M&D Chapter 16 - Star-Gazing

[Johnny Marr]

He's enjoying himself, I'll give you that much

On Tuesday, March 24, 2015, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','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
>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','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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