COLGR part 2 Oedipus anyone?

[Dave Monroe]

Again, from J. Kerry Grant, A Companion to The Crying
of Lot 49 (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1994) ...

"H9.1, B1.1  Mrs Oedipa Maas  Few commentaries on the
novel are silent on the subject of Oedipa's name. 
Most take for granted that it is significant in a
straightforward way: by referring the reader to some
extratextual network of meaning the name appropriates
some or all of those meaning for the novel, which thus
draws part of its own significance from the resonances
they generate.  This is the 'conventional' response
that at least one critic claims is unavoidable. 
Moddelmogf maintians that even if the name is a joke,
the only way to detemine that fact is by 'answering
the question, "Is Oedipa Oedipal?"' (240).  Moddelmog
calls into question the claim that Pynchon's names are
meaningful only in the sense that they expose the
dangers of our willingness to read meaning into
them...." (p. 4 ff.)

Here Grant is citing ...

Moddelmog, Debra A.  "The Oedipus Myth and Reader
   Response in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 40."
   Papers on Language and Literature 8, No. 1
   (1977): 53-71.

And follows up with two-and-a-half pages or so of
recapping two-and-a-half decades of commentary on the
subject.  Again, neither time, patience, nor stamina
to post it all here for you, but y'all DO have Grant's
Companion, right?  But one comment Grant cites I
thought particularly concise ...

"The name ... refers back to the Sophoclean Oedipus
who begins his search for the solution of a problem (a
problem, like Oedipa's, involving a dead man) as an
almost detached observer, only to discover how deeply
implicated [s]he is in what [s]he finds."

>From ...

Mendelson, Edward.  "The Sacred, The Profane, and
   The Crying of Lot 49."  Pynchon: A Collection of
   Critical Essays.  Ed. Edward Mendelson.
   Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978.  79-111.

Obviously, I'm not much of one for the "blind alley"
write-off (how's that for evidence?) of Pynchon's
radiant array of pregnant signifiers, although they
don't always run a straight line, or anywhere in
particular, either.  Am reminded of Charles
Hollander's follow-up on that Mark Hanna ref. in
Gravity's Rainbow  ...

Hollander, Charles.  "Pynchon's Inferno."
   Cornell Alumni News (Nov. 1978): 24-30.

http://www.itap.de/homes/otto/pynchon/inferno.htm

And, ev'rybody, make sure to pay yr respects to Otto
for posting that on his excellent website ...

http://www.itap.de/homes/otto/pynchon/episode.htm

Sometimes you've got to run right past/over/through
that "Dead End" sign at the ostensible end of the
road, explore the neglected backroads, dirt trails,
whatever, well, beyond.  Break on through to the other
side ...

--- Saioued Al-Zaioued <chicagoist at hotmail.com> wrote:
> a strange thought
> 
> -Did anyone consider that Pierce is Oedipa's father?
> Would it not make sense, having a reverse Oedipus,
> in the form of a girl, and the bureaucracy gods of
> WASTE are punishing her for her sins? She doesn't
> exactly go blind, but she totally looses persective.
> I dunno, drunken thoughts on a saturday night, back
> to bed, mon cherie.

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