M&D - Chapter 17 - The War of Jenkins' Ear

[Elisabeth Romberg]

A great mini-adventure! Hilarious and whimsical. Love this whole scene, the miniature door, everything. Very English if you don’t mind me saying. Something you’d come across in the English countryside. I came across a little museum in the English woods myself once. The big attraction was a mummy with a toe missing. 

You’d expect to find a little green imp or some character like that down there, or in the neglected garden. One who captures you  to ’the other side’. The end of a fairway, Alice in Wonderland, Tom Bombadil even. 
Mournival is the perfect name for the character as you pointed out in the next post on this scene.

I also thinks Dixon pulling Masons leg at the end of the scene is LOL. 

The whole tale is too funny. 
Why I love Pynchon’s writing for sure.

On a more serious note though, I thought you wrote beautifully on British men, Johnny - no, seriously! in the post on Mason’s fondest wish. This is above all very much a book about friendship, isn’t it, and it is really starting to come through. 


> 25. mar. 2015 kl. 04.09 skrev Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com>:
> 
> The War of Jenkins' Ear is perfect terrain for TRP. It's the kind of historical miscellany he revels in, the shortest war ever fought. Wiki explains:
> 
> Returning home from the West Indies in command of the brig Rebecca in 1731, Jenkins' ship was stopped and boarded by the Spanish guarda-costa La Isabela (Jenkins was involved in contraband and piracy). Her commander, Captain Julio León Fandiño, had Jenkins bound to a mast and then sliced off one of his ears with his sword then told him to say to his King "same will happen to him (the king) if cought doing the same". On arriving in England, Jenkins addressed his grievances to the king, and a report was furnished by the Commander-in-Chief in the West Indies confirming Jenkins' account. At the time the incident received little attention, but in 1738 Jenkins repeated his story with dramatic details before a committee of the House of Commons, producing what he claimed to be his ear that had been cut off. As a result of this incident England declared war to Spain... In 1741 he was sent from England to St. Helena to investigate charges of corruption brought against the acting governor, and from May 1741 until March 1742 he administered the affairs of the island.
> 
> As with the cheese rolling in Stroud, this reads just like a TRP subplot - it could have come straight out of The Courier's Tragedy; a corrupt but masterful sailor, in the English state's emply (crooked or not, better to have him working for us) left with his ear cut off by rival Spanish ships, provokes his countrymen into war with a belated, embellished retelling of his story, and ends up as the poacher turned gamekeeper when he effectively takes charge of St Helena.
> 
> Of course, the story has another twist as Jenkins loses a fortune to Honourable John in cards. Forgive me for returning to wikipedia for a definition of Crossruff
> 
> 
> A crossruff is a play where tricks are made by taking alternate ruffs in each hand. In order to use a crossruff, each player in the partnership must have shortness in a non-trump suit, accompanied with appropriate length in the opposite hand. Also, each partner must be short in the suit that his partner is long in. It is preferable that both players have an equal number of cards in the trump suit, otherwise a regular ruff is usually more effective, as it has the added benefit of establishing the trump suit.
> 
> Jenkins has to forfeit th celebrated ear which he brought with him to St Helena, "encasqu'd in a little Show-case of Crystal and Silver, and pickl'd in Atlantick Brine.
> 
> Mason finds his way into the Museum, despite the obstructive presence of a three foot high Portico and Gate, and a 'Corporate Surplus' he appears to have accrued through the hospitality he enjoyed in Cape Town. Soon enough he's through the door and in the presence of "a great modern secular relic" - and Nick Mournival.
>  

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