M&D - Chapter 18 - The Cock Lane Ghost

[Johnny Marr]

Rebekah isn't the only apparition haunting M&D. The Cock-Lane ghost is a
real life tale of fraudulent ghost sightings in London's red light
district, carried by a Landlord and his daughter to frame one of their
Tenants for the alleged murder of his ex-wife - the scandalous headline
event of 1762 London, for which they were brought to justice. In further
Pynchonian overtones, it served as the starting point for a national debate
on the differences between Methodists and orthodox Anglicans:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_Lane_ghost

I'd highly recommend reading the wikipedia entry if you haven't heard of
this before. It's classic Pynchon material, which makes it partly
surprising that he should throwaway such apparently choice material in just
a couple of quietly allusive lines. Even if he'd decided that he needed to
focus on the main narrative for M&D, surely this would be worthy of one of
his digressions? Or else something he could return to in a later book or
short story? Yet experienced Pynchon readers soon come to realise that TRP
loves briefly mentioning obscure but outlandish real life events and
institutions, and casually tossing them into the great salad of his stories
as mere vinegar dressing. It's what makes the closer reading and rereading
so much fun, and also a sign of how much he credits his readership with the
capacity to follow his lines of thought, catch his fleeting references and
to make their own imaginiative links for themselves.

Mason is denied any such ghost sighting, whether of the Cock Lane Ghost or
of his beloved Rebekah. He soon comes to realise that Rebekah only visits
him if the circumstances are correct - without the Winds of St Helena, he
needs to return to Sapperton in order to converse with her.

Mason does chance upon the celebrity acting couple of the day - Margaret
Woffington and David Garrick (one of the great Shakespearian actors, whose
name survives in Britain to this day - several theatres are named after
him). Formally connecte in the 1740s, Garrick has by now married another
woman but they are supposed to have remained 'emotionally bonded' - Garrick
wore the shoe buckles she gave him until his death.

Garrick was also a successful if undistinguished playwright - he cashed in
on the Cock Lane ghost story with his hugely profitable, now forgotten 'The
Farmer's Return To London', a thinly veiled fictionalised account of the
story.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20150326/d201234d/attachment.html>