Thomas Pynchon discussion
Mason & Dixon
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Pynch does such a good job of staying 'in character' the whole way through this book. it's a real treat once the rhythm of the language sinks in
indeed - someone just asked me over the weekend if i thought M&D was a good place to start - i said, no, not if you're used to reading contemporary fiction. i recommended CRYING OF LOT 39 ... that always seems like a good place to start with him. and i told her, if you want to take on a big book, maybe start with AGAINST THE DAY.
Apart from 'Lot 49''Slow Learner' is also a nice place to start.Any thoughts on 'The Bleeding Edge' anyone?
we should talk about "The Bleeding Edge" in the rumors thread (though it's not clear that that's what it's about), if that's cool.M&D is a difficult place to begin with Pynchon, but, for instance, I have a friend who has read all of the Patrick O'brian novels, and loves them especially for the period language. For Him, I think M&D is the perfect place to start.
I started with Vineland and love it, and also recommend it as a gateway.
Dipanjan wrote: "Apart from 'Lot 49''Slow Learner' is also a nice place to start.Any thoughts on 'The Bleeding Edge' anyone?"Well, I can't imagine a better place to start than Lot 49. Although I just started re-reading Inherent Vice, and while less typical of TRP, it's a hoot that I'd feel fine recommending to any fan of The Big Lebowski!
Dipanjan wrote: "Apart from 'Lot 49''Slow Learner' is also a nice place to start.Any thoughts on 'The Bleeding Edge' anyone?"Hard to have any thoughts on a book that's yet to appear, except to say I can't wait until it does!
The reason I proposed 'Slow Learner' was because of P's 'Introduction'. I think not only do we hear P speak dispassionately about his earliest efforts but perhaps more importantly about the 'how', the techniques he employed, situating himself squarely at a 'transition point' in cultural history 'a strange post-Beat passage' as he calls it.What is also interesting is how he makes it into a 'cautionary' tale for 'younger writers'.
It was about 1979 when Gravity's Rainbow found me. I was 19 at the time. Something about it intrigued me enough to purchase it and begin my first attempt at reading it. I was unsuccessful. I decided to try V., back when a paperback copy was a couple of bucks. I read it and was impressed by the writing, realized that there was no "proper" denouement and wasn't sure how I felt about that. As Pynchon said, "You will want cause and effect." He was right. At the time, I did. Anyway, cut to 2013. I've read all of his work, some several times. I think for a reader unaccustomed to his style & content, they would be better served to start with his novel's that are closest to "traditional." They also seem to be the shortest. Slow Learner, The Crying of Lot 49, Vineland, Inherent Vice would be great places to start. His entire oeuvre is a great place to finish...
In the '70s, having a beat-up copy of Gravity's Rainbow was a sign, not unlike the W.A.S.T.E posthorn, of hip, being part of the elect, the cool - at least in some obscure, literate circles on campus. So I'd say start there. It may take you a few assaults to conquer the bastard, but it's a noble life goal. Took me 3 attempts and many years.The intro to Slow Learner is the main reason to buy that book. Worth the price of admission. Lot 49 - sure. Easy to knock off...but GR - that's where the gold is.
But further to all that, Mason & Dixon is wonderful. Achingly beautiful. My mind is starred with the opening.
John wrote: "It was about 1979 when Gravity's Rainbow found me. I was 19 at the time. Something about it intrigued me enough to purchase it and begin my first attempt at reading it. I was unsuccessful. I decide..."Nice post. I'm with you, John...
Did you notice the parallel between the openings of GR and MD? The arc of the snowball and the arc of V2 rocket. That arc defines the thematic sweep of each novel.
nice joe - and thanks for steering this thread back to M&D, which i am re-reading and enjoying immensely!
Indeed. Back to the matter at hand. Mason & Dixon. Its beauty sticks with me, the lovely prose.Which brings to mind Mark Knopfler's Sailing to Philadelphia. A gorgeously commemorative tune.
I believe I'll put it on the phonographickal device right now.
i should have known there was good web stuff on M&D - a friend introduced me to this wiki when i was complaining that i wished i had more knowledge of american history in the 18th century ...http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wik...
you folks probably already knew about this, but for me it was a nice revelation.
I really like all the cartography stuff being linked with the astrology stuff. It’s one of those themes the book hits you over the head with, but with the union of Dixon and mason, you really start to get how geographies feel in some sense determined by celestial movements, in that way that our borders may reflect our obsessions towards stuff like the current position of the zodiac. It’s a fun book, it presents itself in that impossibly endearing way only Pynchon can be, and it rings nice in the head after.
Tabes wrote: "I really like all the cartography stuff being linked with the astrology stuff. It’s one of those themes the book hits you over the head with, but with the union of Dixon and mason, you really start..."good point, tabes. i am again re-reading it (M&D) and enjoying it more than ever. i also felt a connection between the cartography / astronomy aspect and the "traverse of webs" that represent the geographical arcs of characters in AGAINST THE DAY. in the case of the longer, denser pynchon works (the novels other than VINELAND, INHERENT VICE and THE BLEEDING EDGE), reading those two or three times (third time's a charm!) offered the greatest pleasure of comprehension and clarity.
pynchon, like joyce, teaches us how to read through the signs and contours of their text, or perhaps more specifically how to read their work. i took M&D on the road this summer (i am a musician who tours a good bit), and having the extended periods of time without being at home where numerous distractions occur is just the right place to be when reading this/these books. as you all know, there are numerous characters to track, for one thing, and with M&D you also have the challenge of the language to settle into. so this summer with longer stretches of time at my disposal (and a pledge to steer away from social media and the ever present hand held device) i have had some wonderful stretches of time to focus.
MASON & DIXON such a beautiful book.
impossible to write about. seems like pynchon knows all the words and how to make them do all the things. there's also something in pynchon that defies re-telling. there is a constant shifting of comprehension. i hate to use drugs as a metaphor, but you know that moment when you're under the influence and you think you've figured it all out but then the next day when you wake up you're right back to knowing nothing? this is that. any grasp or foothold in the text is temporary. pynchon's narrative transitions can resemble a house of mirrors.
how did i get here?
it's daunting to sum this thing and a summary seems futile. you can't do this book justice.
but a friend said, a book wants you to boast about it. it can't boast, it can only give itself to you.
in this case you must also give yourself to the book, because some books change the way you read. this book makes demands and if you rise to them, you will be rewarded. i have wanted to re-read this book for .... 15 years? but i would start and get thrown off the trail. i was lucky this summer to have the time to slow down and settle in. i'm so glad that i did. what a gift, this book. this history lesson gone giddy. this living folkloric creature gone bezerk.
another friend said this book is one of the loveliest gifts an artist has ever given to us.
i'll second that.
another friend and i have been having a conversation about what books give us, or what we get from books. the important thing i get from books, especially a book like this, is that it proves that novels (or non-fiction texts) don't have to behave a certain way. a book can do whatever it wants and that inspires me to be myself. i don't have to behave the way others do. i can carve my own path. this book is like no other, it's not even like other thomas pynchon books.
the big books that pynchon has written chart a course across the face of the planet.
AGAINST THE DAY charts many paths - the traverse family (mostly) scatter around the globe after their father has been assassinated.
V. "roams all over the map".
MASON & DIXON charts simultaneous paths. astronomer charles mason uses the stars to navigate positions on the ground. jeremiah dixon takes that information and creates cartography. he maps the world by referring to the structure of the cosmos. and so the phrase "as above, so below" appears throughout the book. draw your own conclusions as to how pynchon might use this to chart the activities of dutch colonialists in south africa, in measuring colonialists in the so called new world as they prepare to rid the colonies of british rule, or as a way of charting a line between north (wage workers) and south (slave workers).
so, pathways
we remember the opening of GRAVITY'S RAINBOW: "A screaming comes across the sky"
the opening of MASON & DIXON: "Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs"
and that the opening of AGAINST THE DAY takes place in a hot air balloon commandeered by the Chums of Chance en route to the (soon to be burned to the ground) chicago world's fair.
pathways - lines - make your mark.
but the story, or the job, isn't solely focused on a line dividing pennsylvania and maryland. it's a story about people, and as it often happens in pynchon, there is a concern as to how the characters navigate the invisible line (force) of capitalism - who files on the left? who files on the right? or how greed distorts our persona, our humanity ... how systems stemming from capital might incite a revolution. the novel often wonders aloud, emerging from the mouths of our protagonists: "What are we doing Here?"
also, a remarkable allegiance to research. history, or a desire to represent what really happened, pops up on every page. i used the pynchon wiki on this reading and i was astonished daily to discover how much "accurate" history is represented in these 773 pages.
our narrator also tells us that, "Who claims Truth, Truth abandons. History is hir'd, or coerc'd, only in Interests that must ever prove base. She is too innocent to be left within the reach of anyone in Power,- who need but touch her, and all her Credit is in the instant vanish'd, as if it had never been. She needs rather to be tended lovingly and honorably by fabulists and counterfeiters, Ballad-Mongers and Cranks of ev'ry Radius, Masters of Disguise to provide her the Costume, Toilette, and Bearing, and Speech nimble enough to keep her beyond the Desires, or even the Curiosity, of Government."
(... like i said re: acid trip, etc.)
and so our narrator, one reverend wicks cherrycoke, admits, when pressed by the children and adults listening to the story we are reading, that he may not have been present at some of the proceedings, but, "that's how it would have had to have happened".
the book is indeed a kind of historical document, but pynchon isn't interested in cutting and pasting his research. he is possessed by imagination, and anyone who has read him knows this is where the stakes are raised. pynchon floats just above a tightrope of reality and hallucination, and challenges us to determine which is which. at other times we catch him merely inspiring us to laugh.
and so we are presented with a talking dog, a talking mechanical duck who flirts and longs to have an amorous partner (setting her sights on a french chef until the right duck comes along), the electric current of a giant eel stored in a stolen bathtub is used to determine true north. we meet a snake who could talk if it wanted to, but has learned that if you speak, the humans are just going to make a spectacle of you and you'll spend the rest of your days in a circus.
or we are invited to sit on the porch with general george washington, his african-born foreman, and our leading lads while they smoke pipe-loads of hemp and discuss politics, and no one flinches when the foreman's perspectives contradict or oppose the general's. then martha washington joins, having smelled the hemp-smoke, with some tea and freshly fried fritters and donuts to put the kabash on their munchies.
or we return to slavery, oppression, and religion - those who sell the bodies of africans, or receive payment for what might be considered as labor, are on hand to bring us back to these earthly concerns on which the vaulted heavens are a reflection.
mason and dixon are strange companions. their differences threaten to drive them apart but they cannot separate for long. mason is melancholic, longs to be reunited with his wife, who has passed away a few years before our story begins. he desires induction in the society of royal astronomers, but is thwarted by a certain mr maskelyne, who may be the scarsdale vibe (ATD) of M&D. dixon is ... earthy, curious, a quaker who will not abide with cruelty or the absence of liberty. he is not easily weighed down by circumstance. his levity encourages us to ascend while mason's regrets bring us back to earth.
as our crew considers the land, we readers are encouraged to question whether or not giants walked this earth before us. evidence appears to support such a notion. mr dixon, being a believer of the "hollow earth" theory, is taken on a tour of a place beneath the surface of our planet (predictions of AGAINST THE DAY).
in contrast, in response to a discussion where mr mason dismisses the notion of giants with one of the many native americans who populate the narrative, a mohawk speaks his truth:
"Listen to me, Defecates-with-Pigeons. Long before any of you came here, we dream'd of you. All the people, even Nations far to the South and the West, dreamt you before we ever saw you, - we believ'd that you came from another World, or the Sky. You had Powers and we respected them. Yet you never dream'd of us, and when at last you saw us, wish'd only to destroy us. Then the killing started, - some of you, some of us, - but not nearly as many as we'd been expecting. You could not be the Giants of long ago, who would simply have wip'd us away, and for less. Instead, you sold us your Powers, - your Rifles, - as if encouraging us to shoot at you, - and so we did, tho' not hitting as many of you, as you were expecting. Now you begin to believe that we have come from elsewhere, possessing Powers you do not ... Those of us who knew how, have fled into Refuge in your Dreams, at last. Tho' we now pursue real lives no different at their Hearts from yours, we are also your Dreams."
but enough of summaries.
i don't know if i've inspired you to read this magnificent book, but that was my desire. to share a bit of a "you gotta see this!" kind of thing. the language, which calls upon 18th century bards, intellectuals, and plain folk, is constantly shifting. it will leave you in the dust if you're not paying attention. like the big ideas expressed by james joyce, as anthony burgess put it: "the real wisdom is in round, dublin terms" .... the truths, if there are such things in pynchon's universe, may just emerge from the mouth of a terrier.
i'm reading it (again!), well i started it a few times and got sidetracked. with pynchon's longer novels i feel it's important not to lose the thread, and i was doing that on my other previous attempts. i have got past the uphill slump - and have now made some nice progress and am really digging it. the language is a bit more thorny, but it has all the usual humor and controlled recklessness that i so admire in mr p.
the characters are great too - especially the family (the twins, pitt and pliny, and others) sitting 'round the table listening to reverend cherrycoke (ha! he said cherry coke!). love the storyteller aspect of it and the shift of focus from story teller to story told.