Owing to the success of the documentation I took for Gravity's Rainbow, which can be found here, I endeavor to do the same for Mason & Dixon, albeit at a far slower pace. This book was what I turned to during a bout of sleeplessness last year, but I honestly made no sense of it, owing, in part, to the lateness of the hours I spent in reading and my indifference to aught but the goal of sleep. I start over from the beginning using the same system I did for Gravity's Rainbow.
π₯ = character introduction
ποΈ = organization/entity introduction
πͺ = an event
π = a place
π = an object
π‘ = a concept
?? = might need to read this page again
π₯ Whiskers the Cat
πͺ Mischiana, farewell ball staged in '77
πͺ Christmastide of 1786
π₯ Rev^d Wicks Cherrycoke
π₯ Elizabeth, Wick's sister
π₯ Mr. J. Wade LeSpark, respected merchant π
π₯ Pitt
π₯ Pliny
Pliny the Younger was a Roman statesman, Pitt the Younger an English one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Younger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Pitt_the_Younger
ΛΛΛ - The group Wicks Cherrycoke recounts traveling the Ohio country with him - ΛΛΛ
π₯ Mason
π₯ Dixon
π₯ McCleans, Darby, and Cope
π₯ Mr. Barnes
π₯ Tom Hynes
π₯ TenebrΓ¦
π/π Tyburn Tree - the Tree seems to have been the King's Gallows from 1196-1783 - https://www.tyburnconvent.org.uk/tyburn-tree
π₯ Uncle Ives
π Bedlam, an asylum
Summary: Rev^d Cherrycoke, staying with relatives, although he is the black sheep of the family, tells the story of his coming to America. He had been found guilty of hanging pamphlets without signing his name, and after escaping hanging, was declared insane, requiring a stay in the asylum or departure, east or west. In Cherrycoke's case, it was to the West.
π₯ Mr. Dollond
π₯ Mr. Shelton
π₯ Mr. Bird
Summary: Mason and Dixon correspond.
π County Durham
The most famous land surveyor in literary history has to be K. in The Castle. Dixon has to be the second, as I cannot think of a third.
π₯ Lord Lambton
π₯ Mr. Emerson, Dixon's teacher
π₯ Mr. Bird
π₯ Great Uncle George
π‘ Metempsychosis - the concept of the transmigration of the soul, an important concept in the work of Nietzsche, and referenced frequently in Joyce's Ulysees, by way of Nietzsche.
Partial summary: Mason and Dixon meet, discuss London, their areas of expertise, and go for dinner. Mason wraps a mutton chop up in his coat to give to a talking dog later.
π The Seahorse, Mason & Dixon's ship(?)
π₯ Fender-Belly Bodine - surely a forebear of Seaman Bodine in Gravity's Rainbow
π₯ Algernon
π₯ Derek
π₯ Mrs. Jellow
π₯ Mr. Jellow
π₯ Fang, the Jellows' dog, who everyone has been calling Fido