Mason & Dixon II

[Dave Monroe]

Have you read Mason & Dixon?

I haven't.

Well, not quite. I've read part of it, about 1/5 of
it, and then I stopped. I just couldn't hack it
Although I somehow found it in myself to get through
all of V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow,
and Vineland (which I happen to like), I finally drew
the line (no pun intended) at Mason & Dixon.

Maybe Mason & Dixon is better than I thought, maybe I
just wanted something small and straightforward ....

Or maybe after 4 Pynchon novels, I'd had about
enough....

[...]

Which brings me back to Pynchon's new novel, Against
the Day. I'd be a liar to say that I haven't wondered
what Pynchon's been thinking all these years, these
strange, screwed up years that probably compare none
too favorably to the things he saw in the '60s and
'70s. And part of me thinks that Pynchon must have the
most amazing thoughts on Bush and the Internet and
Prozac and Christian fundamentalists and terrorism and
Osama bin Laden and all that.

But another part of me thinks that whatever is in this
new novel, that stuff isn't it. It's just going to be
more Pynchon--more schmeils and entropy and UFOs and
thermodynamics. The memory of Mason & Dixon still
haunts me....

[...]

... Once upon a time, George Washington passing out
hash was pretty funny shit, but now ... yeah, I've
heard that joke. Stuff like that was part of the
reason I put Mason & Dixon down and never picked it
back up. If this is the Pynchon of Against the Day,
then I'd have seen him go out on top years ago. I hope
this isn't what we've got in store, but I'm not sure
it isn't....

http://esposito.typepad.com/con_read/2006/08/friday_column_m.html

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