Just finished Mason & Dixon. I think it's one of my favorite novels now. The ending was so touching, I never thought this book would make me feel so sad for saying goodbye to those characters.
Also, Cape Town was really fun to read. The French attack while they were onboard the Seahorse was terrifying. There were some really crazy shit I can't even try to explain to someone who doesn't know Pynchon. The talking dog, the duck, those parts about the Hollow Earth, a were-beaver (?), Dixon's paranoia about something bigger commanding their paths, Mason's melancholy etc. Man, did I have fun with this.
>“And if it all were nought but Madmen’s Sleep? >The Years we all believ’d were real and deep >As Lives, as Sorrows, bearing us each one >Blindly along our Line’s relentless Run....”
What were your favorite passages? What did you like about it, what you didn't? Mason & Dixon appreciation thread I guess.
Gabriel Miller
The suddenly meandering chinaman-swedes-jesuits plot was the only point at which the book ever felt long.
Does it feel like the passages happening indoors are less crazy? Well the duck is everywhere and that tub was just par for the course, but I guess not...
Elijah Wilson
>The suddenly meandering chinaman-swedes-jesuits plot was the only point at which the book ever felt long.
I agree. Even though the episode when he disguises as the Spanish jesuit he wanted to get rid of and then he starts believing he's the jesuit himself was hilarious.
Carter Mitchell
That cover is shit tho
Gabriel Robinson
I honestly thought the book was kind of meh until the ending. the ending totally redeemed it. I liked the invention of the sandwich. the first pizza outside of Rome. I thought the ghastly fop was the best part of the book. pynchon totally could have wrote a thriller.
Austin Reyes
also the tub part. when they are outside it says they see a small dark shack. wtf was that place actually? once they get inside it's huge.
Jonathan Collins
Wasn't that a reference to Doctor Who?
Joseph Sanchez
Yeah it was. My favourite part was the clocks having a conversation.
Jackson Martin
I thought that was the part when they are in the carriage.
Gavin Robinson
muh big cheese
Justin Perry
Cape Town is definitely the best part. America is great too, but not so consistent as the first one. It feels like a sequence of disjointed stories. I think that was Pynchon's intention though.
I'll to read Gravity's Rainbow now. Is it any similar to M&D?
Connor Davis
bump for interest
Isaac Barnes
what state is on the cover?
Aiden Wilson
America
Samuel Sanchez
...
Gabriel Ramirez
Is that cover real?
Jacob Mitchell
I've never seen this one.
David Perez
Yeah, it's an Italian 2009 edition. ISBN 8817031704
Noah Russell
>Is it any similar to M&D? Not exactly, but - aside from the archaic patina - it is written in the same style and shares some of its structural tricks and themes.
Alexander Hall
I can barely understand what the summary of the book is about...
What is this book about?
Gabriel Williams
The Effigies room is the creepiest thing in all Pynchon.
Geomancy and stuff
Luke Jones
what is going on in the last chapter before the final transit of Venus
Oliver Diaz
It's some kind of alternate version of what actually happened. It's funny because those random things keep happening in the book all the time and you're never sure of anything.
Alexander Torres
hup
Brayden Jenkins
I plan to read it this summer after finals. Pretty excited.
Is it as comfy as I imagine it to be? Would OP, or anyone who's read it, consider it to be adventurous? I could use some cold hard adventure lit. I loved GR, IV and Vineland (closed Bleed Edge halfway through)
Parker Robinson
>comfy >adventure Yes on both
Jack Ross
My favorite part is with the plantation owner's wife who has her hot daughters constantly blue-balling their visitors. She does it to mason so hell frustratedly bang the slave woman, and the wife will be able to sell the mulatto baby. But mason aint having it on account of his dead wife -- Dixon starts roasting him for the boner he's constantly walking around with and its hysterical
Jason Parker
what were the themes in this book.
Jacob Martinez
Slavery, paranoia, science bringing an end to magic and inexplicable things, friendship, dealing with the death of loved ones, things that we will never understand, adventure in a time we didn't know all places on Earth, deism, jesuits, and so on.
Anthony Mitchell
what did you learn from this book?
Logan Russell
Life is not easy, but we can have fun sometimes.
Hunter Parker
Keep cool, but care. wait no wrong book
Anthony Murphy
old people think star trek references are hip
Jack Cruz
What book are you talking about?
Ryder Smith
Like Infinite Jest, where some people prefer the tennis academy parts and other people enjoy better the AA halfway house parts, I was more of a fan of Mason than Dixon, when I read this book. I'd say I'm more of a mAson tjan adixi
Carson Lee
mason was funnier.
Charles Brown
I've trouble finding the source of what Dixon looks like in my mind. It would be somewhere near a cross between Stephen Fry, Gerard Depardieu and pic related, but less fat than tall. Must be something about a sensual nose I'm sure, seeping through whatever description there might be of him in the book, and it of course doesn't look like the actual Jeremiah Dixon at all. Fucking Pynchon
Andrew Baker
It's actually the comfiest book of all time. The first sentence alone will have you snuggling up to a fireplace even if it's the middle of August.
Daniel Lewis
there's not much of a point to this book. if it wasn't for the ending I wouldn't like it that much. it's beautifully written.
Eli Sullivan
If I'm not mistaken, it's a motto used in Pynchon's V.
Isaac Davis
here you go
Thomas Bell
Ah, thank you! (hadn't seen that cover when I read it, but these things can well work themselves in afterwards)
Hudson Myers
I just finished it. damn the ending was good. shed a tear or two.