Mischianza '77 mix-up?

[Mark Kohut]

As a deep fan, I give Pynchon the benefit of every doubt. Full Disclosure.
Yes, he has made some (minor) mistakes in his works,
but maybe fewer in all the books after GR, not gonna measure and dunno. And
M & D seems, in hindsight, to be flawless to me, also a dunno, though.

So, I suggest that this is intentional, of course. Already the memory of
American Independence from Britain is becoming 1777 is his meaning, I
suggest.

Howe occupied Philadephia in late '77 and that was the beginning of the
English farewell, so to be non-literal. He resigned his command in late
1777. (I just looked it up so we all can too) Howe leaving the new US with
a 'farewell Ball' would easily be conflated by rememberers in 1786, I'd
suggest. (Although it was interesting to me
to find out that the Mischianza was already written about in *The
Gentleman's Magazine* in '78; England documenting itself early--mirroring
its own history as this mag did. More circumstantial evidence Pynchon would
not make the mistake.

No retreating army ever gave itself such a lavish send-off, is the gist of
articles on the Mischianza, sometimes still spelled Meschianza (see written
words in Lot 49) once again
showing how history is made with language not just documented. Those
mirrors inside the Great Tent, Pynchon musta loved learning about. See my
allusion above.

The mythologizing of American history is one of the themes of Mason & Dixon
all agree. Is this the first example by our sly genius?

Also, what is the early error in ADA?



On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 9:09 PM, Alain Champlain <alainfchamplain at gmail.com>
wrote:

> In the first paragraph of Mason & Dixon, the date of the 'farewell Ball'
> is given as '77. The notes I've found on this book point to articles where
> the date is given as '78, but I haven't seen any mention of the error: am I
> missing something? It seems strange to open on the error (rather like
> Nabokov's Ada), but stranger still that I've found no mention of it -- or
> at least not yet.
>
> Simple error? Help?
> (New here, many thanks)
>
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