MDDM ch.67: "Yet, does it live" (657.13)

[Doug Millison]

Dixon seems to have the insight that Mason lacks, when they're trying to
answer the Native American's query about where the Holy resides and Dixon
gestures to include the earth itself, all their surroundings.  Dixon, at
this point at least (he seems to waver and wobble a bit through the novel)
seems to grasp an idea that runs throughout Pynchon's fiction, the living
earth, the planet as a sentient being, Gaia, a point of view (which I am
_not_ saying is Pynchon the man's, only that it is present in his fiction)
evident in Vineland, GR, and the rest. There is no dividing line between
"animate" and "inanimate" -- that's an illusion that, post-Enlightenment,
leads to tragic results.


At 10:14 PM -0400 8/4/02, Bandwraith at aol.com wrote:
[...]
>Interesting, too, that Mason, so determined to demarcate
>the animate from the inanimate, finds himself inside
>a living entity, which might or might not harbor resent-
>ment against his "line."