COL49/general observations

[MalignD at aol.com]

Jumping on this train a little late, I read COL49 over the weekend, having 
not read it since twice in the late seventies; an interesting experience, 
about which I offer observations, response to which I would welcome.

Foremost, it struck me as not so much a novel as a draft of what, with 
rewrite, might have become a novel and, most frustrating, a very good novel.  
Alas.

One big problem--the main problem, I guess--is that there are no characters, 
really, rather names on the page who speak, often unfiltered, for their 
creator and the ideas he's pursuing (e.g., the descriptive comparison, 
supposedly Oedipa's thoughts, comparing San Narciso to the circuit board of a 
radio, both to a "hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning").  There's a lot 
of that.  There may be arguments for it (i.e., the flatness of the characters 
corresponds to the dreary flatness of the twentieth century etc. ...) and I 
would buy them if the result worked.  But it doesn't. 

A lot of what's supposed to be funny isn't (and, unfortunately, a lot of 
what's there is supposed to be funny).  Pynchon typically offers a comic 
scene (e.g., the scene with Metzger, Oedipa, and the can of hairspray), but 
what humor there is in in the idea of it; the writing itself isn't 
particularly funny or inspired.  Again, it feels tossed-off, incomplete.  Not 
one laugh to be had, for all the effort, from the Paranoids.
     
Voice and dialog are often interchangeable, "character" to character; none of 
whom comes to life, not least of all, but most importantly, Oedipa.  (And 
speaking of names, a long discussion might be had on this board about 
Pynchon's character naming--for me, one hundred groans for every wan smile; 
ten wan smiles for every actual laugh.  (Anyone out there find Diocletian 
Blobb funny?)  In  COL49, the jokey unbelievability of the names is 
particularly wounding, since the book offers so little else in its 
characterizations. 

Oedipa's lack of substance drastically fails the novel in the night sequence 
in San Francisco which could have and should have been bleak, even 
terrifying, the book's center and heart.  Instead, once again, it feels 
rushed, sketched, a series of ideas, rather than incidents, happening not to 
a woman but to a cipher.

The Courier's Tragedy seemed to me by far the most inspired thing in the 
book, way better than what comes before and after.  Probably because it is 
self-contained, a set piece, it seems to have demanded more of Pynchon to 
make it work.  It's a parody on two levels, not just a parody of a revenge 
play, but a parody of a synopsis of a revenge play.  It's wonderful--clever, 
funny, erudite.  And there's no reason to think the rest couldn't have been 
this good.

The structure, the themes, all struck me again as original and smart and 
penetrating, the ending once again disturbing, frustrating, and right.   But 
the book's deepest themes (and best writing) are in Pynchon's voice, with 
"Oedipa said," or "Oedipa thought," sprinkled about.  It's not, finally, a 
satisfying or finished piece of fiction.  It feels as though he needed an 
editor and didn't have one.  

On another note  --  a COL49 story, told to me by the late, great Del Close, 
whom some of you should know or know of.  I accept it as true, as Del was not 
someone whose life lacked colorful stories.  

Early in the seventies, Del was in San Francisco, staying with a friend in 
North Beach, the friend a dope dealer.  Del was at his apartment, very 
stoned, reading COL49, the part where Oedipa is in Berkeley then works her 
way across the bay bridge into San Francisco, winding up in North Beach.  It 
struck Del, as he read, the she was coming closer and closer to where he sat 
reading.  At which point the doorbell rang and Del answered it.  It was a guy 
looking for Del's friend, wanting to score some dope.  The guy identified 
himself as Tom Pynchon.