MDMD(11): Narrative Lengths

[Dave Monroe]

"Here is what Mason tells Dixon of how Rebekah and he first met.  Not 
yet understanding the narrative lengths Mason will go to, to avoid betraying 
her, Dixon believes ev'ry word...." (M&D, Ch. 16, p. 167)

Do we yet understand the narrative lengths to which Pynchon will go?   A 
Cheese malevolent, a plainly visible Phantom ...

And whom, then, is Pynchon avoiding betraying?  Of course, though, we don't 
believe ev'ry word ...

For some historic parallax on Pynchon's historiographic metafiction ((c) 
Linda Hutcheon), then, from Edwin Danson, Drawing the Line: How Mason and 
Dixon Surveyed the Most Famous Border in America ((New York: John Wiley & 
Sons, 2001), Ch. 5, "The Transit of Venus," pp. 40-59 ...

"It was near Mason's home of Sapperton in Gloucestershire that he was 
introduced to a local girl; love blossomed, and they maried and moved to 
Mason's house in Greenwich, where they produced two lively sons.  
Tragically, in 1759, Rebekah died, perhaps in childbirth. She was laid to 
rest a few days later, close by the door of the little Queen Anne church of 
Saint Kenelm's, Sapperton.  Reverend Allan Bathurst led the service and read 
the prayer as the thirty-year-old mother was lowered to her final resting 
place, surrounded by grieving friends and family, including the astronomer 
royal [here, James Bradley], who comforted a distraught Charles Mason.  A 
plain block of mellow Cotswold stone marks her garve, where, on a brass 
plaque, the visitor can still read Mason's own words:

SACRED
To the Remains of Rebekah
Wife of Cha Mason Jun ARS
With the Greatest Serenity of Mind
She departed this Life the 13th of Feb 1759
(at Greenwich Kent)
In the 31st year of her Age
Could the unsally'd of Heart from Dissolution save
In Vain Might Death assum'd this silent Grave
But Fate how hard!
Her able Morn in Dark Shade expire
And Noontide Sun went down with Jobs Desire

"Some years later, in 1770, Mason married again, to Mary, who bore him six 
more children; but he ever loved his Becky." (pp. 52-3)

ARS = Associate of the Royal Society

Of course, the paucity of information on the historical Rebekah Mason here, 
elsewhere--and here cf. ...

   "('There are no records of her in Gloucestershire,' interrupts Uncle 
Ives.
   "'What, none?  Shall none ever appear?'
   "'With respect to your Faith in the as-yet-Unmaterializ'd, Mason was 
baptiz'd at Sapperton Church, as were his Children,-- yet he and Rebekah 
were not married there.  So mayn't they have met elsewhere as well,-- even 
at Greenwich?'
   "'Unless ghosts are double,--' '-- one walking, the other still,'
the Twins propose.)" (M&D, Ch. 16, p. 171)

--doesn't necessarily contradict Mason's/Cherrycoke's/Pynchon's cheesy to 
phantasmagoric narrative stretch here, but ...

But Pynchon/Cherrycoke/Mason is (are?) riffing on other obscure (if not 
quite so obscured) historical facts as well, as we have seen, as we shall 
see yet again here shortly.  In the meantime, how IS Mason avoiding 
"betraying" Rebekah?  "Betraying" her in what sense, exactly?  
Approximately?  Hypothetically, even?  Somebody, let me know ...

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