Mason & Dixon

This thing sat on my shelf, half-read for the longest time. Only the notice of the upcoming release this November of Pynchon's next got me motivated enough to dig into it again. It's not that it isn't brilliant. No one else around can dazzle you with so much wit and wonder. The first encounter with the talking dog is as magical as anything you'll ever read. And it's not like this is the only Pynchon novel that takes some effort to get into. There are plenty of folks who have had to to take a couple cracks at V or Gravity's Rainbow before catching the wave. But Mason and Dixon is a lot of work, if for no other reason than the effort it takes dealing with the mid-18th century prose style. (Can you imagine the effort it took to produce it?) John Barth's Sotweed Factor is similar, and yet somehow infinitely more accessible (and highly recommended!). Pynchon's gift for rapid exposition is not necessarily suited to the constraint on verbal glibness. Especially in a work this voluminous. And yet the darn thing is consistently challenging, if one has the patience and energy to put into it. It seemed to me that the beginning and ending were the best parts, but this could very well have everything to do to the enthusiasm one brings to a new book, and the emotional satisfaction one gain's when reaching towards the conclusion. One thing for sure, for once Pynchon truly has plotted out and delivers a conclusion worthy of the whole work, as opposed to suddenly rushing out a trap door and leaving the reader in a state of suspension (which of course is also one of the many delights of his first three novels). This time one gets the sense that the author has a good deal of affection for his featured players. This book is a great as you want it to be, if you're willing to work at it. I'm just looking forward to the next one being a little more nimble. (Meanwhile, I've got a couple months to see if I can make more of a dent into The Recognitions.)

Mason & Dixon is a book about conflict--between man and nature, master and slave, science and religion, quaker and presbyterian, and, of course, between Mason (running away from tragedy and worried about life) and Dixon (ever seeking new adventures and hopelessly cheerful). The conflicts Pynchon draws out bisect populations, just as borders are drawn between states. The enlightenment--the application of science broadly to all areas of life--made accurate border drawing possible, and I think what we see here is the germ of contemporary enlightenment bashing, which is, I think, the origin of the current political climate in the U.S., popularly termed "Red vs. Blue" by pundits. Those individuals who hate the surveyors for their work still exist today, but Pynchon makes it clear that this is not just about "Red" vs. "Blue" America. The conflicts are much deeper and cannot be neatly categorized into two armed camps. We have all of the groups today that claim allegiance to Red and Blue--gun owners, religious fanatics, scientists, politicians, businessmen, and the underclass--but Pynchon's gift is that he weaves these groups into one America, not two, that have more in common with each other than not, and whose differences make a dizzyling wonderful tapestry possible. There is almost too much conflict to make a neat border drawing possible. Is that why everyone hates the line they're drawing? As a book, M & D is probably the best piece of fiction written in the 1990s. It is ironic that Cold Mountain, which won the NBA in 1999, is a book about the same kind of journey--east to west through a conflicted land--but takes place 100 years later. Cold Mountain was a romantic novel, far more accessible to readers, one which Dixon might have enjoyed but Mason most definitely would have scorned. Give this book your time, and read it with the aid of Google on a nearby computer and maps of South Africa, Pennsylvania and Maryland. If you give it your diligence and passion, it will return in a hundred fold.

People are always making Pynchon out ot be difficult, as if they won a medal for finishing each of his books. Yes, you have to be willing to think to read Pynchon's stuff, and yes, it is worth the effort, if you enjoy being challenged when you read. If you want light fair, don't bother.This book is a quest, you need to come armed with patience, a sense of humor and a good memory. The reward is that you will a have a hundred, maybe a thousand wonderful questions to ponder other than what you are going to have for dinner. The Mason Dixon line is more than a boundary. It asks you about what happens when you throw a diverse group of people into a wilderness and what they make and are making out of it. Don't get caught up in the historical stuff, Pynchon's themes go beyond their setting. Although there is much to laugh at in the more human portrayal of some of our forefathers. They are simply a jumping off point.If the size scares, just look at it as two or three books together. Don't be afraid, break it down and enjoy.

Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon is a huge, tough book. It is not beach reading. It is, however, very clearly a masterpiece. Without a single throw away line or phrase, this is a book that requires a lot of attention and, perhaps, some preparation to read. A somewhat satirical novel, written in the peculiar style of 18th novelists such as Fielding, the book presents the reader with a number of challenges: conventions of physical presentation (overuse of capitalization, strange abbreviations and variant spellings), sentence complexity (each sentence can contain such a number of clauses and phrases that one can reach the end and have to reread to figure out what modifies what), density of line (each sentence is packed with allusions, puns, jokes as well as whatever it is ostinsibly about), and subject matter (the plot is pretty straight forward but many of the situations and digressions require the reader to have a knowledge of 18th century literature, science, politics and conventions in order to make sense of what is happening).The story is 'told' by the Rev. Cherrycoke to his twin nephews (named Pitt and Pliney - so they could be called either 'the Elder' or 'the Younger' as one chose) and the narrative's 'point of view' shifts dramatically (and with no warning) so that at times one is 'in' the story and then abruptly back in a room in Philadelphia where the story is being told. You have to pay attention.The book is full of sly humor and outrageous wordplay. Anachronisms abound. In one scene a character is enjoined to avoid the 'hemp' on his travels, but if he must smoke to not inhale. There are strange scenes that seem to defy any reasonable convention. For example, the L.E.D (the 'Learned English Dog'), a dog who can speak, do complex mathematics instantly and figures in a pivotal and unforgetable scene. There are whole sections of the book based on facts of history or aspects of convention that are not explained and require the reader to provide the context. A good example is the section on 'The Ear'. The ear in question was a pretext for Britain going to war on the high seas, but without the correct historical context, the entire surreal section makes no sense.This book, therefore, requires careful attention and, if one has no knowledge of 18th century history and culture, some preparation before starting it. It is one of those books that need to be read slowly - perhaps aloud, almost like an epic poem, so that the resonance between all the allusions and themes can be appreciated. The more one puts into this book the more one will get out of it, but perhaps never get to exhaust all the meanings. I suspect there are doctoral dissertations for decades to be made from this book.Still, despite the complexity and even allowing for sections that might mean nothing if one doesn't have the 'key' to unlocking them, the book works as a travel tale, a 'buddy' story, a revisionist, picaresque, historical novel in w

This book is the best "historical fiction" I have ever read, and one of the most "accurate" accounts of the American colonial effort as well. But it's neither "historical fiction" in the conventional sense, nor is it even remotely accurate in any sense.But the nut of the matter is there. The overarching themes of the novel play off competing sets of human beliefs-- feng shui versus astronomy, the conceits of Enlightenment reason versus pre-Renaissance superstition and naturalism (animism... etc...). Together, according to Pynchon, these forces shaped Early America the Grand Enterprise. The big bad brilliant part is that, although obviously taking considerable license with anything he wants, Pynchon has leveled a dead-on critique of the history of that early America. Just look at what he keeps returning to regarding the tense, fraught situations that Mason and Dixon repeatedly encounter sparked by race and slavery, "indians," the Paxton Boys, and the chicanery and plagarism apparently favored by the Founding Fathers.This mix has Pynchon angrier than I've ever seen him at the pettiness and evil that people do (see the episode at the slave auction, the rising menace that accompanies the drawing of the West Line), and funnier too (Benny Franklin and his cheap parlor tricks).(C'mon! I've always gotten the sense that Ben Franklin wrote most of his Autobiography with tongue in cheek, that he knew most of what he was saying was demonstrably no good, and it's gratifying to my ego to see Pynchon pursue a similar thread here.)Popeye!! The munchies!! The Corner of Delaware and Maryland and New Jersey as Nowhere!! Yes!!! Truth is beauty and beauty truth, coffee is the sea that floats the federal boat, and this is the best book about male bonding that doesn't involve sports since Lonesome Dove.