MDDM Ch. 12 Summary & Notes

[Dave Monroe]

Well, seeing that I'm up and about again ...

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> davidmmonroe at yahoo.com wrote:
> 
> > So you're saying that ...
> 
> No.

Okay, very good, didn't think that was what you MEANT
to imply, but, well, it didn't necessarily come off
that way onscreen, so ...
 
> --- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> You're making an awful lot of this. 

Well, first off, any dismissal of a resaerch-inetsive
approach to anything here seems inevitably to be a
dismissal of my own onlist research.  Esp. when it is
couched in a response to one of my very own posts. 
I've no small interest in the matter, so ... but there
are also theoretical concerns here reagrding
"textuality," "intertextuality," and so forth at issue
here.  Just how "complete" can any given text be "in
and of itself"?  And so forth ...

> I don't think you need to do the research "first": I
> think you need to read the text first and then
decide 
> on the scope and directions of your research.

Of course, significant "research" has often already
been done by the time any reasonably informed,
educated and literate (these are not all the same
things, of course) reader gets around to opening any
given text.  "Common knowledge," if nothing else, but
also all the idiosyncratic information each and every
one of us picks up along the way and brings to our
reading ...

One can probably expect that most readers of Mason &
Dixon have a working knowledge of colonial-era
American history and its cultural, social,
technological, scientific, religious, whatver
contexts, maybe even some particular knowledge of
Mason and Dixon, as well as the indeed relevant
history of the Line well after the events of the
novel, not to mention perhaps Pynchon's previous
works.  For example.  But there's hardly either a
determinable essential core of or practical limit to
what might be brought to bear, so ...

> At least, that's what I personally find a more
> "interesting and worthwhile" way to read a novel.

But you hardly limit yourself in this regard.  Nor do
I, nor, does it seem, does virtually anyone here ...

> I also agreed with both Paul and Terrance that with
> Pynchon's work most if not all of it is actually
> there in the text to begin with, and that a good
> dictionary, and perhaps a reference book or two, are
> all that the reader really requires to unpack it.

I learned quite a bit about Mason and Dixon et al.
from Mason & Dixon "in and of itself," but, after
Gravity's Rainbow, I found myself wondering
constantly, just what here was, say, the particularly
"historiographic" part of Pynchon's putative
"historiographic metafiction" ((c) Linda Hutcheon). 
It's not even always obvious when Pynchon is
fabulating here (again, cf. GR).  And, again,
determining just what Pynchon used of "the" historical
record (and then some) inevitably requires no small
amount of extratextual research, whether or not you've
done it, or it has been done for you, already.  Again,
not sure to just what such determinations, to the
extent that they are possible, will lead to, but,
well, am going to have to do the work to even attempt
to find out, so ...

> I don't agree that there is a single, ominous
> "Something" that Pynchon is "Doing" in his works,
but 
> I note that you did alter this contention to
> "Somethings" in a subsequent post, which I don't
have 
> a problem with and which is partly why I was 
> wondering whether you might have misstated your > >
original position.

As y'all well know, I've railed often enough against
the tyranny of the One True Interpretation myself
here, up to and including Pynchon's own putative
"authorial intentions."  That "Doing Something" was
offered precisely in the spirit of, well, "Doing
Something, but just what that Something might be, I
don't know, therefore, I'm going to start in on the
seemingly requisite legwork here."  Which is pretty
much what I posted.  Added that plural precisely to
clarify, nonetheless ...

> And, I elaborated on what I saw as the hazards of an
> approach where extraneous "research" - in other
> words, political, philosophical or religious
> preconceptions - precede, determine or
> otherwise overwhelm - rather than augment -
> engagement with and appreciation of the text at
hand.

With the implication that I--that post was a response
to one of mine, to responses to one of mine, at least,
I was cited therein--that someone here, that someone
anywhere, had succumbed to one or another or all of
these "hazards."  This distinction betwixt research
into the contexts of a text vs. the preexisting
cultural "research" which has (always) already been
performed for, upon us was not apparent in yr earlier
posts ...
 
> It is a matter of opinion, I admit, and many schools
> of literary criticism are actually committed to a
> particular ideological standpoint, and incorporate a
> specific social or political aim within the current
> milieu as part of their m.o., and are no less
> valuable for it. I also acknowledge that both the
> author and the reader bring a particular point of
> view to the production/performance of the text, and
> that the text itself might embody another, or other,
> points of view, these even perhaps unbeknownst to
> either author or reader. I find that keeping these
> considerations in mind is very useful when reading
> any text.

Fair enough, and I believe I've been particularly
sensitive to all these concerns here.  This is why i
tend largely to suggestive annotations than elaborated
interpretations.  A toolkit, rather than a blueprint. 
Bricolage vs. engineering.  Whatever.  So you can see
my concerns here then?  Very good.  At yr ...

> best

... not to mention, perhaps, most "liberal" then. 
And, as I said when we started in on M&D, do
appreciate yr efforts to keep the conversation going
here, esp. in not letting whole chapters fall entirely
by the wayside.  Credit where credit's due.  Again,
this reading is far from dead, and I'd encourage
Terrance to keep his (extra-textually or otherwise)
capacious lungs pumping fresh air into it.  Along with
everybody else.    and I only wish I had the quality
time to dedicate to topics at hand (astronomy, the
Gothic, and, of course, thomas Pynchon's Maosn &
Dixon) myself ...


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