In the search for the mythical "Great American Novel", too many are guilty of forming their idea of what this should be before reading any of the contending texts. Hence, the likes of Don De Lillo, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth and John Updike are those most often mentioned in this context. The assumption is that the beast should deal with twentieth century material - the America of skyscrapers, mass immigration, tenement buildings and baseball.

However, what better way of getting to the soul of a country than an exploration of the initial conditions at that nation's birth? Thomas Pynchon obviously agreed and came up with a kaleidoscopic overview of America in the womb.

Over 700 pages of the most impressive prose imaginable, Pynchon takes us on a tour of eighteenth century America, with doses of South Africa, the UK and St. Helena thrown in. But this isn't just an academic exercise designed to create dazzling prose, this is a touching novel with larger than life characters and a big heart - a human novel that emphasizes decency, open-mindedness and human frailty.

A beautiful and magnificent work…a love-letter to friendship, to melancholy, to America, to the life of the mind and the world as it slips past, to language, to the infinite comic mystery, to the idea of the novel and storytelling itself, gleefully alive on every page, densely luminous in its promise to reinvent itself on every repeated reading. Don’t think I’ll read a better book this year, unless it’s this one for a second time.

Also, the holy grail of Dudes Rock literature… a book about the boys, for the boys. Every Mason needs a Dixon. Pynchon-pill yours today.

Astronomer Charles Mason and surveyor Jeremiah Dixon plum past the edges of civilization and on into the wilderness beyond the fields we know to legislate their ideas of order and boundedness on the face of the earth, oriented by the celestial patterns above, which we measure and record, but do not understand, for they are ciphers of mystery as much as guides of the way.

I preferred this work to Gravity's Rainbow. It's an altogether warmer book, which uses symbols in a classical way instead of exploding them, and which grounds itself in its totally-realized protagonists. Quixote is one of its key models, and, like Sancho Panza and the Don, the affection that binds Mason and Dixon is deep enough to survive the constant frictions of the road, and of knowing each other too well. Unlike Cervantes, Pynchon opts to make only light use of the meta-narrative possibilities offered by its frame tale, which surprised me, given his previous work.

I would say the book tells the story of American history from the outside in, which is to say, from the point of view of its European colonists, for whom the colonies are an extension of the "subjunctive" into a negative space whose inhabitants are generally regarded as little more than a minor inconvenience. Pynchon speaks out of the English idiom of its time, and indeed, one of the chief pleasures and great feats of the novel consists in the stupendous textures of its language. In the manner of a great historical novel, he captures the sensibility and speech of the age with a flair that is a continuous wonder to read and to feel, and one can only speculate by what great labor of reading and absorbing all manner of period material Pynchon was able to speak so completely from out of another time, and with such powers of persuasion.

What to say or where to start saying things about this book? Pynchon’s language is unceasingly beautiful; Mason and Dixon are as endearing and animated with pure character as any creations you’ll meet; the book perfectly balances cartoonish absurdity with gently profound melancholy in a rich musical vocabulary; the page is to the prose as air is to music played; the book is inhabited by dream-beings and ghosts and the fantastic, because its realm is pure story; story into story into story; I would want it to go on forever, but it ends in the most perfect stretch of pages; I’ll quote another Goodreads reviewer “Thomas Pynchon just broke my heart”; it stayed with me when it was closed and I mentioned Mason and Dixon, as people, to people I spoke to; I went to the Atlantic Ocean (this really happened three days ago) and saw a sign for a trailer park right as we crossed the border into the Delaware marshes, when the sunset was lighting them all on fire, that read “Mason-Dixon”; secret thrills were given me because I was born and raised in the Old Line State; it perfectly caught like lightning bug light that feeling we have when under the night sky and the stars are bright and numberless and that reminds us of all the space out there for dying or forgetting or for thinking of ages past or passing; because it was long, it felt like reading lifetimes; because it had such depth I lost myself in concentrating on it; it is a perfect novel about friendship; I came across passages of staggering beauty abutting slapstick buffoonery; the book is geminiacal, bipolar, its fabric is opposites, twins, mates, the vast or minuscule space that acts as their boundaries and borders, what separates their bodies and separately gives them form and identity; it is a loping colloquy between Faith and its mate Reason, Free Will and its mate Fate; I read in it that I should make my way West to go with the day, with Time, maturation, aging, having children, the coming of the next generation, the slow fading and dispersal at sunset- and East if I wish to go against the day, into the past, toward morning, the smokeless altars of memory, to youth… where we can’t ever stay for long, because the terrain has started to go missing, there is less firm land under foot to hold and lift us, and our Lines must again resume their inexorable Westerly course...

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There was little doubt that I was back in Pynchonland when, scant minutes into reading his Aulde English epic, I encountered a talking dog in mid-eighteenth century England as Jeremiah Dixon was becoming acquainted with Charles Mason. From thence the jocular surveying-pair—guided by the gifted, ribald, beautiful prose of Pynchon—make wonderful pit-stops in South Africa and the bleak island of Saint Helena before landing in the Thirteen Colonies to take up the task of settling the disputed borders between several of the burgeoning states.

At heart, what we have is the vastly entertaining story of two friends out on a grand adventure that unfolds across a great span of time and during tumultuous events. The ebb-and-flow bonds of friendship—humanity's greatest social achievement, love outside of blood relationship—is contrasted throughout with the omnipresent pull towards madness by the phantoms and corruptions of loneliness, solitude, and power. Everything in Pynchonia that enhances man's (illusory) mastery over the world serves concurrently to drag him into the mud. The tale is unfolded in an affectation of Olde English which doesn't distract nearly as much as you might expect, and the prose itself is never as impenetrable as portions of his IMO greatest book, Gravity's Rainbow, proved to be. There is also a real warmth to the famous recluse's writing this time around, a genuine affection between the titular characters that is wonderfully etched in the final chapters, as old age endeavors to lay its claim against their earthly partnership. There are so many characters, gags, diversions and cul-de-sacs in Pynchon's tall-tale telling that no review could do it justice.

So astonished was I by that wunderbuch Gravity's Rainbow that, over the course of the next couple of months—and in between breathers of non-fiction that helped me weather overexposure to immersion within Pynchon's textual theme park—I wended through V, The Crying of Lot 49, Vineland and Mason & Dixon. By the time I was near finishing the latter, I was burned-out, Pynchonwise, and desperate for characters with believable surnames; and despite my great enjoyment of its abundant pleasures, I probably didn't partake of M & D with the appreciation that it truly deserved, nor linger long enough to fully capture—at all levels—its plethora of Old and New World charms. Still, I love when Pynchon swings for the fences, and with this weighty wrist-wrecker he hit another one out of the park, a big-hearted pub crawl through pre-revolutionary America that kicks up enough dust to obscure the massive shadow thrown by his masterwork and let this one shine nearly as bright.

So I changed how I was reading it. Instead of trying to read it in 100-page chunks, as soon as I got up in the morning, while the oatmeal was simmering and the water for coffee and tea was boiling, I'd try to read two chapters. And that's it. That's all I would read in a day. So it took me months, wore out the entire number of renewals I had on the book at the library, and still got taken back a day late, but I finished!

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

The genius resident in this mighty and "prolifick" work is off the charts, lacking borders, bounds and limits. "Mason & Dixon" is a picaresque Iliad by a supremely gifted and inventive storyteller. The "electrick" writing on each of the 773 pages is luminous beyond belief. The characters are deeply human "comick" and "mystick" figures who consistently extend the wit of their banter well beyond the first or second brilliant repartee of each stretch of dialogue. The "vistos" of wild American colonial landscape in both city and countryside, on land and "oceanick", in royal and humble society in Pynchon's Great Chain of Being are breathtaking. The dialogue is intelligent and witty and often hilarious. Meet Franklin, Col. Washington, Penn, Calvert, Boswell and Dr. Johnson -- all in the mileux of their day -- in adventures high and low. "Mason & Dixon" is an American Human Comedy written in the style of Fielding in "Tom Jones" or Sterne in "Tristram Shandy" or Barth in "The Sotweed Factor." An intricate and elegantly woven story line awaits those who must have one. High science and political intrigue of the day abound for those who love reading 18th century American history. Most of all, the writing quality is so evenly elegant throughout this opus maximus that its supreme and sustained intelligence is the signature of a writer of Nobel Prize stature. Pynchon's body of work, including "V." "M&D" and "Gravity's Rainbow," are sufficient evidence of the breadth of his literary gifts. Only a handful of writers in this era are capable of writing metafiction at this lofty level -- Gaddis, Gass, Theroux, Barth, Donleavy and Bellow. Is Pynchon as brilliant as Nobel Laureate, Bellow? Pynchon is, at least, equally worthy. Few novels have so much going for them on so many levels. "Carpe carpum." Do yourself a favor and seize this brilliant, carping novel: someday its cover shall bear the seal of the Nobel Prize for it is a "magnetick" American Iliad -- a shimmering and timeless Flower of Light.

Il mio terzo di Pynchon, pro:
1) la prosa settecentesca
2) il genio (Pynchon é un genio punto)
3) la trama (Azzardo dire un Dickens del circolo Pickwick in chiave postmoderna)
4) i riferimenti storici - ironici (G.Washington che si fuma le canne, top)
Contro:
1) ho un libro di Pynchon da leggere in meno

Video-review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBxFK...
Featured in my Top 20 Books I Read in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X6OQ...

Pynchon's most ambitious novel might very well be his masterpiece - a flawless pastiche of 18th Century language, compelling characters, wondrous adventures and brainy reflections, everything soaked in Pynchon's trademark mixture of high&low, serious&ridiculous, bitterness&hope. Not especially easy and not a good starting point with Pynchon, but truly a must read if you're into either
-Pynchon
-Contemporary Lit
-18th Century Lit
-Imaginative Fiction
-Masterpieces.

Con Pynchon non si scherza. E' l'ultimo dei grandi scrittori viventi ad aver le palle per affrontare la Complessità come materia stessa dello scrivere, di inventare mondi/modelli letterari dove il lettore ha da vagolare ben attrezzato di bussole omnidirezionali.
Qui c'è tutto: globalizzazione, confini interni/esterni, differenze, culture, l'orrore della Storia e la miseria delle storie, avventure picaresche, derive inutili, personaggi da incorniciare, dialoghi da standing ovation, strampalate teorie, giochi letterari, bislaccate varie ed eventuali, il postmoderno utilizzato e rimandato a calci nella categoria dell'inutile.
Insieme all'arcobaleno della gravità è probabilmente il Pynchon definitivo.
Per i Pynchoniani non avvezzi è consigliabile superare le prime cinquanta pagine dove ci si resta a chiedere se l'autore abbia ingoiato il tasto del caps lock.

DNF- stopped about halfway through.

I wish I liked this book... but I just do not. The character work is magnificent, but there is almost no world building at all. The book is primarily made up of archaic dialogue. Maybe I will try it again some time, but for now, I am going to set it aside.

To sum it up in two words, "Mason & Dixon" is, overwhelmingly phenomenal!

Rather than write a review, because how can you review Thomas Pynchon’s work. The man is a genius, who's depth of vocabulary is out of this world, whose knowledge is so vast it’s a wonder he can retain all he knows, and he is one of the most original authors to ever write. So here’s a top ten list of Mason & Dixon, its top ten phenomenal moments if you will.

10. The Vroom sisters messing with Mason
Here are some lines in which Mason is on a ladder because he is locked out
“With no more than precarious hold upon the Balcony, Mason now feels activity beneath his Soles, and looks down in time to see the Ladder being deftly abstracted and taken ‘roud the Corner in malicious fun by Jet, who for some reason is feeling underappreciated today. As he hangs there in Misery, tasting Ocean Salt in the Wind, watching in spirit of Distance, “Soon,” he mutters aloud, “to be Detachment,” the Bolts connecting the House to the Balcony, which was never meant to bear much more weight than that of an adolescent Female’s Foot, begin to slide, protesting with horrid sucking Shrieks, out of the Lime and Sand that have held them there so ornamentally till now. “What,” he is heard to exclaim,-“not again?” before jumping clear of the falling Iron-work, landing, mercifully with-out more than Contusions and Pain, upon the soak’d Earth”

9. The Talking Norfolk terrier at a pub, who talks to Mason and Dixon

8. Pissing in the snow, part of side story about a wedding.
“Threading their way among snoring celebrants, trying not blunder onto drooling Faces or disarrange’d Skirts, they go outside, and together piss in the Snow. Shelby writes his name, sweepingly, as if at the bottom of some Blank and all-powerful Warrant of the Winter, whilst Tom draws a simple Heart, unpierc’d, unletter’d, whose outline he fills carefully, completely and then some. The Captain looks over. “You certainly did have to piss”

7. Jenkins’s Ear Museum.

6. Garden of giant vegetables

5. Eliza’s and Zhang’s escape from French Canada

4. The Lambton Worm

3. Mason on the other side of St Helena Island with its mind-altering winds, which Mason is visited by the Ghost of his dead wife, or is just the wind.

2. all the back and forth Banter between Mason and Dixon rather it is talk of star gazing, tea vs. coffee, or the conversations with many other people along their journey

1. Armand’s mechanical duck (what else?) and the duck talks
“So,” spray’d the Duck,-“the terrible Bluebeard of the Kitchen, whose Celebrity is purchas’d with the lives of my Race. Not so brave now, Eh”

“…its Beak being of the finest Swedish Steel, did I mention that, yes quite able, when the Duck, in its homicidal Frenzy, is flying at high speed, to penetrate all known Fortification, solid walls being as paper to this Juggernaut…One can cower within, but one cannot avoid,-Bec de la Mort…’Beak of Death.”