/lit/ - Literature

I prepared for letters, even words, but what I found within that book was more than I could possibly have imagined: sentences, paragraphs, pages of unbroken text!
Learn from my mistakes, fellow traveller. Proceed with extreme caution.

It's similar but not quite as difficult structurally i.e. you aren't expected to piece together time lines for half as many characters as GR does. M&D also speaks its mind more clearly and very directly explicates its ideas. I know GR does that to a great degree as well but M&D is pretty straightforward about it, William Gaddis straightforward. M&D has a lot of annoying 18th century speak like Barth's The Sot Weed Factor. It also has a lot of faith vs science and more typical thematic concerns than GR does. It's one of the few Pynchon books I really, really don't like.

>>7015832
If I like Gaddis will I enjoy this book?

The most touching of his books,
IMO. I feel as if Pynchon typically keeps his readers at a distance and you get little glimpses of the man that wrote the book. But Mason & Dixon is suprisingly sentimental and, im not afraid to admit, wrestled a few tears out of this guy in part 3 . My favorite ending to any novel I've ever read, it was one that I sat aside with a feeling of longing. It's my favorite of his.

I don't think it is more difficult than GR (I've heard this said), and I didn't find it nearly as complex (the plot flows, for the most part, linearly). It's Pynchon at his best. Full of encyclopedic knowledge, original and farfetched takes on history, conspiracy, and witty wordplay. Read it slowly so as not to miss the subtle jokes. Also, I consulted the Mason & Dixon wiki after each chapter to pick up on things I had missed.

And, uh, keep an eye out for ducks

>>7015844
If you like the Gaddis of The Recognitions you'll get the same kind of messaging from the book i.e. Pynchon's topics are discussed in conversation very clearly by the characters. It's not as focused as The Recognitions' plot is, but that kind of "here's the thematic concern" telegraphing happens throughout M&D. There are a lot of weird one off scenes that occur throughout M&D similar to GR and some of Pynchon's other work.

>>7015814
Why do degenerates such as yourself insist on passing the time before arriving at a place with pointless and harmful preconceptions? Wait until you're at a point to read it before you even begin to care what to expect from it. I wish I violently shake the likes of you in a box until it did the trick of rattling your dead brain back to life. I tire of these threads. Shoo, now.

>>7015814
Mason & Dixon is the Great American Novel up there with Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn. Pynchon makes full use of the English language here, playing with contemporary expectation and archaic conventions, which some people find frustrating if they aren't prepared to appreciate it. As other anons have said, it's much more emotionally involved than most of Pynchon's other work, and one of the few times he writes really complete characters (still no good female characters but that's a minor blemish for such an otherwise accomplished novel and author). Pynchon uses the frame story, historical documents and his own imaginative additions to tell the story of the United States looking backwards at allusions to the present day found in the colonial era.

If you don't laugh out loud a few times while reading it and cry at the end you're a faggot.

>>7015899
Way to elevate expectations to such a high degree that disappointment will be inevitable. Here's a great tip: you only remember things better than when you actually experienced them. You've only helped him to expect more while he keeps your description in the back of his mind than could possibly be delivered. Way to give a reader a distraction from the text. I'm sure Pynchon would be flattered! Just FLATTERED!

>>7015915
>"Praise devoid of specifics somehow detracts from another's reading of it."
>"Dont tell him the book is great. He will hate it."
>"I can't read a work outside of the mindset someone else gave me."

Damn

>>7015915
That's a valid concern, but my aim is more to point out what's good about it so he can look for that, since a lot of people who post about Pynchon on here seem to be missing the highlights. Way too many people complaining that Gravity's Rainbow and M&D are full of shaggy dog tales, when in fact those bits that seem pointless are the real joy of the novel. If you know to look for allusions to future events, trends and attitudes, you'll get a lot more out of Mason and Dixon than if you read it as le whacky alternate history.

READ THE BOOK

READ

THE

BOOK

>>7015944
>>7015942
Look you fools, I'm Edgar. Nuff said. -tab out-

>>7015954
No. Spare me this need-for-identity tripster

>>7015954

... Allan Poe?

>>7015972
He deleted the post.

Lmao. Talk about hyper-aware