I tried to record, in what I then projected as a sort of Spiritual Day-Book, what I could remember of what they said,— tho' 'twas too often abridg'd by the Day's Fatigue.
* * * * * * * * * *
Line 94 Vulgarized:
At the end of the day, I wrote down what Mason & Dixon told me in my personal journal with the cute little fuzzy God stickers on it, but I wasn't particularly detailed in my account due to my weariness from the hardships of the day.
Subtext:
Pynchon is just making sure the slower learners in the room catch what he's been saying by adding even more reasons for why the account of Mason and Dixon's first meeting, no matter how seemingly close to first hand sources it might be, is almost purely speculation and fiction by this point. Cherrycoke wasn't there. Mason and Dixon tell him the story via their memory of it. Cherrycoke doesn't immediately write it down but goes about his day. Only when he's finally tired and ready for bed does he jot down what he can remember. And of course there's one more obstacle in the way of a perfect revelation of the meeting: Cherrycoke's interpretation of what he wrote after reading it later, possibly years later in preparation for telling this story. I'd suggest that his handwriting would also be a factor but have you seen the handwriting of people from the 18th century? It's generally immaculate!
So the first paragraph of Chapter 3 is Pynchon putting his defenses up! What is history?! Can't fantastic speculative fiction about events that took place well over two hundred years ago tell a kind of truth about today through outrageous fantastic and paranormal events? Is it somehow worse than history when history is no better than a game of telephone played out over decades, centuries, even millennium?
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