The Love Connection

[Diana York Blaine]

Benji:  What do you make of the Tristan/Tristero connection?  How are you
defining "passion"?  Does Hamlet get driven further into the plot or does
he drive the plot?  I see some obvious parallels, as do you I'm sure:
both Oedipa and Hamlet lose their stability  due to the death of the
patriarch.  Both must search for clues as to what happened and how to
proceed.  Both manipulate circumstances to the best of their ability in
order to find out information.  But Hamlet seems the more successful in
this, even if he does accidentally kill the tubby Polonius (I don't know
if he's really fat, but I've always seen him as the Skipper ever since
watching that episode of Gilligan's Island when I was wee).  Hamlet lives
in a world where things make sense--the original act of killing Claudius
sets the cosmos out of balance.  This is the cause and there will be
effects.  Can we say the same thing about Oedipa's universe?   Diana