Brain Pain discussion

Thomas Pynchon published his fifth novel, Mason & Dixon, in 1997.


Wikipedia page for Thomas Pynchon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_...


Wikipedia page for Mason & Dixon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_%...


Pynchon wiki for Mason & Dixon:

http://www.masondixon.pynchonwiki.com...



Feel free to use this thread to ask questions and post links to resources for Thomas Pynchon and Mason & Dixon.

Also, if you’ve written a review of the book, please post a link to share with the group.

Excited to read this one. It'll be my first Pynchon!

Renato wrote: "Excited to read this one. It'll be my first Pynchon!"

I've read five of his books over the years and each one is a different experience. I hope you enjoy his work as much as I do.

I'm trying to decide whether I'll have the time to join in with this one...I mean I'd love to as I keep meaning to read more Pynchon. I've only read Vineland and that was years ago and I abandoned V, again years ago...decisions decisions...

Cphe wrote: "I have it, I've "looked" at the first few pages.

I'm another who hasn't read the author before.

Don't know if I'll be able to keep up to the group as a whole .....we'll see.

I was expecting it t..."

This book has some affinity with Vollmann, but I would say it is more similar to his "Argall" from the Seven Dreams series.

V. is basically a rewrite of Gaddis' 'The Recognitions"

The Crying of Lot 49 is a drug-addled detective story/Through the Looking Glass romp through mid-60's California paranoia.

Gravity's Rainbow is his most difficult to follow story of WW2 and it's chaotic aftermath in Europe - and the beginnings of the cold war.

Vineland is a semi-nostalgic look at the CIA/hippies of California - both during and 20-years after those wacky-revolutionary-60's.

Mason & Dixon is something different, which you'll discover as you read. This quote found on the M&D wikipedia page is apt, for M&D, and for Pynchon"s work in general:

"Whatever meanings and complex messages may lie hidden in Pynchon's text can, for now, be left to develop subconsciously as the reader enjoys the more immediate rewards of the work of a consummate storyteller. Pynchon is one, and he never quite lets you forget that while this might be an epic story, it's an epic story told to wide-eyed children who are up past their bedtime."

M&D looks like it may be a hard read, which is ok..

Cphe wrote: "This is a "postmodern" work?

Have to admit that I have trouble getting my head around many of these labels. Modern/Postmodern what exactly do they mean and do these labels enhance the reading of t..."

Yes.

It's probably best to understand what Modernism is first. There are many studies of the modernist movement in the arts. A broad overview can be found here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism

Postmodernism is a bit more slippery. A general description is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmod...

For me, postmodernism is a natural extension of modernism into the post-WW2 world. Modernism had much to do with exploration, innovation, experimentation, while postmodernism probes similar territory, but is simultaneously aware of itself, examining itself, and tweaking its own nose.

An early example of proto-postmodern writing is Borges' Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote. Gaddis' The Recognitions is also considered to be a proto-pomo work.

i only read the stories contained in Slow Learning, and i enjoyed them! this Mason & Dixon, i started recently, and having read just a few pages i realized it must be great.