M & D Duck Read: still thinking on Mason.

[Mark Kohut]

I say one major level that Pynchon lays down is that Mason IS
a Puritan, a Protestant caught in Protestant Religion deeply...he
is so Puritanical he is half in love with Death, all in love with
a 2-year dead woman; Why is this emphasized so much by Pynchon?
Because Protestantism in the Spirit of Capitalism is a death wish.

  Puritans don't fuck---except for baby-making;
Puritans are Fundamentalists, THAT deep tradition; America's
Puritanism descends from them.....

And THAT is one major thematic meaning of Mason & Dixon, I say...





On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 6:34 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Not Puritan but typical of his sect at the time, Academic and
> Pragmatic. Though Mason exhibits what was considered a dangerous
> enthusiasm, he tempers it, though it haunts him, causing him, at times
> to Quake. So our boys are entwined, both Pragmatic Mystics, one by
> choice, that is Dixon, the other by haunt and wind and history.
>
> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 6:21 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Is "Puritanism" the word you want?
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 6:16 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Overdetermined, that Freudian concept. Why does Pynchon stress Mason's
>>> grief so hard? Why is his Puritanism as defining repeated? Does over
>>> determinism apply?,
>>> I think it might....so, taking my cue from TRP on tendril, I
>>> looked it up to see if I understood it and learned this,
>>> over determinedly as well, along with Freud's notion.
>>>
>>>
>>> The New Critic I. A. Richards used the idea of overdetermination in
>>> order to explain the importance of ambiguity in rhetoric, the
>>> philosophy of language, and literary criticism.
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l