Is M&D as good as GR???

[Meg Larson]

----------
> 
> The Robot Vegetable writes:
> 	 _GR_ is a great book, but it seems to have had more impact if you read
it
> when you were young.  

>Or, as in my case, read it _first_ . . . 

This is why I rail against those who want to compare it with every other
TRP work--I read _GR_ first, in a class, which as we all know is not the
best circumstance to read, in general, and something so assaulting and
demanding, in specific.  When that class I ended, I took three months to do
the stoned reading.  I look back at my first time through _GR_ as the
skimming, the familarizing, and the second reading as the perusal, the
"deep" read.  Now, b/c The Monolith was my point of ascent/descent into the
sick twisted world of Thomas Pynchon, what he really succeeded in doing, to
me, is bait me for more of his particular brand of mesmerizing bullshit. 
As I have told Gary Thompson, I never know where Pynchon's going to take
me, but as long as he's the hell-bent suicidal maniac driving the bus, I'm
the first one aboard.

In short:  _GR_ as the intro to TRP, took me right to the heart and
embattled soul of this man's deal.  It was done and out of the way.  I,
anomaly that I am, chose to read the rest of Pynchon's oeuvre not in
comparison of _GR_ but in search of the things the endeared me to the
Monolith, and the man, in the first damn place.

This is not to say that I don't also see the flaws, the faults, the
critical side of the author and his work; I'm an English major
ferchrissakes . . . No fawning p-cultie I (hi doktor), I would prefer to
focus my energies on what I like about Pynchon, b/c I like Pynchon. 

What I like about _Mason & Dixon_ has, at once, nothing and everything to
do with Pynchon, _GR_, etc.  I like it b/c, once again, Pynch's trying to
tell us something, or at least say something, and if all we do is grumble
about what's NOT there, what he's NOT saying, then we're not listening and
we're not seeing what _is_ there.

Just plain exhausted--ignore me. 
Meg