Conference bookie::books

1699.0. "Thomas Pynchon: "Mason & Dixon"" by THEBAY::WIEGLEB (Last day is May 2. Farewell!) Fri May 02 1997 17:00

    The long-awaited new Pynchon novel, "Mason & Dixon", has arrived.  Its
    official release date was April 30.  Rumors of his work on this one
    date back to shortly after the publication of "Gravity's Rainbow" in
    1974.
    
    I just started it last night -- it's big, about 10 pages longer than
    "Gravity's Rainbow".  I'm only about 30 pages into it so far.  Thus far
    I've really enjoyed it.
    
    The novel is narrated by one Reverend Wicks Cherrycoke, who has arrived 
    in Philadelphia for his friend Charles Mason's funeral in 1786, but has 
    missed it by days.  This narration worried me at first as the novel is
    written in something of a pseudo-18th Century style.  However, Pynchon
    works this style quite seamlessly and it suits his own penchant for
    rather complex sentence structure.  (The opening sentence of the book
    runs some ten or twelve lines.)
    
    Charles Mason was an astronomer of the Royal Astronomical Society and
    was joined by Jeremiah Dixon, a surveyor with some experience with a
    telescope, for a journey to Sumatra to observe the Transit of Venus. 
    The Transit of Venus occurs in pairs (about four years between events) 
    about every two hundred years.  It is the passing of the planet across
    the face of the sun from the Earth's vantage.
    
    The novel is the story of Mason & Dixon, their travels to observe the
    Transit of Venus, their travels to America to map the North/South
    boundary that became known as the "Mason/Dixon line", and the story of
    America.  It promises meeting with various famous Americans like George
    Washington, Benjamin Franklin, as well as meetings with a Chinese 
    feng shui master, an amorous mechanical duck, and others.  In the first
    thirty pages I've encountered the Learned English Dog and a sailor by
    the name of "Fender-Belly" Bodine, whose name will no doubt ring a bell
    with anyone who's ever read anything by Pynchon other than "Crying of
    Lot 49".
    
    Unfortunately no further reports will be coming from me as this is my
    last day at Digital.
    
    Farewell,
    
    - Dave