MDDM: Town and Country

[jbor]

on 16/2/02 11:29 AM, Scott Badger at lupine at ncia.net wrote:

>> 'Mr. Tumbling
>>> fir'd his Rifle at us'. (331.16)
>> 

> Isn't it Dixon, though, that goes on about zero points, latitudes and
> longitudes and the West Line, i.e. avoiding the question, before finally
> admitting the contingent nature of their choice? '"We gambl'd," suppose
> Mason and Dixon.' That persistent modicum of chance, no matter how
> 'declarative' the World becomes.

Yes, you're right. They are working together more as a team here, and Dixon
finally drops the "company line" and admits the real reason they didn't set
up on Mr Tumbling's land, and the arbitrariness of the current choice. In
fact, it's Dixon who begins speaking at the bottom of 330 too, I think.

But I still suspect that Jere is acting the clown at 331.16, and that the
sudden and ironic shift in tenor, register and tone eases the stand-off with
Mrs Harland somewhat. It's a similar sort of act when he takes the lead in
the bar in Lancaster Town in Ch. 34, where he describes the recent massacre
of the Susquehannock as "a neoclassickal Instance of the Catastrophick
Resolution of Inter-Populational Cross-Purposes". (343.10) The humour is
again self-effacing - he's making fun of himself and Mason as "men of
Science" - though there is a real cutting edge to the comedy in both
instances. Along with his talent for surveying Dixon has quite a way with
words (and discourse), too. And I still have the impression that Mason isn't
too comfortable with his partner's recourses to verbal hi-jinx.

best