M& D Group Read (cont.)

[Mark Kohut]

Compared to Lot 49,with the possible conspiracy the virtual plot of the
book thru to its open ending and GR with the
 paranoia embodied directly in the text as that missile always
descending.....

M & D seems a very different book.

Begins and ends with unparanoic happiness (of course undercut by
realities in the text's
historical awareness,
most real AND symbolically, slavery) and no
proveable textual longitude line of paranoia, so to speak. ....

M & D wondering who might be controlling them is the major counter pull on
that argument and one reading I keep having is Emerson's line:
"Things [meaning economics] are in the saddle and ride mankind."
Or, less ambiguously but vector-like real and symbolic, the East India
Company and the Government ,of course, globalizing their
and everyone's working asses.

Per Thomas reminding us of the great Hofstadter perspective on the Jesuits,
I think that within M &D the conspiracy theory involving
them is mostly TRP showing here how America was born and made full of
conspiracies. Esp from the Right, arguably, per Hofstadter,
as the Right is always disbelieving in reality.

On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 10:02 AM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:

> In my reread of M&D thus far it seems that paranoia is emergent even
> (because of course) in colonial times, and yet the “civilized” people are
> increasingly finding themselves shuffled to and pursued into new frontiers
> of unknowability. Who sends them? Who chases? Not always clear.
>
> But then someone must be behind it all, no? Surely people are profiting
> off, eg, all this slavery. People are making decisions. Or are they?
>
> I think M&D broadens the conspiratorial view out of just the
> history-making animal’s historical brain and into its interaction with the
> physical spaces around those brains.
>
> There’s a lot going on with (possibly natural laws of) urbanity and
> density and geography (and madness?). Even if you can ascend the chain of
> conspiracy and continue arriving at Christian-named conspirators, they
> themselves are just conspired *through* by forces more superhumanly
> powerful than even They are.
>
> On Jan 17, 2018, at 5:31 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ah, the conspiracy of the separate snippet when everything doesn't connect.
>
> Lensing quoting Wood BOTH love M & D to the skies. The snippet is part of
> an argument that
> the conspiracy (of History) framework of GR (and Vineland?) are Gone, gone
> as gone girls in Mason & Dixon.
>
> Mich Wood's over-the-top rave for Mason & Dixon was in Raritan, a review
> with a thematic reading, not just
> 'full, rich characters and terrif prose":
>
> In his detailed review "Pynchon's Mason & Dixon" (Raritan, 4, 1998,
> 120-130), Michael Wood first discusses the book's intentional
> aimlessness, then takes up differing reviews of Louis Menand and James
> Wood. Next he fixes upon the choices between "wonder" and "care," and
> determines that the novel is "about learning, rather slowly, to care
> instead of wonder." He next discusses Cherrycoke' snarratorrole and
> characterization of Mason and Dixon, Pynchon's use of bantering prose ...
>
> Now discuss THIS.
>
> extra credit: Tanner's book on American Literature written before M & D:
> The Reign of Wonder.
>
> On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 4:52 AM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Howdy,
>>
>> I haven't read the article but a little research shows that the fellow
>> was not exactly specialized in reading Pynchon. I won't say more because
>> the poor guy died very young so he's not around to argue. However, the one
>> Pynchon book that Michiko K. thought was good was M&D, so he took a pretty
>> difficult position to argue. I find the book to be masterful in its
>> narrative construction and structure. J. Wood slagged it off but he's a
>> wanker who used to be keen on Pynchon, enough so to put him on a top 100
>> list years ago. Doesn't talk about that now, does he?
>>
>> mc
>>
>>
>> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> Libre
>> de virus. www.avast.com
>> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
>> <#m_-6578288459285765196_m_-7817204502463804204_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 7:06 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> As Michael Wood writes of* Mason & Dixon. *"No overarching conspiracy*,
>>> *or even the steady suspicion of one, unites the
>>> unravlled strands of this book" ---essay* Postmodernism at Sea*, Dennis
>>> Lensing in Hinds' book.
>>>
>>> Discuss.
>>>
>>
>>
>
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