Pynchon’s novel was quite the journey. While reading, I felt like Oedipa, trying to put reason into a world of chaos. I was immediately struck by how bizarre the plot of the novel is! Chapter 1 is considerably realistic and believable as we’re introduced to Oedipa, Mucho, and Oedipa’s new position as co executor of her ex-lover’s will. But realism really goes out the window when Oedipa begins a relationship with Metzger. I felt that the tipping point over into the completely bizarre and unbelievable was the scene in which the hairspray can flew destructively around the room. After this scene, Pynchon creates a rather surreal atmosphere that would only be believable as a dream or hallucination. Among other things, the Paranoids performances and tag-along nature, the constructed history, and the intricate web Oedipa attempts to weave through to solve the mystery of the Trystero really make the piece seem like a dream or hallucination.
I found it very interesting that this style is very much in contrast to that of Lethem’s in “Super Goat Man”. As we discussed last class, Lethem sets up a rather believable, yet surrealist, plot. The characters do not question Super Goat Man’s presence in their society. As the characters are not phased by his existence and presence, the reader buys into Super Goat Man’s existence as well. However, Pynchon clearly sets up a storyline that is not believable and, although he includes touches of reality, it does not seem that he intends it to be so. Interestingly, though, like Lethem’s characters, Pynchon’s main character, Oedipa Maas, buys into the world Pynchon has created.
In fact, Oedipa seems determined to put reason into her world and make sense of the mysteries. While she does partake in the madness of her society (as seen through her affair with Metzger), she does “[dedicate] herself […] to making sense of what Inverarity had left behind” (147). Metzger accuses her of being a “lib, overeducated [broad]” (59), but Oedipa essentially states that she is conservative when she confesses that she is a Young Republican. Although she becomes immersed in society, Oedipa seems to have a higher standard. She does not succumb to a reliance on pills (LSD), and, although she has an affair with Metzger, she declines other sexual advances. She also does seem to have a desire to “right wrongs” (59), as Metzger accuses, as seen in her daydream about taking the old gentleman’s landlord to court and her anger at the shopkeeper selling armbands.
Oedipa’s desire for a reason and order is clearly seen in the scene in which she is pulled into a dance at a hotel. Everyone was dancing however they wanted and Oedipa wondered “how long […] it could go on before collisions became a serious hindrance” (107). Pynchon seems to be using this dancing scene as a metaphor for Oedipa’s world and, on a larger scale, America. Oedipa doesn’t understand how the dancers can continue in an atmosphere of randomness and chaos. With everyone doing their own thing there are bound to be problems. When Oedipa leaves the dance, she “feels demoralized”. Ultimately, Oedipa concludes that the mystery, “what Inverarity had left behind”, was “the legacy [of] America” (147). With this view it seems that Pynchon is commenting on the chaos of society by presenting the reader with a character who, unsuccessfully, attempts to make sense of the disorder. Oedipa reminds herself that she lives in America where “you let it happen. Let it unfurl” (123).
In the end, we’re still left to wonder whether the whole mystery was a scheme. Pynchon seems to hint that the whole story could, in fact, even be a dream. We know Oedipa has trouble with hallucinations, and the narrator tells us that “[l]ater, possibly, [Oedipa] would have trouble sorting the night into real and dreamed” (95). Is it then possible that the entire mystery, or at least parts of it, is imagined? Is the chaos of society a nightmare?