I Read Therefore I Am discussion

Our August-October Boxall's 1001 giant read is Mason and Dixon
Comment here on chapters 1-25 as soon as you like but please hide any spoilers.
I'll start a thread for chapters 26-52 on September 15th.

Starting this tomorrow - looks good I think.

3 chapters and bit under my belt. I'm enjoying it but I'm finding I need to concentrate quite hard - certainly not an easy read - but worth it I think - lots of quirky characters - my favourite so far is the talking "Learned English Dog".

I'm glad we've got 3 months to read this - I'm having to read every chapter twice! I'm loving it though -it's very Dickensy.

Being Dickensy can only be a good thing :) I had too many books out already so will have to catch up with this one once I've taken some back but have got 3 months so there's no mad rush.

yay - we can keep each other going

Bought the Kindle version and read Chap. 1 last night. First impressions are that it's more like poetry than prose. I agree with you Lee that it needs lots of concentration and maybe reading each chapter twice. So far, I haven't really worked out who's who and where they are. Maybe some background about Mason and Dixon might help me.

You're absolutely right about it being more poetry than prose - I wish I'd got in on kindle rather than as a "proper" book - I could do with the dictionary!
I think I'm going to treat it as poetry now - and enjoy it without understanding it totally :o)

Hi Lee, I've read a few of the reviews of this book on here. Most give it a great rating. I think that one chap "Josh" has got it spot on. He says "Thanks to the first sentence, I had assumed for a long time that Mason & Dixon was one of Thomas Pynchon's most impenetrable novels".
He also says that he didn't try to understand everything - when he got in a rough spot he just moved onward to no great loss. I might take that approach to it.
Lee, have you read anything else by Pynchon?

I started this last night and I'm afraid I'm only up to page 20 and totally irritated by its use of capital letters everywhere. I had to read the bit about the talking dog a few times before it sunk in that it actually was a talking dog not a sort of euphemism for something else.

Not sure I'm going to get along with this but intend to stick with it.

@ Maureen - just read Josh's review- I think I'm going to follow his advice about a 20 page at a time limit:0)

@ Hilary - I struggled with it a bit at first - but I think I've acclimatised now- I'm not finding it easy but I am enjoying it.

@ Maureen - this the first of Mr Pynchon's books that I've tried -though The Crying of Lot 49 is somewhere in my to be read pile

I'm just beginning to enjoy some of the humour in this - like "Suture Self, as the Medical Students like to say" and the Learned English Dog has some great quips and one-liners.
I realise that there's no way I'm going to understand everything in it - it's far too deep with references to all sorts of things I know nothing about.

@Lee - I'll see how I feel about his other works, if and when I ever get to the end of this one.

@Maureen it's if and when with me too, I think it's a "magic realism" novel and although I've read a couple before in this genre, I really don't enjoy them. I was looking forward to it as well as I thought it would be an interesting subject.

Now up to page 50 and am reading with a smile on my face, hoping its going to be enjoyable now I have managed to get my head around it.

Yay!

Great news Hilary, it's good to have some company on this trip.

110 pages in the bag ! Decided to just let it wash over me and I think I'm understanding more than when I was reading every paragraph twice and concentrating myself into a headache!

Note to self: attempting to read Mason & Dixon at 5am is probably a bit of a non-starter....

Definitely - though I think that being slightly tipsy might help (haven't tried it yet though, maybe tonight)

Lol, I plan to be a bit tipsy later, might give it a try :)

P122 - two clocks are having a conversation now!

Sounds surreal - did being tipsy help?

still haven't tried it - but I think I ought to!

I have officially fallen in love with this book - something totally and delightfully crazy happens on every page - for instance, just recently one of our heroes related how he narrowly avoided being flattened by a giant cheese and then visited a museum devoted to and whispered a fervent wish to a disembodied ear! It's a huge, rambling crazy adventure of a book.

Wow Lee, I'm still in a love/hate relationship with it. Have got to St. Helena and the talking clocks bit, but need to reread as I'm not sure what is going on.
Yes, being tipsy might help - I can only read it when I'm in a certain mood - good job this is a quarterly read lol.

I'm really struggling to take to this book, I have to admit. I'm finding it very easy to be distracted by other things, including other books!

I strongly suspect this is going to be one of the very few books I abandon. It sits on my table reproaching me with my lack of commitment and inflexible mind. While I do feel guilty, I'm not sure I feel guilty enough to overcome my total lack of enthusiasm to even pick it up never mind continue trying to understand it.

I've finished the 1st section !! My advice to my fellow travellers would be - don't try to understand it - just read it and by some sort of strange osmosis you'll find that you get the general gist - I'm hoping that this approach will help me when we get to Ulysses!

I guess if we have a mass abandonment of this book we could move on to choosing our next quarterly read.

What does everyone think?

I am cheating a little. I found a website that gives a brief chapter-by-chapter synopsis and am using that to help understand what's going on so that I can concentrate more just on the writing!! I *will* read it, just not sure how long it will take....

Oooh - which website is that Ellie?

I couldn't remember earlier and had accidentally closed the page, so regoogled, and realised it's actually good old Wikipedia!

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...

Thanks Ellie - I think I shall find it v useful :o)

Ellie you are a star!

I still haven't been able to get a copy - I really am trying not to buy one so waiting for the library copy to come back in.

The above Ulysses comment worries me...

I'm sure with the training of Mason & Dixon we'll breeze through it !

Hope so! Only one way to find out I suppose...
but by the sounds of it we might have to leave it for a while till everyone recovers from Mason & Dixon!

I'm sure my random app wouldn't be so cruel as to select it in the near future :o)

8 chapters in, and I think I might actually be starting to understand the language.....!

Yah! We'll all be speaking fluent Mason&Dixon by the time we get to the end of the book.

Right! This is the week when I concentrate on this book. If I haven't got somewhere with it by the end of Friday I intend to abandon all hope of finishing it. I honestly can't remember the last book that I found so intriguing yet frustrating. I read it smiling and at the same time wanting to hurl it at a wall. Make or break time this week.

Good luck Hilary!

I finally managed to get hold of a copy of Mason & Dixon!!! So will hopefully be starting soon :)

Yay! The more the merrier

@Ellie thanks for the Wikipedia link.
Here's another link that's quite useful. It contains a PDF by Toby Levy who read it at 3 pages per day and looked up all the references and obscure vocabulary.
http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/...

I'm at Page 150 now - in St Helena and enjoying this much more than Capetown and the Vroom girls.

Thanks Maureen - I think that will be very useful - especially for the more obscure parts - what an undertaking though !

Thanks from me too Maureen, the man deserves a medal!

I've sent the PDF to my kindle :)

excellent idea Ellie - will try and do the same myself.

Nice, I'm going to keep it to hand when I start reading - Thanks!