TV v. God

[Dave Monroe]

This is something I found interesting as well, that
speaking of the name of God.  Not only perhaps in vain
(cf. Exodus 20:7), but also here more specifically in
the sense of the Jewish prohibition against speaking
the name of God (YHWH).  Blasphemous no matter what
strand of that Judeo-Christian tradition you align
yrself with.  Question is, what's Oedipa's religion,
insofar as she "has" (a) religion?  Sure, there are
all the Pentecostal references, but ...

>From Charles Hollander, "Pynchon, JFK and the CIA:
Magic Eye Views of The Crying of Lot 49," Pynchon
Notes 40-41 (Spring-Fall 1997), pp. 61-106 ...

"Oedipa's home is in the suburban community
Kinneret-Among-the-Pines.  This name seems at first a
nasty mocking of pretentious Jewish suburbs built on
Long Island during the postwar boom of the late 1940s
and 1950s, when Pynchon"--and, perhaps,
Hollander?--"was growing up there.  More important,
Kinneret is another name for Galilee, the region in
Israel that not only was was the chief scene for the
ministry of Jesus Christ but, after the destruction of
Jerusalem in 70 CE, became the main center of Judaism
in Palestine.  So, by making Oedipa's home in
Kinneret, Pynchon hints she may be a Jewish girl from
a Jewish neighborhood, a 'section which seemed to need
[no redemption]' (55).  The text also suggests in
other ways that Oedipa is Jewish.  Pierce phones as 'a
Gestapo officer asking her in shrieks did she have
relatives in Germany' (11).  Oedipa uses yiddishisms
freely, referring to Metzger and Perry Mason as
'shysters' (33), and calling Manny di Presso a
'schmuck' (60).  The Maases' lawyer, Roseman, has a
common Jewish name.  Oedipa sees the Yoyodyne plant in
Nazi concentration-camp images of 'barbed wire' and
'guard towers' (25).  As Jay Gould enthymematically
implies his vanquisher, J.P. Morgan, the Second World
War references and allusions imply the German war
against the Jews." (p. 74)

I would also add, taking up Hollander's
(coincendntally ..) comments about the Dutch origins
of Wendell/Mucho's patronym there (maaswerk, "the
underside of the tapestry") and references to Motley's
The Rise of the Dutch Republic and Dutch history (Lot
49, pp. 158-60), 
the history as well of Jewish conversos, derogatorily,
Marranos (pigs), feigning convrsion to Christianity
whilst practicing Judaism in private, in the Dutch
republic, Spain, Portugal, et al., right on up to and
including Bernard (Baruch) Spinoza, "the first secular
Jew" ...

Yovel, Yirmiyahu.  Spinoza and Other Heretics, 
   Vol. 1: The Marrano of Reason.  Princeton, NJ:
   Princeton UP, 1989.

Keyword: immanence.  "Behind the hieroglyphic streets
there would either be a transcendent meaning, or only
the earth" (Lot 49, Ch. 6, p. 181).

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
>     Oedipa stood in the living-room, stared at by
> the greenish dead eye of the TV tube, spoke the name
> of God, and tried to feel as drunk as possible. (5)
> 
> Interesting juxtapositions: "living-room", "dead
> eye", "the name of God". 

Can't help but think Big Brother might be watching her
as well here.  And note as well those "dark green
bubble shades" Oedipa sports in Mexico City whilst
viewing Remedios Varo's "Bordando el Manto Terrestre"
(Ch. 1, p. 21) ...  

> And, it's significant that the first utterance in
> the novel is "God": but it's the "name" only that
> she speaks, the term used as an expression of
> impatience or frustration. A blasphemy. Oedipa's
> world, at the beginning of the story at least, is a
> godless one.

Or, perhaps, a gnosticized one.  Cf. that Scurvhamite
heresy ...

"Nothing for a Scurvhamite ever happened by accident,
Creation was a vast, intricate machine. But one part
of it, the Scurvhamite part, ran off the will of God,
its prime mover. The rest ran off some opposite
Principle, something blind, soulless; a brute
automatism that led to eternal death" (Ch. 6, p. 155)

Demiurge, anyone?  By the way, here's a link to the
paper that kidly put online the passage above for me
...

http://www.uwm.edu/~jenor/NHSOS.html

I'm guessing I know this guy.  He's in town, and I
recognize the name, at any rate.  Musically motivated
as well ...

http://www.uwm.edu/~jenor/main.html

And, of course, speaking of the unspeakability of the
name of God ...

"It is at about this point in the play, in fact, that
things really get peculiar, and a gentle chill, an
ambiguity begins to creep in among the words.
Heretofore the naming of names has gone on either
literally or as metaphor. But now, as the Duke gives
his fatal, a new mode of expression takes over. It can
only be called a kind of ritual reluctance.  Certain
things, it is made clear, will not be spoken aloud
...." (Ch. 3, p. 71)

"He trembles and cannot speak, only stutter, in what
may be the shortest line ever written in blank verse:
'T-t-t-t-t...'" (Ch. 3, p. 73)

And, of course, Hollander has a little something to
say about all these silences, these unspeakabilities,
in The Crying of Lot 49, but ... but thanks, Jeff, if
you're out there, whoever you may be, for saving make
some typing here.  Nice work ...


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