I am only about 100 pages in, and despite the fact that I've only read The Crying of Lot 49, Bleeding Edge, and GR, I am going to declare this as Pynchon at his best.
SON Thomas Pynchon & Mason & Dixon XON
>>25082339Is it a bad place to start?
>>25082391Yeah
>>25082339I don't know what anybody sees in this book. I've tried 3 times and have never made it past the middle 1/3rd. What, for you, makes it so good?
>>25082425Talking dog
>>25082425You've been filtered, move on.
>>25082339You haven't read Against the Day.
>>25082339suck my dixon
This is literature at its best, period
Inherent Vice is better
>>25082425You have to read GR first to truly "get" it
>>25082391>>25082825Bullshit. M&D was my first Pynchon novel and I loved it. I've read it twice now and would like to read it a third time in anticipation of the U.S. Semiquincentennial. If you know the history and familiarize yourself with the novels of the 18th century, you're more likely to appreciate the novel.
>>25082820No way man, IV is ass. It doesn't compare to the setting and concepts in M&D. Not even close.
>>25082339Meh. It's just Pynchon-by-numbers.
>>25083714meh, it's just Shakespeare by the numbers
>>25083395I dislike M&D so I prefer IV and BE
>>25083724nice try....
>>25083746try what? it's my genuine feeling towards those books, people like different things
>>25083753Give it up man... this isn't going to work on me.
>>25083760you're crazy
Wha?
>>25083721LOL, you sound like a Gurmfag comparing the Fat Hack to Tolstoy.
>>25083774Sounds like you got filtered
>>25083774Gurm?
>>25083792George RR Martin , I presume , because of the “fat hack” comment
>>25082339Inherent vice is Pynchon at his best.
>>25083395>setting and conceptsGo watch some more Rick and Morty kid.
Son & Xon kind of lacks the permeating paranoia that's Pynchon's bread and butter but it's still a good bromance story.
>>25082339I'm currently on my first read after picking it up and putting it down several times over the years. I just made it to chapter 16, after Cherrycoke recites what Mason told Dixon about how he met his wife, Rebekah. I am thoroughly enjoying it, going at a snail's pace (probably ~20 pages per day) and looking up random facts and digging further into little bits of details.>>25084693Dude, there's paranoia and intrigue written everywhere in this, starting with the framing story of the irreverent Rev Cherrycoke telling his impressionable nephews an apocryphal tale about the underlying structures of society and knowledge while their dad, his host Mr LeSpark is an arms dealer who made his fortune selling and dealing with both sides of every conflict in the nascent nation, right down to how people suspect that Dixon is a Jesuit spy; Mason is unraveling more of the distasteful stuff the East India Company's been up to in its satellites, while Maskelyne's brother-in-law Lord Clive of India is rising in the rank and wielding more power and influence; what the Dutch East India Company knows and wants you to not know (and them suspecting M&D to be spies individually or in tandem). Maskelyne is losing his mind on St Helena because he's starting to see just how much of "history and information" is fabricated by those in Power, like his brother-in-law, and how he'll be an unwitting pawn when they need to use him. Officer Bonk, the Dutch policeman in Cape Town who greets them when they land, even laughs in their faces when they naively deny his assertions that there's always someone sitting behind a desk, in a position of bureaucratic power, that they have to answer to. And then he tries to flee when he realizes just how much he himself is at risk in the power structure he drew with puppets and shadows.
>>25082339Good for you. I bought it when it came out.Not sure I got halfway through it.
What do I need to know about Mason and Dixon to 'get' this?
>>25084883English
>>25084752>Mr LeSpark is an arms dealerwoAH BRAVO PYNCH!!!!!
How do you guys feel about the songs...I hate them
>>25082339>Gravity's Rainbowa fine companion to Ulysses>Mason & Dixona fine companion to Infinite Jest>everything elsea fine companion to whatever of Pynchon you already have>Against the Daymagnum opus in spite of being long
Why won't Pynch talk to us? Do youi think he hates me? Please let me know you are ok Pynchster... I'm worried about you...
>>25086529It's probably (You)r fault he won't post here any more, and deleted all his posts from the archives
>>25086534I think the DuPont's got to him... It certainly wasn't me. I've never even felt his spirit... In fact I'm not convinced he is at all... at least he isn';t like you and I.
>>25086529>i think he hates me9/10 chance>Do you1/10 chance
>>25086608He probably doesn't care about youme at all...
>>25086617If he was here now ITT, I would ask him one simple question.. Where does he get his ideas?
>>25086464Imagine caring about how long a book is. I read a thing and don't even look at the page count. Sometimes, I'll read a short story, and be surprised about it ending in only twenty pages.
>>25086629I smoke reffer
>>25084693>permeating paranoiaUh.. Maskelyne, duh. Did u even readf it
bump
>>25086464Against the Day could have been 200 pages shorter and lost nothing.
>>25082391Yeah, it is ultimately a part of a larger work, his trilogy/tetralogy. GR is the right place to start but there is a case to be made for V.>>25082839>If you know the history and familiarize yourself with the novels of the 18th century, you're more likely to appreciate the novel.But more likely to miss Pynchon's entire point.>no, I got that.Prove it. >>25084752>t. actually reading a guideAt least you are not reducing it to trad larp.
>>25082475One of the worst Pynchon books
