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4.18 AVERAGE
4.18 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
funny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
It took me a long time to read this book. I raced through about the first 400 pages and loved it with the love gradually waning. The writing is beautiful. I'm interested in the subject. I loved Gravity's Rainbow. What's not to like?
And then I slowly started to bog down. I got the same sort of feeling of stasis that I get from, say, Sterne's Tristram Shandy. Each paragraph seems brilliant, but nothing seems to go anywhere, or maybe I was missing something (though that never bothered me with Gravity's Rainbow, where I assuredly missed a lot).
Yes, they partied with Franklin and that was cool. And they smoked dope with George Washington. And there are other fun historical references, but then don't seem to connect. And this is a problem I've had with Picaresque novels in general (including Don Quixote). The can seem fun in the moment, but for me, they all tend to simply stall.
Anyway, I got to within 100 pages of the end over the next few months, with several distractions in between, and then simply put it down for a couple of years. Last month, I decided to finish it and I'm glad I did. I think it's a remarkable work, but not one that I enjoyed all that much, at least not after what seemed like an amazingly impressive opening. It's entirely possible that this failing is mine and not the books.
And then I slowly started to bog down. I got the same sort of feeling of stasis that I get from, say, Sterne's Tristram Shandy. Each paragraph seems brilliant, but nothing seems to go anywhere, or maybe I was missing something (though that never bothered me with Gravity's Rainbow, where I assuredly missed a lot).
Yes, they partied with Franklin and that was cool. And they smoked dope with George Washington. And there are other fun historical references, but then don't seem to connect. And this is a problem I've had with Picaresque novels in general (including Don Quixote). The can seem fun in the moment, but for me, they all tend to simply stall.
Anyway, I got to within 100 pages of the end over the next few months, with several distractions in between, and then simply put it down for a couple of years. Last month, I decided to finish it and I'm glad I did. I think it's a remarkable work, but not one that I enjoyed all that much, at least not after what seemed like an amazingly impressive opening. It's entirely possible that this failing is mine and not the books.
“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.”
Hey... this book is good.
Hey... this book is good.
Without a doubt, Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon has skyrocketed to the top of the vast pile of my all time favorite novels. It may seem both off-putting and intimidating at first to pick up a postmodern, experimental tomb written in 18th century style, especially by Pynchon, but it is so worth the adventure. Pynchon's encyclopedic knowledge of advanced mathematics, astronomy, history, philosophy, architecture, physics and geography is nothing short of inspirational for me as a writer. Not only is Mason & Dixon his greatest achievement, it is probably the finest postmodern novel I have had the pleasure to read.
Mason & Dixon was undeniably well written, and the use of language is a pleasure. I have some complaints about the book that I'm not qualified to post or at least I don't think I can express them well. I have to admit that the overall experience was, in the end, disappointing. I know this might be an unpopular opinion but while I'm glad I read it, I don't highly recommend it and I doubt I'll read it again.
It would take me about three hours to do a decent review of this novel but suffice it to say that it really delves into the actual characters that Mason and Dixon both were, or at least how Thomas Pynchon imagined them to be. Pynchon did an extraordinary amount of research from the foods eaten to the old fashioned words in dialog and even the way words were spelled back then. There's also a sense of the preposterous here between the ghost of Mason's dead wife and a sense of missing 11 calendar days. My favorite parts were the animated duck and dog, gigantic vegetables, werewolves, the discovery of Uranus, the sense of overall adventure, the personification of Melancholy, and the sense of history of these two Brits coming to survey the land of America on the brink of it's fruition when there was a clear struggle between and the European settlers as well as a clear sense of wrongdoing that Mason and Dixon have against slavery...and, of course, animosity was growing between those who had settled in North America and Great Britain. It was a time when lightning storms and eclipses were the most exciting thing to happen and when two land surveyors could, in Pynchon's mind, have the adventure of a lifetime. There's a bizarre supernatural aspect of this in parts but just enough of a sense of actual history to keep it grounded. There's also a great deal of religion here with partial sermons even.
In any case, I'm not sure how much Pynchon embellished on their personalities but I found myself wanting every word to be true and really routing for these two...Also, I admit I liked Mason the best. This is the kind of novel one could cherish many times throughout a lifetime in all it's nonfiction historical elements mixed with the preposterous ones.
Some quotes I liked:
pg. 220 "He (Emerson) has devis'd a sailing Scheme, whereby Winds are imagin'd to be forms of Gravity acting not vertically but laterally, along the Globe's Surface,-a ship to him is the Paradigm of the Universe."
pg. 289 "Melancholicks are flocking to Town like Crows, dark'ning the Sun"
pg. 309 "Soon there's a distinct feeling in the Rooms of Afternoon...the Child trembles at the turn in the Day when the ghosts shift about behind the Doors, and out in the Gust beaten wilderness come the Paxton boys..."
pg. 346 "In America, as I apprehend, Time is the true River that runs 'round Hell."
pg. 361 "What Machine is it, "young Cherrycoke later bade himself goodnight, "that bears us along so relentlessly? We go rattling thro' another Day,-another Year,-as tho' an empty Town without a Name, in the Midnight...we have but Memories of some Pause at the Pleasure-Spas of our younger Day, the Maidens, the Cards, the Claret,-we seek to extend our stay, but now a silent Functionary in dark Livery indicates it is time to re-board the Coach, and resume the Journey. Long before the Destination, moreover, shall this Machine come abruptly to a Stop...gather'd dense with Fear, shall we open the Door to confer with the Driver, to discover that there is no Driver,...no Horses,...only the Machine, fading as we stand, and a Prairie of desperate Immensity..."
pg. 512 "Like a Dream just before the animals wake up..."
pg. 555 "Mason for a while had presum'd it but a matter of confusing dates, which are Names, with Days, which are real Things. Yet for anyone he met born before '52 and alive after it, the missing Eleven Days road again and again in Conversation, sooner or later characteriz'd as "brute Absence," or "a Tear thro' the favric of Life," and the more he wrestl'd with the Question, the more the advantage shifted toward a Belief, as he would tell Dixon one day, "In a slowly rotating Loop, or if you like, Vortex, of eleven days, tangent to the Linear Path of what we imagine as Ordinary Time, but excluded from it, and repeating itself,-without end."
pg. 586 "There is a love of complexity, here in America..."
pg. 603 "Withal, he (Mason) is too open himself to the seductions of Melancholy and its own comfortless phantoms, to call anything even as remotely hopeful as this into question..."
pg. 614 "A Defile of Ghosts growing, with the Years, more desperate and savage, to Settlers and Indians alike. You'd not wish this Line to pass to close to them, I shouldn't think."
pg. 634 "So that's why Swedes chose to sail between the Capes of Delaware,-the thought it was another Fjord! You fellows do like a nice Fjord, it seems. Instead, they found Pennsylvania!"
pg. 637 "But Time, surely, by now, no longer matters to her (the duck)?" Peter now curious,"-no longer passes the same way, I mean."
The Frenchman shrugs. "Yet we few, fortunate Objects of her Visits remain ever tight in Time's Embrace," sighing as if for the Duck alone.
"She, then,...enters and leaves the Stream of Time as she likes?"
pg. 657 "Another Lively Question is, Does it remember the Days, when we were bigger than Beets, yes, by about the same Proportion'd you notice, that Beets are now bigger than us? Now that the Tables are turn'd, do, do they harbor Grudges? Do they have a concept of Revenge, perhaps for insults we never intended?"
pg. 702 "Then why not consider Light itself as equally noxious," inquires Dixon, "for doth it not move ever straight ahead?"
"Ah!" a gleam as likely Madness as Merriment appearing in his Eye..."
pg. 745 "Out there in the Fog brimming and sweeping now over Ridge-tops and into the Glens, somewhere it waits, the world across the next Line, in darkness and isolation, barren, unforgiving, a Nation that within Mason's lifetime has risen to seize the Crown, been harrow'd into submission, then been shipp'd in great Lots to America. "I imagine there's yet a bit of ..resentment about?"
The Doctor snorts. "The word you grope for is Hatred, Sir,-inveterate, inflexible Hatred. The 'Forty-five lives on here, a Ghost from a Gothick Novel, ubiquitous, frightfully shatter'd, exhibition gallons of a certain crimson Fluid..."
pg. 746-747 "This Mountain I'm about to seek must be regular as a Prism, as if purposefully constructed in days of old by forces more powerful than ours...powerful enough to suggest about God (whatever that may be) has not altogether quit our own desperate Day."
pg. 750 "Reflection on any Topick is an unforgivable Lapse, out here at any moment where Death may come whistling in from the Dark.
"Well Hullo, Death, what's that you're whistling?"
"Oo, little Ditters von Dittersdorf, nothing you'd recognize, hasn't happen'd yet, not even sure you'll live till it's perform'd anywhere,-have to check the Folio as to that, get back to you?"
pg. 759 "When the Hook of Night is well set, and when all the Children are at last irretrievably detain'd within their Dreams, slowly into the Room begin to walk the Black servants, the Indian poor, the Irish runaways, the Chinese Sailors, the overflow'd from the mad Hospital, all unchosen Philadelphia, as if something outside, beyond the cold Wind, has driven them to this extreme seeking refuge. They bring their Scars, their Pox-pitted Cheeks, their Burdens and Losses, feverish Eyes, their proud fellowship in a Mobilitiy, that is to be, whose shape none inside this House may know."
pg. 762 "Yet, 'tis possible, after all, down here, to die of Melancholy."
In any case, I'm not sure how much Pynchon embellished on their personalities but I found myself wanting every word to be true and really routing for these two...Also, I admit I liked Mason the best. This is the kind of novel one could cherish many times throughout a lifetime in all it's nonfiction historical elements mixed with the preposterous ones.
Some quotes I liked:
pg. 220 "He (Emerson) has devis'd a sailing Scheme, whereby Winds are imagin'd to be forms of Gravity acting not vertically but laterally, along the Globe's Surface,-a ship to him is the Paradigm of the Universe."
pg. 289 "Melancholicks are flocking to Town like Crows, dark'ning the Sun"
pg. 309 "Soon there's a distinct feeling in the Rooms of Afternoon...the Child trembles at the turn in the Day when the ghosts shift about behind the Doors, and out in the Gust beaten wilderness come the Paxton boys..."
pg. 346 "In America, as I apprehend, Time is the true River that runs 'round Hell."
pg. 361 "What Machine is it, "young Cherrycoke later bade himself goodnight, "that bears us along so relentlessly? We go rattling thro' another Day,-another Year,-as tho' an empty Town without a Name, in the Midnight...we have but Memories of some Pause at the Pleasure-Spas of our younger Day, the Maidens, the Cards, the Claret,-we seek to extend our stay, but now a silent Functionary in dark Livery indicates it is time to re-board the Coach, and resume the Journey. Long before the Destination, moreover, shall this Machine come abruptly to a Stop...gather'd dense with Fear, shall we open the Door to confer with the Driver, to discover that there is no Driver,...no Horses,...only the Machine, fading as we stand, and a Prairie of desperate Immensity..."
pg. 512 "Like a Dream just before the animals wake up..."
pg. 555 "Mason for a while had presum'd it but a matter of confusing dates, which are Names, with Days, which are real Things. Yet for anyone he met born before '52 and alive after it, the missing Eleven Days road again and again in Conversation, sooner or later characteriz'd as "brute Absence," or "a Tear thro' the favric of Life," and the more he wrestl'd with the Question, the more the advantage shifted toward a Belief, as he would tell Dixon one day, "In a slowly rotating Loop, or if you like, Vortex, of eleven days, tangent to the Linear Path of what we imagine as Ordinary Time, but excluded from it, and repeating itself,-without end."
pg. 586 "There is a love of complexity, here in America..."
pg. 603 "Withal, he (Mason) is too open himself to the seductions of Melancholy and its own comfortless phantoms, to call anything even as remotely hopeful as this into question..."
pg. 614 "A Defile of Ghosts growing, with the Years, more desperate and savage, to Settlers and Indians alike. You'd not wish this Line to pass to close to them, I shouldn't think."
pg. 634 "So that's why Swedes chose to sail between the Capes of Delaware,-the thought it was another Fjord! You fellows do like a nice Fjord, it seems. Instead, they found Pennsylvania!"
pg. 637 "But Time, surely, by now, no longer matters to her (the duck)?" Peter now curious,"-no longer passes the same way, I mean."
The Frenchman shrugs. "Yet we few, fortunate Objects of her Visits remain ever tight in Time's Embrace," sighing as if for the Duck alone.
"She, then,...enters and leaves the Stream of Time as she likes?"
pg. 657 "Another Lively Question is, Does it remember the Days, when we were bigger than Beets, yes, by about the same Proportion'd you notice, that Beets are now bigger than us? Now that the Tables are turn'd, do, do they harbor Grudges? Do they have a concept of Revenge, perhaps for insults we never intended?"
pg. 702 "Then why not consider Light itself as equally noxious," inquires Dixon, "for doth it not move ever straight ahead?"
"Ah!" a gleam as likely Madness as Merriment appearing in his Eye..."
pg. 745 "Out there in the Fog brimming and sweeping now over Ridge-tops and into the Glens, somewhere it waits, the world across the next Line, in darkness and isolation, barren, unforgiving, a Nation that within Mason's lifetime has risen to seize the Crown, been harrow'd into submission, then been shipp'd in great Lots to America. "I imagine there's yet a bit of ..resentment about?"
The Doctor snorts. "The word you grope for is Hatred, Sir,-inveterate, inflexible Hatred. The 'Forty-five lives on here, a Ghost from a Gothick Novel, ubiquitous, frightfully shatter'd, exhibition gallons of a certain crimson Fluid..."
pg. 746-747 "This Mountain I'm about to seek must be regular as a Prism, as if purposefully constructed in days of old by forces more powerful than ours...powerful enough to suggest about God (whatever that may be) has not altogether quit our own desperate Day."
pg. 750 "Reflection on any Topick is an unforgivable Lapse, out here at any moment where Death may come whistling in from the Dark.
"Well Hullo, Death, what's that you're whistling?"
"Oo, little Ditters von Dittersdorf, nothing you'd recognize, hasn't happen'd yet, not even sure you'll live till it's perform'd anywhere,-have to check the Folio as to that, get back to you?"
pg. 759 "When the Hook of Night is well set, and when all the Children are at last irretrievably detain'd within their Dreams, slowly into the Room begin to walk the Black servants, the Indian poor, the Irish runaways, the Chinese Sailors, the overflow'd from the mad Hospital, all unchosen Philadelphia, as if something outside, beyond the cold Wind, has driven them to this extreme seeking refuge. They bring their Scars, their Pox-pitted Cheeks, their Burdens and Losses, feverish Eyes, their proud fellowship in a Mobilitiy, that is to be, whose shape none inside this House may know."
pg. 762 "Yet, 'tis possible, after all, down here, to die of Melancholy."
adventurous
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes