MDMD: In Kansas?

[Paul Nightingale]

Ch1 juxtaposes the cold outdoors with a family home; the opening line emphasises that our perspective here is retrospective ("Snow-Balls have flown their arcs"). Ch2 then asks letters, historical traces, to resist retrospective transformation by their (putative) authors. Ch3 then launches us 'into the past' by drawing attention to the narrator's absence from the events he will describe. The narrative is Pynchon's gift to Cherrycoke ("You take over, old chap, you tell the story"); yet Cherrycoke begins by admitting he "was not there when they met". I'm reminded of the quotation in GR: no death, only transformation. Here, the Learned Dog is not the only example of metempsychosis, perhaps. Dixon's arrival in London makes of him an out-of-towner; he will necessarily reflect ("his clear Stupefaction") on the differences, between himself and Mason, between London and Durham. The metropolis is an arrogant beast, claiming the right to dictate fashion as it so pleases; the lack of rapport between Dixon and Mason (eg p15 - a double-act that lacks timing, needs to rehearse) might signal the country buffoon's discomfort or his resistance to being told, eg, that hanging is good fun. Without going so far as to say Dixon is the outlaw here, he is certainly placed in the position of one who must conform. His joke about the Englishwoman is a faux pas that immediately casts doubt on his sanity. Perhaps we should not take Mason's words literally here; his silencing of Dixon might be rhetorical. Nonetheless we have to recall that the naming of insanity is one way in which the individual has always been controlled by those who purport to speak with authority (here, Mason the "Old London Hand").
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