George Washington, the Revolutionary War, and Mason & Dixon

[gary webb]

P-Listers,

I would love to host the March 15-28 - Sections 16-18 -

If it hasn't already been reserved! Thanks!!!

On Thu, Dec 25, 2014 at 6:08 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Please consider hosting a section on the Mason & Dixon Group Read.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Dec 25, 2014, at 2:30 PM, gary webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Greetings and Salutations,
>
> I am new to the group but have been quietly observing for some time. I am
> a great admirer of the work of Thomas Pynchon. 2014 has been quite a
> remarkable year. It does seem rather fitting that it would be the year in
> which he makes his debut on the silver screen. I have mixed emotions about
> it all, as I'm sure most fans do... I've noticed that there have been
> distinctive murmurings of a M&D reading, and I think aside from Gravity's
> Rainbow, M&D is equally brilliant... Maybe, like in the novel, Charles
> Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, are dual aspects of Mr. Pynchon... I don't
> know... Like Gravity's Rainbow and Against the Day, Pynchon intermingles
> fact with fiction, real historical figures with characters created with in
> his imagination... Like "Red" Malcolm and Slothrop thinking of JFK, his
> classmate at Harvard - Nalline writing Joe Kennedy- Slothrop and Mickey
> Rooney, etc. M&D are real historical figures, interpreted by both Rev'd
> Wicks Cherrycoke - Pynchon, that come into contact with other figures from
> history... Nevil Maskelyne, Dr. Bradley, the Peaches, Dixon's tutor
> Emerson... and most notably across the pond Benjamin Franklin, George
> Washington, and even a young Thomas Jefferson... I'm currently reading The
> Return of George Washington 1783 - 1789 by Edward J Larson... The American
> Revolution is an interesting bit of history, as well as Washington's
> role... it is interesting that another good history read that came out this
> year was Napoleon : A Life by Andrew Roberts, and Napoleon and Washington
> make interesting bedfellows... Both were swept by the that Revolutionary
> sentiment that swept continents at the time, i.e mid- to late 18th Century,
> with dramatic and different results... think Ethelmer and Wick's discussion
> of Plato's Republic concerning the change of music indicates a social
> revolution and the Anacreon Song,
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydAIdVKv84g, and Mason's discussion with
> a anachronistic Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco, with their Sons of Liberty
> crew about the Virtual Represntation of Parliament.... All very
> interesting... Anyway, Happy Christmastide of '14...
>
>
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