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drinkingpondscum 's review for:
Mason & Dixon
by Thomas Pynchon
“Is it something in this wilderness, something ancient, that waited for them, and infected their souls when they came?”
Portrays the founding of America as something irrevocably evil, a business deal sealed with genocide, all in order to make a few bucks. It also interrogates the idea of boundaries in general, and the ways in which they are used mostly to just further the causes of capital. It is a fantasy set on the dark continent during the age of reason. Of course, to try to sum up this book’s themes in a few sentences is utterly impossible, there is so much going on that I could write multiple papers on this thing, and I’m sure there’s still a ton that I missed. It is a novel that is completely stuffed full of ideas (werewolves, ghosts, the invention of pizza, a mechanical duck, a talking dog, Jesuit conspiracies, giant vegetables, medieval worms, feng shui, the hollow earth, astrology, a disembodied ear) that also manages to somehow feel coherent and whole. Not only that, it is genuinely emotional at times, and Mason and Dixon are both complex, layered characters. Sure, it’s a little long winded in parts, and I’m still not a big fan of when writers imitate the prose style of older literature, but this thing is a genuinely great piece of writing. Thematically dense, deeply moving, funny—this baby’s got it all. And at its core it’s about the love between two bros. What more could you want? It’s too bad late era Pynchon is so overlooked because this is right up there with his best stuff.
Portrays the founding of America as something irrevocably evil, a business deal sealed with genocide, all in order to make a few bucks. It also interrogates the idea of boundaries in general, and the ways in which they are used mostly to just further the causes of capital. It is a fantasy set on the dark continent during the age of reason. Of course, to try to sum up this book’s themes in a few sentences is utterly impossible, there is so much going on that I could write multiple papers on this thing, and I’m sure there’s still a ton that I missed. It is a novel that is completely stuffed full of ideas (werewolves, ghosts, the invention of pizza, a mechanical duck, a talking dog, Jesuit conspiracies, giant vegetables, medieval worms, feng shui, the hollow earth, astrology, a disembodied ear) that also manages to somehow feel coherent and whole. Not only that, it is genuinely emotional at times, and Mason and Dixon are both complex, layered characters. Sure, it’s a little long winded in parts, and I’m still not a big fan of when writers imitate the prose style of older literature, but this thing is a genuinely great piece of writing. Thematically dense, deeply moving, funny—this baby’s got it all. And at its core it’s about the love between two bros. What more could you want? It’s too bad late era Pynchon is so overlooked because this is right up there with his best stuff.