MDDM Scalping Lord Lepton

[jbor]

1. If the issue is identifying the owner of the rifle then the fact that
Mason and Dixon recognise *the* scalp is the salient piece of information.
It's irrelevant that as the rifle is produced by Catfish it's described in
the text as "a Lancaster rifle". This reference occurs prior to the boys
seeing the scalp and then realising for sure *whose* rifle it is.

2. In Ch. 42 Mason contends that it is a Cape rifle, but Dixon avers that it
is an American rifle (428.12), and it is then the narrator, not LeSpark, who
confirms that Dixon is correct (429.4-5).

3. For all the twaddle about "renowned frontiersman" and "wild and unknown
Ohio", and Daniel Boone and Steven Seagal, Lord Lepton actually makes it
quite clear that he has travelled in the region and he even insinuates that
he has had trade dealings with the Indians there (418.22-6). Further, the
narrator informs us that on his arrival in America Lepton spent five years
working in mines, driving "African slaves", and travelling "up-country" as a
"Journeyman" (416-7).

It might also be worthwhile recalling that Catfish uses a saddle and speaks
fluent English (680-1). When we first encounter Catfish in the narrative
with "his Lady, and his Nephew" they are "all dress'd as Europeans might
be", and he is apparently on a "Mission", "as if Disguis'd", and "Looking
for Business" (673).

4. And, for the fourth or fifth time now, the point I've been making isn't
that the text unequivocally identifies the owner of the scalp as Lord
Lepton, or anyone else -- in a typically postmodernist gesture Pynchon
leaves the identity of the victim indeterminate. Only M&D know for sure
whose scalp it is; the information is deliberately withheld from the reader.
In fact, it's a reversal of traditional dramatic irony. In spite of this,
all the evidence points to Lord Lepton as the most likely candidate.

5. The shift in signification of the term "Sterloop" doesn't have a bearing
on any of the above, though I agree that a connection is being forged in the
text between the Dutch riders at the Cape, the 'Dutch Rifle' hotel in
Lancaster town, and Lord Lepton's foundry, with the inverted star being the
common thread linking the episodes, and that Pynchon, as always, is mucking
around with "the Boundaries between Reality and Representation" (429).
There's nothing at all in the text to support the suggestion that the rifle
in Catfish's possession, or the one M&D see at Lord Lepton's, is an
"unstable artifact", however.

best