M&D new question

[Joseph Tracy]

I was thinking along much the same lines  as Becky but didn't this line immediately become a line between states rather than feudal fiefdoms?  And didn't former lords retain much political and financial interest?

There is something appealing to me about David Ewers's emphasis on the word ultimately, the sense that in geologic time this silly and horrible line cannot stand, that shifting watersheds and bioregions and populations will erase it all that theedges in the world are more fractal than euclidean. Regardless, it makes me like Cherrycoke the more.

On Jan 13, 2015, at 1:54 PM, Becky Lindroos wrote:

> To me the word “meaningless” on page 8 is both ambiguous AND important.  
> 
> 1.  Slavery was outlawed in Pennsylvania in 1780 using Pennsylvania’s southern state line which was drawn by the M&D map.  This was 3 years before the end of the Revolution and 6 years before Cherrycoke’s little tale of M&D’s survey - But slavery didn’t end in 1780 with the law because slave-owners got to keep the ones already born before Feb. 1780 for another 28 years.   Anyway,  that law might have been important to Cherrycoke for some reason and the term “meaningless” could be used.  Maybe.  
> 
> A more important possibility - more likely: 
> 2.  The whole sentence reads:  
> “’Twas not too many years before the War,— what we were doing out in that Country together was brave, scientifick beyond my understanding, and ultimately meaningless,— we were putting a line straight through the heart of the Wilderness , eight yards wide and due west, in order to separate two Proprietorships , granted when the World was yet feudal and but eight years later to be nullified by the War for Independence.”
> 
> Parsing the last half of the sentence: 
> “…putting a line straight through the Heart of the Wilderness … *in order to separate two Proprietorships granted when the World was yet feudal**  and but eight years later to be nullified by the War for independence.” 
> 
> So the results of the line,  in terms of feudal proprietorship, were nullified (made meaningless?) by the Revolution?  -   I think that’s what Cherrycoke might be thinking - what the reader perhaps may be being directed to think - but that might not be what Pynchon has in mind for the rest of the story.  He means “meaningless” in more ways than that.  It’s a kind of thematic foreshadowing -  that kind of thing that 2nd readings will bring out whereas 1st readings don’t understand.  Good stuff.  
> 
> 
> 3.  Or it’s metaphysical all around - thematic foreshadowing by Pynchon but understanding that Cherrycoke is a an ex-preacher and story-teller so he might mean it in a somewhat metaphysical sense, too.   
> 
> Bek
> 
> 
>> On Jan 13, 2015, at 9:54 AM, David Ewers <dsewers at comcast.net> wrote:
>> 
>> That line struck me as well.  I agree that it's provocative (almost teasing or daring us to wonder at its validity...).  Something that strikes me just now is the word 'ultimately'.  Cherrycoke says it (the Line) was "ultimately meaningless".  On the one hand it's easy for me to see Cherrycoke as mistakenly assuming that his present is the 'ultimate' point on some timeline (Time Line?), while from my further vantage point I can say I know better.  But wouldn't I (ultimately) be making the same mistake?  
>> 
>> Maybe Cherrycoke mentions so early because he has strong (deep?) feelings regarding its meaning?  The reminiscence: "What we were doing out in that Country together was brave... and ultimately meaningless,-- we..." sounds heartfelt to me.  Is the meaninglessness a source of pride for him (like 'we never had a chance of success, but by golly we did it anyway...), and so he's not being (only) bitterly clever when he attaches it to words like brave and scientifick?
>> 
>> 
>> On Jan 13, 2015, at 7:56 AM, Joseph Tracy wrote:
>> 
>>> No thoughts? dumb question? 
>>> On Jan 12, 2015, at 12:36 PM, Joseph Tracy wrote:
>>> 
>>>> All the questions have been provocative, so I hope this won't be a complete dud. 
>>>> 
>>>> One question/observation that jumped out at me in the introduction is the word meaningless to describe the completed M&D line in Cherrycokes introduction to the Mason Dixon story. It did not strike me on the first read how boldly the writer seems to be characterizing the endeavor at the very opening of the work. He seems himself to be drawing a line or at the very least posing a deep question about everything implied by that line. Was anyone else surprised at how early this question is set forth, or am I treading into the obvious?
>>>> 
>>>> Even the word meaningless is provocative- both historically and metaphorically an odd choice to characterize something with such import. But it fits with Cherrycoke's probable attitude at this time. I don't know if I can defend that; I just feel it.-
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