TECHNOFILE

One of the epiphanies of the space age is that astronauts looking back at Earth can see no borders, implying that the world is really one after all. But borders can now be gauged in an instant by bouncing impulses off a satellite, the world meanwhile being divided into a whole new register of domains by the great electronic transformation of which the Internet is a part.

In Mason & Dixon, Thomas Pynchon depicts an earlier world in which real power is likewise invisible. But Messrs Mason and Dixon are obliged to inscribe their Line upon American soil in the most literal way, employing a company of axemen to clear a "Visto" through the forests for their survey. They are warned that carving a "right Line" upon the Earth will lead to dire consequences, as it "acts as a conduit for ... Sha, or, as they say in Spanish California, Bad Energy".

The denizens of Pynchon's 18th-century America bear a distinct resemblance to Netizens, not just in their distaste for authority and their overcaffeinated political arguments, but also in their eccentricity and their vulnerability to bizarre obsessions. There's a touch of the Internet guru about the figure of Benjamin Franklin, along with echoes of Timothy Leary, Malcolm McLaren and Dr Who.

Netizens are not necessarily fractious or cranky, though, and it so happens that the Mason & Dixon pages created by Pynchon devotee Tim Ware are a showpiece of the Net at its level best. Newbies are not disdained or excluded, but offered assistance. A number of old Pynchon hands, their names linked to their e-mail addresses, advise neophytes not to be put off by claims that Pynchon's work is "difficult", not to worry if they don't comprehend everything on first reading, and to "just enjoy the ride"; to which I'd simply add that I would rather tarry an hour in one of Pynchon's sentences than in entire novels by most authors. There is also more detailed technical support in the form of a commentary on the narrative challenges Pynchon's writing poses, with an answer to the frequently asked question "Where and when is the narrated action taking place and how the hell did we get here from where we just were?"

The heart of the pages, which are attractively designed in period style, is a alphabetical Web Guide to the novel and its wondrous arcana. As Tim Ware observes in a prefatory disclaimer, it's only a baby at present. With luck, it might develop into a sort of community encyclopedia, accumulating details supplied by readers. I was pleased to be able to volunteer the information that Daffy's Elixir was nothing to do with ducks, but an opium syrup used to keep children quiet.

Even in its present form, the Web Guide makes for a most pleasurable companion to the book, and a handy index as well (Sha, 542; aka "Bad Energy" ...). Other facilities offered include links to a couple of dozen reviews, three of them on the site itself, others from Web versions of print publications such as the New York Review of Books. Particularly helpful are the texts, reproduced from authoritative sources, which make sense of the esoteric astronomical pursuits in which Mason and Dixon engage. The only useless connection, made presumably for form's sake, is to the publisher's official but vacant Mason & Dixon site.

Those who wish to go deeper can connect to the Pynchon List, an e-mail discussion group. There's even a link to the East India Company home page; but not to the Society of Jesus, whose hand remains invisible.

Technofile @pop3.poptel.org.UK