The Courier's Tragedy

[Dave Monroe]

"... 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)

Not just history, not even just also the recent past
(both for Oedipa Maas and for The Crying of Lot 49,
for 1966 as well as 1964), but the foreseeable future
as well?  Pynchon fashioning his own preapocalyptic
landscape here?  Civil Rights ("abyss of civil war"),
Vietnam, The Cold War, et al.  And note also that
"death-wishful" in relation to comments in your other
recent post about repetition ...

--- Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>
wrote:
>
> Blood and gore is not the point, the narrator seems
> to imply, this is just entertainment. The real
> threat is history, which finds expression
> everywhere from postal stamps to silly and
> incredibly violent revenge tragedies.  You look into
> the past like Oedipa, and you'll find the past
> staring right back at you. But perhaps, you'll have
> to consider, this is just an illusion...

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