"It's twenty years," recalls the Revᵈ, "since we all topped the Allegheny Ridge together, and stood looking out at the Ohio Country,— so fair, a Revelation, meadow'd to the Horizon— Mason and Dixon, and all the McCleans, Darby and Cope, no, Darby wouldn't've been there in 'sixty-six,— howbeit, old Mr. Barnes and young Tom Hynes, the rascal...don't know where they all went,— some fought in the war, some chose peace come what might, some profited, some lost everything. Some are gone to Kentucky, and some,— as now poor Mason,— to Dust.
* * * * * * * * * *
Line 21 Vulgarized:
Reverend Cherrycoke begins his next story: "Twenty years ago, me and the crew hauled our asses over the Allegheny Ridge to look out over the meadows of Ohio, stretched as far as the eye could see. My crew consisted of Mason and Dixon and the McCleans and Darby and Cope—no wait, not Darby! he wasn't with us then. Is this foreshadowing? Did something bad happen to him? Or did we meet him later? Well, you'll have to wait to hear about it in my long-ass story—and elderly Mr. Barnes and wily Tom Hynes. Can't say I've kept in touch since that moment. I suppose some went to war, some claimed conscientious objection, some grew rich off the pain of others, some lost it all trying to get rich off that same pain. Some went to Kentucky, for some reason. And some, like Mason just this October, have passed on.
Subtext:
The Reverend Cherrycoke had a soft spot for Mason because he doesn't even seem to care that Dixon has been dead for nearly eight years now. I suppose the "some" in some have gone to dust includes Dixon and Mason, being more recently deceased, currently weighs heavy on Cherrycoke's mind. And it's not like the Reverend realizes he's telling this story in a book entitled Mason & Dixon so that he should think of Dixon as more of a main character than the McCleans or Darby or Cope or Barnes or Hynes or himself, even. Although I suppose Cherrycoke sees himself as the main character since it's his story. But I'm getting ahead of myself! There'll be plenty of time later to discuss who the main character of this book might be when the actual main character comes along and declares himself the main character!
Obviously all the characters, to the modern reader, have gone to Dust by now ("gone to dust" basically being a Biblical term but declaring that Mason has gone to dust might also be proof that he was a vampire and was dusted, as the Buffy kids would say). And history being what it is, nobody can follow every individual in any historic event or time. We lose track of greater than 99 percent of them, probably, just as Cherrycoke does here with his friends and compatriots, only twenty years on. If he can't keep track of them and their travels with only twenty years between now and then, how are we, two hundred years on, to convince ourselves that we know what, exactly, happened to the historic individuals during the historic events they took part in? History can record history but it cannot record thoughts and hopes and memories and daily conversations. History tells us Mason and Dixon surveyed a boundary; only our imagination, and Pynchon's, can tell us what that was like. And I don't care how outlandish Pynchon and/or Cherrycoke's story is: I'm going to believe it entirely.
No wait. I'm going to try to plumb it for subtext! That's the responsible way to read history and/or postmodern historical fiction.
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