MDMD[6]: Fatherhood & The Absent Author

[Sherwood, Harrison]

I've been musing on the matter of Jackson Pynchon and his effect on his
father's life, and I think I've come up with something that might be
worth chewing on. 

I don't think it's unfair to speculate that there must be a fairly
onerous tension in Pynchon's life, between the Absent Author persona he
has been carefully cultivating for these many years on one hand, and the
parent's obligation to provide a healthy, happy and reasonably normal
home life for young Jackson. 

It is one thing to ask a spouse to share one's exile; presumably,
Melanie entered marriage with TRP with both eyes wide open. It is
entirely another to ask it of an innocent child. Playing hide-and-seek
with the world is a luxury only for the childless. It is, frankly,
oppressive and cruel to ask your child to be absent as well. And of
course our humane hero knows this only too well. Is Daddy Tom going to
wear Groucho glasses and a floppy slouch hat to the PS 213 Christmas
pageant? ("Look, honey! Take an ob-like glance to your right! It's that
Pin-shawn guy from CNN the other nite!")

It is not projecting too much to infer that Pynchon has, since the birth
of his son, had to carry on an internal struggle: Is it possible to be
both a Present Father and an Absent Author? If he is forced to choose
between them--as it would seem he must--which wins? Art or Love? And
perhaps more interestingly, where does one end and the other begin?

In light of this, consider this passage, from page 6 of M&D--first
appearances of Cherrycoke and LeSpark:

It has become an afternoon habit for the Twins and their Sister, and
what Friends old and young may find their way here, to gather for
another Tale from their far-travel'd Uncle, the Rev'd Wicks Cherrycoke,
who [...] has linger'd as a Guest in the Home of his sister Elizabeth,
the Wife, for many years, of Mr. J. Wade LeSpark, a respected Merchant
active in Town Affairs, whilst in his home yet Sultan enough to convey
to the Rev'd, tho' without ever so stipulating, that, for as long as he
can keep the children amus'd, he may remain....

"As long as he can keep the children amus'd..." (Who mentioned
Scheherazade the other day?)

So! Tension indeed, between the staid bourgeois (Town Affairs! OK, OK,
we smoak it, Tom! Or should that be, "we're smoaking in it"?), the
Father/Provider, who carries the weight of Responsibility on his
shoulders (it's plain he's Wade down!)--and his ne'er-do-well
brother-in-law, possible Jesuitickal Tool, Artificer Extraordinaire,
perfecter of parsonickal Disguises, and wholly unreliable spinner of
Yarns, the frequently <blink>Absent</blink> Wicks Cherrycoke.

But when those Stories dry up, when the kiddiewinks cease to be amus'd,
Dads wants the Wickster gone--Boppo!

A-and out of the friction between the Father and the
Storyteller--between the Spark and the Wick--comes the Tale of Mason &
Dixon.

I sense The Historickal Tom peeking out between the lines here, a tiny
Velazquez framed in the candlelit doorway in "Las Meninas."

What do you think, sirs?

Harrison