Pynchon – American Postmodernism

Broad spectrum, closed system

I can somewhat understand Adams’s argument about the differences between The Crying of Lot 49 as a closed paranoid space and The Tropic of Orange as an open space. Still, as much as Tropic of Orange honors diversity and expresses a multi-national vision, there were a couple of images that struck me as Pychon-esqe and drew attention to the restraints of society that could lead to paranoia and anxiety like that of the Cold War era.

First and most obviously, the contaminated orange scare, while not as devastating as a nuclear attack, is still far reaching in its impact. Global markets are a wonderful innovation because they allow people to have fresh produce almost everywhere even when something is out of season. On the other hand though, the different standards of health inspection in different countries and the difficulty of tracing where some imports come from can make a food scare as random and potentially as harmful and frightening as a terrorist attack.

The highways so prominently featured in Crying Lot and Tropic of Orange connect nations and people are a fantastic invention because they allow for greater freedom to movc about and provide for greater transparency and acceptance between cultures. At the same time though, these paths often become blocked with congestion and accidents, which, far from liberating, can be confining, frustrating, and dangerous. The character of Manzanar Murakami, the homeless music of the traffic conductor, reminds me of Pynchon and his novel V., which deals with the ideas of closed systems and entropy, the inevitable breakdown of order in any given closed system. The highways in Tropic become closed, toxic, destructive systems when accidents occur and yet Murakami seems to accept this. Personally, I hate traffic and traveling, even when I’m speeding along uninterrupted so the idea of someone watching traffic and watching traffic disasters and somehow integrating it into something beautiful, a work of art, is astonishing to me. Murakami seems to voice Pynchon’s belief that the breakdown of order cannot be avoided so one might as well celebrate. In the novel V., Pynchon creates a metaphor for the contemporary person, writing that we are all sailors on sinking ships, but we can still paint the ship as it goes down, a sentiment that seems reflected in Murakami.

Another detail in Tropic of Orange that seemed to change the setting into a closed system was the brief exchange at the end of chapter 20. A woman in the restaurant says ‘”I happen to adore Japanese culture. What can I say? I adore different cultures. I’ve traveled all over the world. I love living in L.A. because I can find anything in the world to eat, right here'” (129). The odd thing about this statement is that is takes ethnic diversity and reduces it to a commodity to be consumed, literally. L.A. becomes a microcosm of the world, a concentrated mass of multi-culturalism. If one believes that L.A. contains everything one could want from another culture, then hasn’t that other culture been simplified and restricted?

Movements

I’d first like to just say that I think Yamashita’s use of music in her novel is beautiful. The book is written sort of like a song – with different characters working their way in and out of the text like instruments. I know it sounds really cheesy, but that’s the first thing that struck me. Small themes brought up in the beginning of the novel lead to great catastrophes or large events later on. Then, of course, there is the conductor who directs traffic. This, in and of itself, is a lovely image that lends itself to the text’s lyricism.

The movement of traffic is one thing that I think Adams explained nicely in her article. I like how she compared the freeway vein and impossible circuit of Pynchon’s California to Yamashita’s more musical and, in strange ways, hopeful freeway. I also like how she emphasized that Yamashita’s novel suggests the freeway is less crucial to the vital functions of a city. One infrastructure stalling doesn’t guarantee apocalypse. In the same way, the characters that survive are historically connected rather than flailing, and if they fail, that failure won’t necessarily destroy them. Adams makes some great points comparing the texts. I don’t think she’s disparaging Pynchon either – she’s more just calling attention to thematic and stylistic differences. In some ways I think the differences are just that (thematic and stylistic), and not necessarily bookends for an entire literary period. I feel like there’s a point where constantly arguing back and forth about whether something is postmodern just bogs it down and detracts from what we can get from the writing.

One thing I find strange was the emphasis placed on California, as if it’s this entirely different world and the center of everything. Maybe it is. At one point Yamashita mentions Joan Didion, and I kept thinking of her California freeway essay (and other CA essays) as I read the Adams article – how she made a game of the freeway, how she studied the freeway system, and felt completely connected to it. If California is this big a deal in the grand scheme of whatever postmodernism is, I sort of feel less connected to it than to Pynchon’s random red herrings and Cold War references.

There were a few other things I was wondering about. One was dialect – how did this strike other people? Adams mentions it in her article. At first I was wary of it because there are so many different conversational things happening, and for some reason I kept getting pulled from the story and thinking about screenplay dialogue. I’m not really sure why. But I see Adams’ point – that the use of dialect emphasizes a convergence of “underrepresented” people – I just wonder how accurate a representation it is.

The magical realism is also pretty stunning. In a weird way, it reminds me of Beloved – I guess just because it’s there, in this otherwise realistic piece. Perhaps the unreal elements sweeping into daily life emphasize the unreality or strangeness of real daily life.

Adams Article

I do not agree with Rachel Adam’s assertions that postmodernism is somehow over, or that Tropic of Orange represents some sort of seismic shift in American literature that we will all inevitably follow.

First, a little defense of The Crying of Lot 49. Yes, I can understand that students respond to the text as if it is some sort of cruel hoax. That is because the novel is cruel in a way; it cannot be neatly wrapped up in a bow, it does not have a conclusive ending. The problem does not lie in the novel, it lies in the students, and also in the education system in the era of N.C.L.B. (I’ve been trying to get everyone to call it “Nickelby”, but it does not seem to be catching on). I do not want to go on an extended rant about education, but basically, the emphasis on standardized texting has led to a generation of students who are only interested in issues that are clearly black/white. Students today cannot stand ambiguity, it makes them nervous. To me, that is even more of a reason to continue teaching Pynchon, to take students out of their comfort zones. If I decided that every novel that my students did not like was no longer relevant, then I would be stuck teaching Twilight and that book by the Jon & Kate Plus Eight parents.

Also, if her students are unable to identify “the sharp polarization of the globe, fears of looming nuclear apocalypse, and … a government enmeshed in secrecy and conspiratorial activity,” then they are just not paying attention. What have we been doing for the last 8 years if not polarizing the globe? We are so entrenched in an “us vs. them” narrative that we felt the need to change the name of our fried potato treats. As the number of states that have nuclear weapons grows we should worry about a nuclear accident now more than ever. Pakistan, North Korea, and soon Iran are all unstable states that have nuclear capabilities (I just found out that South Africa is one of the 10 nuclear armed states, seemed pretty random). We went into Iraq under the assumption that Hussein was attempting to develop weapons of mass destruction. Also, it is not just nuclear annihilation we need to worry about, there are plenty of other ways that humanity can kill itself off (See: environment). The Bush Administration was incredibly “enmeshed in secrecy.” Look at all the shady stuff that is coming out: the US attorney firings, torture memos, secret prisons, roving death squads, illegal wiretapping, chupacabras, detaining prisoners illegally, not to mention the sweet, sweet bribes. The Bush Administration was a paranoid person’s dream (or nightmare, not sure which). I think it is hard to say that the main ideas behind postmodernism are no longer relevant.

I agree that “globalization” literature is an interesting field, and one that is very relevant to our current society. However, as Susana pointed out, I feel that it points in a new direction for postcolonial or transnational literature. And why does it have to be one or the other? Why does Adams feel that the rise of one type of literature automatically leads to the demise of another? Why can’t we all just get along?

I just want to add that I enjoyed Tropic of Orange very much, my beef is with the article, not the novel.

Cold War and the Net, and 9/11 too.

This is the third of fourth time I’ve read through the Adams article and I’m still really hung up on the open vs. closed system idea. At first, I think I pretty much bought her argument, although cautiously. I was thinking particularly about the flow of information and how in Pynchon’s world it is overwhelming and intrusive – this leads to paranoia and chaos; yet in Yamashita’s world it is “designed less to entrap both character and reader in a postmodern labyrinth than to evoke the dense networking of people and goods in an age of global interconnection.”

The more I considered this idea, the more I began to agree with Adams’ assessment. The concept of, let’s say, the Internet, would have seemed incredibly threatening to someone like Pynchon in the 60s, through the end of the Cold War. Consider the earlier reception of Sputnik – an informational satellite perceived as everything from spy to death-ray – instant and global information-sharing must have been a terrifying prospect to those alive during the Cold War. Flash forward to the 90s, after the Cold War, and in the heyday of the early Internet and society had a completely different attitude towards information-sharing networks. The paranoia was gone and people, for the most part, saw the approaching global interconnectedness as a positive, rather than something to be feared. People sought out information, and instead of information being chaotic and cryptic (Oedipa), it made lives easier (Wikipedia!!!).

My main issue with/question for Adams, originally was concerning the effects of 9/11 on the ‘new’ era of literary postmodernism. I originally figured that it would have been a Cold War redux situation…in that it would have increased paranoia and a fear of global information sharing. However, while paranoia was on the rise immediately following 9/11, I think people actually embraced technology and information sharing EVEN MORE. Sure there was some techno-fear (and considering the amount of fear-mongering…I think we all did pretty well..), mostly of the shoe-bomb/exploding shampoo bottle variety, but consider the boom of the 24hr news networks, the talking heads(not the band), the marketing . And here

We, instead of developing a legitimate fear of spies or technological home-invasion (at least not from the enemy…possibly our wire-tapping govt though), sought out every piece of “news” that we could get our hands and ears on. Information (the open system) was our friend, it was comforting, even when it was scary, to know that we knew as much as we could know. And the Internet was the biggest, most instant-gratificacious (not a word) tool at our disposal. We were not, as Adams says “entrap[ed” in any kind of “labyrinth,” but rather we reveled in our interconnection. So, indeed, it seems that the end of the Cold War WAS a major turning point, not just in literary postmodernism, but in societal understanding/comfort with information-sharing and global networking in general. Not even a trauma like 9/11 could make us turn our back on technology/information.

Sure, even Yamashita illustrates that “California (or the Net for our purposes) is a nodal point where globalization threatens to erupt into environmental and human catastrophe…..But she also hints that, as Adams says “[It can] also [be] where people find themselves creating unlikely coalitions that might work to remedy these problems.”

Horray.

Globalization & Transnational Studies in Tropic of Orange

In reading Adams’ explanation of the distinction between postmodern and contemporary literature, I felt the following quotation best aided my understanding of her argument: “Although Tropic of Orange is similarly complicated in terms of plot and narrative construction [as The Crying of Lot 49], its formal difficulties seem designed less to entrap both character and reader in a postmodern labyrinth than to evoke the dense networking of people and goods in an age of global interconnection. As Yamashita represents it, California is a nodal point where globalization threatens to erupt into environmental and human catastrophe, but also where people find themselves creating unlikely coalitions that might work to remedy these problems.”

If I understand this correctly, Adams suggests that while both books depict an interconnectedness (among people, events, things, and places) that is both complex and ambiguous, Pynchon depicts this interconnectedness as a conspiracy which ensnares both Oedipa and the reader, whereas Yamashita’s book uses interconnectedness to display humanity’s potential to work together to achieve solutions.

I agree with Sarah that Adams has helped me to understand postmodernism better, but I must also say that it brings to mind a conversation we have been having in my other class this semester, ENG 551: Literary Criticism. We have discussed a smorgasbord of critical views of literature, and more recently, we have discussed the section in our textbook entitled “Colonialism, Postcolonialism, and Transnational Studies.” I researched the distinctions and connections between these terms for a recent presentation on a Jamaica Kincaid piece called A Small Place (in which Kincaid suggests that the tourism industry in postcolonial tourist destinations like the island of Antigua exists as a sort of secondary colonialism in which the binary between tourist/native creates a tension not unlike that between colonizer/colonized). Interestingly, Adams references the following statement by Michael Denning:

a central task of a transnational cultural studies is to narrate an account of globalization that speaks not just of an abstract market with buyers and sellers, or even of an abstract commodification with producers and consumers, but of actors: transnational corporations, social movements of students, market women, tenants, radicalized and ethnicized migrants, labor unions, and so on.

Of course, my “ears”/eyes perked up when I read the term “transnational,” and I found myself considering the economic reading of Tropic of Orange as largely important to understanding (anything about) the text. In my used book, I have notes in the margins from a previous owner that are, by and large, not useful to me except one which reads: “Traded goods, but not people–people do not get in” (scrawled on p. 230 beside the following underlined pasasage in the text: “Cuz is staring at her new Nikes. Made in China. Nikes get in. But not the bro.”) What hypocrisy! We will exploit the developing worlds for its goods and its services, but we gawk at the idea of transnational experiences which will allow people in the developing world the same liberties we have in the United States. Of course, immigration is a very complicated and heated issue, but why isn’t commerce and consumerism more of an issue?

Transnational studies, I have come to understand, considers the effets of the spread of English throughout the colonies of the British empire, as well as what Adams considers the “globalization of American literature.” We cannot deny that the United States has been equally successful in creating some kind of empire that has spread the culture and language we speak across many parts of the world. That said, our job as contemporary critics, I am coming to understand, is to not only incorporate varying cultural perspectives, but to purposefully consider the ramifications of a postcolonial world and a world affected by the United States’ hegemonic status.

Yamashita’s contemporary novel Tropic of Orange brings together multiple cultural identities, with particular attention to the minority groups often left out of American literature before postmodernism. I feel strongly that her choice to incorporate the perspectives of seven main characters over a period of seven days relates directly to the cohesive quality of the number seven: not only are there seven days in the week, but there are also seven continents in the world. As Adams points out, despite a very organized chart entitled “HyperContexts” at the beginning of the book and “although this map locates the central characters in time and space, [this chart] also provides a deceptive sense of order to a narrative that ultimately refuses to come together in any coherent manner. ” That, I gather, is part of Yamashita’s message here: there is no coherent, cohesive, or perfect way to mesh together a variety of people and cultures, but it is certainly necessary and reasonable (and even unavoidable) to do so.

Family Life in Postmodern Literature

I think it’s interesting how the chapters in Tropic of Orange correspond with the characters. I’m not really sure what to make of it. It’s clearly another expression of fragmentation, but it’s odd that she outlines it for us in the beginning. It almost seems like a key, in the way that some of the information in House of Leaves seemed like a key. Yamashita is, in a way, telling us how to read the book. She organizes the information, it seems, to help us make sense of the novel. Doesn’t this sentiment seem slightly anti-postmodern? However, I’ve never seen it done in another text, so it is an innovative technique. I wonder if anyone read the chapters out of order. I’d like to go back and reread this in a year, but instead of reading straight through, I’d read the chapters the way they appear in the outline. I wonder how that would change the meaning of the text.

I liked this book, in particular, because it gave me some ways to continue thinking about my research topic. Most of the books we’ve read don’t deal closely with family life. In fact, their seems to be a lack of families, or a tearing apart of families, in most of the books we’ve read. Pynchon doesn’t depict a family and gives very little weight to the one marriage in the text. In House of Leaves, the Navidson family is figuratively (and literally in the case of Tom) torn apart. There is one marriage in the Lathe of Heaven, but it is also made to be a background issue.

We do see marriage and family life in The Female Man, but it is completely different from the traditional idea of the nuclear family. In Belovedthere are families, but they are often separated by death and slavery. In this text, family members never seem to work as a cohesive unit, but instead stay isolated from one another. In Mao II, Bill, Scott, and Karen make up a sort of untraditional family unit. However, this family is also torn apart by the end of the novel. In The Tropic of Orange, Rafaela, Sol, and Bobby are at the center of the story. Although family members, such as Rafaela and Sol, seem to operate in normal ways, their are various abnormalities surrounding them. In this case, the family life is altered, not internally, but externally as the geography around them twists and turns from its natural state.

Sometimes the aspects that interest me most in a book are not what it says, but what it doesn’t say. There is an obvious absence of family life in the books we’ve read. This lead me to wonder – where do families (especially nuclear families), marriage, and love fit into postmodernism?

Help.

I found Adams’ article, “The Ends of America,” really helpful in my (still feeble) attempts to form a working definition of postmodernism. She seems very confident in her definition of what we’ve admitted is a slippery category: postmodernism as the “dominant form of avant-garde literary experimentalism during the Cold War, a period marked by the ascendance of transnational corporations, the upheavals of decolonization, fears of nuclear holocaust, and the partitioning of the globe into ideological spheres” (Adams 2). Here, Adams is referring to the sixties through the late eighties (I would say it coincides with the formation and then fall of the USSR). However, stuff like the “upheavals of decolonization, fear of nuclear holocaust, and the portioning of the globe into ideological spheres” is sounding an awful lot like what’s going on today (I asked someone who lived through the Cuban missile crisis why they thought we don’t seem particularly concerned about the prospect of countries like North Korea or Pakistan getting nuclear weapons, and they said they think it’s because our generation has never had that much faith that the world wasn’t going to end, so there didn’t seem a point to panicking. I think they’re right.).

So anyway. If Adams is arguing that postmodernism was a reaction to the “containment culture of Cold War America,” (Adams 1) it would seem that the postmodern “moment” is over, as the particular historical moment that postmodern was a reaction to is more or less over as well. If so, I’d have to say that postmodernism seems to me to be the quickest-passing literary “moment” I’ve ever studied. (Is it possible that literary eras are speeding up? Why do I have to use so many parentheses?) Anyway, Adams argues that books like Tropic of Orange (and I would say also The Magical Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death-there I go again with the goddamn parentheses) are not postmodern per se but post-postmodern, or, in her terms, a reaction to the globalization of American literature. But do we agree that postmodernism has passed as its historical moment has passed?

But moving on, I thought I’d write a bit about my final paper and the issues I’ve been having and hopefully elicit some opinions and comments from other people. I wanted to take the discussion about Beloved and sort of run with it-I’d have to say it felt like the one book on the list that had the most to quibble about whether or not it was postmodern. But now I’m starting to feel like Oedipa, because it seems that each article or book I read just sends me ping-ponging from one position to the other. I’d like to make the argument that Beloved is a uniquely postmodern book. Here, Adams gives her list of what makes a postmodern work postmodern: “dark humor, themes of paranoia, skepticism, and conspiracy, preoccupation with close reading and textuality, and complex formal experimentation…[postmodern works] can be historicized as a response to and reaction against…the containment culture of Cold War America” (Adams 1). Given that Beloved has nary a nuclear reactor or conspiracy theory in sight, and it takes place in a history as yet untouched by the Cold War, is it still a postmodern novel?

Well, Adams goes on to write of Pynchon as the definitive postmodern author, citing his “preoccupation with paranoia and conspiracy, radical skepticism about foundational truth and authority of all kinds, deft mixing of genres, distrust of received historical knowledge, and confrontations with the sublime and apocalyptic” (Adams 3). Leaving out the paranoia and conspiracy part, I think a case could be made that Morrison’s work exhibits the same characteristics

A Lesson in Postmodern Disorder

In “The Ends of America, the Ends of Postmodernism” Rachel Adams writes this of her students’ responses to The Crying of Lot 49 and Tropic of Orange:

Their responses caused me to realize that in the first decade of the twenty-first century, Pynchon’s novel [The Crying of Lot 49] has ceased to read as a work of contemporary fiction, even though many critics continue to use postmodern and contemporary as synonymous term. While my students find Tropic of Orange no less challenging, they are willing to grapple with its difficulties because they recognize its form, which evokes the internet’s polyvocality and time-space compression, and its theme–the human and environmental consequences of transformations taking place at America’s borders-as belonging to their own contemporary moment. (2)

Looking at these texts from an undergraduate pedagogical perspective, this seems to be a fairly onerous lesson. Even if pairing these two texts together produces a distinction within literary postmodernism, it seems more of a salvage mission than one of intellectual curiosity. If The Crying of Lot 49 (or any text for that matter) only “works” for those experientially familiar with Cold War paranoia, “nuclear apocalypse, and newfound distrust of a government enmeshes in secrecy and conspiratorial activity” (2) then does it really offer a spring board for scholarly discussion (outside of: This text will inform the other texts we will be reading)? Is it only possible for students to value the text after they have read a “relatable” contemporary text like Tropic of Orange? Taking it a step further, are we merely teaching The Crying of Lot 49 for contextual/historical reasons? Is it possible to make it more relevant to students?

Though I do not disagree with Adams pairing of the two texts, I am curious to whether she believes them to be short-term “cultural capital” or appreciating assets on the road to canonization. Though either point could be argued, for the purposes of this discussion (as well as arguing for its inclusion in this course), I am more interested in the latter. Though Adam’s experience with her students initially points to the texts as holding short-term “cultural capital,” this need not be the case. First and foremost, a reader, even a reader as potentially resistant as a student, must have some sort of connection with a text. Even if it manages to “generate a more precise understanding of literary postmodernism” (10) that lesson will be lost if it is not more than a simple history lesson. Therefore, to make The Crying of Lot 49 relevant to an undergrad population, one must have an appropriate framework for discussion. Adams seems to draw a connection between using The Crying of Lot 49 as a point of entry to discussing Tropic of Orange. “These novels are an ideal pair because each translates the cultural and political dilemmas of its time into the aesthetic and thematic innovations of narrative fiction. Any attempt to define what makes Yamashita’s moment distinctive will require different forms of literary, historical knowledge, and attention to emergent sensibilities that break from earlier understanding of ‘the contemporary'” (10). I think she falls short in using the more remote text to inform the more “relatable” one. Drawing from Robert Scholes, I would stay she demonstrates “the tendency to follow a line of ‘masterpieces’ until the end, [which] no longer serve their purpose. It is not simply that the line is too narrow, though it is, but that this material does not reach student effectively because they do not know why they know why they need it. . . To put it simply, we much begin where we are, at the end, and start asking how we got here” (115). Perhaps, it would be wiser to read the “relatable” Tropic of Orange first. Only then is it possible to spark the intellectual curiosity necessary to take The Crying of Lot 49 to task.

Works Cited

Scholes, Robert. “A Fortunate Fall.” Falling into Theory: Conflicting Views on Reading Literature. Ed. David H. Richter. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1994. 111-119.

It also apparently manifests peanut butter.

I got to finish the book this week, which was great-although I think this is definitely a book I will have to read and reread, and then do it again, to pick up stuff I missed. Reading Johnny Truant’s mother’s letters was really a revelation-I think it makes a lot of sense to put those in the back of the book, because it made me sort of rethink the way I was approaching JT’s character. He’s pretty easy to write off in the first parts of the book, until it become apparent that however much of a screw-up he may be, he’s pretty smart and talented. His mother’s letters make it clear that her character is incredibly intelligent and well-read (despite being batshit insane). Though I have to say I’m getting weary of this trope of sticking every disaffected and underestimated character in a tattoo parlor (what says screw-up but ultimately talented antihero? I know-make him work in a tattoo parlor!). It would make more sense to have made him a hedge-fund manager. Also, I think I found a Thomas Pynchon reference on page 110, “Playwright Taggert Chiclitz.” I think that was the name of a minor character in Lot 49. (Coupled with Charles Huston’s reference to Genghis Cohen-is it a rule that postmodern writers have to include a Pynchon reference somewhere in their book?)

Anyway, I’ve been poking around the forums on the House of Leaves website, and looking at the entries here, the question that keeps popping up seems to be, so what? What is the purpose, and does it matter? Obviously I have no answer, but I think it’s interesting that that seems to be the source of a good deal of underlying frustration with this work.

I found an interesting link (actually, several) on YouTube for a trailer for a nonexistent movie of House of Leaves (sound familiar?). This one in particular is pretty well-done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyug0q9eyqw&NR=1

It’s generated some discussion on how people feel about turning the book into a movie. There’s also a bunch of links to interviews or readings by MZD (and even some trailers people made for the book itself-has youtube made genre obsolete?).

I think the most interesting thing about encountering this book for me has been the vast amount of stuff on the Web about it. I normally don’t do much background digging when I read a book, particularly a fiction one, but I started to when I began reading China Mieville’s stuff (there’s so much background knowledge that plays into his work linguistically that I needed a much larger vocabulary) and now with MZD. Particularly with MZD, there’s an incredible amount of interplay between different media forms regarding this book-the YouTube trailers, discussion forums, even a band called House of Leaves (myspace.com/houseofleaves) (I think they kind of suck but whatever) and it has made me really start redefining the concept of reading a book, because this isn’t a book you can really just read, which I think may have been exactly what MZD was going for-maybe that’s the answer to the so what? question.

Oh, and the book generates its own peanut butter-several pages in mine are stuck together with it, and I don’t eat peanut butter.

Quintessentially Postmodern, in Form and Function

The first thing I did when received this book from Amazon is flip through it. I was immediately struck by the drastically diverse layouts—some pages were dense with “typewriter style” text, some pages were extremely sparse with only three or four words, some had music notes, comic book illustrations, poetry, or letters. The text itself also eventually develops into a copy editor’s nightmare as the novel progresses: multiple fonts, strikethroughs, upside down, sideways—it’s one of the most exaggerated examples of spatial disorientation I’ve seen in a text. Something looked consistent, though: the word “house” was always blue. But this is my point: if that’s not a quintessentially postmodern text, what is?! If we’ve been unsure about classifying the previous novels we’ve read for this class as postmodern texts, we cannot be unsure about this one. Though I am unsure about many things regarding the meaning/theme(s) of House of Leaves at this point, I can say with certainty that this text is a postmodern one!

In addition to this, the postmodern concept of “layering,” as has been brought up by many fellow bloggers, is what seems to hold House of Leaves together. Danielewski interweaves multiple narratives within the book dexterously, and each tale is told with a distinctive style and unique purpose. For example, in terms of style, Truant’s text has the rambling intonation similar to Pynchon’s Lot 49, while the Zampano narrative sounds like a profound yet satirical account of academic writing. Finally, Navidson’s account has the style and tone that sounds the most like a traditional story. Intertwined in this way, the novel is relayed to the reader in rambling fragments, separated by footnotes and halting subject shifts. As I read through the pages, I found myself trying hard to resist the urge to follow a linear path, and as I adopted this mentality, the once-intimidating text slowly began to slowly reveal itself, little by little, very much like the ‘character’ of the house in the novel.

This is an aside: Did anyone else notice this right before page xi of the “Introduction”? –> “This is not for you.” It made me laugh.. :-)

But seriously, it brings up a whole slew of interesting questions: Why is this not for me? For whom is this written? If it’s not for me, why does Mark Danielewski dedicate an entire page at the start of his novel to reveal this to me and to everyone else who picks up his novel? Who is the “you”/”me” in this statement, anyway? Whatever it means, it definitely does the job of capturing the reader’s attention, and by working in the same way “reverse psychology” does, each reader immediately starts to believe that this work is significant for him/her (which is probably the effect that Danielewski had hoped it would have). I think the reader’s relationship with this text is meant to be dramatized, and Danielewski does this effectively by increasing the reader’s level of interaction with the text. What is the result of this increased level of interaction? Well, as opposed to any other genres of fiction, where you as the reader choose to escape into the story, the opposite happens with the postmodern genre: the text “escapes” into you, and changes the way you think about yourself—just as Johnny Truant assures the reader will happen: “For some reason, you will no longer be the person you believed you once were. You’ll detect slow and subtle shifts going on all around you, more importantly shifts in you. Worse, you’ll realize it’s always been shifting, like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer, only dark like a room. But you won’t understand why or how.” Sounds creepy. And also very postmodern.

Confusion of Authorship and the Gothic Novel

I know that as a literature grad student I am supposed to be able to step back and recognize fiction for what it is: made up stories about made up people ( I know that this definition is overly-simplistic, but whatever). That being said, what I have read in House of Leaves so far seriously creeps me out. I’ve only managed to read the first 80 pages that were assigned, but I am hooked, and may not get any sleep tonight because I want to know what happens next. The last time a book freaked me out this much was when I misguidedly read Stepehn King’s It in middle school, alone, at night, and constantly worrying that a killer clown was going to come out from under my bed and do terrible things to me. A coincidence I noticed was that Bret Easton Ellis offered a blurb praising this book saying that both Thomas Pynchon and Stephen King would want to bow down to Danielewski after reading this book. It is a coincidence because the three books that pop into my head when I read House of Leaves are It by Stephen King, The Crying of Lot 49 by Pynchon, and Ellis’ Lunar Park.

Lunar Park is probably the book I most think of when I read this because it explores many of the same themes as House of Leaves (although admittedly many years later). The main two of these themes being the hiding/layering of authorship and the physical house itself as the sourc of terror. Lunar Park is a book written by Bret Easton Ellis, author of such works as Less than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, and American Psycho, whose protaganist is Bret Easton Ellis, author of such works as Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, and American Psycho. The first sentence of Lunar Park is “You do an awfully good impression of yourself.” With this sentence, and throughout the novel Ellis attempts to hide/layer the actual authorship of the book by writing about the fictional Bret Easton Ellis writing this book. The blur between the fictional Ellis’ and the real Ellis’ life are purposefully blurred to the point that his fictional actress wife, Jayne Dennis (I think, I have not read it in awhile), has her own website ( on which she is reported to have formally dated Keanu Reeves……Whoa!). The novel includes enough actual facts about Ellis’ life that it is hard for the reader to know where the fiction starts and real life begins. Like many of my classmates, I am so completely caught up in Zampano’s/Truant’s story that I forget that it is all just coming from Danielewski. I keep feeling like if I stop reading and get on Netflix, I can put the Navidson Record on my queue, and I REALLY want to watch it. As where Ellis creates the fictional Ellis to hide/confuse authorship, Danielewski manages to completely mask himself and the reader forgets he even exists.

The other thing I noticed was that there seems to be something gothic about this novel’s treatment of the home. In gothic novels danger/otherness/creepiness shifted from coming from outside the house to coming from within or from the actuall house itself. This most likely had something to do with Victorian mores about sex according to some scholars, but that is neither here nor there, the house, home or living space generated the otherness/spookiness. I just thought this was interesting as we have discussed how postmodernism has been a reaction to other modes of literature. We have mainly discussed how it relates/ contrasts to modernism, but House of Leaves seems to be a postmodern take on the more traditional gothic novel.

Oh, and if anyone else out there is an Ellis fan, how awesome does the trailer for The Informers look? Spoiler: the answer, pretty awesome.

Fragmentation, Ends vs. Means, and the Unexplainable

Before beginning my “official” post, I must apologize if I repeat what has already been said in previous posts. I’m still getting used to the idea of a blog and I feel the need to write and post my individual, uninfluenced response to the text before reading what others have written. Obviously, this method sort of defeats the purpose of the blog, and if I could do a better job of posting earlier in the week it would be fine, so I obviously need to work on posting earlier…or developing a new approach to the blog. J

Now to the real post…

I absolutely loved Le Guin’s novel! I found The Lathe of Heaven to be quite moving and incredibly beautiful, and it has earned a spot on my list of top favorite works. However, I do have many questions about the book, and I am struggling with the fact that it seems so very different from what we have read thus far in the course. (I also found Lethem’s “Super Goat Man” to be uncharacteristic of what I was thinking was characteristic of Postmodernism, so, as Professor Sample said, it seems that defining Postmodernism will be a continual puzzle.)

The fragmentation quality seen in other Postmodern works thus far is not as clear in the novel. Le Guin has a beautiful, poetic-like style. The novel does not have a fragmented style like Pynchon’s work. George’s dreams and their effect on the changing realities could be considered fragmentation, though. Through the dreams and the interchanging realities, there is also an element of surrealism. George is in the center of the variations of reality and true reality becomes confused. Heather even refers to him as “Either Orr” since he is stuck in the middle (90). (This nickname also represents Heather’s shifting views of George; at times she views him as weak and at others she views him as her rock.)

As in John Cage’s ”Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)”, references to a deteriorating environment appear throughout Le Guin’s novel. (Le Guin also seems to criticize the hypocrisy of war in her work, another motif in Cage’s piece.) I found it interesting that Le Guin repeatedly refers to the 1980’s as a turning point in the decline of society and the environment. Also, George’s dream of the end of the world was in 1998, and the “true present” of the text is 2002. It seems that Le Guin’s work could be interpreted as foreboding danger, destruction, and decline to come, and, since it was written in the 1970’s, it seems she holds, or at least portrays, the belief that the destruction was fast approaching. While this message carries through the novel, there are also some conflicting views, such as the idea that “great self-destruction follows upon unfounded fear” (121). Although it does not necessarily seem consistent with the novel as a whole or with the time, it seems that Le Guin’s work could be interpreted as presenting the fears of destruction as unfounded since she often shows the destruction as self-imposed. Also, she seems to oppose irrational fears of space by presenting the reader with kind Aliens.

Along these lines, Le Guin raises the question of whether the ends are more significant than the means. Haber seems to hold the view that the end justifies whatever means necessary to evoke the change (the end), whereas George believes that the means (costs) must be taken into account and individuals should not act as God to bring about change. However, the Alien seems to share Haber’s view in regards to work/production. Rather than provide the reader with a definite opinion or message on the debate, Le Guin seems to present us with the debate itself—the reader, and society, must weigh the cost of their actions.

It’s clear that Le Guin presents that idea that some things simply are unexplainable. George reaches this “high attainment” (26), this ability to leave things as unexplainable. However, Dr. Haber can’t let things be (as George repeatedly argues that they must) and he believes that things must not only be changed, but also explained. George warns him, that he is “handling something outside reason” (page 86). He may have good goals (ends), but he is approaching them the wrong way. George tells Haber he is “trying to reach progressive, humanitarian goals with a tool that isn’t suited to the job.” Dr. Haber is ultimately destroyed in the end whereas George, who is able to let things be, “survives” (105) So maybe Le Guin’s view of the ends vs. means debate is more clear than it originally appears…

I’d like to have a better understanding of how this idea of the ends vs. the means ties in with the commentary on environmental destruction. I also want to have a better understanding of the ending of the novel. I feel a bit unclear about Haber’s dream. Haber obviously placed his own self-interests first, but he did seem to have good intentions. What was that final dream? Why would he dream for such destruction…or did he? I guess I’m trying to match up where the dreams intersect and make sense of what would have changed when. But then I’m trying to give reason to what may be intended to be out of the grasp of reason.

The Meaning of Reality in Crying of Lot 49: “violence to our flabby habits of perception”

Crying of Lot 49 was not a fun read for me. Even though it’s supposed to be one of Pynchon’s most accessible novels, I was still frustrated by the evasiveness of its plot. After finishing the novel and reading Michael Holquist’s “Whodunit and Other Questions,” I started to find some logic and reassurance in the entropy of Lot 49’s plot. Holquist’s prodding question especially piqued my interest: “What, then, is the particular pattern of reassurance provided by detective fiction?” (138). Holquist defines the clichés of modernist detective fiction, and arrives at the conclusion that postmodern detective stories respond to modernist ones, especially in their attempt to escape from “rational” literature that fills illogical voids with psychological and mythical reasoning. Instead of filling the unexplainable “void” in stories with religion or myths, postmodernism “dramatizes that void” (155). In a way, the dramatization of this void presents a more realistic image of the world we inhabit. So, instead of making up stuff, we just admit that we don’t know…

It is only natural to feel jilted by Pynchon’s destruction of our rosy perception of reality. I believe that this is, in fact, his message. As Holquist eloquently states towards the end of his essay, it is this ambiguity and meaninglessness of the metaphysical detective story which causes “violence to our flabby habits of perception” (156). Instead of spoon-feeding nuggets of coherent, linear, and relevant information to readers, Pynchon gives the reader both useful information and superfluous, disorienting details in the order in which Oedipa encounters them, to emulate the realistic and often random transmission of information in real life. The unsuspecting reader will undoubtedly find the text initially infuriating, but there is some enjoyment that can be found in its “open” ending. Though unsettling, Crying of Lot 49 succeeds in provoking readers to ponder interesting philosophical questions regarding the relevance of information, the mutability of our perception of reality, and the (im)possibility of manipulating our circumstances to create (dis)order in our lives.

Perhaps the most pressing question that I have regarding the novel is this: Is Pynchon implying that life is so capricious so that arbitrary events and associations lead to profound discoveries, or is he suggesting the opposite—that life’s events are more banal than we imagine, leaving us (like Oedipa) falsely presuming that meaningful connections exist in the midst of random information? Is Oedipa fighting a losing battle by attempting to create order in her chaotic world?

I have accepted that these questions have no distinct, correct answers. In this sense, Lot 49 and other postmodern detective stories are violent. As Holquist points out, these stories are “not an escape, but an attack” (155). They are an attack on our stale and unimaginative perception of reality, one where all clues are relevant and lead to a solution, and where all detective novels end in the salvation of the good characters and the punishment of the bad ones. Pnychon wants to shows his readers that there exists a possibility of another (not so pleasant) reality, or maybe that there is no fixed reality at all.

pynchon-simpsons

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.

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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).

Jumbled thoughts on pynchon and being jumbled

A lot of really interesting points have been raised so far and I wish I’d posted earlier so that I might at least have the illusion of an original thought. Something I found most intriguing in Pynchon’s work was what drew me to Lethem’s short story in last week’s reading – the compatibility of form and function.

Just as Lethem highlighted the banality of Super Goat Man’s world with an ultra-straight matter-of-fact narrative, Pynchon continuously builds an atmosphere of fracture, confusion, and ambiguity. It actually becomes a bit disorienting for the reader – something I always find quite impressive (like checking under your bed after a decent scare-flick, when a book can physically daze you a bit, it’s an accomplishment). In fact it reminded me of a bit of a cross between a few of Vonnegut’s novels and some short stories by Shirley Jackson – I think I have “The Tooth” in mind, if that’s the actual name.

I want to quote Alyssa’s assertion, that “the more [Oedipa] uncovers the more she realizes how incoherent all of the narratives are” – I agree not just with the statement regarding Pynchon’s narrative, but also the comment it could potentially make about narrative in general (both literary and real…that is, real life you-and-me narrative). I think there is a sense of authenticity in the fact, if we consider the proposed arbitrary nature of words and things, the signifier and signified, if you wish, or just the exponential implications of admitting a letter symbol (then the word symbol then the thing symbol then the idea symbol) is arbitrarily assigned, … that not each “thread” encountered, whether it be by a protagonist or by one’s self, always “ties-in” to the main schema of narrative. Its been said that this text is full of contrasting, even contradictory ideas/names/actions/objects – this seems to be another. In some sense the absurd (I know that’s not the right word) and arbitrary lends itself to authenticity, realism.

I suppose I’m trying to say, that perhaps, in a more “traditional” novel (again I doubt that’s the correct word I should use) the threads might be sewn up at the end, for catharsis’ sake, without any dangling “clues” or hints along the way; the symbols would become clear, and the meaning (or un-meaning) of character names, in a more Dickensian way, would make themselves known (or at least the deciphering pattern would be a consistent formula). For Pynchon, there is room for untidiness. Of course this is not the first, nor last, novel to end without total closure, and that doesn’t make it a good or bad, an innovative or derivative text in itself, but I just think that the fracturing Pynchon shows us (that it isn’t healed but in a way, expands like a glass-crack in the winter) says more about difficulties in narrative, authenticity, language (symbolic and practical), POV, or whatever etcetera …what Prof. Sample called their “unknowability.”

Finally, there are pages and pages one could write about the names of people, places, bands, and so on. As someone pointed out, the differing “formulas” for cracking certain names, ie some are pre-fixed with negations or amplifiers, some are opposites some are contradictions, etc….anyway, so I won’t bother going into it now, but look forward to this conversation in class. ….sorry if this was all over the place. Pynchon’s in my head.

Continuing Themes with Pynchon

Reading The Crying of Lot 49, I’m struck by many of the similarities between this work and Pynchon’s first novel V.. Oedipa Maas’s quest mirrors that of Herbert Stencil’s search for the illusive figure of V. in the earlier novel. Both characters become obsessed with goals of discovery (and to a certain extent self-discovery) that seem perpetually out of reach. The clues that they follow are random and not firmly grounded or linked together. In V., Pynchon emphasizes the wild-goose-chase nature of the search writing that the journey becomes such an obsession that without the search Stencil has no meaning so he deliberately perpetuates the fruitless search.

The Crying of Lot 49 also contains traces of another pivotal character from V. named Benny Profane. Benny seems to have no purpose in life, no internal drive, no meaning or anchor. I think that at the beginning of the novel Oedipa seems stuck in a similar kind of apathetic malaise. Many other characters in the novel, particularly the Paranoids, display the same detachedness as Benny Profane and inclination toward debauchery as the Whole Sick Crew, Benny’s group of drinking, partying, whoring, irresponsible companions.

Pynchon continues his interest in entropy from V. on into The Crying of Lot 49. In The Crying of lot 49, Pynchon actually touches more directly on the subject of entropy in terms of its scientific definition. At the same time though, there appears to be a kind of social entropy taking place as well. The order of things is breaking down in Oedipa’s world. It is a world where a psychiatrist can get away with calling his client at three in the morning, a husband and wife nonchalantly and knowingly cast fidelity out the window, and people feel little reverence for dead American soldiers. There is something amiss in this setting. Social entropy similarly appears in Pynchon’s earlierst novel, most notably manifesting itself in the chaotic activities of the Whole Sick Crew.

Pynchon also carries weird names over from V. V. is populated with characters with strange yet meaningful names like Dewey Gland, Pig Bodine (one of the more profane characters), Slab (ironically an artist by profession),Rachel Owlglass (easily one of the most compassionate and insightful characters in the novel), and Benny Profane (a combination of Benny as in Benzadrine, an amphedamine drug, and Profane, which stands for his degenerative path). I think that Oedipa Maas’s name has a similar imbedded meaning to that of Herbert Stencil. Like a Stencil, Herbert Stencil is empty and must fill himself with something outside himself to give him meaning. For Herbert, his meaning derives from his search for V. Similarly Oedipa Maas or “more” seems to be searching for something “more.” To me, the word “more” connotes reaching higher or aspiring; in a capitalistic society we try to achieve “more” money, toys, happiness, et cetera. Her first name calls to mind Oedipus, the hero of Sophocles’s Greek tragedy about a man who makes an unsettling self-discovery and, perhaps on some level, mirrors Oedipa’s personal quest to discover the meaning of the Tristero System.

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?

Oedipa “More”- A Postmodern Protagonist

I would like to address Pynchon’s choice of Oedipa Maas. Interestingly, Pynchon chose to center his story on the experiences and investigations of a housewife before the Feminist movement. Indicative of the time in which the story was written, Oedipa is a housewife; however, Oedipa does much more than the average housewife usually would. Yes, the story begins with her return home from a Tupperware party, but her role as protagonist serves as that of a detective, even an amateur scholar. Then again, she is the product of her experiences, in some ways, and so are others in the story, particularly women.

For example, Oedipa does not ask nor does she expect to be the executor of Pierce’s estate, nor does she choose many of her experiences in the book. Even the Remedios Varo painting in Mexico which makes Oedipa cry under “her dark green bubble shades” depicts “a number of girls with heart-shaped faces, huge eyes, spun-gold hair, prisoners in the top room of a circular tower, embroidering a kind of tapestry which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking hopelessly to fill the void” (21). The women in the painting are stuck, prisoners, trying to “fill the void” that, one could argue, is their lives. This calls to mind the Jameson article and his assessment of Postmodern art, particularly Munch’s The Scream which Jameson says “deconstructs its own aesthetic of expression, all the while remaining imprisoned within it “(62). The same mediation occurs with the art within art in the Varo painting and in Oedipa’s interpretation of their hopeless attempt to “fill the void.” Both Oedipa and the women in the painting are, in part if not completely, helpless and powerless, but at the same time, they are working to fill some void or in Oedipa’s case, to deduce a potentially arbitrary and nonexistent mystery.

Todd Kelly and Professor Sample both commented on Oedipa’s name, and Professor Sample suggested we consider the implications of the last name “Maas” in terms of the Spanish term for “more” (“mas”). As Oedipa tries to make sense of the postal service, the stamps, and the horns, among other things, she is demonstrating her almost insatiable curiosity about life. As opposed to the passivity I discussed above, in most of the book, Oedipa exercises control and power over herself (and sometimes her surroundings) as she resourcefully attempts to make sense of the seeming senseless “mystery.” She is going out into the world, away from her husband in particular (and after her own mystery, her own role as the executor of the estate) and discovering a complicated set of connections that to others have often overlooked.

On the other hand, Oedipa’s encounters are often mediated by other associations, often seemingly random associations, a fact which indicates some passivity in her experiences. Furthermore, both we, the readers, and Oedipa are left waiting for the anonymous bidder of Lot 49. The story ends with Oedipa waiting, which can be interpreted as both passive and active, but also leaves a void, a mystery unsolved, for the reader which makes the experience itself almost seem fruitless.

I do not, despite what I have written, find the novel or Oedipa’s role in the novel to be depressing or desperate. On the contrary, I see Oedipa as revolutionary as a character; her curiosity and deftness in uncovering the traces of a mystery (though not the entire mystery) reveal a new kind of Postmodern female. I would argue that Postmodernism, as Jameson explains, has more to do with fragmentation than the alienation so important to Modernism, and thus, it is not Oedipa’s alienation as a character (though she is depicted as very lonely at times) or her inability to solve this mystery which holds her back, but rather, the fragmented story she is trying to piece together. It is almost necessary to Postmodernism that the story remain fragmented rather than whole or complete or even solved; thus, Oedipa is left perpetually waiting for “more” or “Maas”, and her story is never quite finished.

I have much more I want to discuss concerning Oedipa, in particular, but I will save some of that for class.

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.