M&D p.349

[Todd Meigs]

just to be fair to those of you who still wish to be warned (or spoiled)...













On p.349, the beginning of section 35, there is a lengthy quote attributed
to (I assume) a book our humble narrator Revd. Cherrycoke wrote entitled
Christ and History.  

"Facts are but the Play-things of lawyers,-- Tops and Hoops, forever
a-spin...  Alas, the Historian may indulge no such idle rotating.  History
is not Chronology, for that is left to lawyers,-- nor is it Remembrance,
for Remembrance belongs to the People.  History can as little pretend to
the Verasity of one, as claim the Power of the other,-- her Practioners, to
survive, must soon learn the arts of the quidnunc, spy, and Taproom Wit,--
that there may ever continue more then one life-line back into a Past we
risk, each day, losing our forebears in forever,-- not a Chain of single
Links, for one broken Link could lose us All,-- rather, a great disorderly
Tangle of Lines, long and short, weak and strong, vanishing into the
Mnemonick Deep, with only their Destination in common."

Now, doesn't this seem to fit Pynchon's method of dealing with history in
his novels?  There is no "true" history, since official history is merely
what someone bothered to write down -- often with some agenda in mind -- so
what prevents a person from making history his own by acting the roles of
quidnunc, spy, and barroom seer?  Pynchon appears to believe that a True
representation is not only impossible to create but undesirable as well,
and so he creates, and has fun with, his own version of history; a version
that incorporates research along with his own theories and knowledge about
human nature.  The more and more I read (only about to p. 375 now) the more
I am convinced that Cherrycoke can be read as more then a framing device; 
I think his character seems to shed light into Pynchon's creative method.  

Am I reading too much into this?  Watta ya think?
-------------------------------
Todd Meigs
It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; 
it is easy in solitude to live after our own;
but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd 
keeps with perfect sweetness 
the independence of solitude.--Emerson
-------------------------------