Pynchon & Beckett

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Otto wrote:

> Is it really "just a delta-t away"(thus, is this difference really so big or
> important) or doesn't the last sentence send us back to page 1, as Kai
> noted? Or will the revelation be a delta-t away forever?

It will be a delta-t away forever because in the elusiveness of the revelation
or apocalypse lies its charm.

> I think the Arrabal/Chicken reference and the other similarities Robert
> pointed to are very convincing.

Convincing in which sense? I also think the Arrabal play Robert and Paul
mentioned is relevant to COL49 because a) the name Arrabal turns up in the
novel, and this is hardly an accident b) the notion of "life as a car dump" is
strongly reminiscent of Mucho's thoughts while working as a used cars salesman.
The chicken foot with which Jesus Arrabal stirs his "opaque soup" might be
coincidence or it might be a reference to both Fernando Arrabal and Beckett and
thus to the theatre of the absurd. In fact, I am inclined to believe the latter.

But my point was decidedly not that there are no references to the literature of
the absurd in P. On the contrary, I believe that the absurdist or existentialist
world view is always present in P's fictions and that the literature in which
this Weltanschauung finds expression is rightfully perceived as an important
influence on his writing. I just noted that in COL49 the notion of a meaningless
universe is only one among several "equi-valent" (courtesy of mutualcode)
options between which Oedipa and the reader have to choose.

Thomas