AtD - well, whadda ya know ...

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Really. Mason & Dixon is overrun with antique metaphysical concepts (the book seriously is in need of footnotes/glossary), and Rebekah's "deus ex machina" (angelus ex machina?) is one of TRP's greatest metaphysical moments:

   "Should we be discussing this?"
   "Yes,---because all at once one has blunder'd sheep---eyed upon yet one more bloody Mill,---a river turn'd to a Race, the Works lit up in the dark like a great hostelry full of ill-humor'd Elves. Any chances for a few sentimental hours nipp'd, as ever in Glo'rshire, as soon as they may arise. You, simple Geordie, inhabit a part of England where ancient creatures may yet move in the Dusk, and the animals fly, and the dead pop in now and then for coffee and a chat. Upon my home soil, the Ground for growing any such Wonders has been cruelly poison'd, with the coming of the hydraulick Looms and the appearance of new sorts of wealthy individual, the late-come rulers upon whom as a younger person I spied, silent, whilst holding savage feelings within. I was expell'd from Paradise by Wolfe and his Regiment. One Penetration, and no Withdrawal could ever have Meaning. My home's no more."
   Does Dixon catch an incompletely suppress'd Lilt of Insincerity? Something's askew.      "Thoo are in Exile, then...?"
   "With London but the first Station. Then came the Cape. Then St. Helena. Now---these Provinces. You were there, and are here. You must have seen it, ---each time, another step further...."
   "Away...? Away from...?"
   "Perhaps not away, Dixon. No. Perhaps toward. Hum. Hadn't considered that, hey, Optimism? Exercise yer boobyish Casuistry 'pon that, why don't ye? Toward what?"
   "I the Booby...? I...? When indeed,--- ", but how much further upfield can he bring that, before a Brush from one of Rebekah's potent Wings? "Toward what, then...?" yet in the tone of a Fop to a Bedlamite, concealing the demand, "Amuse me."

BTW, if those are the sentiments of a Neo-Con, I'll eat my shorts.
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Chris Broderick <elsuperfantastico at yahoo.com>
 I certainly agree that that same sense of metaphysical awe is missing in Vineland, to be replaced by more silliness & more Politics with a capital P.  I felt that it was largely (though not entirely) missing from M&D, too, though I will be the first to admit that I didn't give that novel the reading it deserves.  I've been enjoying the 3 page synopses, if only to keep thinking, that really happened in the book?  Really?