TV v. God

[jbor]

on 8/4/01 8:42 AM, CyrusGeo at netscape.net at CyrusGeo at netscape.net wrote:

> So, what do you think? Is Oedipa's speaking the name of God a sin?

It's a pretty standard colloquial ejaculation of surprise, frustration or
impatience, and that's how it's used by Oedipa here imo. It seems
far-fetched to suggest that it's a prayer. Oedipa has just read the letter
nominating her as "executor, or she supposed executrix" (itself an
interesting mental note of Oedipa's which might suggest either an emergent
feminism on her part or else it foregrounds the possibility that the gender
identity of the protagonist has been swapped around) of Inverarity's estate,
and that's going to be a problematic task, is going to lead her into
uncertain realms of endeavour and out of her comfortable and complacent
lasagne-layering lifestyle. I get the impression that she's not particularly
unhappy in Kinneret, and that she hasn't realised or admitted the emptiness
of the suburban life she is leading: not yet anyway. She did dump Pierce and
marry Mucho after all.

However, it's significant in being the first word uttered in the novel,
which is something that has been orchestrated by Pynchon rather than Oedipa
I think, and Otto's comments on this are valid here I think. In the fact
that her ejaculation of "God" is juxtaposed with, indeed, preceded by, her
being "stared at" by the inert television set I think we find a suggestion
that tv had already largely become the new god of the American (and Western)
60s. God's not watching over Oedipa; the tv is. (Yes, I'd agree that Doctor
T.J. Eckleburg's eyes are somewhere in the lineage of that image too.)

best