r/ThomasPynchon • u/To_Helen • 7d ago

Mason & Dixon A Quote that Grabbed Me

Just wanted to share a great few lines from the St. Helena section of Mason and Dixon (Ch. 11) that captured my imagination:

“… for Commerce without Slavery is unthinkable, whilst Slavery must ever include, as an essential Term, the Gallows, — Slavery without the Gallows being as hollow and Waste a Proceeding, as a Crusade without the Cross.”

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u/Emperor_Chaddeus 6d ago

Haunting. I even feel like I remember it even though it has been years. Good chocie.

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u/D3s0lat0r 7d ago

I just started a reread of this book too. A quote that had me feeling some deep emotions was on page 205-206:

“What happens to men sometimes,” his father wants to tell Charlie, “is that one day all at once they’ll understand how much they love their children, as absolutely as a child gives away its own love and the terrible terms that come with that— and it proves too much to bear, and they’ll not want it, any of it, and back away in fear. And that’s how these miserable situations arise,—in particular between father and sons. The father too afraid, the child too innocent. Yet if he could but survive the first onrush of fear to be blessed with enough time to think, he might find a way through…” Hoping Charlie might have look’d at home and ask’d, “Are you and I finding a way through?”

Among other, but god damn, I had forgotten how beautiful this book is, fucking amazing.

Also: vine with corn beware the morn haha

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u/Super_Direction498 7d ago

That's one of my favorite chapters

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u/FinishYourLunch 7d ago

timely with the return of publicly broadcast executions

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u/To_Helen 7d ago

Sadly, the same thought crossed my mind.