SOURCE: A review of Mason and Dixon, in The New Republic, August 4, 1997, pp. 32-8.

In the following review, Wood offers unfavorable assessment of Mason and Dixon, finding fault in Pynchon's equivocal allegories and indeterminate multiple meanings.

It is a problem for allegory that, while going about its allegorical business, it draws attention to itself. It is like someone who undresses in front of his window so that he can be seen by his neighbors. Allegory wants us to know that it is being allegorical. It is always saying: watch me. I mean something. I mean something. In this, it is very different from most great fiction. (It resembles bad fiction.) Why does anyone tolerate it? In literature, we rarely do. It is forgiven its hieroglyphics when it overcomes itself and behaves like great fiction (Kafka, some Dickens); when it elaborates complicated and deep truths (Dante, Kafka again); or...