The Courier's Tragedy

[Dave Monroe]

   "'How extensive is this?' asked Metzger.
   "'Only inside our San Narciso chapter.  They've set
up pilot projects similar to this in the Washington
and I think Dallas chapters...."  (Lot 49, Ch. 3, p.
53)

>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 ...

"The Courier's Tragedy is a mystery that focuses
Oedipa's attention on the identity of the Tristero:
'the mystery concerns the identity of, and the menace
presented by, those who are to carry out a political
assassination' (Dugdale 4).[...]  We have been alerted
to Dallas.[...]  The analogue in the play is a
political assassination.  The once-mentioned word in
the play is Trystero, and in the novel is Dallas. 
Solving for two unknowns, we should come up with a
political assassination in Dallas.
   "The novel mentions Dallas once, only once; teh
edition of The Courier's Tragedy Driblette uses for
his script has only a 'single mention of the word
Trystero' (90).  In each case, the singularity
signifies the name's highest importance.  'I think
Dallas.'  On the one hand, 'a kind of ritual
reluctance.  Certain things ... will not be spoken'
(71).  On the other, 'It is all a big in-joke' (72). 
Think Dallas.
   "San Narciso is a California defense industry town;
Washington, the nation's capital; Dallas, the site of
a then-very reecnt regicide.  This defense-government-
assasination nexus calls to mind President
Eisenhower's alarm, upon leaving office, that the
nation should not be allowed to fall into the hands of
the military-industrial complex.  Pynchon gives us all
this in a few innocent paragraphs about the 'not as
rebellious as it looks' underground mail system." (pp.
80-1)

Citing ...

Dugdale, John.  Thomas Pynchon: Allusive Parables
   of Power.  New York: St. Martin's, 1990.

Cf. ...

"As well-known President and unintentional Luddite D.
D. Eisenhower prophesied when he left office, there is
now a permanent power establishment of admirals,
generals and corporate CEO's, up against whom us
average poor bastards are completely outclassed,
although Ike didn't put it quite that way."

Thomas Pynchon, "Is it O.K. to Be a Luddite?," New
York Times, October 28th, 1984 ...

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-luddite.html

"... Oedipa found herself after five minutes sucked
utterly into the landscape of evil Richard Wharfinger
had fashioned for his 17th-century audiences, so
preapocalyptic, death-wishful, sensually fatigued,
unprepared, a little poignantly, for that abyss of
civil war that had been waiting, cold and deep, only a
few years ahead of them." (Lot 49, Ch. 3, p. 65)

Just as we are sucked into the landscape of intrigue
Thomas Pynchon had fashioned for his mid-1960s
audiences, so preapocalyptic as well (The Cold War,
The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Vietnam War, The Civil
Rights Movement, et al.), themselves poignantly
unprepared for the events in Dallas of November 22,
1963, not to mention all that would follow (see
previous parenthetical comment) ...




__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com/