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MalignD at aol.com MalignD at aol.com
Tue Aug 21 20:59:32 CDT 2001


Dave Monroe:

<<Still, I'm genuinely curious, what did you want that wasn't there?  >>

I thought I was clear (don't we all).  Pynchon chose to write a plot-driven 
novel.  The action moves forward on the questions that land on Oedipa in the 
time she is Inverarity's executor.  The questions are compelling:  is 
Trystero real?  Is Inverarity (for some reason) setting her up?  Is she 
imagining Trystero?  Is she imagining someone setting her up to believe in 
Trystero?  These are the options that Pynchon, expressly, uses to push his 
novel toward.  

He has, however, created no back story, nothing that hooks the reader into 
what might be possible and why, to say nothing of what might be implied by 
the facts and why.  It is finally nothing more than what is playing in 
Oedipa's head and Oedipa is a cipher.  Is she paraniod?  I don't know.  Is it 
plausible that Inverarity would hoax her in this fashion?  There's no 
evidence either way; Inverarity is also a cipher.  Might there be a Trystero? 
 The novel suggests as much, but offers nothing, particularly.  The last 
possibility is a combination of already obscure possibilities.  

What is a reader to take from this?  Go read history?  Be a good grad 
student?  Apply some textual theory?  If that satisfies you, fine.  I find it 
unfinished and weak.


    




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