MDMD(1): Commentary

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

MDMD(1) Opening Remarks

Mason and Dixon appears to be as full of narrative trickery as
Gravity's Rainbow. Ch 1 opens on a Christmas scene in Philadelphia in
1786, narrated in C18th language. We are rapidly introduced to one set
of characters only to find that one of them is our "narrator"
who will be telling us the real story -- err, sorry, make that "real
story" (and no, we won't even stop to consider the merits of "real"
story or real "story") -- what I mean, of course, is the story of our
eponymous duo, Mason & Dixon. The Revd was there when it happened so
he will tell it like it is, err . . . was. And so, Jean Crapaud fires
the starting gun and we are off into the past to encounter . . .

Ch 2. A letter. And its partner piece. Both undated. One sent from
Greenwich, the other Bishop Auckland, but no indication of where
either is being read or presented. The second dating the first to the
"26th Ult" (i.e. last month). Linked by a narrative which hastens to
locate itself 3 months after the exchange. Not that that helps us
much. Still drifting in space-time I am afraid.

Ch 3. So, the Revd was not actually there. And we know now where we
were last scene. It was Portsmouth. Should have guessed. And now also
we realise that the letters are not part of the narrative, being read
as they are received, or else relayed like a voiceover in a film as
the camera closes on perfect penmanship. No, they are artefacts
presented by the Revd as evidence for his description of the touching
scene in the pub where Mason & Dixon are undeceived as to the nature
of human frailty, their own weakness the case in point. Not a personal
testament but a reconstruction! Based on Mason & Dixon's own rehash of
the meeting. Ahhrr! bitter Deception. . . . And is there maybe also a
word to the wise here, a hint that that is all you are going to get
from Tom, that all you ever get when you go to the movies is
reconstruction.

Perhaps there is also a suggestion of a stronger parallel between Tom
and Wicks. That story of disgrace and exile might well be based, in
part at least, on Pynchon's own Odyssey. But ignoring questions of
biography a more respectable hypothesis might be that this commentary
on the old and new worlds of the C18th might be intended to establish
covert, or even overt, parallels with their C20th equivalents. We have
already seen the C20th crop up at least once so far in a joke hardly
disguised at all by Pynchon's Olde Englishe rendering (Indian Hemp -
don't inhale). Is that all it is or is there more than just joking
reference?


So it continues and we find that our inner narrative is turning into
some sort of Road movie with Charles and Jere as the ill-matched
pair. And how fitting an image for two men who will spend most of the
book cutting a swathe straight across America like an early East-West
superhighway. One might expect such a linear adventure to present
problems for an author trying to inject the odd diversion into his
plot but this is Pynchon, foax. The linear development of the inner
narrative has already been chopped up by the Revd and served in a more
tasty order. His first mention of Mason & Dixon occurs in Ch 1 when he
recalls their reaching the end of the line in the Alleghenies in
1766. This before we jump back to those letter in 1761. No, looks like
we are going to be hitting space-time discontinuities all the way from
here to chapter 78.

So, what exactly are our two buddies like? Seems they are polar
opposites in almost every regard. Literally too, Dixon being from the
North East and Mason from the South West. And just look at all those
other binary oppositions. Mason is an astrologer, his business mapping
the heavens, Dixon is a surveyor is business mapping the earth. Mason
is High Church Anglican, Dixon Low Church Quaker. Mason is obsessed
with spirituality and Death, Dixon with material things and Sex. Mason
is a hireling, patronised by and coddled within an aristocratic
system. Dixon is a businessman, full of democratic spirit, earning his
crust. And like any good buddy buddy movie our two chumps may well
have their differences but you know by the end of the film that they
are going to be the best of friends.

Of course, there are bound to be adventures along the way, confusions,
plots, danger, near escapes and - the Revd gave it away early on so no
spoilers here - death. In the opening chapters we get them all (well
almost but not quite all of them - there are 74 more chapters to
go). Our heroes are almost killed before they even reach the starting
line. We have the Jesuits, and the East India Company, double-dealing
by the Royal Soc., plots . . . and what do plots mean?  . . . now,
everyone . . . paranoia! Not that there is not the usual historical
scholarship casually dropped in to paint the political stage for
us. The importance of the Longitude problem for control of the seas
and thence international trade is established early on with mention of
Anson's disastrous voyages. Consequent upon which the immersion of
Mason & Dixon into astronomers' (and everyone else's) power games is
hardly surprising (the next time scientists were to be thrust so
visibly into a global powerplay was with the development of nuclear
weapons). The poverty and oppression visited on the poor of England is
visible in the scenes in Portsmouth (in the 18th century England was a
bloated empire on its way to material increase and spiritual decline as
first agricultural reform and then industrial revolution blackened the
lives of the poor). The state of morals in Philadelphia is established
with reference to Mr Wade LeSpark's dealings with the Indians. Power is
being concentrated and consolidated across empires, old and new and the
inventors and merchants of the relevant enabling technology all have
their part to play. 


All this power play will be mapped out as Mason & Dixon map their
line. Their work is a direct part of this power struggle. The Northern
Puritans and the Southern Slavers want to be separated by a line, good
fences making good neighbours, that sort of thing. Power struggles
seem to imply these binary oppositions - brings to mind Yosemite Sam
drawing a line and daring Bugs to step over it. So what about our
binary opposites Mason & Dixon. Do their differences imply a power
struggle. Not in a buddy buddy movie. 10 to 1 they end up the best of
curmudgeons, blessing and cursing each other to the grave. Their
oppositions will give them different perspectives but they will learn
reconciliation and harmony before they are done or else I demand my
16.99 sterling back right now.

And there maybe is the key opposition which underpins this book and, I
suspect, Pynchon's morality, the meta-opposition between opposition
and non-opposition, discord and harmony, division and integration,
death and life. If Mason & Dixon is going to tell us anything we
didn't already hear in Gravity's rainbow then it has to be about life,
not death.