And you thought pynch was postmodern (was from Italy)

[Spencer Thiel]

Below is the article from
<http://www.corriere.it/corriere-online/corriere/1999/10/13/fcu/a0104285.spm
>

It doesn't really make any since.

******



HISTORY Exit in Italian the new book of " the invisibile " writer. A novel
acclimatized in during the conflict between quacchera the the ' 700
Pennsylvania and schiavista Maryland

PYNCHON the borders of the discord

The experience of the translator: " It answers with precision to fax on
doubts and the problems. It speaks badly about himself when it discovers of
the errors. And it arrives also to darsi of the idiot "

Nshe supports half of the 1700's - between the war of the Seven Years and
the Revolution American - the British Crown sended to the astronomer
Charles Mason with its assistant, the cartographer Jeremiah Dixon, in
America definitively to measure the controversial border between two
colonies in argument: the Pennsylvania and Maryland. The Pennsylvania was
quacchera and against the schiavismo; Maryland, instead, schiavista. Once
traced, the Mason and Dixon Line survived to the Revolution and ended in
order to assume a strong symbolic value, conservandolo to dispetto of the
successive conversion of the State of Maryland and its participation to the
War of Secessione under the flags of the North.

This historical episode - the long march of the cartographic shipment from
the East colonized to the inside of the western forests, dominion of the
nature and the Indians - constitutes the central and main part of Mason &
Dixon, the new book of Thomas Pynchon. Before and after the Line, the
protagonists (both English: Mason of the South, Dixon of the North. Vedovo,
disappointed melanconico and from the career, Mason; bachelor, blood and
animated from a brave egualitario spirit, Dixon) two novellistic sections,
dedicated to the travel share the others with which it began their society
(in the still Dutch Colony of the Head, to observe the Transit of Venere)
and to the last years of their life, with letters and the rare encounter
that they mark relationship of a more solid and necessary friendship
gradually. Finally Dixon morirà in native land and Mason in America, to the
apex of an unfortunate return as well as how much irrenounceable one. One
history, therefore, and indeed an authentic historical novel, this last one
of Pynchon. With a travel to the beginning and the dead women to the end;
with a sequence of facts, all adding, simple, and the entertainment
guaranteed from several interludi (to amusing times shockingly, like the
triangle loving - threatened from a Spanish Jesuit who could nascondersi
behind the sembianze of an expert Chinese of feng-shui - between one chef
French, a German austera colona and a mechanical duck). With revolutionary
idealists, pirati and prostitutes, boscaioli and golem, dogs speaking and
Indian skeptics; not without the kind participation of George Washington
and Benjamin Franklin. With a rich repertorio of " romanzesche "
situations: he intrigues, naval battles, massacres of Indians and white men.

Also the choice of Pynchon to entrust the story to the voice of the
Cherrycoke Reverend - a limited above suspicion narrator and a po', that
the Watson di Conan Doyle remembers - seems made for tranquillizzarci care
to one found again confidence in the traditional shapes of the literature
from part of one eversivo and " entropico " writer for excellence.

And instead - but it is necessary dirlo? - the things in Mason & Dixon work
a po' various. As sussiego anglican and the good nature of Cherrycoke is
upsotten from theological restlessness and the sour fascination of one
grandson; and like the personages of the novel, the two protagonists
comprised, dismiss themselves to one to from the reader without sonorità,
already changed in ghosts in the interminable escape of the Line, therefore
also interlace it vanish continuously give under our eyes, become powder,
impalpabile cipria; one casts far away, towards the solitudine of the
stars. The smaller episodes remain, but in their quality of second " (with
virtuosistiche excursions in the settecenteschi kinds literary) and nearly
always fantastic, fiabesca narration ", to difendersi better from the
evanescenza, taking to the road of our memory conserving greater
compactness.

But to me it seems that the indication more meaningful than this last
Pynchon is that with to the story - to the pure rappresentazione of a
destiny - in Mason & Dixon they take part to testify of our existence other
hinges of more concrete matter, suggested always indirectly, but in
inequivocabile way: the tolerance between the people, the friendship
between the individuals, the sons. A solidarity anchorage that at moments
affects. Also the language of which Pynchon servants in order to dye its
fadings slippery " language is one " and in ambiguous part. On one side the
author puts in field the exterminated erudizione, a formidable ear and the
pleasure of the game, in order to give life to a full load, most reasonable
settecentesco English; but then he increases and it lengthen the
instrument, deforms it also, second the necessities of the sound and the
novellistic situation, with taste antiquarian and, more often, with
moderated escapes in ahead; but not indulgendo too much to the caricatura.

In my translation I have tried to follow, if not other, analogous
principles: for this I have not only reached to the literary language of
our 1700's, but I have fished expressions and citations from writers of
several ages. The node, and the beautiful one, of the job, however, have
been in leaving a space appropriated to the creativity and, most possible,
to the linguistico divertimento. With the certainty that, translate a book
like this, runs always the risk to have to replace in some measure to the
clemenza of the court.

On purpose of clemenza, I would want to give a contribution to the folta
anecdotal on the " mystery " of Pynchon. Not sure for sfatare the myth of a
inavvicinabilità that, in how much physical data, I could only confirm.
Pynchon however is, in the approach, as well as virtual how much available
one. It answers with precision, wealth of details and affability to the
panted ones fax with which the translator and (especially) the agguerrite
editors subject it doubts and desperations. It speaks badly about himself,
autoironizza on rare and imperceptible historical imprecisioni. As an
example, to my demand for clarifications on a term that to he had to play
somewhat obvious, like orange-girls, it answers flat: " Girls who sold
oranges in the ways of London: most famous it was Nell Gwyn (1650-87) that
he became attrice and loving later on of Carl II ". And in explaining the
meant one of the boer word droster (enslaved fuggiasco) adds but to have
lost the notes and of having to entrust to one memory " to say little
cloudy ".

Reaching darsi amiably of the "idiot " when the aforesaid editors assume
that she has added to the name of Jacob Bernouille a " chronological
inexact second ". Others vezzi, a narcissism shape evoluta? Perhaps. Or
perhaps the substance rich and complicated of one only writer in the
current panorama.

ä * the author: Massimo Bocchiola is the translator of " Mason & Dixon " of
Thomas Pynchon.

of MASSIMO BOCCHIOLA


-
st.
-