MDDM Ch. 5: Paranoia: Would history have been different?

[jbor]

on 7/10/01 9:03 AM, Scott Badger at lupine at ncia.net wrote:

> Again, would another Line,
> though apparently different in name only, have played the same historical
> role?

But what about no Line? In Chapter 5 Mason's paranoia, like Slothrop's in
_GR_, is solipsistic: someone ... God, the King, Bradley, Morton, Maskelyne
perhaps, perhaps Dixon's "Mentor", Bird ... was out to get *him*. But later
on when they are clearing the Visto he starts to think about the mission not
merely in terms of the inconvenience to his own comfort and career and of
who might have had it in for him to send him thither, but in terms of why,
and what will come of it all. For Mason the question changes from "why am I
being sent to do this?" to "why is this being done?" It's an important
shift, and a mark of character development in the novel.

The upshot of Ch. 5 is that neither M nor D wanted to go anywhere any more,
but are forced to. No M & D would in all likelihood have meant no
observation at the Cape: and perhaps, it might be inferred, it would have
meant no Line either.

At the beginning of Ch. 6 Wicks, still ardent in his faith, asserts flatly
that the attack on the *l'Grand* was a "warning from Beyond". However, I
think that the suspicions that M & D have about those "more Earthly
Certainties" are being presented to us as much more plausible. 'Brae, too,
takes the opportunity to gently encourage the Rev.d's narrative towards
secular exposition. (47.11)

best