MASON AND DIXON
Thomas Pynchon
Books for Bigots
Mason and Dixon, the first Pynchon book I've read, has been a significant find. As I approach the end of the book with some sort of report for Bigots in mind, what comes to me is that I'm reading Tolstoy or Dostoevsky - a Russian novel. What Pynchon has done here is give you a view into 1760s America, along with I might add Cape Town and St. Helena with a bit of England thrown in. A late chapter of a conversation between Mason and Dr. Johnson and Boswell on their way to the Hebrides made me smile.
This book took an immense amount of work to write. One must credit Pynthon with a massive effort and imagination. As I have always maintained, I am not a literary critic but simply a guy who reads books. What I have found is that if after reading a book, one thinks about it and writes something about it, it sets in your mind better. This would apply to any Bigot as well where after reading some screed, make a few notes of some Bigotry notable for its eccentricity.
This book has nothing against Bigots. In fact, there was no thought of them. The portrayal of slavery was simply that, with the exception Dixon taking a whip from a slave driver who was whipping slaves driving them down the street; but even then it was simply a personal distaste of torture and maltreatment.
What I take Mason and Dixon to be is a history book; a so-much better history book than simply a description of things that have been - - one can get the feel of America as a colony at that time, the people that inhabited it; knowledge that nothing is quite what it seems; that there are other inhabitants out there in the forest that need accounted for. And for all those who wish diversity to disappear, unfortunately a realization that you can run into just about anyone and anything from anywhere on the frontier. There are always those looking for something different and they are of all kinds.
The other acknowledgement that one must make is the immense effort it took to make America as we know it. It would seem to mirror the effort it took to write the book. I am glad I read it and now will be required to read Pynchon's other books which will take considerable time and effort. It should be worth it. And, I highly recommend the book to any Bigot who might inadvertently come across a copy in his or her travels and carrying's on. It really doesn't harm a person to know a little of how he or she got to be the way they are and the historical factors that go into one's personality. It might actually cause one to have a thought process or two which often can be beneficial.
Richard E H Phelps II
Mingo
