My argument follows geographer Gunnar Olsson when he asks, “What is geography if it is not the drawing and interpreting of a line? And what is the drawing of a line if it is not also the creation of new objects?” Using Thomas Pynchon’s 1997 novel Mason & Dixon (MD), about the drawing of the Mason-Dixon line, I explore how the mapmaker’s productive power is never merely reflective, but generative too, constructing a world as much as representing one. I question the consequent relation between “above and below,” drawing on Farinelli’s insight that critique of such constructions must recognize an antagonistic humor in the production of maps and territories. Pynchon’s novel, I argue, is exemplary in the wit with which it pits the anomalous, strange, and contingent phenomena of the below against the homogenizing, categorizing power of above. His approach helps us understand the dark heart of Enlightenment cartography and society.

我的论点遵循地理学家古纳尔·奥尔森（Gunnar Olsson）的问：“如果不是线条的绘制和解释，那么地理是什么？如果不同时创建新对象，线的绘制又是什么？” 用托马斯·品钦的小说1997年梅森和迪克逊（MD），关于梅森-迪克森（Mason-Dixon）线的绘制，我探索了制图者的生产力不仅是反射性的，而且是生成性的，它构造了一个代表一个世界的世界。我质疑法里内利（Farinelli）的见解，即“对上方和下方”之间的必然联系，即对这种结构的批评必须承认在地图和领土的生产中存在对立的幽默。我认为，Pynchon的小说具有典范性，它巧妙地将下面的异常，奇怪和偶然的现象与上面的均质化，分类力相抗衡。他的方法有助于我们理解启蒙制图学和社会的阴暗之心。