M&D Review in Sunday Times

[Tiarnan O'Corrain]

The Sunday Times, cheerleading for the middlebrow
middleEnglanders, published quite a hostile review(by Humphrey 
Carpenter) of M&D last Sunday. This (in my book) counts as
a plus for the novel.

Last two paras:
	'Perversely, slavery, of which the Line became a symbol, is
only treated in a sideways fashion by Pynchon. Instead, he
introduces a mechanical duck with supernatural powers, and
some lesbian nuns. Cameo appearances by George
Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Boswell and Johnson are
not in Pynchon's line of business at all, and would have been
better omitted. 
Seemingly borrowing from Stoppard as much as
Shakespeare, Pynchon tries to make his heroes into another
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, uneasy minor characters in
other people's dramas ­ they feel "As if we're Lodgers inside
someone else's Fate . . . ". But there is no Hamlet, and the
book eventually tails off with Mason and Dixon's declining
years. The Learned Dog reappears, but has now fallen silent.
One wishes Pynchon had done so several hundred pages
back. Books require readers as well as writers, and if
Pynchon is to retain any sort of following, it is time he cast off
the cloak of invisibility and made contact with his audience.'

The URL for the review is:
	http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/97/05/04/stibooboo01006.html?1757184

Ciao

Tiarnan O'Corrain <stih8005 at bureau.ucc.ie>
^^^^^^^^^^^^