MDDM 26: "Philadelphia girls"

[jbor]

Bandwraith at aol.com wrote:
 
> Nice to see a little demo of patriotism to get us off and cracking
> in America:
> 
> These are Philadelphia girls,- who, in the articles of reckless
> Flirtation, the
> Surveyors will discover, put all the stoep-sitters of Cape Town quite in
> Eclipse.
> [259].
> 
> And do I hear an echo of: 'The Articles of Confederation' in the above line?
> But beyond that, how striking the difference between the drab Cape Town
> with it's strictly delineated zones and this more free-flowing American polis.
> 
> It's no wonder the impulsive Jere, picking up on the spirit of the times,
> greets
> the lambent Franklin with: "Good Patriots All !" [266.7]


It always intrigues me that "patriotism" is seen as something virtuous and
desirable, while "nationalism" is regarded as a terrible evil, when they're
pretty much one and the same thing ....

I don't know that Cape Town was really all that "drab"; there was colour and
exoticism aplenty in the Malay quarter for sure. But I do agree that
Philadelphia seems a racier and more cosmopolitan town by comparison.

The characterisations of Franklin (and, soon, Washington) seem to me to be
even more outlandish and fictionalised than those of Mason and Dixon, though
I have to admit I know as little about the biographies of the former as I do
of the latter's so perhaps I'm not a good judge of this. But, undoubtedly,
there was a great deal more in the "historical record" for Pynchon to go on
for Ben and George, so I'm not sure just how much in their respective
personalities and pathologies has actually been "cut from whole cloth", as
it were, or given a cloak of verisimilitude, or whether their characters are
in fact more aligned to the sort of received wisdom which has been passed
down about them through the centuries. I got an impression first time around
that it was in the depictions of these two that Pynchon was at his most
iconoclastic in the novel. There certainly seems to be an element of
ambivalence, at least, in Pynchon's portrayal of Franklin in Ch. 27, and
Dixon's "impulsive" ejaculation of "Good Patriots all!" isn't quite apt in
the context either.

There's a sense of unease which permeates the opening description in Ch. 26
too, all those familiar sounds and objects suddenly become malevolent: the
unidentified animal at the headland with "narrowly set Eyes that glow a
Moment", the "feral screaming in the Brakes", as well as the way in which
the "Town came to swallow one by one their Oceanick Degrees of Freedom" as
the Packet finally reaches the dock. (258) Quite spooky really.

best


                                     ***

                         "My belief is that recluse
                        is a code word generated by
                          journalists ... meaning,
                    'doesn't like to talk to reporters'."
                   
                                       T. Pynchon (1997)

                                     ***