M & D: singling up those lines

[Mark Kohut]

In another review of Mason & Dixon, John Fowles sez it is another masterpiece from him and then sez the national mantle of great fiction, from Conrad, Lawrence, etc. Moved to the U.S. Now with pynchon 

Sent from my iPad

> On May 3, 2015, at 10:01 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I've learned, forgive if old news, that Mason & Dixon actually ran
> five (5) lines during their work in the US.
> ....the three shortest were 14, 3 1/2, and 1 1/2 miles.
> Other two we know....
> 
> I've also learned that in December 1767 and January 1768, the temperatures
> hit --20 and --22 on two recorded nights...
> TRP has almost nothing on their physical hardships, amirght? Any thoughts on?
> 
> In his NR review, ye olde ( but younger) James Wood sez: TRP is the
> most allegorical
> American novelist since Herman Melville, which sure sounds like the highest
> praise to me but he goes on to say his allegorizing is "tyrannical".......
> 
> which lead me to remember how, in trying to puzzle out the associative
> allegories
> in his work--specifically AGAINST THE DAY, this List reemphased strongly that
> 'poised' ,almost-agnostic ultimate meaningless; that 'ambiguity' of
> Empson's extended
> to his poetic prose wherein we learn--as Wood seemingly never wants to
> (how could he reread with all the new books he must run to keep up
> with?)---how 'open-ended' perhaps as VISION
> is so much of his 'stuff'....
> 
> it seems to me that allegorical meanings qua meanings are 'tyrannical'
> in that they HAVE
> those meanings BUT TRP's codedness in the text adds layers of richness
> (as we've repeated)
> without closure of a pedantic kind.
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