I agree with Kira that the novel was circular and I found a great example of this just in the conversations Oedipa has with other people. When she and Metzger are watching the movie he starred in as a child, he talks about being an actor and lawyer, and how they end up getting blurred: “A lawyer in a courtroom, in front of any jury, becomes an actor, right? Raymond Burr is an actor, impersonating a lawyer, who in front of a jury becomes an actor” (21-22). Then Metzger goes on to discuss a movie based on his life story, with his actor-lawyer friend playing the part of him. He sums the film up by saying “light can’t fatigue it, it can be repeated endlessly” (22). In this passage, Pynchon could be seen as pointing out that all the basic storylines have been done, so they will just continue to repeat themselves. It’s the challenge of the creator to bring something new to them.
I was glad to see discussion about the ending of the book, because I did not know what to make of the lack of resolution. The ambiguous ending is another facet of postmodernism we discussed in class, so I was somewhat prepared for it, but still felt the need to go back and see if there was a clue somewhere that gave an answer one way or another as to whether or not W.A.S.T.E. was real, but there is enough evidence for it to either exist or to be an elaborate ruse. Fallopian suggests to Oedipa that she has been set up, which has never crossed her mind before, but after he says this, she begins to question the validity of everything. There is an answer to the question of W.A.S.T.E.’s existence, and knowing who the bidder for lot 49 is would probably lead to something more, but the novel leaves the reader without that knowledge. So Pynchon is saying that the resolution is not as important as the way Oedipa’s life has changed while she has been trying to unearth details about this alternative postal service.
The book was ironic throughout, but it even ended in irony by only revealing what the title meant at the end of the book, so title refers to what happens after the book ends, not what happens throughout the book (again, the circular nature of the book). So is the thought of W.A.S.T.E. being real enough to redeem the life that she leads? One passage makes it appear that she could have “stumbled… onto a real alternative to exitlessness, to the absence of surprise to life, that harrows the head of every American” Oedipa knows, including herself (141). If the whole search for meaning behind the trumpet sympbol was a ruse, was there a deeper purpose behind it? After thinking about it and how all the men in her life have abandoned her, Oedipa feels a deep sense of despair. Perhaps Pierce wanted her to feel grief, about something, even if it wasn’t directly about his death, so that he set all of this up when he died. Like Oedipa, I think that if it was all a set-up, “it must have meaning beyond just a practical joke” (141). I’m an optimist, though, so maybe that is coming through too much.