MDMD2: A Leafless Tree

[Dave Monroe]

"A leafless tree arches in the light of a single
Lanthorn set above a taut gathering of card-players,
their secret breathing visible for all to try to read,
and Wigs, white as the snow on the Roofslates, nodding
in and out of the shadows." (M&D, Ch. 3, p. 20)

Just sneaking in a quick one here, two two TWO
lit'rary allusions for the price of one.  First off,
cf. ...

                       ACT I

              A country road.  A tree
                      Evening.

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (New York: Grove
Press, 1956), p. 8 ...

>From Arthur Saltzman, "'Cranks of Ev'ry Radius':
Romancing the Line in Mason & Dixon," Pynchon and
Mason & Dixon, ed. Brooke Horvath and Irving Malin
(Newark, DE: U of Delaware P, 2000), pp. 63-72 ...

"Pynchon casts the dour widower [Mason] as Hardy to
Dixon's Laurel, Guildenstern to his Rosencrantz,
Vladimir to his Estragon; he explains that what lies
between him and Dixon is not so much distrust as 'a
Lapse of Attention' (120), thereby recalling
Vladimir's having to urge his fellow loiterer to
'return the ball' and maintian the interplay between
them." (p. 66)

Which is endnoted ...

"Regarding the comparison of Pynchon's duo to
Beckett's, see the discussion between Mason and Dixon
about their having signed a fatal agreement that
leaves them no choice but to go on despite their
confusion and skepticism about things (478-79), an
episode that closely echoes Vladimir and Estragon's
interchange about their ambiguous appointment with
Godot.  Dixon's continual suspicion that the two of
them are 'being us'd, by Forces invisible' (73) also
echoes the fear pronounced by Beckett's tramps. 
Finally, it bears noting that as they age, Mason
suffers from a troubled head and Dixon from bad feet
(gout), maladies that mirror Vladimir's and
Estragon's, respectively." (p. 72, n. 6)

But also ...

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