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The story is 'told' by the Rev. Cherrycoke to his twin nephews (named Pitt and Pliney - so they could be called either 'the Elder' or 'the Younger' as one chose) and the narrative's 'point of view' shifts dramatically (and with no warning) so that at times one is 'in' the story and then abruptly back in a room in Philadelphia where the story is being told. You have to pay attention.
The book is full of sly humor and outrageous wordplay. Anachronisms abound. In one scene a character is enjoined to avoid the 'hemp' on his travels, but if he must smoke to not inhale. There are strange scenes that seem to defy any reasonable convention. For example, the L.E.D (the 'Learned English Dog'), a dog who can speak, do complex mathematics instantly and figures in a pivotal and unforgetable scene. There are whole sections of the book based on facts of history or aspects of convention that are not explained and require the reader to provide the context. A good example is the section on 'The Ear'. The ear in question was a pretext for Britain going to war on the high seas, but without the correct historical context, the entire surreal section makes no sense.
This book, therefore, requires careful attention and, if one has no knowledge of 18th century history and culture, some preparation before starting it. It is one of those books that need to be read slowly - perhaps aloud, almost like an epic poem, so that the resonance between all the allusions and themes can be appreciated. The more one puts into this book the more one will get out of it, but perhaps never get to exhaust all the meanings. I suspect there are doctoral dissertations for decades to be made from this book.
Still, despite the complexity and even allowing for sections that might mean nothing if one doesn't have the 'key' to unlocking them, the book works as a travel tale, a 'buddy' story, a revisionist, picaresque, historical novel in which famous characters (Ben Franklin, for instance) make comic or bizarre appearances. Witty, intelligent, sexy, exciting and thought provoking by turns, the book is a pleasure to sink into.
We have to search the novel for references and echoes. Look at the cover of the book. I'm sure it cannot be a coincidence that the "&" is the main symbol. Mason and Dixon is about the things that join us and divide us, the "&" between us all. And surely there is an echo in the fact that "Mason", "Dixon" and "Pynchon" all end in "-on", and that they line up on the book's spine. Pynchon, with his curious eye for detail and coincidence, could not have ignored that.
Like in his other works, Pynchon manages to create a link between his books. They form a great bustling world. Pig Bodine (from V) has an ancestor who appears in Mason and Dixon, and Cherrycoke's descendent appears in Gravity's Rainbow. Characters link in again, forming a total corpus of Pynchonian achievement.
Another thing that Rosenbaum's article mentions is the Transit of Venus that takes up a large chunk of the novel (the line-making seems to take ages to come along). Rosenbaum sees this as the Transit of V-ness, as if Pynchon is having another joke on us. He gives it connations that are too detailed to mention here, but should be read by interested readers.
I must reiterate that this is not a simple book. It requires work. It took me over a month to read. It is as long as GR. And it is written in an 18th century style, so it is often confusing and distracting. However, it is very funny and up to the usual standard of Pynchonian research. It is highly accurate (you can do your own checking)in the ideas, events and speech (including Mason and Dixon's differing dialects); and the mysterious fact that we know only the date of Dixon's birth allows Pynchon's mind to run riot - he has him flying over Durham with his teacher, walking into bizarre cave structures where everything is upside down, and so on.
This is a challenging but highly rewarding philosophical novel, bawdy, 18th century in many ways. It is one of Pynchon's greatest works, and although people are always wary to classify a work so soon, I believe it can be located quite happily next to GR.