Mason and Dixon

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 18 Oct 1999, Terrance F. Flaherty wrote:

> I know, I really was an ass to write what I wrote about
> Wood's book. I don't think his essay is much help with this
> topic. What do you think of his DeLillo essay? Or others? I
> actually like some things his says about Melville,
> surprised? I think TRP has big shoes to fill if he has
> indeed inherited HM's Estate, but I think he wears them
> well. 

I didn't object to anything you wrote. I enjoyed what little I've read of
the book. Skimmed the Melville, Pynchon, and Delillo pieces plus the
ending material on Arnold and Renan and the humanization of religion with
the Jesus-as-a-character-in-a-novel bit--a character in a novel instead of
a real entity we are obliged to deal with as some kind of fact. Thought I
was back with the Jesuits. Wood is a very old fashioned guy. He goes out
of his way to declare his own disbelief (for all the ususal reasons) but
is obviously troubled over where he has ended up. A nice contrast to that
science smug Weinberg Rich quoted from the other day. As I say I've only
got started with the book and probably don't fully appreciate yet the
connections Wood is making between religious belief (which at least
formerly was real belief) and fictional belief with its own kind of
reality.  I am definitely interested in finding out. It may explain a lot. 

Naturally I don't think P should write the way Wood thinks makes 
good fiction. I like him well enough the way he is. I follow to
a certain extent Wood's points about P's not giving us what W
calls reality. I always have had that feeling about P. I just don't
get involved with his people the way I do say with Roth or any number of
other good novelists. It's more like a clever game than an experience
of real people I can identify with. However I would say that Wood worries
a lot more about so called meaning in the p-books and Pynchon's politics
than I do. I just don't take the ideas that seriously I guess. Seems to me
he doesn't either. He just has certain political mannerisms--probably a
relic of the time he came of age.

As for the DeLillo piece I really think Wood goes slightly overboard with
the cold war paranoia thing. Of course Wood is saying that D is the one
going overboard. Wood dislikes political paranoia in fiction the same way
he dislikes allegory. Well maybe I'm a terrible reader but I kind of
ignored the paranoia the same way I ignore Pynchon's so called politics.
I think Wood's relative youth may be a problem. He can't have experienced
much of the real cold war. He's obviously read a  lot of overblown stuff
about it. I'm not saying it didn't happen. I thought it was a perfectly
good theme for DeLillo to build his novel around. The way everything was
tied together was awfully contrived but I did get involved with the
characters. Even identified with them.

			P.