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.
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...
>>7994202
>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.
That cover is shit tho
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.
>>7994202
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.
>>7994248
Wasn't that a reference to Doctor Who?
>>7994339
Yeah it was. My favourite part was the clocks having a conversation.
>>7994339
I thought that was the part when they are in the carriage.
muh big cheese
>>7994242
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?
>>7994766
bump for interest
>>7994168
what state is on the cover?
>>7995318
America
>>7995318
>>7994168
Is that cover real?
>>7995343
I've never seen this one.
>>7994766
>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.
>>7994168
I can barely understand what the summary of the book is about...
What is this book about?
what is going on in the last chapter before the final transit of Venus
>>7996247
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.
hup
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)
>>7998179
>comfy
>adventure
Yes on both
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
what were the themes in this book.
>>7999036
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.
>>7999064
what did you learn from this book?
>>7999068
Life is not easy, but we can have fun sometimes.
>>7999068
Keep cool, but care.
wait no wrong book
>>7999068
old people think star trek references are hip
>>7999098
What book are you talking about?
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
>>8000094
mason was funnier.
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
>>7998179
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.
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.
>>8000076
If I'm not mistaken, it's a motto used in Pynchon's V.
>>8000304
here you go
>>8000468
Ah, thank you!
(hadn't seen that cover when I read it, but these things can well work themselves in afterwards)
I just finished it. damn the ending was good. shed a tear or two.
>>8000468
>mfw that cover
>>8001486
is funny cuz he's English
>>8001486
I think he's high.
>>8000468
This is amazing.
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