M&D Saturday night in Delaware

[Otto Sell]

> > "I don't have time for (snort) historical novel. I had 3000
> > pages of research. Besides I was told that Mason and Dixon
> > were portrayed as gay. Who needs that."

1. Great report, thanks Judith

> Youch. Besides the underlying homophobia/vilification of this statement
from
> an apparently educated person, where in the text is that *ever* suggested?
> The homoeroticism in Melville I can see -- throughout the oeuvre -- even
> Blicero-Enzian-Gottfried-Sir Marcus-Mossmoon-Thanatz-Ludwig etc and the
> preterition/homosexuality parallels drawn in *GR*, but M&D in *M&D*?!
>
> > Now I don't have a problem with M&D being gay.  Why, some of
> > my best friends...(sorry, I'll stop). But with a scant 230
> > more pages to go in this (snort) historical novel, I just
> > don't see the character development going in quite that
> > direction.

2. A historian who is working on the "real" history of M&D relies on what
has been told to him about a fictional book that is easily accessible for
him? I wouldn't trust his 3000 pages of research too much. He seems to be a
victim of the "two cultures" and believes that History can tell the truth.
Must be hard to take that on both sides of the prominent line there lived
madmen, that the founding fathers of the nation were smoking reefer.

3. Having nothing against gay though none of my personal friends is a gay or
lesbian but having read the whole German text and just reached "America" in
the original I too see no evidence in M&D that TRP wanted to build up an
image that our stargazers have been gay.

Otto