First, I’d like to say that I too found the novel to be extremely difficult to manage/understand. The scenes/conversations moved in such a dreamlike manner that it often times made it difficult to digest the concepts presented. So Karen, you were not alone. ?
I found myself giving Pynchon’s choice in names/titles a lot of thought. Not only the initial naming process, but also the way that the spelling of Tristero/Trysteo changed throughout the novel. Perhaps I missed some sort of significance between the two, but from what I could tell Tristero/Trystero was relatively interchangeable. I could find little distinguishing difference between the use. It was mentioned that “triste” means sad in Spanish, and yet “tryst” also means old lovers’ meeting in well, English. It might be a stretch, but Oedipa’s entire journey revolves around becoming reacquainted with her mysterious and deceased old boyfriend (on at least one level). Through her “investigation” of sorts, she’s discovering a whole new identity to Inverarity. Thus the separate spellings. Even the spelling of “W.A.S.T.E.” versus just regular old “WASTE.” There isn’t a consensus on whether to punctuate or not. Perhaps there is absolutely no significance to these issues, or perhaps it serves to merely solidify the lack of truth/consistency/identity.
The same train of thought leads to the flexible nature of each individual character’s identity either outwardly or through physical changes in names. Towards the end when Mucho calls Oedipa “Edna” instead and then to the stranger at Greek Way she is introduced as Arnold Snarb. And then on page 140, in the midst of Oedipa’s inner-revelations, it says “Change your name to Miles, Dean, Serge, and/or Leonard… Either way, they’ll call it paranoia.” These changes are significant examples of the loss of individual that has been previously discussed. Many of the characters go through transformations during the course of the novel, or perhaps they are never established as individuals in the first place. Such as the paranoids. They are a group of boys who have no distinguishing characteristics from the other. Inverarity is remembered as having several different names/accents/personalities. Metzger runs off with a 15-year-old out of the blue after seeming like a genuinely normal person. Mucho develops an entirely new persona. Dr. Hilarious looses himself as well. I’m not really sure how to tie all of these thoughts together, but I am certain that it has something to do with the theme of transparent identities and the loss of individuality.
OR since the story is told basically through Oedipa’s perspective, then perhaps these characters fail to establish a firm identity because their previous personalities were mere hallucinations. Such as the creepy way that Metzger fails to acknowledge he and Oedipa’s semi-relationship when he runs off with the young girl. Oedipa apparently shared a rather significant relationship with Inverarity, and yet she doesn’t seem to know anything about him. The characters tend to sweep in and out of the storyline in what literally felt like a dreamlike state. Oedipa flowed from one encounter to the next and I kept finding myself wondering if the whole thing wasn’t merely a dream. The scene when she is swept into the dance with the deaf-mute crowd dressed in Chinese communist attire was very, very dreamlike. And then after she runs from her dancing partner, the very next sentence reads, “Next day, after twelve hours of sleep and no dreams to speak of… (107).” Of course, whether the entire story was a dream or not is irrelevant, but when thinking of how the characters transformed with such lack of individuality, it made me think of imaginary encounters such as through dreams and/or halluncinations.