Frustrating, beautiful, funny, sad. I cant say I have ever read something so sprawling and meandering. I have that same feeling of exhausted happiness that I got from Herodotus. Theres just too much to talk about. An amazing read to say the least.

An absolutely astonishing achievement. The amount of research and craft staggering. When I wasn’t overwhelmed and in awe of all that, I was alternately charmed, amused, saddened, confused, and touched. Much like the Line, the narrative would dozens of times take the characteristic Pynchon turn that the author has already taken paragraphs before I realize it has happened, and I have to backtrack and pinpoint the subtle moment it happened, gasp or sigh and shake my head at how craftily I’ve been tricked and led astray yet again no matter how attentively I am reading. And then just admire when I have that “oh I see what he’s doing there, holy shit” moments.

I was the unfortunate dummy who started with Gravity’s Rainbow, Mason & Dixon being now my fifth, it is the first to even approach the former in my regard even though I’ve five starred them all. This novel is something unique and special, and I don’t think it will ever be replicated with any degree of success by any other author. Which is why Pynchon stands in a league all his own.

Re-read. There really aren't words to describe the beauty and genius of Mason & Dixon. It's the sister novel to GR and everything it is not: warm-hearted, fuzzy, munificent...A blend of Dickens and Twain alchemized through the insane genius of, in my estimation, the greatest and most imaginative writer to ever walk the Earth.
Don't let the size scare you. It's an easy and ridiculously enjoyable romp. Pure m-a-g-i-c-k. In the absolute vanguard of the best books ever written and an embarrassment of riches.

Why aye, Right as a Right Angle, we're out here to ruffle up some business with any who may be in need of Surveying, London-Style, - Astronomickally precise, optickally up-to-the-Minute, surprisingly cheap. The Behavior of the Stars is the most perfect Motion there is, and we know how to read it all, just as you'd read a Clock-Face. We have Lenses that never lie, and Micrometers fine enough to subtend the Width of a Hair upon a Martian's Eye-ball. This looks like a bustling Town, plenty of activity in the Land-Trades, where think yese'd be a good place to start?

The story of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon is so beautifully told by Thomas Pynchon that I didn't hesitate adding this book to my list of favourites. I think the choice of Revd. Wicks Cherrycoke as a narrator was an excellent one as it allowed Pynchon to include a mix of historical facts along with local legends, conspiracies and "undeliver'd sermons". In the end, does it matter what really happened? History is not Chronology, for that is left to lawyers – nor is it Remembrance, for Remembrance belongs to the People.

There are so many pleasures to be found in this book. A conversation between two pendulum clocks. Maskelyne and Mason drawing up each other's birth charts. Dixon giving a slave driver a taste of his own Whip. The Tale of the Tub. The Ear that caused the nine years "Jenkins' Ear War" between England and Spain. The Eleven Days that went missing. The coveted Longitude Prize that made one man go as far as to swallow Dixon's chronometer.

And then, the Line. Always from East to West. As to journey west, in the same sense as the Sun, is to live, raise Children, grow older, and die, carried along by the Stream of the Day, whilst to turn Eastward, is somehow to resist time and age, to work against the Wind, seek ever the dawn, even, as who can say, defy Death.

Then again, there may be something to say for the way things are done in the East. The contrast between Feng-Shui ideals of natural boundaries vs. Mason and Dixon's straight line as pointed out by the geomancer, Dr. Zhang, (to mark a right Line upon the Earth is to inflict upon the Dragon’s very Flesh, a sword-slash, a long, perfect scar) made me take a fresh look at all those straight boundaries between the states in the US and the political map of northern Africa.

While he appears to mock and question the capitalistic urge to demarcate private property, Pynchon shows a real affection for his characters, these two boundary makers, that is mostly absent from his other novels. It is the growing friendship between the melancholy Mason and the gregarious Dixon, the astronomer and the surveyor, that kept me turning the pages. A wonderful, brilliant book that I will read again from time to time, knowing that I'll enjoy it just as much as the first time around.

Hay que empezar diciendo que ninguna reseña puede abarcar todo lo que Pynchon nos relata en su novela. No es una lectura fácil, pero es uno de los libros más asequibles de Pynchon. Creo que su autor no pretendía escribir una novela histórica al uso. Aunque conociendo al autor, ya esperaba algo similar. Haciendo uso de diálogos y pensamientos, Pynchon nos dibuja unos personajes que rozan la caricatura, o más bien el homenaje, parejas tan memorables como Don Quijote y Sancho Panza o Gargantúa y Pantagruel.

’Mason y Dixon’ es la historia que el reverendo Wicks Cherrycoke narra a su auditorio, conformado por niños y adultos, que se sitúan a su alrededor. Como si de Sherezade en ‘Las mil y una noches’ se tratase, el reverendo Cherrycoke centra su mirada en este par de personajes, a los que acompañó en parte de sus viajes. También hay que puntualizar que el reverendo no es un narrador demasiado fiable, como muy bien él mismo se encarga de recordarnos al principio. Y es que la historia no adolece de elementos fantásticos, como perros que hablan o golems.

Mason, astrónomo, y Dixon, agrimensor, fueron dos personas que existieron realmente. Su mayor hazaña, por la que están en los libros de Historia, es la que abarca la mayor parte de la novela: en la última mitad del siglo XVIII, trazaron una línea divisora entre las tierras del estado de Pennsylvania y las tierras de Maryland, con Delaware de por medio. En realidad, el libro puede dividirse en dos partes, una primera parte que transcurre en Sudáfrica, donde se asientas los cimientos de la relación de ambos protagonistas; y una segunda parte, donde se cuenta lo antes mencionado.

Quien se acerque a ’Mason y Dixon’ no va a encontrar una novela de aventuras, donde prime la épica, o quizás no la épica que se pueda esperar de tal término. Pynchon ha trazado todo un monumento literario, de conocimientos enciclopédicos, más de diálogos y pensamientos que de hechos, donde los acontecimientos se van produciendo sin descanso.

Personalmente, puedo decir que ’Mason y Dixon’ me ha gustado más que la desbordante ‘El arco iris de gravedad’, siendo más comprensible y asequible que esta última. La novela empieza muy bien, te atrapa desde un principio, y te arrastra hasta su ecuador, donde acabas llegando un tanto exhausto. Después, se vuelve una tanto anodina, pero te dejas llevar. Hasta llegar a la última parte del libro, donde la historia remonta, y donde destacan los últimos capítulos, que son brillantes, e incluso melancólicos.

A gorgeous and near infinitely rewarding novel to read, Pynchon has rendered here both a beautiful comprehensive look at the unbounded potential of land and people, yoked down by an understanding of the human condition so insightful it can only be described cartoonishly (as is Pyhchon's wont) to be taken as they are, seriously. Though I will readily concede that Gravity's Rainbow was (and is) the more 'important' and dare I say even literary work...Mason and Dixon is the consummate work of art...not necessarily superior to Pynchon's prior work, but definitely a lot warmer and somehow more bracing. Pynchon pulls no punches in his delineation of the beauties and atrocities of the old world (and how these aspects wend their way into our moment) and how, despite our most solid (and stolid) beliefs nothing is constant save the flow of time...and even that, in various ways, Pynchon depicts as, not a surety, but yet another in a long line of accepted bits of skepticism that, should we want to maintain our sanity (as I crib from someone else) we have to at least, tacitly, to accept.

I adored this novel. Not that I needed reminding but Thomas Pynchon is, quite possibly, the last of a dying American breed, the American writer willing to make you laugh from crying and make you actually wonder why it's all important even to bother, or not (his only peers I can think of, Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegutt, have both, sadly, passed on). Read this, it'll return your time investment in dividends.

Bored with the Edna St Vincent Millay of Savage Beauty and tired of the endless formality of complete names in Love in the Time of Cholera, I fished Thomas Pynchon’s Mason and Dixon out of the box it came in weeks ago. Sat down, stirring sugar into the tea I intended to drink while I read, and dropped my spoon.

Page 1: What kind of madness is this?? Oh My God. I’m tingly. No, this is not erotica. I don’t think. I don’t know what it is. But I think I like it. A lot. Dear God. Is the whole thing like this? I can’t tell if I love it or hate it. If it goes on this way till the end I may come to loathe it.

Page 773: Yes. This (thus far) lovely torture is intended to continue. And yes. I read the last page. What of it? With writing like this I’m unlikely to remember it more than seven hundred pages from now anyway.

First sentence, I kid you not:

Snow-balls have flown their Arcs, starr’d the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins, carried Hats away into the brisk Wind off Delaware, - the Sleds are brought in and their Runners carefully dried and greased, shoes deposited in the back Hall, a stocking’d-foot Descent made upon the great Kitchen, in a purposeful Dither since Morning, punctuated by the ringing Lids of various Boilers and Stewing-Pots, fragrant with Pie-Spices, peel’d Fruits, Suet, heated Sugar, - the Children, having all upon the Fly, among rhythmic slaps of Batter and Spoon, coax’d and stolen what they might, proceed, as upon each afternoon all this snowy Advent, to a comfortable Room at the rear of the House, years since given over to their carefree Assaults.

I am speechless.

A challenge to read.....I knew that going in....it's Pynchon for Christ sakes..... I really enjoyed it....it made me want to keep going.......because I like a challenge and a challenging book..... I felt a bond with these two men, because it goes into their souls and shares their loves, their joys, their sorrows and worries, their compassion for anything about the stars, their fortitude and passion in their work.....and the history....of course....they were regular guys , but also complicated and they were men, but also sensitive,and loved each other. They spent 5 years together doing their work.....in the wilderness using little education, but their love for astronomy, and using tools they really hadn't used before....and there was some error, which the book goes into, and why, but their feat was truly amazing and inspirational. They used what they had , at the time. Sometimes they had to stick to one spot for up to 2 weeks at a time ,watching the movement of the heavens, due to clouds, rain, heat , cold etc. I was confounded by their dedication and resilience in their craft. A two year projected time frame stretched into 5 years....they kept at it. They had a job to do.

The book and the interaction between the men and their crew of a few that then went to 115 persons was surprisingly funny, and heartfelt. I found myself chuckling at times at how human these men truly were.They were robust, liked to party,and had some deep discussions over many a pint.

The language of their speech, and the style of the writing took some getting used to, I have to admit.....but as you continued to read, you got into their lives and discussions and it felt to me as if i was really there with them. I found the book to be a most satisfying, enlightening,and enthralling reading experience all rolled into one. It's just a book you just have to decide you are going to tackle......or pass on it. I felt it was worth it! I read half of it in May into early June. Then took a break for a time. Got back to it in latter June,and stuck with it till I finished it today, July 5th. I recommend taking a breather.......as I did, reading something else , much lighter and then getting back into it.

Worth the journey with Mason and Dixon. I am sad to see them go.

All Due Regard to Length

Let's get the length of "Mason & Dixon" out of the way first.

Lauding fiction on the basis of its maximalism alone might gratify those who derive satisfaction from this one feature of big fat books, but it inevitably deters readers who might enjoy the (other) merits of the book.

I was a little apprehensive about the length of this novel when I began. However, the preoccupation with its length obscures what a pleasure it is to read (and why).

Here, Thomas Pynchon gives us the essence of both challenging and rewarding literature, but on a grand scale: immaculate sentence construction, authentic world-building, engaging story-telling and belletristic narrative meta/heterogeneity, all delivered with a sustained Rabelaisian energy and sly quixotic eroticism. Write on, Tom!

Up to His Usual Mischief

Whatever the intellect that went into the construction of this fiction, it's still and always a joy to read. This is what, for me, differentiates Pynchon from his peers. He's fun, playful, cheeky, mischievous, sometimes even outrageous.

From time to time, his work might be matched by John Barth and Robert Coover, but you have to question whether the sheer literary inventiveness of Pynchon's oeuvre as a whole (book for book) could ever be surpassed by any of the other Post-Modern American poster-boys, the ones who continually and hyperblurbally get wheeled out as the Greatest Writer or the Greatest Sentence-Fabricator of their Generation (somebody please remind me why we're always being told who is the Greatest and/or Longest by white male pundits, discoverers, spruikers, list-makers, proclaimers and long lost book club members, when perhaps the word "favourite" would do).

Sometimes it's the way you praise Caesar that buries him.

Surface Breakdown

Yes, it feels like you're holding a compact brick at first.

It's just over 770 pages long, but there are 78 chapters of more or less 10 pages each. Hence, you can read and digest each one quite quickly. Immediately, you want to move onto the next, like links in a chain. No sooner would I look at the page number than I would find I'd read 40 or 50 pages. Pretty soon, I was trying to finish 100 pages a day.

It Was Fun While It Lasted

The language is that of the late 18th century. Sentences are long, but neatly divided by commas and dashes into phrases and clauses that propel you along.

Once you get into the rhythm of the writing, you forget about its archaisms, and you start to recognise and enjoy the abundant wit and humour. It's fun, in anybody's time, space and language. As Pynchon conveys in verse:

"It...was...fun
While it lasted,
And it lasted,
Quite a while..."

In other words, maximalism is better served with merriment and whimsy than earnestness and self-absorption.





The Mason and Dixon Line

You don't have to know anything about Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon to appreciate the novel. Equally, if you learned about them at school and don't want to know any more, then the novel can still be entertaining.

Throughout its expanse, the Mason and Dixon Line is an extended metaphor for the artificial boundaries that divide and conquer people:

"To rule forever, it is necessary only to create, among the people one would rule, what we call...Bad History. Nothing will produce Bad History more directly nor brutally, than drawing a Line, in particular a Right Line, the very Shape of Contempt, through the midst of a People, - to create thus a Distinction betwixt 'em..."

When England colonised America, its proprietorial approach to the Earth (enclosure on the inside, exile on the outside) made a transition to its new colonies.

Mason and Dixon embarked from a still quarrelsome Royal Society in London to solve a boundary dispute between two of the American colonies, by using their combined skills in astronomy and surveying.

Their solution still stands, even though they developed it shortly before the American War of Independence.

While it consisted of lines, barriers and separation, ironically their experience of America was quite the opposite.

Infinite Wilderness

What they, and through them, Pynchon, admire about America is the fact that at the time it was a wilderness that offered infinite challenges and opportunities.

Thus, at its heart, "Mason & Dixon" documents Pynchon's love affair with America. It's a Baroque hymn to the majesty and wonder of a native, unspoiled America.

"Gravity's Rainbow" witnessed Americans discovering the Europe of World War II. In contrast, "Mason & Dixon" consists of two Englishmen exploring and mapping America.

The story might be set in the past, but what Pynchon finds appealing is those parts of the past that are still reflected in the present. Thus, this is equally a love story about the America of the present, and the parts of it that have transitioned or survived from its past.

Separated Not by a Line, but an Ampersand

While there's a long list of characters, Pynchon primarily tells his tale through the eponymous Mason and Dixon (as witnessed and related by an "untrustworthy Remembrancer [nevertheless possessed of] Authorial Authority", the Reverend Wicks Cherrycoke).

They commence as strangers, occasionally have their disagreements, maintain their distance (they "could not cross the perilous Boundaries between themselves", although at the end Mason & Dixon are separated only by an ampersand), become rather fond of each other in an English public school boy way, and end up resolving to become "old Geezers" together.

When finally one is the first to die of old age, the other's son excuses his father's sentimental response:

"It's your Mate. It's what happens when your Mate dies."





The Stars Are So Close

For all their differences, Mason and Dixon are joined by their experience of the American wilderness. For them, it was an adventure, albeit one that took them away from their families for extended periods of time (as does reading the novel!).

Nevertheless, their sense of wonder was infectious, and their children inherited it via their fathers' fantastic story-telling. In the end, it's their children who reiterate to them:

"The Stars are so close you won't need a Telescope. The Fish jump into your Arms. The Indians know Magick. We'll go there. We'll live there. We'll fish there. And you too."

This is an America that above all inspires the imagination, it's a canvas upon which to paint a picture, a sheet of paper upon which not just to draw lines, but to write words and map out visions.

Against the Great Wind of Oblivion

Pynchon captures and verbalises these fantasies, so that they don't just die an ephemeral death:

"How much shapely Expression...is simply fading away upon the Air, out under the Door, into the Evening and the Silence beyond...Why not pluck a few words from the multitudes rushing toward the Void of forgetfulness? [Words which else would have been lost forever to the great Wind of Oblivion.]"

At the same time that the novel eulogises America, it suggests that there's something greater than one nation alone. "Mason and Dixon" is concerned with transition: the Transit of Venus, the transmission of values from one country to another, what occurs between two people(s), the last ferry ride across the River Styx:

"Betwixt themselves, neither feels British enough anymore, nor quite American, for either Side of the Ocean. They are content to reside like Ferrymen or Bridge-keepers, ever in a Ubiquity of Flow, before a ceaseless Spectacle of Transition."

A Great Tangle of Lines

This is the dual significance of the lines that they draw: latitude and longitude represent a flow, a ch'i, an energy force. There is much wisequackery and semi-jocular allusion to ley-lines, meridians and feng-shui (not to mention talking dogs, flying pigs and mechanical ducks):

"Mason and Dixon step out of the Perimeter, into the Wild...lur'd by promises of forbidden Knowledge, in the Care of an inscrutable Druid..."

"Earth, withal, is a Body, like our own, with its network of Points, dispos'd along its Meridians [much like the Human body, where the flow of Chee may be beneficially strengthen'd by insertions of Gold Needles]..."

There is also frequent intimation that Native Americans know something that the Europeans might never:

"What in the Holy Names are these people about?...Is it something in this Wilderness, something ancient, that waited for them, and infected their Souls when they came?"

We, on the other hand, might have lost touch with our past and our ancestors. We need to learn how to draw the line between them again, only a line that joins people rather than separating them:

"...there may ever continue more than one life-line back into a Past we risk, each day, losing our forebears in forever, - not a Chain of single Links, for one broken Link could lose us All, - rather, a great disorderly Tangle of Lines, long and short, weak and strong, vanishing into the Mnemonick Deep, with only their Destination in common."

Fugitive as in a Dream

For Mason and Dixon, there are no grand egotistical dreams of wealth and fame (although you share their frustration at being locked out of membership of the Royal Society).

Theirs is a much more modest manifestation of liberty:

"[We] wish'd but for a middling Life,
Forever in betwixt
The claims of Lust and Duty,
So intricately mix'd, -
To reach some happy Medium,
Fleet as a golden Beam,
Uncharted as St Brendan's Isle,
Fugitive as a Dream."

Mason and Dixon are fugitives from arbitrary lines, boundaries, barriers, distinctions, divisions, divisiveness.

Ultimately, this is why "Mason & Dixon" is not just a story about the 18th century, but an allegory for today.





FRAGMENTS OF A LIBRETTO FOR AN OPERA BUFFA

The Transit of Venus
[In the Words of Pynchon]

Through our whole gazing-lives,
Venus has been a tiny Dot of Light,
Going through phases like the Moon,
Ever against the black face of Eternity,
But on the day of this Transit,
All shall suddenly reverse -
As she is caught, dark, embodied,
Solid, against the face of the Sun -
A Goddess descended from Light to Matter.


Souvenirs of Skanderoon
[After Pynchon]

Hashish and Turkish delight,
Minarets and palms at night,
Muezzin's tunes and low divans,
Crescent moons and caravans.


The Hellfire Club
[After Pynchon]

Orange-girls and ale-pots,
Beggars and buskers too,
All gaming in the dirt,
We'll one day come to rue
Our object was to flirt.
The girls laughed long at
The piquance of our mots,
Still we lost slacks and shirt,
Purses wafted away,
While outside for a squirt.


Adynaton Inspired by a Flying Pig
[After and in the Words of Pynchon]

Strangers, heed my wise advice,
Never pay the retail price,
Until pigs start an airline
Crewed by avionic swine.


The Sound of Musick
[In the Words of Pynchon]

From behind the doors of Taverns,
Came the cries of Sailors,
And the jingling and Drone
Of the Musick that pleases them.





Lor-Love-a-Duck, It’s the Missus!

Let me tell you a Tale
(Or is it a Canard?)
Of Doctor Vaucanson's
Rare, mechanickal duck:
Its maker, no mere Quack,
Devised for it Gratis
(And for a Spectacle),
Some fine Apparatus,
Outrageously Life-Like,
Rude and Erotickal.
It didn't take long to
Develop a Passion.
Now he gets Up and On,
Not just Down off his duck.


Get My Continental Drift?

Hey, diddle diddle,
Oo-la-la, zoot cheroot
And toot ma flute,
A continental lady
Might be tres mignon or
Very cute, but she'd still
Be a riddle to me.


These Foolish Things (Remind Me of Rebekah)
[In the Words of Pynchon]

Moving water,
The rock Abysses
And Mountainsides,
Leaves in the wind
Announcing a Storm.
Shadows of wrought
Ironwork
Upon a wall,
The kissing-crusts
Of new-baked loaves.


SOUNDTRACK:

Mark Knopfler - "Sailing To Philadelphia"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTvc-...

Rob Scallon - "Le Gentil & the Transit of Venus"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RvYX...

Stunning bass playing!

http://theconversation.com/transit-of...

Richard Clapton - "Suture Self"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLnhS...

Howard Devoto - "Rainy Season"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJVtp...

The Stratford 4 - "Rebecca"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_aY3...

Björk - "Hyperballad"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0Pv-...

"In Iceland we don’t go to church, we go for a walk and sing at the top of our lungs...

"There’s a sacredness that comes with this landscape"

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ent...

I have wanted to read this book for a long time...and it definitely lived up to anything I could have hoped for. Actually, I never could have imagined the novel as it actually exists. This is a combination of 18th century history, fantasy, a dollop of things magical and mysterious, a touch of poetry, astronomy and possibly astrology. Just about everything is present in this large novel. It's grand in all senses of the word.

I will acknowledge that this may not be for every reader but those who like an epic, enjoy historical fiction with the add-ons I mention above will have a reading experience unlike any other. If you read through my status updates, you will get a flavor of the dialect used and some of the story. I really can't give you adequately a taste of the outrageous humor and vignettes sprinkled throughout this novel, but, believe me, some of them are laugh-out-loud funny. Particularly "the duck." Anyone who has read Mason & Dixon will never forget this very different fowl!

The vision of international and American colonial history immediately prior to the revolution is fascinating. What else is there to say. Well, I made the decision early on to read the book slowly and this worked well for me. Some sections read more quickly than others and I read this in company with other books. I came to look forward to returning to it and picking up Charles and Jeremiah's journeys to track the Transit of Venus, to perform various surveys, and then for their ultimate task, the line that is still marked and which I recall crossing on a trip several years ago.

This is highly recommended to those who enjoy an epic with a very definite difference!

One grows suspicious of his literariness when his opinions differ from those of the established literary community. While most will tell you that  Gravity's Rainbow is Pynchon's finest work, I enjoyed M&D the most. The contemporary author shows that he's still got it, more than 20 years after winning the National Book Award with GV. The narrative is much more straightforward, though the language takes some getting used to (it becomes one of the book's strengths though, and I found myself mimicking it in less formal correspondence for years).

In the 18th century, Northern European powers were hitting full stride in their quests to colonize the New World and Africa. Great Britain and France would align with various indigenous tribes in the Americas and battle for supremacy there, while the Dutch and English trading companies conquered and profited from their conquests of the East and West Indies. In this context, demarcations and astronomical observations appear to serve purposes other than knowledge. This is where we begin with our two heroes, commissioned to observe an astronomical event from the Dutch colonies in what is now South Africa. The melancholy Mason and the more jovial Dixon make for comic tension immediately as they survive a naval scuffle and the sexual advances of Dutch colonists' bored daughters.

The narrative continues to follow the title's characters as they travel to the American colonies to demarcate the line which bears their name. Pynchon's use of imagined worlds, narrative interruptions, and strange characters serve him superbly in this large work. The oft-leveled criticism that he leaves the reader no chance to identify or even sympathize with his characters does not apply here. There are touching scenes when Mason imagines his late wife communicating with him, and when he remembers his sons who have stayed behind in England. The warmth that does eventually grow between he and Dixon will cause the reader to remember the friends he has and remember that he should call them instead of spending all his time reading 800 page books. This one's worth it, though.

One of those rare books that's almost boring in its perfection. Not a page I didn't love, and I couldn't have been any more saddened when it inevitably came to an end.