M & D Read

[Joseph Tracy]

I think there is a big difference. He does not own others through the threat and use of violence or compel them to serve him with only food and shelter for recompense. The markets and relations he takes part in exist in every city with or without occupation or slavery.  The question here seems to be whether sex workers, sellers of liquor and dope, and casual lovers are automatically in exploitive relationships. I have heard what seems like good arguments on both sides and I think it is more of a religious question than anything. But at the very least, It appears much less exploitive. Also Dixon is spending his money where it just might do some good and make life more bearable for a few.


On Feb 9, 2015, at 5:20 PM, alice malice wrote:

> So Mason and Dixon are, as are so many of Pynchon's characters, men we
> know. Even if they are ignorant of women's emancipation, and the
> obvious parallels in the bonds of marriage and the bonds of labor,
> enslaved and indentured, and so on, which I seriously doubt, they can
> be read as men in our own period. Dixon is cool. Though I wouldn't
> want to marry him. And he is a tourist/colonialist. And are his
> indulgences in the "exotic females" any less exploitative  than the
> colonialist lady's indulgences? Do not the locals lick juices from his
> body?
> 
> On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 1:25 PM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:
>> Absolutely!  (even if you were talking about my remark) -  that’s why classics are often very, very interesting from an historical point of view - but historical fiction can go far to explain some basic stuff and elaborate on other stuff for its own readers. There’s something to be said for each category -  (And then there’s War and Peace or A Tale of Two Cities which were historical fiction at the time and are also classics now - another layer to tease out.)
>> 
>> Becky
>> 
>>> On Feb 9, 2015, at 8:55 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Here is another pretentious remark picking up on this gloss: good
>>> readers, critics, scholars will talk
>>> about how the writing of even the best "historical fiction' is imbued
>>> with the tacit assumptions of the time
>>> it was written.
>>> 
>>> So, Pynchon sez: That's so true I'll write the 'tacit' out bold.
>>> 
>>> A---and, these truths have always been true.
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 11:47 AM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:
>>>> In addition to parody,  I see where Pynchon makes use of the occasional anachronism - ideas of today which are voiced in the setting of history (although they may not have been completely absent from the era).  It heightens the insight and the humor with a bit of surprise.
>>>> 
>>>> Becky
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Feb 9, 2015, at 4:08 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> All true but, for the historical among us, the very idea
>>>>> seems to have had no currency (from searching in ALL THE BOOKS
>>>>> Google has ever put up online; all of the now public domain books
>>>>> from Gutenberg on; all of the works of history about the past; all
>>>>> of the concurrent in their times books.)
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Related but different: PTSD was alluded to in this Read as shorthand
>>>>> for trauma experienced (by Mason?). That works as an anachronous way
>>>>> of describing trauma but PTSD as Post-traumatic-stress-disorder
>>>>> was first named around 1955 and became prominent in these United States
>>>>> only after the Vietnam war.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Before then, it had other names; shell-shock perhaps the leading name.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 6:45 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> Pretty 'radical' idea for the time, yes?  Tougher turn of the screw on
>>>>>>> the idea that marriage is > institutionalized prostitution.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Mason and Dixon would know all about this radical idea; especially
>>>>>> Dixon because as Quaker his is the first Christian church to give
>>>>>> public forum to women who take full advantage of it, allying
>>>>>> themselves with other oppressed groups, such as, naturally, the
>>>>>> enslaved and indentured, and prostitutes.    As learned men it would
>>>>>> be impossible for our boys to avoid this radical idea. Of course, in
>>>>>> Pynchon's mad comedy, all things are ampersanded, so tht folly and
>>>>>> hypocrisy abound.
>>>>>> -
>>>>>> 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 / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l