M&D - a longer wind

[David Ewers]

This might be easier to make some sense of...


>>> 
>>> That was my first stab at leading the discussion, and it was hard work. TRP's writing is so dense at times that you fear you're not doing justice to his wordplay or references. Sometimes I felt a bit inadequate in my responses to the text, especially when all I felt I could do was sand back and admire the writing.
>>> Yet, perversely, some of the erudition can suffocate my instinctive response to the text - often it can distance you from the heart of the text as much as provide extra information and insight. Because, for all the jocularity and whimsy, M&D contains moments of real tenderness. My rereading of it has confirmed how strong the prose is but also how finely spun the relationship between Mason and Dixon.


Having just finished reading chapter 18, I sympathize with you, Mr. Marr.  I definitely notice a shift in tone here; the writing is more introspective and poetic, not so easy (or even desirable, as you suggest) to break down and examine too cooly.

But what the hell...

First off, it's good fortune for the rest of us that you signed up for the 'back in England' chapter, so we get an inside view.  Thanks again.  You covered a lot of territory.  To keep it all in order, I'll start at the beginning and go in circles  from there:

> 
>> Georgian London was rife with prostitution. The Economist's recent claims that up to one in five young London women may have ben prostitutes seems unverifiable, but it was unquestionably a major trade and significant social issue of the time, with plays such as The Beggar's Opera and Hogarth's art offering satirical comment. 
>> 
>  
> Insalubrious material, I must apologise for it, but TRP has subtly referred to it, as a chornicler of Georgian London must. We don't want to linger on Mason's indiscretions - we recognise many of his faults and tribulations, his indecision, his otherworldiness, his high-strung temperament and his burdensome grief for Rebekah. Yet he is a likeable protagonist, one we support and don't want to view as ignoble or squalid. Yet such is the duality of man; in a lonely and permissive city, even Mason can fall to the temptations of Night time.

I didn't pick up on it as soon as you did, but there seems to be a lot about prostitution in this chapter.  The way Mason and Dixon have only nice things to say to the Royal Society concerning "... Civilian Morale, Slave Discontent and the like..." gives a pretty strong whiff of it.  I get indications all over the chapter of a triangular connection between prostitution, guilt, and illusion (or four-doored, Quadrant?; say with haunting, or... or - as always, perhaps - the Company?).  I agree that the Cock Lane Ghost story is a key to all this (so much so that maybe Mr. Pynchon felt it prudent not to overstate the case textually?)  The illusion M-&D- (almost, seemingly not-willfully) maintain, the buying off the boys with the Invisible ships (another reminder of invisible hands, and his own experience aboard the Seahorse?)...


>  Does he feel privately that he has dishonoured his Sons somehow, through his dalliance (however unwilling on his part) with Austra? Does he feel distanced from them without Rebekah, or guilty at having left them for so long as he ventured to the other side of the world?

Speaking of Austra, I'm hearing pretty loud echoes of her comment about British wifehood...


> The Tops a-spin comment suggests both the giddy daze of new celebrity, but possibly also that they are unwitting pieces in some greater force's game?
> 

The boys and their ships, again?  To wit:


> William is now five years old, Doctor Isaac is three. William has taken the role of the watchful elder brother, with Isaac "closer to agreeable laughter". They're old enough to detect the differences in the Toy Boats to the British ones they've seen in the flesh - they can spot the difference in the rigging, the carvings and the number of Guns they carried. 

Fraudulent as those Cock Lane seances?  To wit:

> Dixon soon leaves home - he is a man of simpler pleasures than London insists upon, unmpressed by a lunchtime helping at the Mitre, instead left reminiscing about The Jolly Pitman in Staindrop (An actual pub? A convincing name? Or an oblique reference to Northern English mining communities, the forgotten furnace of the Empire?)
> 

Could the name Jolly Pitman be seen as another insidious illusion, like the myth of the happy slave?


Then Rebecca's story (thanks for pointing out how many layers of warping lenses there really are here; including the ones Rebecca would use with Princess Sukie; honestly confiding about a  triangular relationship between herself, her husband and the Co. to the husband's boss's daughter?  Hmm...):

Prostitution and Illusion all over , from the photo of Mason (like a good lens-man, he sends a projection forward...) to the spectacularly artificial Clive/Masskelyn dream-Totem at the chapel, working like a holy relic (maybe it's just me, but I get a bit of the "I identify with the rich because that's what I'm going to be, one day..." sort of American Dream, brought to you by the Invisible Hand), not to mention the kind-of icky notion of the Princess being a sort of... not even prostitute, but Prostitutional Function (like the killing Owl is to the Sound?).


That's all I got time for, but more to come.  In closing, I agree with you about Mason's likability, and I think the last paragraph does too.  In the context of this "ungentlemanly Speculation", we're reminded that he's not the world's best Capitalist.



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