Siegel: review of M&D

[jbor]

Haha. I agree that Dixon's violent intervention against the slave driver is
the climax of the narrative, but whether it's "the most heroic moment" is
something else again. Dixon's action puts the safety and lives of that
particular group of slaves at even greater risk, and just after Dixon
strikes the slave trader down Pynchon's text also gives the "Africans" a
voice and pragmatic point of view about what's happening, hinting at their
reservations about what his attempt to liberate them will actually achieve.

But I think that the most provocative thing that Siegel has to say in his
review is that _M&D_ is "the greatest of Pynchon's works". Siegel, of
course, was the critic who wrote that _Creative Paranoia in GR_ book-length
study (1978).

best

on 25/1/05 1:22 AM, Ghetta Life wrote:

> 
> Au Contraire!  No matter what you, Seigel or Pynchon says, no one can
> convince me that the slave trader did anything but fall onto Dixon's
> passively raised immobile fist.  And I will argue that point with you till
> hell freezes over...
> 
> Ghetta
> 
>> From: jbor <jbor at bigpond.com>
>> 
>> 'Mason & Dixon' by Mark Siegel. 
>> _Journal of Popular Culture_ 31.4. Bowling Green: Spring 1998, pp. 176-7.
>> 
>> Excerpt:
>> 
>> [...] The most heroic moment is not the completion of the Line
>> or its abandonment; it is Dixon, returning from his failed
>> mission, striking down a slave trader: "Dixon chose to act,...
>> [to do] what each of us wishes he might have the unthinking
>> Grace to do, yet fails to do. To act for all those of us who
>> have so failed" (698). [...]
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
> http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
>