Crackers -

[Peter Applebome]

>
>
>        Paul Mackin wrote vis a vis:  "Dixie Rising: How the South is
Shaping American Values, Politics and Culture,'' 
> 
>
>>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... 
>>
>>					P.
>>
>Peter Applebome adds: 
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>        I think the truly Pynchonian thing about the Mason and Dixon line,
North and South, Yankees and Crackers, in the end, is how The Line is both
so real and enduring and so utterly illusory at the same time. Thus, you
have, on the one hand, very distinct worlds neatly divided, even so distinct
and apposite as to go to war, but in the end each completely complicit in
the other in the way the North turns out to be every bit as racist as the
South. Like someone once said, "V's is a country of coincidence ruled by a
ministry of myth...''
>