ATD: unanswered questions #2

[bandwraith at aol.com]

Bekah:

"I think because OBA was writing a lot of meta-historical
meta-fiction rather than straight historical fiction like Mason
& Dixon - (magical chapters excepted) he had to skip the
clear view of a couple protagonists (M&D) in favor of a multi-
character approach - there are lots and lots of characters in
history. In GR the focus was on individual response(s) to history.
V. , Vineland and The Crying of Lot 49 were more like portraits
of the times viewed within the times. Against the Day is fictionalized
history viewed from our own ethical times."


Wicks:

"Facts are but the Play-things of lawyers,—Tops and Hoops,
forever a-spin.... Alas, the Historian may indulge no such idle
Rotating. History is not Chronology, for that is left to lawyers,—
nor is Remembrance, for Remembrance belongs to the People.
History can as little pretend to the Veracity of the one, as claim
the Power of the other,—her Practitioners, to survive, must
soon learn the arts of the quidnunc, spy and Taproom Wit,—
that there may ever continue more than one life-line back into
a Past we risk, each day, losing our forbears in forever,— not ano
Chain of single Links, for one broken Link could lose us All,—rather,
a great disorderly Tangle of Lines, long and short, weak and strong,
vanishing into the Mnemonick Deep, with only their Destination in 
common." (p.349


So, singling up all lines, like, you'll forgive me, Wallace
 on
a string- no matter how good the reason for taking the
easy way out- might not be the wisest approach to
understanding one's fate- separate or communal?

But aren't readers invited to "single up all lines" from line
one? Something feels not quite right about that perspective.