MDDM Ben Franklin

[jbor]

Dixon: "I am assuming that I may be confident of my Safety here," Dixon
puffing, "the entire issue of Lightning in America having been resolv'd by
your Friend Dr Franklin, who draws it off at will, as easy as Ale from a
Cask.... Ah have got that correct, haven't Ah...?" (463.3-7)

But between Dixon's sarcastically cool response and the fatalism it
conceals, and the way the text describes the "perpendicular streaks" of
lightning which "step across the Landscape" like some "miles-high
Electrickal Insect, whose footfalls are Thunder-Claps" (462-3), I doubt very
much that Pynchon intends to convey any such confidence whatsoever about
Franklin's experiments with electricity, nor about what has followed
therefrom, the directions in which American technology has moved to satiate
the global desire for its production:

http://www.co.ha.md.us/EOC/EmerPlan/peachbottom.html

The way Pynchon has blended his source data here - the quote from Mason's
journal (462.26), the camp's specific location near "Peach Bottom Ferry",
Franklin's experiments - is very revealing.

Anyway, this rather vigorous polemic about where the American spirit of
"independence" really originated from throws up some familiar names and
issues from _M&D_, and from Pynchon's work in general:

http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/leiblock.htm

But I'd say that the general inclination of Pynchon's work, and its
attitudes towards history and politics in general, and towards the notion of
"American Exceptionalism" in particular, are about as far removed from this
sort of rabid pamphleteering as they are from anything else.

best