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selenotropic 's review for:
Mason & Dixon
by Thomas Pynchon
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
inspiring
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A truly extraordinary book. Pynchon's writing is always beautiful, but here every sentence is absolutely bursting with incredible imagery and creative language, at turns scary, elegiac, and completely ridiculous. And the two central personages are certainly his best characters. While Gravity's Rainbow is a cold, angry, alienated book, Mason & Dixon is warm and human, and this warmth is best reflected in the messy, complicated, beautiful friendship that grows between the titular characters. This is where the length of the book really pays off, as well. You feel like you've lived a life with the two of them by the end and it feels strange and sad to put the book down and realize you're not going to share their adventures anymore.
This outdoes GR for me, I think. There's a stretch near the end of Part 2 where things get somewhat tedious (though knowing Pynchon that may be intentional), but it turns around easily, and the last 100 or so pages are some of the most deeply emotional writing I've read anywhere. And from Pynchon! Perhaps he was in a better mood in the 90s than he was in 70s.
There are some excellent reviews on this page you can read for a more in-depth look into the book's themes, so I will just end by saying that this is really the best of both worlds as a novel. It's at once a monolith of postmodern deconstruction and deeply human. It's filled with incredibly-layered themes you could analyze forever, but it's also a rollicking road trip story at heart. It's probably a masterpiece, but I may just have to read it again to say.
* addendum: I was rather impressed by Pynchon's grappling with the complex history of slavery and colonialism that America is built on. GR also tackled race issues, but in a way that swayed between sympathetic and a bit edgy. M&D, however, is very honest and upfront about sympathetically and sadly depicting how horrible Europeans were to everyone who was not them. The advantages of having a Quaker protagonist, perhaps.
This outdoes GR for me, I think. There's a stretch near the end of Part 2 where things get somewhat tedious (though knowing Pynchon that may be intentional), but it turns around easily, and the last 100 or so pages are some of the most deeply emotional writing I've read anywhere. And from Pynchon! Perhaps he was in a better mood in the 90s than he was in 70s.
There are some excellent reviews on this page you can read for a more in-depth look into the book's themes, so I will just end by saying that this is really the best of both worlds as a novel. It's at once a monolith of postmodern deconstruction and deeply human. It's filled with incredibly-layered themes you could analyze forever, but it's also a rollicking road trip story at heart. It's probably a masterpiece, but I may just have to read it again to say.
* addendum: I was rather impressed by Pynchon's grappling with the complex history of slavery and colonialism that America is built on. GR also tackled race issues, but in a way that swayed between sympathetic and a bit edgy. M&D, however, is very honest and upfront about sympathetically and sadly depicting how horrible Europeans were to everyone who was not them. The advantages of having a Quaker protagonist, perhaps.