Thomas Pynchon. Mason & Dixon.

I admit I’m not exactly a fan of Thomas Pynchon – not by any stretch of the imagination. Having read five of his six current novels (Against the Day being the reminder), I’ve only liked two with any confidence: Gravity’s Rainbow and, the novel I just finished, Mason & Dixon. The former was a success due to the wild invention, the extremity of the sexual exploits, and the melancholic, inevitable end. For a novel seemingly without plot, Pynchon was able to do with ambitious themes and ideas what Thomas Wolfe accomplished in You Can’t Go Home Again. Sadly, Vineland was a face slap after Gravity’s Rainbow, which is why I put off Mason & Dixon for so long.

And I kick myself for prolonging the experience. Mason & Dixon is extravagant beyond measure and the linear lives (meaning Mason & Dixon have verifiable paths in history) give Pynchon much, much, much needed discipline.

The novel is written in pseudo-18th century prose. With most Nouns Capitalized and short-hand used extensively. I do wonder how the novel would’ve read if I hadn’t immersed myself in William Blake’s letters beforehand, or even the works of the Bronte sisters.

Part of me wishes to sum up its style and move on. But the style is not merely a parlor’s trick. Sure, there are gems such as “he emerged coprophagously a-grin” or the wonderfully overlong descriptive paragraph I can sum up in a few brief words: Stomach’s too big to see Dick (i.e. his). Yet the rich language thrilled me. But more than that, the novel is rich in the minutia and ideas of another time and, though I want to say “another place,” I recognize the milieu, no matter how strange and eerie and bizarre it is.
This is America with warts displayed and otherworldly Vegetation eaten and/or smoked.

The Pre-revolutionary Life was tough for all. While the colonists (who, coincidentally wrote history (another Pynchonian theme)), expressed their hardships in exquisite detail, Pynchon gives voice to those who’ve been clamoring for a chance oh so long. Of course, in the end, Pynchon only hints at the brutalization of colonialism, just as he hints at a Jesuit conspiracy and even sentiment (did I say hint? I mean irrevocably botch – He wouldn’t know emotions if the Continent whole landed atop his Head). Yes, I find it a fault in Pynchon that he only hints but never really delivers. He does so in all his novels. Some praise him for it and others deride him. My honest opinion is that he pussyfoots around ideas he should hammer out.

But, ‘tis the way of Pynchonland. Dense prose and impenetrable dialogue. True meanings merely alluded but never outright mentioned. The novel does present a rarity in more well-defined and rounded characters, but who reads a Pynchon novel for those? No, it’s for the oddities like the Learned English Dog, who actually talks and whose initials offer an innovative gag; and for the mechanical duck – a marvel in its own time – moreso in Pynchon’s rendering. I could, almost hyperbolically, say the duck itself carries the full weight of the novel. Obviously I’d be short-changing the book, but rarely in fiction have I encountered such a twisted imagination at the possibilities of an object that once existed, and the novel is rich with such possibilities