MDMD(Part1) Who is Thomas Pynchon?

[Andrew Dinn]

Ok, foax, here's the commentary on Part 1 I promised. Sorry it's a bit late
and doubtless a little rushed too.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
How do you know but ev'ry bird that cuts the airy way
Is an immense world of pleasure clos'd by your senses five
----- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< ---
                Who is Thomas Pynchon . . .
                    and why did he run out of his life?

I suppose the question I wanted to try to address after reaching the
end of Part 1 of Mason and Dixon is `What sort of a book is this?'.
>From which flow all sorts of other obvious refinements of the
inquisition, `How are we supposed to read (and reread) this book?',
`How many more times can I see myself revisiting Charles' and Jere's
visto?', `How scientific (I use the term only as it implies
constraints on the rigors and depth of any quest for understanding,
rather than with any implication as regards methodology) . . . how
scientific a study will the route plan and attendant scenery afford?',
`Will this book sit on the shelf beside my (much appreciated and
surely over-neglected) Vineland, resisting comparisons to Pynchon's
other books, or Gaddis, or Nabokov, Tristram Shandy, Moby Dick,
Boswell on Johnson, Don DeLillo, . . .'  You name it, the list already
looks large enough to suggest that it will probably occupy a central
enough place in my literary scheme, if not yours.

So, beginning at the beginning again, I started to look for evidence
of a character - perhaps even a soul, to regain familiarity with the
personal features and give-away nuances of the book, by now faded into
the background through the routinisation of fragmented and
programmatic reading. And it is instructive to start again if only to
compare the nagging expectation and occasional gratification which
accompanied first acquaintance with the luxurious depth of scrutiny
afforded by a re-encounter with a more familiar friend.

So, first re-impressions, and the shock of recognition is there again,
but this time attended by new associations. The opening sentence still
reads like a tour-de-force:

    Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr'd the Sides of
    Outbuildings, as of Cousins, carried hats away into the brisk Wind
    off Delaware,-- [. . .] (5.1)

This opening not only sets the scene, it also defines the tone and
pace, the mood of the piece if you like. First this is playful fun. No
Rockets, instead we have kids throwing snowballs, or rather
Snow-Balls. The return home, descent into the Kitchen whence to the
back room is conducted at a child's rushing pace filled with an
excited, sensual jumble of images. And little did we know it on first
read but this passage also begins to define the audience for what is
to follow, the readers, or rather listeners, within the book to whom
the narration within the book is ostensibly recounted. And as we are
shown to our seats

    Some Second-Street Chippendale, including an interpretation of the
    fam'd Chinese Sofa, [. . .] a few odd Chairs sent from England
    before the War, [. . .]' (5.13)

the lingering focus on the Card Table is no accident. Here is the book
with it's

    illusion of Depth into which for years children have gaz'd as into
    the illustrated Pages of Books . . . along with so many hinges,
    sliding Mortises, hidden catches and secret compartments that
    neither the Twins nor their Sister can say they have been to the
    end of it. (5.19)

What causes this `illusion of Depth'? it's `Wand'ring Heart' (5.19)
grain. Surely, that's a reference to our itinerant Revd if not Pynchon
or even both. Anyway, the warning seems to be fairly clear, this is a
book, an illusory reality, lit by a Child's sense of adventure, fantasy,
action and humour. There are lots of tricks and secrets to be found so
keep your wits about you. And, as that final comment promises, expect,
not necessarily that you will have to, but certainly that you will be
able to go over this book again and again before you find that you
have exhausted it, and it you.

The final image of our reading room is through a mirror, labelled
`Mischianza' (6.6) in which the scene is reflected. Not inappropriate
given that this is a framing narrative within which will be
reconstructed for our entertainment yet another representation of a
history, if not History. That word Mischianza intrigues me. Is it
Italian derived from the Latin scire hence meaning misunderstanding? I
thought knowledge in Italian was `schienzia' as in the Latin scientia?
The temptation to read it as Bad Science is pretty difficult to
resist. Anyway, as I see it the implication of that mirror is that we
the audience are already one step into an imagined, reconstructed
world in which perhaps we may find that not only History but maybe
even Space and even Time choose not to run straight but to follow the
erratic curves of that Wand'ring Heart.

So, we are all set to begin our story and up steps the narrator, one
Revd Wicks Cherrycoke and what does he say but `What is this? Why,
Lads, you read my mind' (7.15). We will, Oscar, we will, and perhaps
also some of Pynchon's mind into the bargain. Having furnished
themselves with a supply of the relevant drugs - Sugar and Caffiene in
this instance - the audience arrange themselves and demand `Why
haven't we heard a Tale about America?' (7.22). Well, Tom, why haven't
we? Your magnum opus was ostensibly centered on Europe, the `Old
World'. Is this one on the `New World' offered by way of matching
bookend?

Before getting into his stride the Revd interrupts a false start (7.28),
actually a false ending since it refers both to Mason & Dixon reaching
the end of their line out Ohio way and, in Mason's case the end of his
own personal thread through the history, if not the narrative, in a
nearby graveyard. Rather than tug from this end, following it into
the knots of Mason's & Dixon's history - a progressive unraveling,
anyone? - the Revd breaks off to introduce himself, or rather our
own favourite narrator halts the proceedings and gets the Revd
to begin at the beginning, or at least at his point of entry into the
history, by recounting the circumstances of his first encountered
Mason and Dixon. This story (and, in particular, part 1 of this story)
cannot begin by telling what Mason and Dixon did. Instead we go back
and find out who they are. And as a side-effect the narrator gets
to put himself firmly in the frame.

It appears that the Revd is only in `parsonickal Disguise (8.15), the
circumstance of which being explained in what follows. The Revd compares
himself to a survivor of a hanging, apparently dead but only swooning
in a `Syncope' (8.36) brought on by the amount of alcohol drunk before
being swung (it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing, how's
that for syncope!). The hanged man recovers as if `"resurrected" into an
entirely new Knowledge of the terms of being, in which Our Saviour,
[. . .] though present, would not have figur'd as pre-eminently as
with most Sectarians' These events would produce a man resembling the
Revd as he is now and, as we are to infer, actual events in the Revd's
past are to be interpreted via this analogy as having provided him
with a similar sequence of near-death to the soul and concomitantly
transfigured intellectual and moral outlook. Including, to judge by
the use of the term `parsonickal Disguise' and the lack of pre-eminence
granted `Our Saviour', the loss of his Christian faith.

For the Revd is a Criminal, convicted of `the Crime they styl'd
"Anonymity"' (9.27), by which he means having published pamphlets
pointing out injustice without signing his name to them. His
revelation, his moment of enlightment, comes when he realises the
implication of this judgement.

    It took me till I was lying among the rats and vermin, upon the
    freezng edge of a Future invisible, to understand that my name
    had never been my own,-- rather belonging, all this time, to the
    Authorities, who forbade me to change it, or withhold it, as
    'twere a Ring upon the Collar of a Beast, ever waiting for the
    Lead to be fasten'd on.... One of those moments Hindoos and
    Chinamen are ever said to be having, entire loss of Self, perfect
    union with All, sort of thing. Strange Lights, Fires, Voices
    indecipherable,-- indeed, Children, htis is part of the Tale
    where your old Uncle gets to go insane,-- or so, then, each in
    his Interest, did it please ev'ryone to stsyle me. Sea voyages
    in those days being the standard treatment for Insanity, my
    Exile should commence for the best of Medical reasons. (10.2-13)

Well lookee here, a dog-collar on a Revd (it has to be a dog, the
Beast, since no one takes any other animals for a walk on a Lead,
unless maybe Gerard de Nerval and his lobster, but I bet he only
dragged it down the pavement for a few yards before he got bored).
Not in itself common cause for concern, but this is beginning to get
mighty suspicious for several reasons.

Firstly, what with all these mirrors and embeddings and such like
I get a spooky feeling that our favourite narrator may be introducing
himself, may be a character in his own novel. Of course, how would we
know since all we have is a name, Thomas Pynchon, and no way of knowing
whether the events of his life mirror those of the Revd? But Anonymity
is somewhat germane to what we *do* know of Pynchon. The Revd's
Name is, clearly, firmly attached to an assigned social role and when
he disgraces himself he soon realises that the person must disappear
if the name is not to be forever polluted by association with his
misdemeanour. Divorce the two before the gossip can spread and `those
who know' will have nothing to remind them, thence others, of the sin.
So, in the early 60s, the Revd takes himself off abroad, working as a
jobbing parson where he can, sustained by a small allowance. It is very
tempting to read Pynchon's history into this. Perhaps he gave newspapers
information obtained from his time in the Navy or at Boeing was found
out and disgraced? Perhaps he too was dispatched off to avoid scandal,
maybe even possibly turned and used as an occasional agent of the
Company, as appears possibly to be the case with the Revd?

There's a second alarm bell ringing because of that dog-collar a-and the
Learned English Dog, of course. As Mason says to Dixon

    "This dog" Mason singing sotto voce, "is causing me ap-pre-hen-sion,--
    surely creatures of miracle ought not to, I mean,....Flying horses?
    None of them ever-"
    "The Sphinx...?" adds Dixon.
    "My Thought precisely." (20.33)

Mason and Dixon resort to mythology to resolve the significance of a
talking dog and can only come up with a Sphinx. Ominous indeed. The dog
will not provide an answer but a riddle. Which he does right on cue. When
asked whether he has a soul he recounts the koan asking whether the Dog
hath the nature of the Divine Buddha and notes that

    It is necessary for the Seeker to meditate upon the Koan until driven
    to a state of holy Insanity,-- and I would recommend this to you in
    particular. But please do not come to the Learned English Dog if it's
    Religious Comfort you're after. I may be praeternatural, but I am not
    supernatural. 'Tis the Age of Reason, rrrf? There is ever an
    Explanation at hand, and no such thing as a Talking Dog,-- Talking
    Dogs belong with Dragons and Unicorns. What there are, however, are
    Provisions for Survival in a World less fantastick.' (22.14)

That sounds to me like Pynchon riddling us. Does the old dog actually have
a soul. Is there a person behind that name, whose existence is of relevance
to our reading of this book? Or should we judge the dog by his repertoire
of tricks? That Pynchon is the Learned English Dog is also suggested to me
by the motto to Vineland `Every dog has his day and a good dog just might
have two days'. Contrary to a sentiment popular in this forum, the old dog
is not `supernatural', merely praeternatural.

The dog explains his own riddle by noting how dogs imitate the ways of men,
becoming `tail-wagging Scheherazades, [. . .] , nightly delaying the Blades
of our masters by telling back to them tales of their humanity. I am but an
extreme Expression of this Process,--'. Sounds rather like our Revd with
his life of disguise and exile. And also like Pynchon piling a deep
morality into fantastic tales - remember the dog is forbidden to talk
Politics `only nothing Ministerial, please, or I'm apt to lose m'Job (19.7).

Another key to the Learned Dog's character is provided by the Welsh Main,
the cock fight where the Dog asks himself `How is he supposed to ignore
this pure Edge of blood-love? Oh yawn yes of course, seen it all before,
birds slashing one another to death, sixteen go in, one comes out alive,
indeed mm-hmm, and a jolly time betwixt, whilst the Substance we are not
supposed to acknowledge drips and flies ev'rywhere.... ' An inability not
to comment on cruelty and suffering could easily be attributed to both the
Revd and Pynchon and perhaps argued to have been occasioned by one of those
`moments Hindoos and Chinamen are ever said to be having, entire loss of
Self'. And the encoding of such observation into fantastick stories as a
way of avoiding the terms of their condition might be another common trait.

Clearly one of the key provisions for the Learned Dog's survival is his
independence

    "Oughtn't we to summon the owner...?" suggests Mr Dixon.
    The Dog has begun to pace back and forth. "I am a British Dog, Sir.
    No one owns me."

Undoubtedly, this is a dog without a collar, never mind a name tag.
Significantly he tells Dixon `Pray you, call me Fang.' He is master of
his own name and decides what people shall call him. So, the Dog
appears to have solved the Revd's anonymity problem not by adopting a
new dog-collar, like a hyprocite, but by presenting himself as he is,
an Enigma encoded within his own story.