Col49-labyrinth

[Otto]

William Gleason
"The Postmodern Labyrinths of Lot 49"
(Critique, 1993, XXXIV, No. 2, p. 83-99)

Gleason uses a definition of "labyrinth" by Wendy B. Faris, "Labyrinths of
Language: Symbolic Landscape and Narrative Design in Modern Fiction,"
Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, 1988.

"Faris traces the labyrinth as both textual symbol and narrative structure
(...)

"I offer here a "labyrinthine" reading of Pynchon's (...) *The Crying of Lot
49*, that focuses on its symbolic landscape, narrative design, and sexual
dynamics and that means to throw some light into one corner of that
maze-like concept known as postmodernism.
Faris attributes several key tensions and ambiguities to the labyrinth.
First, it can be spatially modeled as uni- or multicursal, that is, having
one or many possible paths. The multicursal labyrinth adds human choice to
the ancient configuration and thus increases the opportunity for confusion,
for error, for dead ends, for retracing one's steps.(Faris also considers a
third variation offered by Umberto Eco in *Semiotics and the Philosophy of
Language*--the labyrinth as net, or rhizome--which I'll argue later is a
more suitable postmodern model.)
Second, the labyrinth can be imagined either with or without a center, the
center itself representing potential sanctuary, revelation, or
confrontation.
A third ambiguity concerns the ways in which the labyrinth may be perveived.
One may enter the labyrinth as an explorer (a Theseus figure) and experience
it through time (diachronically--or, as a reader) or view it from above as a
designer (a Dedalus figure) and see it all at once (synchronically--or, as a
writer). Thus the labyrinth may appear ordered, even delightful, to the
designer and at the same time chaotic, even terrifying, to the explorer.
Finally, although the labyrinth's formal structure, its conscious
articulation, places it within the traditionally masculine realms of order,
language, and intellect, its earliest associations are with traditionally
feminine spaces. For according to to Faris the labyrinth's original contours
were "designed to duplicate symbolically the form of sacred labyrinthine
caves," thereby associating the labyrinth with "the traditionally feminine
domain of the earth mother" (6). Faris also suggests that the labyrinth can
be seen as a mediating form between matriarchal and patriarchal systems of
power. (...)" (83-84)