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> 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?  

But then, after the alternatives are spread before us:

"...and if there was just America then it seemed the only way she could continue and manage to be at all relevant to it, was as an alien, unfurrowed, assumed full circle into some paranoia."

Which says to me that Oedipa has answered all the above in the affirmative, i.e., any of those options must be preferrable to "just America." The real question, for me, is to get a sense of what Pynchon is referring to with the phrase "just America." To answer that question, imo, is something which requires entertaining material from the rest of his ouevre, and, perhaps, the way he has conducted himself as an American novelist during his run. Now it may be that including the connections in Lot 49- both thematic and by characters- to the more "important" works, and even the personal choices he has made, is not a fair and objective way to judge the value of Lot 49 itself.

But America is not fair, nor for many is it just, nor for my money is Pynchon only concerned with writing novels that appeal to the refined aesthetic sensibilities of those in a comfortable enough position to choose "just America" over "some paranoia.

All of which makes me enjoy Pynchon more, and begs the question: how could an author of such incredible gifts write such a weak novel unless he was deliberately attempting to shove it up the ass of the critics? Because if he were not attempting to do that, than he is truly an enigma.

mc