MDDM 26: "Philadelphia girls"

[Scott Badger]

Rob:
> 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.

Don't have it at hand, but I remember Melville's characterization of
Franklin, in _Israel Potter_, to be similar in tone.  The Franklin in _John
Adams_ by David McCullough, though, isn't nearly the "wag".

Scott Badger