M&D preambulatory profferings

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I agree that he's drawn to periods of cultural/technological change, but not out of a fascination with change, but because he's searching for the roots of the present. Going backwards in their respective time periods, GR, ATD and M&D seem to be a push backwards to search for the roots of the military/industrial/techno/capitalist/globalist super-power of the current day.

Laura

-----Original Message-----

From: Johnny Marr 

Sent: Jan 5, 2015 10:26 PM

To: Becky Lindroos 

Cc: Monte Davis , kelber , John Bailey , pynchon -l , Mark Kohut 

Subject: Re: M&D preambulatory profferings



I think the broad unifying theme of Pynchon's work is American pioneerism. Whether M&D charting the New World, the terrifying onset of the atomic age in GR, the youth subculture of IV or the cybernet startups of BE, Pynchon is fascinated with American life on the frontier of technological and cultural changes. 

On Monday, January 5, 2015, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:
Um - it’s  a fine call but I’ll go with Laura about M&D being  “more American.”   The Colonists did not become Americans starting in July of 1776 or in 1775 (Lex & Concord), but about a bit over a decade prior to that.  (And I’d qualify that to say they became more Pennsylvanians or Marylanders or Virginians than “Americans”  -  as we think of the term.)   And it depends on what you mean by “American” -  the literal name or the distinctive culture?



It’s often argued that it was during and just following the French and Indian War (7-Years War) that the interests and identification of the British colonists became more and more the interests of the “Americans" in nature.  The F&I War was between 1754 and 1763 and it set off several political issues including protection from Indians and  the anti-tax movement which united enough of the colonists to wage a successful war against the Brits.



Some results of the F&I / 7-Years War:



1.  A LOT more French Catholics fell under British rule further internationalizing the colonists - and there were already a considerable number of Dutch in New York and Scots-Irish in Pennsylvania.



2.  The territories (“frontier”) expanded far west beyond the Appalachian and Allegheny Mountains which may have been British in name,  but new settlers from the colonies and Canada certainly developed their own socio-cultural-economic base.  The idea of the “frontier” (and boundaries) is certainly important.



3.  The Natives in the West and elsewhere, some allies of the  French some of the Brits/colonists, lost out tremendously in this expansion.  The Native tribes supposedly "gained” the Indian Reserve west of the Appalachian and Allegheny Mountains  (Ohio Valley and Great Lakes areas),  but serious Indian fighting continued in a large area.  And more and more settlers left the actual Colonies to settle in the West.



4.  To say nothing of the Brits gaining Florida from Spain - (How British do you think those folks were?)



3.  The war cost a LOT of money and the Brits thought the Colonists should pay for it - hence the origins of the American Revolution -



(For more on the above see Fred Anderson’s “The War that Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War.”  (This is a shorter version of his pretty definitive work - “Crucible of War.”  - these are very good books but they are not “like a novel” in any way - they’re history text-type books.)



4. The French and Indian War ended the same year Mason & Dixon showed up in Philadelphia and it was into the area of this new frontier that they surveyed.



**** A considerable amount of this is included in M&D.  French Jesuits, Natives, surveying, etc.  But it’s not the thrust, I don’t think -  just background.



Later, the American connection includes the Mason & Dixon line and the issue of slavery.  This is what most Americans who know anything about the country’s history think of when they consider the line.



Way too much info - sorry - I got into my thing -

Bekah







> On Jan 4, 2015, at 7:12 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

>

> LK > about two Brits making their way across an American landscape when it was still ostensibly British. In a way, it's about the moment when the British handed over the baton of colonialism to the Americans.

>

> I wonder if "more American" or "less American" are useful measures at all, and especially for M&D. The people in the Atlantic colonies of the 1750s Americans very definitely considered themselves British. As with speciation in biology, the "separation" is incremental, and most of its meaning is projected retrospectively.

>

> We see the early days of that retrospect, but inevitably our own sense of "British" and "American" are freighted with two additional centuries of divergence the characters in M&D hadn't known.

>

> On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 1:57 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> After the disappointment with Vineland (which has since grown in my esteem), I was thrilled to read M&D - back to the lush language and deeper themes of his earlier books. But all those Caps and ampersands are off-putting to any reader, but especially to (let's face it)us stupid Americans, who are rarely fluent in a second language (guilty!). The text is as off-putting as Chaucer, at first glance - fodder for a college seminar, but not, perhaps the book you grab on the way out the door to read on the subway. Much as I enjoyed the book, this group read is only my second go-round. Looking forward to it.

>

> Is it more uniquely American than his other works? Hardly (see stupid American reference above). Yes, Mason & Dixon immediately equals the Mason-Dixon line in the American mind. My first thought on seeing the title was that it was going to be a novel about the Civil War. And of course, that looms over the whole book, which is very much about borders as instruments of racism and colonialism. But it's about two Brits making their way across an American landscape when it was still ostensibly British. In a way, it's about the moment when the British handed over the baton of colonialism to the Americans. The line at the time it was drawn was purely a British bit of business. Most Americans are surprised that it's between Pennsylvania and Maryland, assuming that it's somehow much farther down south.

>

> Mark, you're a Pennsylvanian? Does crossing the border into Maryland have any particular significance for you? I'm guessing not much.

>

> Mason & Dixon is about the significance of a line, just as V is about the convergence of two lines, and Gravity's Rainbow is about the parabola. Pynchon loves geometry. He may have been attracted to the story because of the line. But in finishing it when he did, after becoming a husband and father, it became something else - a novel of family and friendship - something he was grasping at in Vineland, but perfected here. Between geometry, racism, colonialism and affection - don't think there's anything uniquely American in M&D. Vineland, ATD and IV are all more American, in my opinion.

>

> Laura

>

>

>

> -----Original Message-----

> >From: John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>

> >Sent: Jan 4, 2015 5:49 AM

>

> >

> >I'd love to hear some words from those who already hold this book

> >close to their hearts. There are a lot of veteran P-listers who put

> >the novel near (even higher than!) Gravity's Rainbow in that friendly

> >fascist framework we call Favourites.

> >

> >Me, I've never dig-dug the book the way I dig-do V. or GR or VL or BE

> >but I've always put that down to personal experience or font-size or

> >perhaps cultural materialism.

> >

> >But mostly I've put it down to the fact that I've never been to the US

> >(outside of a TV or cinema screen). I have no deep, internalised,

> >situated knowledge of America and the shouted and whispered

> >conversation it has been having with its divided selves for so many

> >centuries. Some other non-US readers here have professed their

> >appreciation of the book so I'm not claiming this is an American-only

> >novel.

> >

> >STILL: I would really love to hear people throw out a few lines

> >describing what this Pynchon novel is. I want to hear love songs to

> >the thing, though I feel my ear is tinny and poorly tuned. Ring true!

> >-

>

>

> -

> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l

>



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