MASON & DIXON
By Thomas Pynchon
Mason & Dixon is one of the most eagerly awaited books in years.
Its author is a reclusive cult figure whose last major novel became a
post-modern bible (Gravity's Rainbow, 1973). Almost 20 years later, Vineland
was so poorly received that some even questioned if Pynchon wrote it. What would
be next?
A book that is many different things, as it turns out. In the first place, Mason
& Dixon is a wildly erudite shaggy-dog story. Early on we meet the
"Learned English Dog," who describes himself as a "tail-wagging
Scheherezade." Pynchon is this dog, keeping the feather of his narrative
aloft with a volcanic imagination and a lot of hot air.
Mason & Dixon is also a historical novel, telling the story of the
18th-century astronomer-surveyors who gave their names to the Maryland-Pennsylvania
border. But it is far too fabulous to be taken for real. It is not, as one
character notes, Edward Gibbon but Baron Munchausen. The eye-catching archaic
style is goofy rather than authentic, and figures such as Ben Franklin and
Thomas Jefferson share the stage with a mechanical duck and the American golem.
Though not for kids, this is children's literature. At the end, Mason tells
his son bedtime stories about Dixon. The Rev. Cherrycoke (a silent partner of
the surveyors) narrates the entire novel to a family gathering that includes
several youngsters. On another level, Pynchon's pyrotechnic prose also comes out
of a child's world of funny words, nonsense names, and sing-song rhymes.
When nearly 800 pages of play-time is over, does Mason & Dixon pay
off? I think it does. Pynchon's trademark paranoia and anxiety have mellowed to
a more reflective and mature uncertainty in the face of the unknown. Mason
& Dixon is about exploring that unknown by drawing lines - creating maps
and calendars for the undiscovered countries of time and space.
Such an undertaking may be pointless, as Pynchon suggests it is, but it is
also deeply human. The ambiguity is profound. Clock time and lines of latitude
are tyrannical abstractions (the line is likened to a "conduit for
evil") that are also vehicles of redemption - a word applied to both
history and place. The undiscovered country is finally the City in the West and
the Garden of the Gods: a type of death and the future. And Mason and Dixon are travelers
who have returned.
Notes:
Review first published July 5, 1997. This is a book that has only grown
in my imagination and I look forward to reading it again. Along with The
Crying of Lot 49 I think it is Pynchon's best work. Gravity's Rainbow,
I have to admit, has always seemed overrated to me.
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