M&D - Chapter 16 - Peach and Silk

[Mark Kohut]

I could overwhelm with responses but I sent a number and am waiting
for others. Then I won't wait just post more.

Here's a truth, Johnny, if you haven't seen it yet (and you probably
have): you get more immediate responses when
you are deemed 'wrong', misleading, incomplete, a bit off, too speculative.

So, almost everyone must think you were just right on.

On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 2:02 PM, Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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> 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
>> > ...
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l