less is more

[Mascaro at humnet.ucla.edu]

Chris and others,

I've been away for the better part of a week and as usual can only skim the 
hundreds of posts that pile up, but I'm struck by your remark (or someone's 
remark) that CL49 doesn't seem to be --about--anything clear, or some such 
complaint about its --difficulty--in contrast to GR.

Well, someone has prbably already weighed in w/ this observation, but 
doesn't it seem clear that one of the thrusts of that --novel--pace Slow 
Learner--is to explore the notion of METAPHOR at its real deep philosohical 
and epistomological wellsprings?  What is all that stuff about "a thrust at 
truth and a lie"?  Isn't the heart of it Oedipa's night of dark 
wonderland-like wandering which culminates in that episode of the tattooed 
sailor and the palimpsest/stained mattress, with generations of written 
messages layered over each other?  (I'm pulling this out of memory so might 
not have these details quite right.)  Anyway, I've thought this ever since I 
first read the last line and finally realized, no auction goer I, what 
*crying* meant.  And isn't this the point behind Nefastis' demon machine, 
(reminded here of Wittgenstein's discussion of aesthetics where he talks 
about metaphors in terms of a double-pan balance or scale whereby we 
"meassure" entities  of different orders)  that it's a metaphor for the way 
we create reality, which is itself a metaphor, but one with a missing 
element (a metaphor of what?).  And doesn't Jesus say something like this to 
Oedipa on the beach?  This note isn't as focused as I wanted it to be, but 
that's my take, anyway.  Metaphor, my boy.


Sincerely,

John Mascaro