M&D Chapter 16 - Star-Gazing

[Monte Davis]

What shamelessness? Mr. Bloom is enjoying a summer evening of fireworks at
Sandymount, and adjusts his clothing as anyone might.

Unless you're claiming some sort of twisted, prurient *special access* to
his thoughts, that is.

On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 3:13 PM, Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com> wrote:

> I did try to fit another literary parallel in with the Star-Gazing comment
> - Leopold Bloom "at it again" watching Gertie McDowell. Except Mason
> doesn't have Leo's sexual over excitement or shamelessness
>
> On Tuesday, March 24, 2015, 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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