New Essays on M&D

[richard romeo]

howdy--

this is on amazon,publication later this year

Thomas Pynchon's 1997 novel Mason & Dixon marked a deep shift in
Pynchon's career and in American letters in general. All of Pynchon's
novels had been socially and politically aware, marked by social
criticism and a profound questioning of American values. They have
carried the labels of satire and black humor, and "Pynchonesque" has
come to be associated with erudition, a playful style, anachronisms
and puns -- and an interest in scientific theories, popular culture,
paranoia, and the "military-industrial complex." In short, Pynchon's
novels were the sine qua non of postmodernism; Mason & Dixon went
further, using the same style, wit, and erudition to re-create an 18th
century when "America" was being formed as both place and idea.
Pynchon's focus on the creation of the Mason-Dixon line and the
governmental and scientific entities responsible for it makes a
clearer statement than any of his previous novels about the slavery
and imperialism at the heart of the Enlightenment, as he levels a dark
and hilarious critique at this America. This volume of new essays
studies the interface between 18th- and 20th-century culture both in
Pynchon's novel and in the historical past. It offers fresh thinking
about Pynchon's work not only because it deals with his most recent
novel, but also because the contributors take up the linkages between
the 18th and 20th centuries in studies that are as concerned with
culture as with the literary text itself. Contributors: Mitchum
Huehls, Brian Thill, Colin Clarke, Pedro Garcia-Caro, Dennis Lensing,
Justin M. Scott Coe, Ian Copestake, Frank Palmeri.Elizabeth Jane Wall
Hinds is Professor and Chair of the English Department at SUNY
Brockport.