Recluses

[Paul Mackin]

Saw a reference to Pynchon in the current New York  Review of Books
which I don't quite GET.

The review (not free on line unfortunately) is of a book called A
Pelican in the Wilderness: Hermits, Solitaries and Recluses by
Isabel
Colegate.  Anyway it was discussing the  age of the ornamental
hermets
so called--how in the eighteenth century a hermitage was often the
sine
qua non of any gentleman's estate which necessarily required the
employ
of a resident recluse. So to the p-reference:

"When one well-placed prop called Father Francis died, bringing an
end
to the dark talk of death and eternity with which visitors to
Hawkstone,
in Shropshire, could be entertained, he was replaced for a while
(like
something from Pynchon's Mason & Dixon) by an automaton. When that
gave
out, it was replaced by a stuffed hermit, 'adorned with a goat's
beard.'"

M&D of course has an automaton or two perhaps,  but  what's the
point???



P.