Crackers -

[Paul Mackin]

Peter Applebome wrote: (mentioning the relevance of his new book)

 "Dixie Rising: How the South is Shaping American
> Values, Politics and Culture, 

   I even make reference to Pynchon and M&D in passing in an afterward
> I wrote for the paperback due out in the fall about how, in the end, the
> Mason-Dixon Line, north and south, old and new, religious and secular, etc
> etc still remains the dividing line in American culture, which is partly, I
> think what Pynchon was getting at...


I say: Yes, and I definitely want to read Peter's book.
 

For me, an intriguing thing about the M-D Line and other demarcations
of the book is this: they are presented as quite insidious influences
in the development of America, while at the same time considerable
effort along the way is put into calling these influences into question. 
For, example, I remember early on a comment by somebody (Wicks?) that in 
the end the line wasn't needed, given the subsumption of both 
proprietorships into the one new nation. Then, much later, when the 
slave/free question comes up, the famous linehater Captian Z himself
is selected to point out the existence of wage slavery in Pennsylvania. 
Seems to me qualifications of this sort, on the real relevence of
what the surveyers are about, occur throughout the book. Wish now
I had taken notes. Should have known the old Pynchon ambiguity is
always afoot.

					P.