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A review by duffypratt
Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
2.0
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 And there are other fun historical references, but then don't seem to connect.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 And there are other fun historical references, but then don't seem to connect.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.