Thomas Pynchon rightly earned the reputation of being one of America’s most bizarre authors. Among his other accomplishments includes avoiding photographs, interviews, book signings, indeed all those things that authors tend to subject themselves to. Reading his books, you don’t feel like the guy is a recluse, you get the feeling that he doesn’t care at all about those aspects. By focusing exclusively on research and insanely intricate plots, he allows his talents to flourish with virtually no outside interference.
Mason & Dixon took me longer to read than any of his other books. Various deadlines kept on creeping me, asking me to meet them. I did, and the book suffered as a result. Also, since his prose tends to be extremely dense, it gives you a lot to ponder. Easily a page of his work might be an entire short story or novella for a less weird author. But Pynchon doesn’t work at being normal, he excels at being different, at being smart, at being able to graduate high school early and just dive deep into another universe it would seem.
Uncharacteristically, he pays close attention to the character’s feelings and emotions. Mason and Dixon are better fleshed out than any other character he’d ever sketched before, whether it is Slothrop or the Whole Sick Crew. You really feel for Mason’s melancholy, his inability to connect with his children. And you feel for Dixon and his sympathy for those downtrodden souls he constantly encounters. Paranoia and goofiness still loom large over the narrative (those are his calling cards) but they don’t overtake it. Rather, they form a nice background for these two very real individuals.
I’m familiar with most of his work, but this has the feel of one of his greats, up there with both my adored V. and, of course, Gravity’s Rainbow. Reading his work always has this calming effect over me. When I first read his work, I started almost tearing up. Just the fact that you can write like this and it’s fully acceptable is so gratifying. Usually when I read something I have to keep in mind “Oh, it has to adhere to this rule or that rule, blah” With his work, I feel like it is purely free of almost any another concern, he writes it exactly how he wants and people try to get it. If they get it great, but usually people get burned out and fail before they finish.
Don’t stop with this book. Gain the strength to read it if you are one of those that always tries and fails to read it. What happens at the very end reflects a lot of the emotions Pynchon felt now that he had become a father. Mason becomes less melancholy and must cheer up his formerly bubbly colleague Dixon. After Dixon dies, Mason connects with his children in a way he worried he never would. The previous journeys mentioned earlier in the novel gain a yellowish, nostalgic hue. Mason passes away and his children take up his steed. It is such a satisfying ending, seeing the multiple perspectives upon perspectives that the story takes on.
Unlike most of his books, it feels like he really knew these characters or at least based it off of people he cared about. The characters work as fully fledged human beings, with worries and concerns. Seeing the end, you understand that it is probably the first time Pynchon has wanted us to see how (relatively) normal people go through life. Stencil was a weirdo. Slothrop went slowly insane, despite the help of all those around him. Mason and Dixon lived a strange life, filled to the brim with obscure geography, but lived as good people. As people you know, people you want to care about. Those who claim that Pynchon doesn’t care about his characters, that he’s too emotionally detached to his material, I’d point to this book, ask them to read, and then continue that line of argument. They couldn’t and that’s why you should read it too. Postmodernism does have a heart and this is easily the best of Pynchon's late work.