Fumes and Visions

[David Morris]

Not saying I agree or disagree w/ Terrance's take on the "marriage" of Mason 
& Dixon, but I do think he is making a good (and interesting) case.  Being 
left holding the tub is a little humiliating, isn't it?  Jealousy can 
inspire visions of "cheating" (not that the "cheating" didn't happen - I 
don't know why Dixon's "fidelity" to Mason has to be maintained for this 
reading to be valid).

But if this parallel w/ Moby Dick's marriage of Ishmael and Queequeg is to 
have legs, some point should develop.  For instance, what was the point of 
the Moby Dick marriage, and how could Mason & Dixon's marriage have a 
equally important point?

BTW, I would again like to propose Moby Dick for the next group-read here.  
I think Terrance has demonstrated its relevance to Pynchon by way of an 
American literary tradition.   But the end of this group-read is a long way 
off...

David Morris

>From: Terrance Flaherty <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
>
>Say, now I wonder what Mason inhaled from Dixon's pipe? Anyway, as we have 
>been reading in the book, the smoke from Pipes or a glass of claret can 
>stimulate the imagination of one of the narrators/characters and get a yarn 
>spinning. I suspect that this is what happens to Mason as he is holding up 
>the tub. By the way, if you have ever stood under a very heavy object, 
>holding in place while the boys go out of sight to fasten this or that or 
>make an adjustment, you'll remember that you can start to thinking that the 
>boys might stop for a quick puff or a sip or two of hot coffee and while 
>you're standing there like Atlas holding up a ferric (Dixon's baby is not 
>only phat but phatic) mass you're sure to think it an eternity and this 
>sort of paranoid thinking can speed rapidly through the brain as the blood 
>rushes out of your arms and head and pools in your steel toed shoes. 
>Anyway, it seems that Mason's fancy is working over-time. The grin, shit 
>eating, could as easily be owed to the fact that Dixon left Mason and such 
>a state and got away with it. And, coprophagous is a word coming from the 
>dung Beetle and as the last two Bodice ripping scenes involved Mason and 
>the dung beetle and since Austra is taunting him too, I can't help but 
>think that Mason is simply, well not simply, but imagining that Dixon is 
>getin it from LL.
>
>Mason imagines his partner having sex with LL. Why?




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