COL49 _Courier's Tragedy_

[jbor]

on 8/18/01 2:55 AM, Thomas Eckhardt at thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de wrote:

> The existentialist notion of absurdity is
> related to the anti-paranoia of Pynchon's fictional universe (as I argued,
> this
> seems to be the POV of  Fausto III in V.).
> 
> Aside: In Beckett, the notion of a meaningless universe or spiritual emptiness
> finds expression in repetitions. But repetition, mechanization, routinization,
> of course, is a major source of comedy as well, and Beckett's plays are very
> funny. It is not this kind of repetition you are talking about, or are you?

Partly. The Theatre of the Absurd would have been current and appealing to
Pynchon I believe. As well as the sparsity of Beckett's mise en scene (which
has a precursor in Brecht too) there are the excesses and parodies of other
Absurdist playwrights like Stoppard and Arrabal, and the review Paul
provided does indeed show how apt Arrabal's early play is for some of the
themes and events in _Lot 49_. In Pynchon there is the same taunting of the
spectator as in Beckett, as when Vladimir "[turning towards the auditorium]"
nominates it as "that bog" (_Godot_ 15). It's pretty much the same thing
when Oedipa asks Jesus Arrabal "How is your CIA?" and then the narrative
addresses the reader directly:

    ... standing not for the agency you think .... (82)

That "you", the ubiquity of which in _GR_ Brian McHale is exceptionally good
on, is *the reader*. It's almost as if Oedipa herself is clarifying the
acronym for the reader's benefit, correcting the obvious connection as a
misapprehension, a tease, just like in _Godot_.

In _Godot_ there are the chicken bones as well after Pozzo has gorged
himself in front of his starving lackey, Lucky, and Jesus Arrabal is first
seen "idly stirring his bowl of opaque soup with the foot of a chicken" when
Oedipa comes across him for the second time in her life. (He is "a piece of
her past". 82)

In _GR_ the point is made that paranoia and anti-paranoia have, in practice,
the same effects on the human psyche, are perhap two sides of the same coin.
I think that the former category can easily be equated to determinism, the
latter to existentialism. Both philosophical systems tend towards a similar
aporia, and it is this ground which post-WWII writers like Beckett and
Pynchon are engaging with, though in superficially quite different ways.

> Anyway, what I wanted to say was that there seems to be a difference between
> the situation of Beckett's characters, who are trapped in endless repetition,
> whose hope for Godot to finally arrive is endlessly betrayed, and Oedipa, who
> breaks from the routine of her suburban existence and finds herself surrounded
> by meaning galore.

I would say that the situation of Vladimir and Estragon, even as you have
described it here, and Oedipa is in fact very similar. There is, in the
conversations between the two of them, and their meetings with Pozzo, Lucky
and the Boy in the play, the constant promise of meaning/revelation, about
who Godot is, about when he will come, about why they are there in that
nondescript place. Just as the events which happen or are staged around
Oedipa hold (and at the same time withhold) the same promise. Oedipa only
seems to "break free" from her bland suburban existence. What she encounters
in her "freedom" are the same endless repetitions and frustrations, the same
suburban/postmodern emptiness, the same "legacy America": it's just that her
awareness, and her self-awareness, has been heightened.

best