M&D CH 6 Notes

[Smoke Teff]

CHAPTER 6



p. 47

“patently a warning to the Astronomers, from Beyond. Tho’ men of
Science, both now confess’d to older and more Earthly
Certainties[…]the Royal S. wrote back in the most overbearing way, on
about loss of honor.”



The stuff about the warning is interesting enough. But the Royal S.’s
words somewhat echo the narration later in talking about the forces
that send (specifically American) pioneers on their way into the
unknown:



Cf p. 212: “The Pilgrim, however long or crooked his Road, may keep
ever before him the Holy Place he must by his Faith seek, as the
American Ranger, however indeterminate or unposted his Wilderness, may
enjoy, ever at his Back, the Impulse of Duty he must, by his Honor,
attend.”



“’Philadelphia Soap’[…]often leaves things dirtier than they were
before its application.”



Feels somewhat metaphorickal, unless someone knows of a historical
verification? But also funny, and paradoxickal enough that we might
keep it in our heads going forward.



“Loxodrome”



Google’s ngram suggests anachronistic?







p. 48



“pretends to weigh his Choice.”



A really funny and recognizable moment, but also thematickally
relevant, performance of free will when none exists.





“’’Tis the Holy Bible, Sir.’

“’No matter, ‘tis Print,--Print causes Civil Unrest,--Civil Unrest in
any Ship at Sea is intolerable.’”



As we think more about what ships represent on these voyages, cf. p.
220, “[Emerson] has devis’d a sailing-Scheme, whereby Winds are
imagin’d to be forms of Gravity acting not vertically but laterally,
along the Globe’s Surface,--a Ship to him is the Paradigm of the
Universe. ‘All the possible forces in play are represented each by its
representative sheets, stays, braces, and shrouds and such,--a set of
lines in space, each at its particular angle. Easy to see why
sea-captains go crazy,--godlike power over realities so simplified….’”
P thinking both systematickally and symbolickally



“Coffee [causes Civil Unrest] as well”

Coffee, I think, comes in for variegated treatment here. Perhaps as a
kind of blanket (but artificial, in its way) accelerant of human
energies, it is a technology that can be put to ends as good or bad as
the humans imbibing



“How is any of this going to help restore me to the ‘ordinary World’?”



Cherrycoke seeking restoration, a kind of death-wish yearning for
innocence, for an innocent soul and an innocent world==as we all are.
Of course, he wisely instructs us: “these are the very given
Conditions of the ‘ordinary World.’”



“Take me back to the Cross-Roads,/Let me choose, once again”



THIS part is important, I think, because here we see the emphasis on
alternate paths—alternate future histories, etc—as being related to
the wish for innocence, for return, for death.







p. 49



We see the malevolent aggression of the sea captain, and then Mason’s
objections. Then our astronomer from the north notes: “’A Quaker might
say, ‘tis war that’s insane, and Frigate captains only more open about
it…?’”



War is a force that moves through people, uses them for
instruments—we’ve seen this time and again in Pynchon



“’You go about in this,--forgive me,--this Coat, Hat, and Breeches of
unmistakably military color and cut,==’

“’Upon the theory that a Representation of Authority, whose extent no
one is quite sure of, may act as a deterrent to Personal Assault.’”



I guess this is kind of Hobbesian? State as monopolist of violence,
etc. But also we see that these kinds of authority—“whose extent no
one is quite sure of”—achieve, advertise, and obfuscate the nature of
that extent by preying on/appealing to the self-interest and fears of
those who can align with it.





“’==not to mention this Ocean of Ale flowing thro’ you’”



The big step forward in closeness they took post-near-death is fraying
somewhat—or perhaps allowing for more intimate kinds of disagreement.
But we’re seeing Mason’s temperance (sorta), stuffiness is more like,
judgment, elitism, so forth.





p. 50



“Yet a Shark is a Shark, in the day or the dark”



I haven’t even seen West Side Story and I recognize this reference



“There’s nought an Astronomer won’t do for Work.”



Astronomers seem to be kind of bohemian in terms of their attitudes
toward what apparently meager astronomy work is available, at least if
you ask an astronomer’s father, e.g. Charles Mason, Sr.



“the Immortality of Ships,--new masts stepp’d in and Yards set,
Riggers all over her[…] yet slow as Clock-hands, Wood, Hemp, and
Canvas Resurrection would proceed. Three weeks and she was whole
again.”



So more on the sea as providing some kind of resurrection, or some
boundary between life and death. Also, this seems to be referencing
the paradox of Theseus’s Ship





p. 51

“Capt. Grant surreptitiously flicked the Quill, trying to spatter ink-drops[…]”

Seems to be both extending and parodying the notion from earlier in
the chapter of print being any kind of potent weapon, especially on a
ship.



“Admiralty Fopling”



The name marks him as a comic character, but who is he working for, exactly?



“’Truth’…?[…]Perhaps I am not your ideal Confidant[…]divided Loyalties
sort of thing….”



Who else is he loyal to that impels a will to disbelief?



“the Rumor that my Predecessor was order’d there in full knowledge
that ‘twas already in the hands of the French”



Fate, fate being known and decided not only for you—but before you
even have your own job. Feels also like it relates to the question of
elect v preterite



“so much more swiftly than the Trade Winds, these Days, do the Winds
of Diplomacy blow.”



Somewhat mysterious line for me. I can understand the notion that the
ambitions of colonial governments keep extending farther and
farther—but don’t these ambitions also include ambitions for commerce?
One thing happening in the 7 Years War is that mercantilism, through
the filter of war, is translating into capitalism.



“a Source of pre-civiliz’d Sentiment useful to his Praxis of now and
then pretending to be insane, thus deriving an Advantage over any
unsure as to which side of Reason he may actually stand upon.”



Lots of resonance here. One: Cherrycoke’s holy insanity. Two: isn’t
there a big recurring theme of people pretending to be idiots in GR?
Three: this comes shortly after Dixon’s idea about pretending to be
affiliated with an authority in order to derive advantage. Insanity
and obedience to military authority are kind of tied together here?





p. 52



“till the final eight Bells, when Mason reaches for a Loaf and a
Bottle and becomes upon the instant convivial as anyone has ever seen
him.”



Mason is compelled to keep not only Rebekah’s memory alive—but also
his own grief? She lives in his pain, at least he might think. Also:
interesting that his grief ritualistically ends with the final bell.
Goes to show how powerful our notions of the day are.



“and what is a Village, without Village Idiots? Ev’ryone on board
knows who the Madmen are, and that they are here as security against
the Forces of Night”



Furthers the notion of the uses of insanity—except it makes the object
of the advantage of insanity not merely the individual but the
ship/village/community



Other kinds of beings who are thus far described as USEFUL (to adult
humans): children, dogs



“that Other World of which Wapping is the anteroom”



Anteroom from GR, obviously. The notion of the earthly world around us
conforming to some of these archetypal structures (as defined by our
psychic forces), realms, etc



“understanding that nothing would go away now, and that Shot was
inevitable, ‘morphosing to extensions of a single Engine homicidal”



Recalls one of the central metaphors of the book, the idea of America
as a kind of engine. I’m not sure what kind of traction the idea of an
engine would have around 1760—but certainly they are in some kind of
collective reservoir of mechanickal ideas-to-be. Also, again, the
emphasis on homicide.



And the notion of inevitability is not new in the book, but the
inevitability of violence seems so.





p. 53



(cont’d from 52)



“in that general and ungovernable Tip of Soul, what allow’d us to hear
the Musick so keenly?”



Ungovernability at the core (or just the edge?) of the soul is
important to note as we try to build a potential moral/thesis.



In this rhetorical phraseology I hear echoes of the national anthem, also.



“the Fife being of standard Military issue, tun’d in that most martial
of Scales[…]the fam’d Hanoverian Fifer Johann Ulrich, whom the Duke of
Bedford had brought in after the previous War to instruct his
Regimental Winds.”



The idea of musical instruments being an instrument of continuity for
the greater winds that move men. Also of music being, like technology,
only as morally good/bad as the ends it is put to.







p. 54



“’Cheerly. Cheerly, then, Lads….’”

Obvious continuity with the opening to AtD.



p. 55



“Mr. Higgs’s Obsessedness as to Loose Ends”



“alternatives to Ennui[the steps from Boredom to Discontent to Unwise
Practices are never shorter than aboard a Sixth-Rate upon a long
Voyage, Sir”



Ennui, according to the ngram viewer, doesn’t start coming into
English usage until…right around this period, actually. Right
around—maybe we ought notice—the industrial revolution. DFW has a
similar riff (delivered via a ghost in The Pale King) on the
increasing usage of the words BORE/BORING as we think of them now,
starting in the industrial revolution as an apparent take-off on BORE
meant in the more mechanickal sense.



The conflation of idleness and sin (and their analogous opposition to
usefulness and…whatever the opposite of sin is, probably understood as
some kind of spiritual currency) a theme in this book (many of P’s
books, really) and to the best of my knowledge seems especially
emergent around this time?



p. 56



“’But that for one Instant[…]our Shadows lay perfectly beneath us[…]
Tolls exacted for passage thro’ the Gate of the single shadowless
Moment[…] So must there be a Ritual of Crossing Over, serving to focus
each Pollywog’s Mind upon the Step he was taking.”



Reminds me of the solar sound shadow bit from GR (which will pop up in
other ways later in this book). Also, more on the kinds of realms
humans pass between, and the use of ritual as a means of either
marking, paying toll for (i.e. earning/securing), or perhaps creating…









p. 57







 “as if secure forever in a warm’d, melodious Barcarole of indolent days”



Recognizable—when we find ourselves satisfied we often can’t conceive
of the satisfaction ending. In fact, the ego—the instrument that makes
and understands time—often can’t properly conceive of impermanence or
present circumstances/emotions changing.



Also reminds me of the Sirens.



“in denial of all we thought we knew, to smell the Land we are making
for, the green fecund Continent, upon the Wind that comes from behind
us”



In one of the books I read in the run-up to M&D, it mentioned that the
first English settlers to America could smell the evergreen trees out
on the ocean for something like fifteen miles before they reached
shore.
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l