/lit/ - Literature

Things are and they are not.

I'm realizing now the simple Truth that the Line isn't really a Line at all. No, no, how could it be? To the west, our Astronomer and Surveyor head toward a constant Futurity. To the east, these twins, these points, well, they are before themselves, always before the Rising of the Sun and its decent, the drop Westwardly eternal. Time is immense, incalculable, but set, each hand, carefully Transfixed to slice through all increments of Form -- but a Form set and forgotten, by Our narrator, into void eternal.

Our two points, on either side of their Line, ehh, hmmm, our Arc. Tis' an Arc, Sir. Trust me. Both men, one to expand with the Gas and Stars, the other to demarcate the Grass and Lustly bits -- Our point, as one, set in motion, the tug and Tether between their geometry as concentrate Meaning in abundance -- breathing life into Those alive and Those airy.

Hi /lit/
How do you see mason & dixon compared to Pynchons other work? I have yet to read gravitys rainbow and V, and I'm wondering if I'm guaranteed satisfaction if i enjoyed M&D?

Also, concerning M&D, did anyone else see the master-slave dialectics of hegel all over the place?

I think that I'm enjoying this more than Gravity's Rainbow, and I enjoyed that a lot. Why does this book seem to be forgotten by everybody?

The Astronomers have a game call'd "Sumatra" that the Revd often sees them at together, -- as children, sometimes, are seen to console themselves when something is denied them, -- their Board a sort of spoken Map of the Island they have been kept from and will never see. "Taking a run in to Bencoolen, anything we need?" "Thought I'd nip up the coast to Mokko-Mokko or Padang,see what's a-stir." "Nutmeg Harvest is upon us, I can smell it!" Ev'ry woman in "Sumatra" is comely and willing, though not without attendant Inconvenience, Dixon's almost instantly developing Wills and Preferences of their own despite his best effort to keep them uncomplicated, -- whereas the only women Mason can image at all are but different fair copies of the same serene Beauty, -- Rebekah, forbidden as Sumatra to him, held in Detention, as is he upon Earth, until his Release, and their Reunion. So they pass, Mason's women and Dixon's, with more in common than either Surveyor will ever find out about, for even phantasms may enjoy private lives,-- shadowy, whispering, veil'd to be unveil'd, ever safe from the Insults of Time.

I'm about 100 pages into Mason & Dixon and this is turning out to be one of the greatest novels I've ever read.

I was trying to get through a collection of short stories by Maupassant, but I had to stop; Pynchon is taking up all of my time.

This novel is enormously funny, and has breadth, both in pagination and ideas. Pynchon creates a Mason and Dixon that I find hard to not sympathize and relate to. The novel's structure is chaotic, like most of Pynchon's work, but there is some solidarity in his characterization of Mason and Dixon that I don't believe we've seen elsewhere. The polarization almost makes them stable ideas. With Pynchon you would expect entropy to break everything down eventually.

Is this more readable/accessible than Gravity's Rainbow or Against the Day? Also why all the unnecessary capitals?