L.E.D. - M&D pp 1 - 60 (ish)

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu writes:

  . . .

>  The larger question is--is there a pattern of undeniably
> contemporary scientific ideas, language, etc. coded in throughout M
> & D . . .

> I mean, it seems completely obvious to me so far that M & D is meant
> to *poke* through its own fictional fabric into *our* zone every bit
> as much as GR does.  To remind us, in each case, exactly what the
> point of all this is--viz. contemporary America, not an historical
> romance.

I have had one related and *very paranoid* thought along the same
lines. The Reverend Wicks Cherrycoke's story is related in 1786 and
refers back 20 years to 1766. Something about the Rev reminded me of
Pynchon and I began to wonder if maybe the Rev is actually Tom in
1986, recounting his own `rest-cure' in exile and subsequent
adventures dating from 1966. The story of his disgrace (for printing
political pamphlets against various acts of enclosure etc - could that
be, say, Vietnam or other places where the US stuck its oar in and
tried to rig a government/regime in the US' favour) and subsequent
bundling abroad reminded me of the recently mentioned letter to
Richard Farina(?) in which he mentions the move to LA diminishing his
fear of police hassle and this is what led me to make the
association. And his winding up on a foreign shore, telling stories
for his supper sounds very like Pynchon's career. Two other details
strike me as more telling.

Firstly, the pamphlets having been printed anonymously, the Rev is
astounded to learn that his name is not his own to withhold.  And yet,
if not withheld then the pamphlets will certainly be used to define
and consequently disgrace him. So, if the name cannot be kept out of
the public arena the solution is to distance name and body through
travel to the point that the two are no longer equated. Sound like
Tom's case?

Secondly, the Rev travels south to slave country (South Africa)
observing the effect of slavery on both whites and blacks and then
attends at the demarcation of the latitude dividing North and
South. Tom too headed South in the 60s and his work is all about
divisions between blacks and whites, conquerors and conquered, both
within and outside America. In Mason & Dixon, the story (so far)
appears to centre on North/South divides. In England Mason & Dixon are
not just at opposite poles of the country but at opposite poles of
English culture and 'twas ever thus with English geography and
manners. In the US the division is not just represented by the
subsequent war over slavery but also by the differences between the
Virginia and Massachusetts colonies, Puritans vs Royalists,
Protestants vs Anglo-Catholics, agriculture vs industry etc. And
between Europe/Africa, remember the importance attached to crossing
the Equator, in particular Wicks' aside concerning that moment when
one is over the dividing line between North and South, when one does
not cast a shadow - either in support or opposition - when one is free
of any association. Perhaps, like the associations made between the
anonymous author of a juvenile pamphlet and his exiled senior self?).

Pynchon reports the contrasts, tensions and opportunities presented by
the opposition (apparent or actual) of those who seem representative
of these divided territories and the way in which such opposition is
eroded and corroded by the action of time, place and culture (e.g. the
plague of ghosts and suicides in Cape Town). Exact as these
observations appear in their historical setting, do they not also seem
equally applicable to their 60s-80s inheritors?  So, perhaps the whole
book is a parable pointing to modern racism and cultural mixing. And
perhaps Pynchon himself is in the book as our tour guide and
commentator, disguised as the Rev Wicks Cherrycoke. Which would make
this as much a modern history and autobiography as a novel.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.