M&D - Chapter 16 - Star-Gazing

[Monte Davis]

Getting carried away with an outlandish paranoid theory is *mandatory* here.

On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 3:10 PM, Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Thanks for that, I really ought to have consulted wiki. <slaps himself on
> the wrist>
>
> Although getting carried away with an outlandish paranoid theory is very
> much part of the Jeu d'esprit.
>
>
> On Tuesday, March 24, 2015, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> From the wiki:
>>
>> *Mason, Rebekah*
>> 52; Charles' first wife, who died young; her tombstone at Sapperton
>> Church gives her date of death as February 13th, 1759, and the epitaph
>> includes the phrase "Wife of Charles Mason, Jun'r. A. R. S. (Associate of
>> the Royal Society); 109; 164; story, 167-84; 346; 536-41; 703
>>
>> 2015-03-24 19:43 GMT+01:00 Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
>>
>>> Wonderful conceptual gambit that: IS Rebekah real?
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 2:40 PM, Elisabeth Romberg <eromberg at mac.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > Spooky and weird. I hadn't thought of it like that. You think she's not
>>> > really real? Uncle Ives did state <<There's no record of her in
>>> Gloster>>
>>> > didn't he. Which I thought was a weird thing to say when I read it at
>>> the
>>> > time. It was like the voice of the author came through, like HE hadn't
>>> found
>>> > a record of her in Gloster.
>>> > But they had children? Where are they? (I had to skip a couple of
>>> chapters
>>> > to ketsjap, it was a terrible decisio but it had to be done) Have they
>>> been
>>> > mentioned?
>>> >
>>> > 24. mar. 2015 kl. 05.01 skrev Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com>:
>>> >
>>> > Mason, lost and alone, lovesick for glamorous Susannah and having
>>> apparently
>>> > lost interest in the day's festivities, nearly finds himself The
>>> victim of
>>> > Cheese malevolent when the Vicar's mild roll of a Double Gloucester
>>> sets off
>>> > a near catastrophic chain of unloosened cheeses, with Octuple breaking
>>> out
>>> > of its Wagon and nearly singling out CM for 'Misadventure'.
>>> >
>>> > Instead, in the best mock-epic romantic fashion, Rebekah dives into the
>>> > story to save CM. Dressed in Taffeta rather than Silk, suddenly life in
>>> > Aleppo doesn't seem quite so unappealing.
>>> >
>>> > TRP is kind enough to explain his wordplay for us: '"Were it
>>> Night-time,
>>> > Sir, I'd say you were out Star-Gazing" ... [which] in the those parts
>>> was a
>>> > young man's term for masturbating'. Unusual for TRP to make the jokes
>>> so
>>> > explicit (I can't help but wonder how many other similar jokes am I
>>> missing
>>> > out on?), but perhaps he wants to emphasise that, for all the
>>> brilliance and
>>> > sublimity of Mason's profession, he is prone to becoming self-absorbed
>>> and
>>> > wrapped up too exclusively in his own world. (I might well be
>>> straining for
>>> > meaning here over a mere double-entendre - rather onanistically so).
>>> >
>>> > Mason almost reproaches Rebekah for her blunt comment, but founds
>>> himself
>>> > "stupefied" by her beauty. TRP describes her mouth in ambiguous detail:
>>> > "Lips slightly apart, in an Inuiry that just fail'd to be a Smile,-
>>> like a
>>> > Gate-Keeper aout to have a word with him". Yet this is the only detail
>>> that
>>> > TRP, lover of verbose descriptions, offers about Rebekah's appearance.
>>> He
>>> > tells us that she's not an English Rose like Susannah, nor a "rugged
>>> Blossom
>>> > of the Heath", but he doesn't tell us what she does look like.
>>> >
>>> > Admittedly TRP might have elaborated a bit more in a now forgotten
>>> earlier
>>> > passage, but the lack of physical description resonates all the more
>>> when we
>>> > start to question whether Rebekah's a ghost. The Gate-Keeper comment,
>>> and
>>> > Mason's reverie about "black Fumes welling from the Surface of her
>>> > Apparition, heard her voice thickening to the timbres of the Beasts
>>> ... the
>>> > serpents of Hell, real and swift, lying just the other side of her
>>> Shadow".
>>> >
>>> > This furthers the connection to Eurydice - does Charles fear that
>>> Rebekah's
>>> > been consigned to Hell because she gave birth out of wedlock? The
>>> children
>>> > are registered as Gloucestershire born, but Mason and Rebekah hadn't
>>> yet
>>> > been registered as married - presuming they hadn't got married
>>> elsewhere,
>>> > like Greenwich instead ... or that she is the mother of his children
>>> ... or
>>> > that she existed in the first place ... "I am outside of Time"
>>> >
>>> > Is Rebekah Mason's muse? His guiding light in his life and his career?
>>> > '"Look to the Earth," she instructs him. "Belonging to her as I do, I
>>> know
>>> > she lives, and that here upon this Volcanoe in the Sea, close to the
>>> forces
>>> > within, even you, Mopery, may learn of her, Tellurick Secrets you could
>>> > never guess"'.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>
>>
>>
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