reality – Page 3 – American Postmodernism

Just a little on Pynchon’s parody (and an afterthought on Varo)

A large portion of my interest in Thomas Pynchon is with his sense of humor and the resulting parodic nature of his writing. Having already read The Crying of Lot 49, this re-reading allowed me to really focus on the “world” of Southern California that Pynchon has created, or more accurately, parodied.

Throughout The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon seems to be humorously commenting on American, and specifically Californian, culture. As stated by the narrator, “Like many named places in California it was less an identifiable city than a grouping of concepts–census tracts, special purpose bond-issue districts, shopping nuclei, all overlaid with access roads to its own freeway” (13). Per Pynchon’s construction, it’s a culture lacking substance; California and its inhabitants are all image, which is often merely imitation. For example, the Paranoids, who “watch English movies a lot, for the accent,” are Pynchon’s American ripoff version of The Beatles (17). (Considering Oedipa’s increasing paranoia throughout the story, the Paranoids seem appropriately named. In fact, they periodically serve as the “Greek chorus” for the tragic (yet comical) unraveling of Oedipa’s life as she uncovers a potential conspiracy) Dr. Hilarius, Oedipa’s “shrink or psychotherapist,” is perhaps only best described as a psycho.

In his first novel V., Pynchon presents a woman who becomes increasingly machine-like as the novel progresses, and threads of this same metaphorical device can be identified in The Crying of Lot 49 (although not as ubiquitous). “[Oedipa] looked down a slope […] onto a vast sprawl of house which had grown up all together, like a well-tended crop, from the dull brown earth; and she though of the time she’d opened a transistor radio to replace a battery and seen her first printed circuit” (14). Here, Pynchon is reacting against the increase of tract housing suburbs noting their machine-like resemblance (if I’m not mistaken, the “cookie-cutter” suburbs first got their start in the 1950s, just a few years before the publishing of The Crying of Lot 49).

Continuing with Pynchon’s role as social commentator, I come to perhaps my favorite passage in The Crying of Lot 49: the initial description of Wendell “Mucho” Maas. “[H]e could still never accept the way each owner, each shadow, filed in only to exchange a dented, malfunctioning version of himself for another, just as futureless, automotive projection of somebody else’s life. As if it were the most natural thing. To Mucho it was horrible. Endless, convoluted incest” (5). To me, this passage evokes a couple of Pynchon’s concerns. First, the machine once again stands in for the human being, and in fact, the passage preceeding this quotation describes these used cars as “metal extensions” of their owners. Second, Mucho’s association of used cars/humans with “Endless, convoluted incest” reminds me of Pynchon’s recurring theme of entropy and/or entropic decline; if a system is closed, then that system will inevitably decline.

______________

On a somewhat random, separate note, I searched for and found the Remedios Varo painting referenced in The Crying of Lot 49: “In Mexico City they somehow wandered into an exhibition of paintings by the beautiful Spanish exile Remedios Varo: in the central painting of a triptych, titled “Bordando el Manto Terrestre,” were a number of frail girls with heart-shaped faces, huge eyes, spun-gold hair, prisoners in the top room of a circular tower, embroidering a kind Remedios Varo Bordando el Manto Terrestre of tapestry which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking hopelessly to fill the void: for all the other buildings and creatures, all the waves, ships and forests of the earth were contained in this tapestry, and the tapestry was the world. Oedipa, perverse, had stood in front of the painting and cried” (11). In the context of the chapter, the painting refers to her personal relationship with Pierce Inverarity, but I can’t help but look at the painting and think of Oedipa’s journey as a “detective” through the Trystero conspiracy. In many ways, she is weaving her own tapestry with the threads of conspiracy, filling a void, creating a world with the jigsaw pieces she has discovered (or perhaps have discovered her).

Calisthenics of Perception

In The Crying of Lot 49, toward the end Oedipa lays out four choices to try to make sense what is going on around her. She has stumbled upon real Tristero, a vast underground network; she has hallucinated “it”; she is the victim of a plot to deceive her; or she is insane. When she considers the first option, she equates with the reality of Tristero “a real alternative to the exitlessness, to the absence of surprise to life, that harrows the head of everybody American you know, and you too, sweetie”. It’s interesting that she does not equate hallucinations with insanity here, and jkathrynfulton’s point about Oedipa’s perception divided into perhaps real or perhaps dreamed events highlights the inability or unwillingness on the parts of both Oedipa and the narrator to clearly differentiate between the two for the reader.

But of course, just at the climax of a traditional detective story when the “crime” and “criminal” are about to be revealed and explained, the novel ends. We never do get an answer from the story about which of the four options it was. In Holquist’s exploration of The Voyeur, he points out that the detective story cliché of the power of the rational mind to conquer all is reversed, and that the reader becomes a detective only to discover the cipher zero of the poster title, which parallels the crying of lot 49 – something unheard, unfinished, which the reader must perform. The solution lies not in the book, but “in the experience of the reader himself” (151). “It is not a story – it is a process,” Holquist asserts (153), and this process of “strangeness” (155) is a “kind of calisthenics of perception” (153). This wording recalls Jameson’s exhortation for the experience of art to alter our outdated “perceptual habits” so that we are able to comprehend the global capitalist reality (80).

However I am still unclear on exactly the crime or mystery that is to be solved here. Holquist references “cosmic detectives, who wish to solve the crime of their own existence” (154) and says that in metaphysical detective stories it is life rather than death that is to be solved. Jameson cites a “breakdown of temporality” and breakdown in relationships between signifiers creating an overwhelming sensation of the signifier in isolation (73). This description of the signifier in isolation echoes the Word that Oedipa can never quite get a grasp on, as well as her hallucinatory states. Failure of communication is a recurring theme in The Crying of Lot 49, but I was never sure what exactly is trying to be communicated.

When I was talking to my friend about Jameson, my friend retorted that he personally had no void to be dramatized, no gap in perception. I reflected that I didn’t either – that I knew of. And how could people living in the postmodern age ever know anything else to compare our lived experience to? Even the seemingly idyllic past can supposedly never be accessed in the postmodern age as anything but simalcra, so is this comparison just a straw man? Or is Jameson outdated and my friend now fully evolved into a perceiving being, plugged into his internet feed? To what extent does the “violence to our flabby habits of perception” (156) exacted by the experience of postmodern art depend on the subject having perceptions formed in the modernist age?

If the problem is the overwhelming sensation of the isolated signifier, the description of that experience is reminiscent of medieval religious experiences, so does that sensation qualify as the new violence without that the violence within of the new art is supposed to protect us from? Jameson implies that this evolution of perception is part of a long historical process of humanity evolving to comprehend the changing world. So why is this a problem now? Why do we have to do something about it?

Style and Reason

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?

Constructed Reality in The cRying of Lot 49

An entire genre of fiction has been inspired by theories from postmodern philosophers such as Derrida, Lacan, and Sassure. One of the theories proposed by postmodern philosophy is that human reality is linguistically constructed, a construction that is based on cultural narratives that are human products with human histories. For example, Sassure went against the dominant language theory (correspondence theory) and stated that the signifier is not equivalent to the thing being signified. Lacan also advocated the notion of the transcendental signified. In Thomas Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49 the main character attempts to make sense out of the vast amount of cultural narratives, but she is left with less clarity then when she began. Pynchon is specifically calling attention to narratives created by the global capital system. In Oedipa’s case, the more information the she uncovers, the closer she moves to a fragmented consciousness.

Pynchon’s text reacts to aspects of the global capital system, such as economic policy. Adam Smith’s text “Natural Laws of Economics,” along with the “Wealth of Nations,” theorized that economic policy was guided by an “invisible hand.” Pynchon deconstructs this narrative along with several others by parodying the system as Oedipa attempts to make sense of the connections within the Inveriarity Empire. Inveriarity becomes a symbol for the global capital system, which is exemplified by the systems all encompassing power. One of Oedipa’s first encounter’s with Metzger emphasizes this power: “What the hell didn’t he own?” (Pynchon 27). Oedipa tries to find an underlying truth behind the system, but the more she uncovers the more she realizes how incoherent all of the narratives are. When Oedipa describes her experience viewing the painting “Bordando el Manto Terrestre” the failure of her quest is foreshadowed. Oedipa tries, like the painting, to embroider the tapestry of the world:

“…embroidering a kind of tapestry which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking hopelessly to fill the void: for all the other buildings and creatures, all the waves, ships and forests of the earth were contained in this tapestry, and the tapestry was the world.” (Pynchon 11)

The painting calls attention to the fact that reality is a human construction. Oedipa attempts to construct reality by tying together all of the narratives surrounding Inveriarity. However, the more narratives she consumes, the more fragmented the story becomes, finally offering no closure.

The end of Pynchon’s text parodies the global capital system by comparing economic theory to religion: “Passerine spread his arms in a gesture that seemed to belong to the priesthood of some remote culture; perhaps a descending angel” (Pynchon 152). Pynchon wants to compare these two narratives because they are both human constructions of reality. Adam Smith’s metaphor for an “invisible hand” compares to a metaphor for god. They both describe an unknown being in control of events. Oedipa continues to give into the hope that the narratives are cohesive, but she and the reader are left with no closure: “He stared at her, smiling, as if saying, I’m surprised you actually came” (152). Pynchon establishes the end of Oedipa’s quest as a failure. Instead of rejecting the narratives, she continues to believe that they will somehow tie together.

Significance of Names in The Crying of Lot 49

Someone in one of the earlier posts noted Pynchon’s use of names in The Crying of Lot 49 and I feel that the names are significant to the text. Although I did not necessarily find meaning in all of the names (there is nothing funny about Dr. Hilarius in my opinion) I feel that some of the names are either a big clue, or at least more ways that Pynchon is trying to deliberately confuse.

The earlier post mentioned that one first thinks of Oedipus when they encounter the name Oedipa in the story. I would agree, though I think there is a different reason that Pynchon chose this particular name. As the story progresses and it the question of just what is going on here becomes more prevalent, there are some instances where Oedipa could follow up on certain leads, but decides not to. On page 144 Oedipa is discussing an article that Gengis Cohen (no idea of the significance) shows her with Bortz. Oedipa says it is interesting “if the article is legitimate.” Bortz tells her it would be easy to check up on, but Oedipa never does. I think it is because Oedipa does not want to know the truth, because the truth will be so terrible that it will cause some sort of Oedipus-like reaction (though that was pretty extreme).

There also is Oedipa’s last name, Maas, which would sound the same as “mass.” I think that the idea of Oedipa as a “mass” would work because a mass would be needed to center an orbit. Oedipa is the center of this orbit of either the Trystero, Inverarity’s practical joke, or her own paranoia. Whichever one is true (if it even matters) is definitely revolving around Oedipa, the “mass” that centers the whole thing.

On the other side of all this is Pierce Inverarity, another interesting name. First, one notices that the last name is a play on some form of “veritas” or “verite” which means truth. However, his name isn IN-verarity, or un-truth. Therefore we can see this as a clue by Pynchon that Inverarity represents untruth, or that this is all a sham he put together. However, when we take his first name “Pierce,” we now have a name that relatively means “puncturing the untruth,” or getting the real truth. What is the real truth? That he wants Oedipa to play this little game that he set up, that he wants her to see through all of the lies and deceptions that he himself set up before he died? Or maybe he wants Oedipa to uncover the truth about the Trystero? His death was never explained by the way, if this was a detective story it is totally plausible that Trystero “muted his horn” and he left clues to his executor in hopes of being avenged. Or, maybe he wants Oedipa to “pierce the untruth” in the world. To see beyond what she has always taken for granted. To see the alternate reality that a large portion of the population were living in.

There is also a good chance that the names mean nothing, or are more red herrings thrown in by Pynchon to make us lose sleep over this book. I enjoy it a lot, but if I think about it too much I start to go a little crazy.

The problem with certainty

I must admit to being a little dazed after completing The Crying Lot of 49. What is a reader to make of symbols of postal horns appearing in windows of herbalists in Chinatown, or children who have sketched them on sidewalks, or on the bathroom stalls, or in the corners of stamps? I think I am just as confused as Oedipa as to whether or not there is a secret conspiracy to suppress Tristero/Trystero or if it is all a hoax? Clearly, this is one of Pynchon’s points.

It seems that everywhere Oedipa turns, she encounters uncertainty regarding The Tristero. After she meets with Mr. Thoth and sees the WASTE symbol on his ring, she is compelled to tell Fallopian. “‘You think it’s really a correlation?’ She thought of how tenuous it was, like a long white hair, over a century long. Two very old men. All these fatigued brain cells between herself and the truth” (74). Chasing after leads, Oedipa tracks down the missing line in the “Whitchapel” fragment, only to find out later that that version is corrupt according to professor of English at Cal, Emory Bortz. Then there is the concidential (?) meeting of Arnold Snarb who dons the WASTE symbol on his lapel pin, but he uses it as a symbol of his membership in I.A. or Inamorati Anonymous. It is Arnold who Oedipa contacts at the end of the novel, who now seems to be involved in The Tristero after all. Even Dr. Hilarious’s experiments with LSD and other drugs on suburban housewives like Oepida seem to give rise to the question of whether or not she is involved in a larger plot against her. Ironically, Hilarious preformed experiments of induced insanity–certainly calling into question Hilarious’s own sanity. In the end, he too is silenced by the “cops.”

As the novel progresses Oedipa appears to question this idea of truth and certainty more frequently. “Oedipa wondered whether, at the end of this (if it were supposed to end), she too might not be left with only compiled memories of clues, announcements, intimations, but never the central truth itself[…]” (76). The notion that she is in a dream continues to appear, as Oedipa encounters more clues. Leaving her to “have trouble sorting the night into real and dreamed” (95). When her perception of reality fails her, she is left to test reality through touch. When the sailor throws a letter at her in the hallway, “she was overcome all at once by a need to touch him, as if she could not believe in him, or would not remember him, without it” (102). Poor Oedipa. What is she to make of all of this? Her notion of certainty has been turned upside down.

The notion of certainty seems to be the pivotal idea when discussing the difference between modern literature and postmodern literature. The modernists– Eliot and the like– established New Criticism in hopes of identifying one meaning in a text. Hemingway wrote in excruciating detail about certainty with stories about the practical– how to fish for trout or watch a bullfight. Whereas in postmodernism, nothing is certain. Fact and fiction are one in the same.

Just for kicks, I looked up up the Thurn und Taxis family and it turns out they have their own website. Click the link below.

http://www.thurnundtaxis.com/

Don’t skip the intro that contains pictures of their palace. You can even rent out the dining room to throw a private party. In addition, the current Prince turns out to be a 25-year-old who loves to race Lamborghinis. Here is a picture of him.

fuerst-albert_01

An Unimaginative Use of Tapioca.

I quite like Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. The breathless narrative and endless lists of little fiddly things-stamps, letters, bits of graffiti-are quite appealing. Moving through the book gives me a sense of gradually sliding out of control, the slow development of a paranoia in which one starts to distrust one’s own perceptions when it begins to seem that the scheme (or swindle) that one is caught in is ultimately too big to see as a coherent whole. In that sense it reminds me of Ellis’ Glamorama at the point where even mundane objects-confetti, a black hat, a stick-on tattoo-become objects of dread and signals of a large system. The protagonist’s perception becomes more and more faulty as objects-photographs, pornographic videos-are manipulated to create a “reality” that is false but can’t be argued with.

Michael Holquist makes some interesting points in his “Whodunit and Other Question.” I find his inclusion of Poe in the canon of detective stories very fascinatingl; I wonder if he would also admit H.P. Lovecraft into the same group? But the question is, what does this have to do with postmodernism and Pynchon? Earlier we spoke about whether postmodernism was a break from modernism or a continuation (evolution?) of modernism. Holquist writes that “post-modernism…can best be understood as springing from a different view of man, and therefore a different view of art from that which obtained in Modernism” (Holquist 147). I suppose this can be taken as Holquist’s assertion that postmodernism is more of a break with moderning (or a perspective shift) than a continuation. Holquist goes on to say that postmodernism is “about things, not people” and mentions the 1930s “murder classics” by Wheatley and Links and The Voyeur as examples. I suppose an argument could be made for Pynchon’s novella that links it with Holquist’s argument, using the obsessive minutiae of objects in the book.

One thing that stood out for me particularly is the gradual revelation of how enmeshed Oedipa is in the unfathomable plan of Inverarity’s, the feeling that she cannot figure it out because she cannot get outside of it enough to do so, of being caught in a possibly malevolent system. The “clues” which we might expect to help us start unraveling the mystery only serve to further complicate matters. There is a sort of “meta” feeling I get when reading this novella and making connections to things mentioned in the novel with things outside of the novel, then eventually feeling as though I’m becoming paranoid along with Oedipa (for example-Maxwell’s Demon and “The Ballad of Maxwell Demon” from the fictionalized biopic of a character based on David Bowie in Velvet Goldmine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1y_PRuq7x0). The novella greatly puts me in mind of China Mieville’s short story “The Go-Between” from Looking For Jake, and Holquist’s article also brings Neil Gaiman’s “A Study in Emerald”-really a stylistic mash-up-from Fragile Things to mind.

Holquist and Fredric Jameson both seem to put the burgeoning of postmodernism at roughly the end of the 1950s/beginning of the 1960s. Jameson also raises the question of whether postmodernism should be viewed as a break or a continuation of modernism, although from what I understand he presents both positions as plausible but mentions that the latter view does not “take into account the social position of the older modernism” (Jameson 56). Jameson also makes an interesting assertion that postmodern global culture in the “superstructural expression of a whole new wave of American military and economic domination throughout the world” (Jameson 57). Given that we have recently seen a rather dramatic re-structuring of the existing economic system and are poised at the brink of an unprecendented level of reorganization of the American economic system in particular, does this alter Jameson’s argument at all? Or are these changes rather superficial? Or is this possibly the sign that we are actually moving into the post-postmodern era? I do wonder about Jameson’s claim on page 57 that the “offensive features” of postmodernism have become institutionalized-I suppose he’s right-but I don’t consider a strong reaction to something an indication that the point has been missed; I don’t think the two positions have to be occupied simultaneously.

Signifiers, Oedipa/Oedipus, and Postmodernism…

When reading The Crying of Lot 49, I thought about what someone said in class in reference to signifiers in Foer’s story. The thing with signifiers, according to Ferdinand de Saussure, is that they’re arbitrary, at least, as far as its connection to the signified. So, Oedipa Maas is seemingly lost in this world of detached signifiers, struggling with clues and trying to seek meaning in symbols like the muted horn, or meaning in words like W.A.S.T.E. and the Trystero. She even says at one point, “Each clue that comes is supposed to have its own clarity,” as if she recognizes that the signifiers should have a signified. I’m not sure if this is a postmodern thing, insofar as having these detached signifiers; it was just a connection I made to the readings from last week.

I also thought about the names Pynchon picked for people and places in this novel, but considering the thing with the detached signifiers, I’m now wondering if he arbitrarily chose these names. Of course, when one see Oedipa written on the page, one thinks Oedipus. The only connection I can think of now, between Oedipa and Oedipus, is the blindness. This comes later in the book, when Oedipa is drinking bourbon and then “went out and drove on the freeway for a while with her lights out.” For those not familiar with Oedipus Rex, he blinds himself and says something like, “From now on, go in darkness!” So, maybe this is what Pynchon was thinking when naming her Oedipa (and maybe there’s more to it than the blindness), or maybe he was just “arbitrarily” naming her. If he did arbitrarily name everyone, you still have to wonder about the names. I mean: Mucho Maas (I think that means “a lot more” in Spanish), Dr. Hilarious, etc. These seem so telling. But maybe that’s just postmodernism: messing with what seems to be there, on the surface, or what should be there, according to what one expects. Or maybe I’m just making an unrelated mess out of all of this.

If put on the spot about why The Crying of Lot 49 is postmodern, I’d probably say that it’s because you can’t figure it out, at least, not right away and not in one way. This explanation would hardly win me an A in this class, but it seems like a right explanation for this text. If written in a modern manner, it would leave nothing unexplained at the end and would have an apt conclusion—maybe not a satisfying conclusion, but a plausible one. All the little threads would form some sort of picture, and the reader wouldn’t be left hanging. But postmodernism seems to always have the reader questioning if what he/she read indeed happened or if what was presented as reality wasn’t actually reality at all.

muted-horn

On Lethem, DeLillo, Hassan, and Cage

I was excited to see that Jonathan Lethem was one of the included authors in the download. I had read Lethem before but only his non fiction, an essay entitled “The Ecstasy of Influence” which appeared in an issue of Harpers. The essay was so well written and convincing that I read it twice in one sitting, which is a rare occasion considering my short attention span. “Super Goat Man” was just as engaging. I thought the story had great blend of fantasy and reality, which I suppose is indicative of a postmodern story. Super Goat Man is not revered by the youth like the other grandiose superheroes; instead he is small time, which I think adds a bit of reality into the plot, making Super Goat Man more of a human. The narrator’s parent generation embraces Super Goat Man for his rejection of pedestrian life, as Everett says in the opening paragraphs, “It was our dads who cared.” This was a facet of the story that I found interesting. Everett disliked Small Goat Man, and also it seemed to me that he disliked his father for his interest in the minor hero. It bewildered Everett that his father and Super Goat Man had so much in common. His detest for this connection comes at the end, “I knew that my loathing had its origins in an even deeper place, in the mind of a child wondering at his father’s own susceptibility to the notion of a hero.” From the hippy parties to Jazz music, Super Goat Man is the hero of the past, a hero that is unrecognizable in Everett’s generation. Furthermore, I thought the element of Jazz was metaphorical for its association to Super Goat Man and Everett’s father. Everett has little interest in it, as if Jazz is passé for Everett’s generation.

Don DeLillo’s story was difficult to digest, not just for the grotesque killing scenes, but also the barely there plot. There story didn’t seem to be heading in any sort of direction, but only to show the depravity of the terrorists. Jean Claude describes the War uniforms shown in film, claiming that uniforms from the civil war are connected to success. Color and personality are encouraged. “We will shoot in color because color is the color of childhood fantasy.” The terrorists’ uniforms reflect Jean Claude’s argument; they are motley dressed with various styles that even exceed cultural boundaries. I could possibly infer from this that the consumerist culture, which is today’s culture, embraces personality and color, bears the new uniform and it is this uniform that cloaks the depravity of DeLillo’s terrorists. This sounds like total bs but it’s the only thing I managed to pull from the story.

I agree with Alana’s post that the typography and position of the text have an impact on the Cage and Hassan essays as well as the content, and that it influences the reader’s perception of the essays without even having read the words. From what I’ve seen, this tactic seems to be a reoccurring one in postmodern literature.

Self-Awareness, Dehumanization

I agree with Jennifer’s summary of Foer’s story. He attempts to create a symbol-driven handbook for categorizing the depth of emotions arising from, among other things, love and illness. But the complexity of human experience cannot be limited to the characters on a standard keyboard. The approach reminds me of Hassan’s point that “we no longer know what response is adequate to our reality” (23). Hassan also describes dehumanization as a process of turning emotions into an equation, calling it a “revulsion against the human” (20). Foer’s story plays with this, but I wouldn’t call it dehumanized. Actually, I think its form allows it to have an opposite effect. Obviously no generic handbook would ever have such intimate examples, and by disguising itself within generic instructions, the underlying sensitivity is exposed.

I just mentioned Hassan, but I mostly didn’t know what he was talking about. I’m curious about what others thought of the “POSTmodernISM” essay. I had a hard time with it, partly because I’m unfamiliar with many of the names and works he referenced, partly because the form threw me off.

As for Link, I think I liked her story better than Jennifer did, but the ending also confused me. The zombies were what initially attracted me to this story, too, and it’s nice that Soap fears them but at the same time appreciates their simplicity. I don’t consider them much of a metaphor; I think they’re just zombies, but by the end I still felt like I’d missed something.

One part I found especially engaging and hoped would be expanded more was when she described Soap’s painting on 158-159 like a depiction of the story itself, the story of being lost in the woods. No one really knows what the painting is supposed to be or where it came from. Maybe it’s a forest inside of which is a prison, inside of which are these strange characters. But that’s about as far as I got with that interpretation. I like how the narrator calls Soap so many names, the preferred name being an object. Does this count as dehumanization? Sometimes he’s Arthur, or Sweetheart, or…Wolverine? At the end he’s not there at all. So whose story is it?

I’m also curious to know what everyone took from the Cage piece. I was initially skeptical because of the multiple fonts–they seem a little gimmicky and annoying, especially since they don’t really make a pattern and I really want them to. But I enjoyed the story/poem and how self-aware and contradictory it is right from the beginning, with its hopeful title and hopeless parenthetical title. It’s sometimes like a piece about good intentions gone wrong. Tunnel workers go on strike to make more money or have better conditions, but the government ends up not just not needing them, but actually doing better without them. That’s so sad.

But back to the fonts: What do you think about them? Are they just there for attention? I don’t get why the form is the way it is, unevenly centered and mashed together, unless maybe the point is to look jagged (which is possible) or maybe there’s no point at all (also possible). What is it that holds everything together here?

Welcome to ENGL 660

Welcome to the class blog for the Spring 2009 English graduate seminar “American Postmodernism.” If you are a student in ENGL 660, you can register for the blog, something you’ll need to do before the first week of classes is over.

Even if you don’t want to register yet, you can still browse this site, which will play an essential role in our course this semester. Of particular interest will be the course guidelines and the day-to-day class calendar.