Chapter 7: 58-76
Contents
Page 58
sepia-shadow'd
???
Herren XVII
Modern Dutch spelling "de Heeren XVII," the 17 Lords, board of governors of the V.O.C.
Eighteenth Lord... never be acknowledg'd
???
V.O.C.
Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the Dutch East India Company.
Page 59
Slaves
Pynchon appears to have cast around for a politically correct subtheme for the Capetown episodes, and picked slavery for want of anything more Pynchonian
He picks slavery because it is the underbelly of the enlightenment. It is the centeral rift that forms along the Mason-Dixon Line, and it is the paradox of America, i.e. libery for some. What could be more Pynchonian than that?
set against
Imperialist strategy of divide-and-conquer.
Page 60
Droster
???
Vroom
vroo*
Jethro's Tent
???
Nimrods
???
Page 61
Fascination
Pynchon needed a personality-contrast between M and D, and chose (arbitarily?) to make M melancholy but charismatic (cf Byron?) and Dixon the opposite. It's hard to see from TRP's descriptions what women see in M.
The Journal of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon is full of passages where Mason's normally scientific writtings give way to poetic and gothic images of ghosts and devils. In the Journals he frequents massacre sites.
Portable Soup... Slabs
An extremely reduced meat stock (not freeze-dried, just boiled down and then dried) in cakes or slabs. Heat in a pan of water and you have soup. Most users regarded it as a necessity rather than a pleasure.
Emerson... Darlington Market
???
Page 62
Kezia
???
Kerenhappuch
???
Page 63
Imp from Hell
Cf. Imp allusions and Poe story cited. Three uses so far in M & D. Here Eels impulsiveness is an apt allusion to impishness, overstated as in speech.
Rattle-Watch
???
English Tea-Pot
Free associating, Mason to English to English tea to teapot?
Page 64
Vrou
Dutch: lady, woman, wife. Vroom Vroom!
fatally but not yet mortally
???
Page 65
Dagga
???
Page 66
dorsal 'Scape
Dorsal landscape = shapely rear end.
five Sprites
The women?
Asian parlor-game
???
Page 67
Indifference-Draught
Traditionally saltpetre. Mason wants a drug to reduce his libido.
Anaphrodisiac
Page 69
Velleity
???
Rix-Dollar
Reichsdollar, a Dutch coin.
German Reichsthaler, Dutch Rijksdaalder; current throughout the European colonies.
Late Blow
???
Butter-Bag Castle
???
Page 70
karis
The word was later adapted into English as curries.
Page 71
Routs and Ridottoes
???
Page 72
Blight
???
terre mauvais
???
Page 73
two Punches in a Droll-booth
As in Punch-and-Judy slapstick puppets.
Jesuits... Invisible College
???
Nervus Probandi
???
Mr. Peach
???
Spotted Cubes
Dice.
Sector Wallah
"Wallah," in British India, a specialist or tradesman. Sector Wallah, the person in charge of the Sector.
Page 74
Stuffata
???
dating back to Walpole
???
Clive
Clive of India.
Maskelyne
Reverend Dr Nevil Maskelyne. Astronomer, Lunarian, enimy of John Harrison, 5th Astronomer Royal.
Robert Waddington
???
Bleak
???
Piggotts... A long stare
???
Page 75
Bodkin
???
History is the Dance of our Hunt for Christ
Nice.
