I first read this when it came out in '97. I was 24, soon to be married and working a shit phone survey job. I'd bring it into work everyday and read as the computer dialed the numbers of strangers for me. Fits and starts. Hung up on many who answered rather than lose my place. I'd read all Pynchon to this point and like the rest of the world was ecstatic that he followed the disappointing Vineland with a fat historical tome compleat with strange Spelling and Punctuation.

Well, I forgot most of the details, save the most outrageous, and I even forgot some of those, so I was stoked to hear a group of acquaintances would be doing a group read.

I can't think of a finer book to read and discuss over pints at a local pub, considering a good half the book takes place in taverns. This was a delightful re-read. Pynchon really makes Mason and Dixon come alive, probably based on reading a handful of their journals and some research into the era. Fuck, who knows just how Pynchon does his research. Imagine if he employed a team like Michener? Somehow he spews it like it was always up there, all the facts you'd need and plenty more, up in his Nog.

Anyway, anyone who's been waiting to read this, now is the time. I'd recommend you do it with friends, slowly, so much to talk about, so many Joaks you'll want to share.

Also I like what Dawin8U had to say https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I like to think of myself as a reasonably intelligent person so it is frustrating to come across a book like this. Is this book beyond my capabilities or is it just not well written? Pynchon is lauded as a genius in literary circles, I think, but not from where I sit. The style was practically unreadable and the story not well told. Maybe it was some sort of academic exercise but this does not equate with greatness, just an experiment. Why I picked up this book after suffering through Gravity's Rainbow is baffling but I won't make the mistake again. I really need to learn that it is ok to put a book away if I don't enjoy it. This makes 2 of the worst books I have ever read coming in this year.

Whenever I finish a book like this—one that feels like an accomplishment, that I’ve poured months of my life into—I ask myself what the book was all about. It’s not always an easy answer. These encyclopedic, maximalist novels contain so much that it’s hard to boil them down to their essence. Pynchon, in particular, throws so many characters and plots and digressions and dense language at the reader, it’s enough to be able to stay afloat and power through to the end. 

But this book, I think it’s about lines. Lines you travel along (the timeline of one’s life, intersecting with others', sometimes crashing into others', ultimately ending, of course, in death) and lines that create divisions. There’s the Mason-Dixon Line, which the modern reader knows came to be the dividing line between the Northern and Southern states. But there are many invisible lines drawn to divide people: between white black, slave and free, English and American, Jesuit and Anglican, Pennsylvania and Calvert, Jacobean and revolutionary. 

And there are the shadowy figures who draw those lines, who benefit from the polarization of peoples and the strife and anger it causes. The titular characters begin to sense the evil of what it is they are creating with their Line, and they glance ever over their shoulders, wary of who is pulling their strings.

"To rule forever," continues the Chinaman, later, "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,--'tis the first stroke.--All else will follow as if predestin'd, unto War and Devastation."

It’s also about the contradiction at the heart of being American, that of loving this place/this country, and being ashamed of its history. There's a refrain in this book, that in America "the stars are so close you don't need a telescope", "the fish jump into your arms", there are jobs, endless horizons, endless possibilities. These are the lies that people are told about America, but they are also wishes about what America could be. But of course America is as broken as anywhere else. But to be a true Pynchonian American is to simultaneously hold the naive dreamer's notions of what America could be at her best, along with the cynical view of what America is at her worst.

"Where does it end? No matter where in it we go, shall we find all the World Tyrants and Slaves? America was the one place we should not have found them."

All these themes are explored in an eighteenth century prose: long, beautifully meandering sentences, interrupted by asides, dialogue speckled with vocal tics. I rarely describe Pynchon's prose as beautiful; it's usually too technical or concerned with ugliness, too complex to flow off the tongue. Gravity's Rainbow is more often disturbing than pretty, Crying of Lot 49 more bodacious than comfortable, V. more seedy than charming. The prose of Mason & Dixon is definitely complex and difficult and long, intimidating even, but it is undeniably beautiful. One need look no further than the first sentence of the book:

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."

It's intricate like a clockwork automaton, and sometimes it carries you off in its dense language, and sometimes it leaves you behind with barely an inkling of what you've just read. I admit, it took me 500 pages to really get into the swing of things, to not have to constantly reread paragraphs or leaves chapters half understood.

Is this my favorite novel by Pynchon? No. Like every other novel of his, this is packed to the gills with sideplots and characters that are irrelevant to the main thrust of the book. (This assumes that any novel of his has a "main thrust", rather than as my friend Sarah smartly put it: his books are "a vehicle for his digressions".) But if the books are just a series of episodes or digressions, then your enjoyment of the book directly relates to how much you're enjoying each of the episodes/digressions. I find that my enjoyment of Pynchon's novels relates to how much I can identify the thread that ties it all together. My favorite is still V. To me, it feels like the most distilled version of Pynchon, containing all the things I love about him without so much of the flotsam and jetsam (vague, dreamy interludes and self-indulgent side quests) that weigh down my reading experiences.

There were definitely times during this book that I was bored or frustrated or overwhelmed with the immensity of the writing, the complexity, or the ambiguity, but by the last quarter of the book I was obsessed, and I guess all is well that ends well.

My official ranking of the Pynchon novels I've read:

6. Inherent Vice
5. The Crying of Lot 49
4. Against the Day
3. Mason & Dixon
2. Gravity's Rainbow
1. V.

I keep a character list of every named character in each Pynchon novel I read: here it is. This one is 16 pages long and includes 310 unique characters, 60 of which I was able to verify were real people (and I admittedly didn't put that much effort into researching the historical characters.)

To say there are strata of complexity to a Pynchon novel is unnecessary (yet here I am) and Mason & Dixon is not unique in this regard. It is one of his monumental works, one of his more serious offerings compared with the likes of Vineland or Inherent Vice. That is to say, there still requires a suspension of belief for the entirety of this mind-squeezing and at times very comedic odyssey of alternate history.

Mason & Dixon features an impossibly large cast of characters with motives that are nearly impossible to pinpoint. The focus is on the titular characters as they make their contributions to the advancement of science. I won’t claim to have a full grasp of Pynchon’s intent and messaging after a single read, but for me the charting of the Line represents above all our human tendency to force our dominance and understanding over something by defining it ourselves or laying some superficial claim to land, which can only serve to divide people or cause us to see things in a way that is not natural. This is perhaps alluded to as the supernatural cause of the division that has been part of the United States’ identity throughout time. This is very similar to our tendency to label and categorize everything; in the act of categorization it becomes something else entirely.

Pynchon tackles many big ideas, and some of them very briefly. Following are some of my favorite observations from this novel: The position that the American is an alternate take on the Brit, or even an inversion of the Brit (and his penchant society); the substance dependency that the country was founded on and is still part of our national identity; the idea of astronomy and science and seeking understanding being a dark art or item of fear because it disrupts the tradition; man’s overwhelming desire to capture the forces controlling life, namely time, and stake omnipotence; the idea that in their colonization and slaughter of then-extant civilizations, White man is the demon that they fear so much.

Amen.

This is only my second Pynchon novel, after Gravity's Rainbow, and it shares some of the same characteristics, but in some ways is a much more polished work. Once again it is a brillantly erudite mixture of fact and entertaining fantasy, and the story of Mason and Dixon, the two English surveyors who fixed the lines defining Maryland's borders with Delaware and Pennsylvania that still bear their names, is one which is full of fascinating historical details but uncertain enough to offer the license Pynchon needed for his wilder inventions.

The style is interesting - a pastiche of 18th century fiction which is surprisingly easy to read, mostly because the archaisms and occasional neologisms are used sparingly, either to describe technical aspects or for comic effect, and the words which are now spelled differently are familiar enough to follow.

The book is mostly narrated by the facetiously named Reverend Wicks Cherrycoke, as a fantastic tale to entertain his young nephews and nieces, in 1786. Pynchon places Cherrycoke in a role similar to that which Boswell performed for Johnson, a neutral but not entirely reliable observer of events he plays little part in.

The story is mostly chronological. The first part Latitudes and Departures, starting in 1761 with the pair's first joint expedition to observe the Transit of Venus. The planned destination Sumatra is abandoned after a sea battle with France, leaving them to conduct their observations from Cape Town, where they first meet the narrator. After this they sail to St Helena, where Mason meets the future Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne and assists him in his observations of lunar distance.

The second part America accounts for more than half of the book, and covers their adventures in America from 1763 to 1768, and the short final part Last Transit summarises what happened after they returned to Britain.

The factual framework tells only a small part of the story, as Pynchon throws in all kinds of ideas and fantasies - peripheral characters include Vaucauson's mechanical duck, a Learned Dog, a golem, an electric eel, a Swedish axeman Stig who relates stories of the Vikings in Vineland and a mysterious Chinese adventurer Zhang, along with alien abductions, a hollow earth and some anachromistic 20th century theories on ley lines, all of which satirise and deliberately question the accuracy of what is normally accepted as the historical record. The prose story is leavened with quotes from a fictional verse epic, Timothy Tox's Pennsylvaniad, and occasional returns to Cherrycoke's family as he tells the tale.

Having said that the book is fairly easy to read, I did find myself looking up quite a lot of words, at least two of which were invented by Pynchon - my partial list included calathumpian, cilia, corf, desuperpollicate, dodman, elutriation, enigmata, fuliginous, levigation, loxodromic, machicolation, mephitic, mucilaginous, nidor, pollication, pygephanous, quaquaversal, quotinoctian, ridotto, stichomythia and stob.

I'll finish with a quote in which the blunt Northern Quaker Dixon describes himself and Mason:
"Thy uncritical Worship of Kings, with my inflexible Hatred of 'em, taken together, we equal one latter-day English Subject.

Pynchon all'ennesima potenza. Debordante per trovate e fantasia profuse, narra del sodalizio tra l'astronomo Mason e l'agrimensore Dixon a partire dall'osservazione del transito di Venere a Città del Capo, per arrivare al tracciato della famosa linea confinaria tra Maryland e Pennsylvania; in mezzo c'è il periodo di Sant'Elena.
Tra cani parlanti, avventure rocambolesche, licantropi e anatre meccaniche innamorate c'è di che divertirsi. La lingua usata è quella contemporanea ai protagonisti, ovvero della seconda metà del '700, con cui Pynchon affronta i grandi temi di schiavitù e libertà all'origine degli Stati Uniti d'America e della modernità.

Written in the style of 18th century novelists, Mason & Dixon is the story of George Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, of Mason-Dixon Line fame, as reinvented by Thomas Pynchon.

"From the shore they hear Milkmaids quarreling and cowbells a-clank, and dogs, and Babies old and new. -- Hammers upon Nails, Wives upon Husbands, the ring of Pot-lids, the jingling of Draft-chains, a rifle-shot from a stretch of woods, lengthily crackling tree to tree and across the water. ... An animal will come to a Headland, and stand, regarding them with narrowly set Eyes that glow a Moment. Its Face slowly turning as they pass. America." [258]

Clearly, Pynchon did his homework on the historical facts, but with Pynchon it's not always easy to distinguish where history ends and fantasy begins. This is part of the fun. And Pynchon wouldn't be Pynchon without comedy, song, science fiction, mathematics -- well, if you know Pynchon, you know he throws in everything but the kitchen sink.

I'll leave the rest of the details to all the other reviews. This is a powerful book, full of heart and compassion, a look at the colonies before the revolution, and the story of two men, very different in temperament, who nevertheless became the closest of friends. Another great book added to the Pynchon oeuvre, and it may well be one of my favorite Pynchon books, right next to Gravity's Rainbow and Against the Day.

Pynchon has been, for me, an acquired taste, but like fine wine, once you acquire it, you wonder how you missed the beauty for so long. Sure, there are still moments (mostly the jokey ones) that I find a bit flat, but here in Mason & Dixon, his first work after a long publishing hiatus, Pynchon is at his best. It's written in a made-up "Olde Style" of writing (it's impossible to do it justice in a review), but it actually works. At least it worked for me. I found the story utterly engrossing and a real intellectual joyride.

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Digamos que lo he "terminado" después de 600 páginas (en total son 958). Me ha gustado mucho por momentos, otros no tanto. Sí que es cierto que la inventiva de Pynchon es realmente impresionante. No lo abandono, sólo que creo que ya no tiene nada más que aportarme, al menos en este momento.

My first acquaintance with Pynchon. And it’s been an incredible ride I’ll remember for a long time.

It wasn't love at first sight, oh no. First 200 pages were a confusing, excruciating chore I had to push through. Ok, I might be a bit of a drama queen, let's just say I was bored. Up until returning to England and before getting commissioned to America.

But then we met the brutal wondrous land of freedom and possibilities, America, the land of magickal were-beavers, Giants with their giant marijuana plants and eccentric travelers, pioneers. The land of suffering and ugliness west and south of the Line.
And all of it encountered through the bunch of episodic stories told by a campfire. Or a fireplace.

There’s just so much in this book that I struggle to put down in words. On the scene we've got a fantastic duo, Mason & Dixon, melancholick & cheerful; tidy & messy, etc etc. And their scene is a virginal wild America of dreams where everything is possible even if it’s a romantic phantasmagorikcal view of the continent. “Dr. Johnson says that all History unsupported by contemporary Evidence is Romance”

Yet at the same time, silently parallel to the Pleasantries of teamwork, runs their effort to convince themselves that whatever they have left upon the last ridge-top, just above the last stone cairn, as if left burning, as if left exhibited in chains before the contempt of all who pass, will find an end to its torment, and fragment by fragment across the seasons be taken back into the Tales preserv’d in Memory, among Wind-gusts, subterranean Fires, Over-Creatures of the Wild, Floods and Freezes . . . until one day ’twill all be gone, re-assum’d, only its silence left there to be clamor’d into by something else, something younger, without memory of, or respect for, what was once, across the third Turning of Dunkard Creek, brought to a halt.
tttt
And there's the great smart man Pynchon himself, his brain is a bottomless well of information it seems, with superb mental agility and fantastick sense of humor. This book is full of facts and references and I’m sure I missed a lot. Oh well, maybe next time? All weaved into an engaging story by a master storyteller. Made me wistful for the America of yore. Masterfully done.