I read a bit over half of Mason & Dixon on a long flight across the Pacific and enjoyed it, but for some unknown reason I never picked it up again. I might have to this year.
M&D wasn't my favorite Pynchon when I first read it but it's the only one I've had a compulsion to re-read and it is definitely even better the second time through, especially when you can take the first half as its own thing instead of waiting for them to get to america.
One of the YouTube videos on the Troubadours I watched (lol you still *read*?) to prepare for the Pound ep featured a scholar who basically represented the Cathars as mindful Buddhist-feminist Whole Foods shopping types with a Weil-esque vision of love vanquished by the intolerant patriarchal etc. Church. This is probably an over-correction, but maybe a necessary corrective. If you're curious:
Lol I don't watch a lot of videos about that sort of topic, although podcasts are another story. I think when one considers the "kill them all and let God sort them out" nature of what was done to the Cathars and the culture of the Languedoc a little romanticization can be allowed. I find it interesting given Pound and Weil's taking influence from them that the Cathars supposedly treated their Jewish neighbors better than orthodox christianity during the period.
I read a bit over half of Mason & Dixon on a long flight across the Pacific and enjoyed it, but for some unknown reason I never picked it up again. I might have to this year.
Interesting! Re Bloom, he defines American Gnosticism as possessing three traits, to greater or lesser degrees:
1. The human soul is created before
Creation, and thus does not fully belong in Creation
2. Knowledge is more crucial to salvation, broadly defined, than belief
3. The loneliness of the vast American land shapes all of these beliefs.
Which shapes Mormonism for sure, but also Adventism and even some forms of evangelicalism
Yes, thank you for pointing that out! I almost put something about Adventism in that footnote, but wound up deleting it.
M&D wasn't my favorite Pynchon when I first read it but it's the only one I've had a compulsion to re-read and it is definitely even better the second time through, especially when you can take the first half as its own thing instead of waiting for them to get to america.
It definitely feels like a book I need to reread, although to be fair I also get that feeling about V. I look forward to it someday!
One of the YouTube videos on the Troubadours I watched (lol you still *read*?) to prepare for the Pound ep featured a scholar who basically represented the Cathars as mindful Buddhist-feminist Whole Foods shopping types with a Weil-esque vision of love vanquished by the intolerant patriarchal etc. Church. This is probably an over-correction, but maybe a necessary corrective. If you're curious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J23ZYkIhVJw&t=1207s&ab_channel=LisaJones
Lol I don't watch a lot of videos about that sort of topic, although podcasts are another story. I think when one considers the "kill them all and let God sort them out" nature of what was done to the Cathars and the culture of the Languedoc a little romanticization can be allowed. I find it interesting given Pound and Weil's taking influence from them that the Cathars supposedly treated their Jewish neighbors better than orthodox christianity during the period.