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[Dave Monroe]

Hollander, I think, has done the heavy lifting, even
if he occasionally threw his back out doing so.  At
best, I'm reading the packing slips, perhaps
occasionally peeking into the boxes, and that's
largely only because I'm not so familar with their
contents as some who might have actually spent their
adulthood in the decade might be.  And I'll
provisionally choose "allegory," for the time being,
no problem ...

But we agree that the politicized 60s zeitgeist
permeates the novel, no?  That "The" Tri/ystero is
somehow imbricated in that zeitgeist, in that
politicization, no?  Maybe, maybe not, but ... but,
well, ask, if the "mystery" of the Trystero is not
solved within the novel, if its solution seemingly
cannot be derived therefrom, is this a flaw, or might
it perhaps indicate that something is beside the point
here?  Again, I'm not for this notion of "red
herrings," but ... but I also think that there may be
a point to this seeming "diversion," as well, a
certain blindness being implicated ...


--- MalignD at aol.com wrote:
> 
> David Monroe:
> 
> <<My point rather has been that perhaps everything
> Oedipa (and, consequently, "we," as readers) might
> well find that she has been attempting to decipher, 
> discover, uncover, whatever, has already largely
> been revealed, on, at, whatever, the so-called
> "surface" of the text, not to mention at its 
> interface with, in its context of, mid-1960s
> America. >>
> 
> Perhaps I'm just dull, but this seems more fanciful
> than real.  I think it's more than a quibble to note
> that the event's of the book are propelled by a 
> mystery regarding the meaning of a series of signs
> and events.  Again, I  don't complain that no final
> answer is provided.  Rather that so little else 
> is provided.  You may find (in) the book a 
> metaphor/allegory/commentary/pastiche/something else
> (I don't mean to put words in your mouth or
> misprepresent your postion) on or about mid-1960s 
> America (you may even find the Paranoids a welcome
> comic diversion), and these are certainly P's
> preoccupations in this thin and sketchy novel but,
> it seems to me, you're doing most of the heavy
> lifting.     

By the way, I can't help but think of one figuration
of that modernist/postmodernist "divide" here, from
"closed" to "open" text ...

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