MDMD2: The Forms of You

[Paul Nightingale]

"But the Uniform accords with neither his Quaker Profession nor his present
bearing ..." (p16).

In GR Slothrop reinvents himself periodically; his appearance changes, often
to a fantastic degree. Is the same true of Dixon? In Ch5 he confesses:
"Technically no longer a Quaker, as they expell'd me back at the end of
October ..." (p43). The dissent he then describes ("a long history in Durham
of being toss'd out for anything ... whatever someone didn't like") recalls
Cherrycoke's "crime".

The extracts from Porter describe the importance of religion to social order
at a time when traditional certainties (about status, the relations between
social groups) are threatened. It is starting to be difficult to 'read'
people. Pynchon's use of the term "Uniform" to describe Dixon's outfit is
certainly apposite: the bad timing that marks the beginning here of the
Mason/Dixon double-act demonstrates their mutual uncertainty (as do the
letters in Ch2, where formality undercuts itself).

Personally, I think Pynchon would approve of an irregularly scheduled
reading.