col49 2 pt2

[cj hurtt]

Col49 thoughts

All speculation, all wild conjecture


` So many things, so many things, not all that sure even where to start. I guess one of the first things to catch my eye in this chapter was the bit about Oedipa expecting San Narciso to have a but of "an aura" due to Invariety’s influence:


"Like many places in California it (San Narciso) was less an identifiable city than a grouping of concepts...But it had been Pierce’s domicile, and headquarters: the place he’d begun his land speculating ten years ago, and so put down the plinth course of capital on which everything afterward had been built, however rickety or grotesque, toward the sky; and that, she supposed, would set the spot apart, give it an aura. But if there was any viable difference between it and the rest of Southern California, it was invisible on first glance." 


As vampires have no reflections, but do leave victims, it would seem that Pierce left no aura to San Narciso, but did leave a lot of business ventures. We hear of these business ventures later as Metzger points them out during the television commercials.


Second thing I thought of was this: 

Since hitting SN, the only music Oed has heard has been by The Paranoids, the only movie she has watched starred Metzger, and all the commercials on t.v. are for stuff that Inverarity had stock in. Any significance? 


Also there is the in/organic imagery, The "vast sprawl of houses which had grown up all together, like a well tended crop", the "outward patterns a hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate." she sees in the circuit card looking city, and "the singing blacktop" she drives away on after she and her Chevy have a little religious moment on the mount. The city itself is likened to a junky. She, a single melted crystal of urban horse. 


A little later she meets Miles, the manager of the Echo Courts and member of the paranoids. Since we have Narcissus and Echo and a seduction scene soon, I guess it’s safe to say that the Paranoids serve as a Greek chorus. Also Miles’ comment, "Oh, you hate me too." reminds me of another paranoid. Marvin, the paranoid android of the Hitchhikers Guide series. Perhaps Adams was a P fan?


Enter Metger. According to Hollander’s Essay Pynchon, JFK, and the CIA, what happens next is an echo of the ritual of Osirus to sanctify the dead. I gotta admit that he makes a convincing case. the scene replete with magic potions (booze. you know the stuff), slow down time (Oed’s watch stops and the movie just seems to go on and on), mummification, and mimetic sex acts...well. Hard to argue against.


The hairspray bomb. Reminds me of some of the rocket talk in GR. 


The blown fuse that causes the dramatically timed blackout, reminds me of the end of a scene. You know, curtain down, or fade to black. When the lights come back on we get a snippet of epilogue. The magic is over. We get some tears and are left with a feeling that remains for the rest of the book, (for me anyway) the feeling of "Now What."


I know that a lot of deep shit can be read into this story, but I just dig the surface story.


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