A large historical novel about Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, the English astronomer and surveyor who, in the 1760s, travelled together to observe the sky and later to mark the boundary now known as the Mason-Dixon Line in colonial America. Told in an imitation of eighteenth-century prose, it follows their friendship, their journeys and the odd people and ideas they meet. It reflects on science, reason, empire and slavery, with Pynchon's usual humour and invention.
Quotes
If America was a person, — and it sat down, — Lancaster town would be plunged into a Darkness unbreathable.
No need to feel pleas'd with yourself. What you found was not their sacred Well, but only a Representation of it.
It is usually not wise to discuss matters of costume with people like this, — politics or religion being far safer topicks.