Naming Inverarity, Pierce: not to distract

[Eric Alan Weinstein]

Aaron Yeater wrote:
> 
> But a friend of mine made a small discovery last night--Inverarity,
> the last name of the missing ex-hubby in CoL49, is also the name of a
> scotch from town in Scotland called "Inverary" (sp?).  Any ideas on
> a) if this is the source and b) if so, why?
> 
> your opinions are truly valued...

1) A play on Dr. Moriarity: and the death and schemeing that 
name is implicated in

2) Pierce: From B.F. Pierce, founder of information theory

3) The state of being from Inverness, Scotland, birthplace 
of Clarck Maxwell, author of "Theory Of Heat"(1870) a book
on thermodynamics, and the "inventor" of the hypothetical
Maxwell's Demon.

4)Also, a play on "inverse rarity", which is a kind of stamp
whose misprint makes it worth much money to collectors

5) Play on "Peers into variety"---i.e., views the variety of 
America.

6) From the latin root (I mean the "verar" bit) perhaps 
either piercing the untruth or having a stab at truth, which
after all is how Pynchon goes on to identify Oedipa's concept
of metaphore.

7) Pierce Inverarity's name, by referencing both B.F. Pierce
(founder of Information theory) and James Maxwell, author 
of thermodynamic studies, can be considered as both sides of
the equationfor thermodynamic and information entropy.

    Meanwhile, Oedipa Maas' is also
a brave naming, for Fruedian interpretation will not alone
be adaquate for the understanding of these events; we are nearer
1) the Sopoclean realms of Oedipus, the first detective, and CL49
is a search which begins with a man's death. Oedipa, our Detective,
believes herself to be in the position of adetaced and objective 
subject, but ultimately will find herself deeply implicated in 
the "infection" of the land. 

2) Maas: in Afrikaans, "maas" means "web", for Oedipa, the web of
implication, or the web in which she might gather her clues.
Unfortunately for Oedipa,
3) in Dutch "maas" means "loophole", as in the loopholes of paradox,
double meaning and uncertainty which continualy open up to her, 
thereby disallowing the ultimate (dis-)closure her quest seeks to
produce. "Maas" is also, of course, "mass"---so we have
 4)the mass media,
where "the medium is the message," the average representitve or "mass"
man, the 
5) "mass"ivness of America, including the massive weight of
material forms in America which, with the closing of the frontier, 
dis-place the American dream. The Nameing may also hint at the question 
of any possible "mas-"tery of her own fate Oedipa may have. 
6) Terry Ceaser (hallo, Terry) has suggested its a pun if done in a 
good Texas accent---our heroine in a crap detective, therefore
"Oedipa, my ass!" (try this out loud. It works even with a slight North
London twang.) 

7)Had enough? Don't give up yet. 
In addition weight, Oedipa's name can be thought of 
as weightlessness (0 mass.)
Now, Zeroes and Ones, remember? 
(re-membering is important in this book, especially the night
in S.F. sequence)
 
Therefore, Pierce Inverarity referances the speed of movement and
 the material organization of Being for everthing in the world;

 Oedipa referances all the matter and emptynesswhich make it up.

Pierce (1) and Oedipa (0)
are ment to provide a way of measuring the world itself.

    Tony Tanner has often pointed out that Pyncon's neames are
the most overdetermined in fiction, and "he is probably undermining
and mocking the very act of nameing". The author's (authoritarian)
presence disallows in fact the kind of freedom for his charector's 
that he might wish to call into being. This places the author, albeit
comically, in a position of mortal untenabiity, vis-a-vis his God-like
power over creation in the novel context. Yet I believe it is also 
possible to see Pynchon's naming as an extention of the Dickensian 
naming tradition, which calls into question the myth 
of bourgeois selfhood in the context of the economic and 
professional usurptions which both fuedalism and capitalism 
require as the price of such an attainment.

Eric Alan Weinstein
Centre For English Studies
University Of London
E.A.Weinstein at qmw.ac.uk