, demurer Blooms of the British garden,
> striped and tartans, foreign colours undream'd of in Newton's
> prismatics, damasks with epic-length Oriental tales woven into them,
> requiring hours of attentive gazing whilst the light at the window
> went changing so as to reveal newer and deeper labyrinths of event,
> Velvets whose grasp of incident light was so predatory and absolute
> that one moved closer to compensate for what was not being reflected,
> till it felt like being drawn, oneself, inside the unthinkable
> countours of an invisible surface"
>
> P on the richness of ....life? of the range of color life can be?
> We've got color "undreamed of" by science...we've got Oriental
> tales...labyrinths, depths, can remind of that early table in Chap
> one......
>
> RANGE OVER THE RICHNESSES...
>
> On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 9:57 PM, Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > We encounter Susannah Peach, the original apple of Mason's eye, and the
> > daughter of British imperial conquest, clother solely in the silk that
> her
> > merchant father imported from India. TRP's criticism of the exploitative
> > nature of the British Empire is clear without becoming overstated - a
> world
> > of plundered treasure, of foreign lands and customs assumed without
> > question. TRP wears his learning lightly - three types of silk (Tussah,
> > Pngee and Susannah's favourite Shantung) are mentioned with casual
> > authority.
> >
> > TRP writes one of the most beautiful extended sentences you could hope to
> > read. Shades of political critique and erudition, but both are
> subjugated to
> > sheer aesthetic delight.
> >
> > "Savage flowers of the Indies, demurer Blooms of the British garden,
> striped
> > and tartans, foreign colours undream'd of in Newton's prismatics, damasks
> > with epic-length Oriental tales woven into them, requiring hours of
> > attentive gazing whilst the light at the window went changing so as to
> > reveal newer and deeper labyrinths of event, Velvets whose grasp of
> incident
> > light was so predatory and absolute that one moved closer to compensate
> for
> > what was not being reflected, till it felt like being drawn, oneself,
> inside
> > the unthinkable countours of an invisible surface"
> >
> >
> > Susannah's recommendation that Charles learns 'Silk' offers a career with
> > great prospects, although he may have to move to Aleppo in Syria rather
> than
> > India. A clever reminder from TRP that India was very much the jewel in
> the
> > crown of the British empire in the mid-18th century, with America a vast,
> > still mostly unexplored backwater. The mention of Syria can't help but
> > resonate for readers in 2015 - the colonising powers just can't leave
> alone
> > ...
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20150324/767eaba5/attachment.html>