CoL49 and Godot

[Tim Strzechowski]

Very true, and the wordplay and banter are only a small part of the
"over-accumulation of signs" in _Godot_.  Physical signs that seem to titter with
meaning include the boots, the hats, the turnip and carrot, the landscape, Lucky and
Pozzo's rope and baggage, the chicken bones, etc... And since many of these objects
are used repeatedly throughout the play, it enhances the notion that they are indeed
meaningful.

In _Godot_, I get the sense that all of these "signs" --- including the absurd
dialogue and the objects --- are meaningful in their simplicity (bones, baggage,
hats and boots [head to toe]), yet the characters are incapable (unwilling? sure) to
see the meaning of it all? In _CoL49_, the objects and ideas are much more involved,
heaped with allusion, and the protagonist is desperately searching for meaning as
much as the reader. Unfortunately, I think Beckett has the benefit of simplicity
because it's left open to more interpretation; Pynchon's use of specificity
(Jacobean tragedy and all it implies, postal history and all that can be known, LSD
research and what was/is known, etc.) locks himself more into requiring a payoff for
the reader.

Tim

Tim

jbor wrote:

> There is an over-accumulation of signs in _Lot49_, an excess of pattern,
> "revelations which now seemed to come crowding in exponentially" (56.4), all
> of which results in exactly the same chaotic absence of meaning.
> Psychologically it threatens to bring Oedipa to the same point of inertia
> (peregrinations about "God" and mortality, contemplation of suicide) as Vlad
> and Est. (Actually, in _Godot_ it's the banter and punning wordplay which
> elicits a similar multiplicity of possible or potential "meaning".)
>