Charles Hollander's Essay

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

Charles Hollander's essay- Pynchon, JFK and the CIA: Magic
Eye Views of The Crying of Lot 49, in Pynchon Notes 40-41
(spring-fall 1997), is an amazing synthesis, a fresh 
perspective on COL49 and desrves credit as such. 

Furthermore the "half-names" and the decoding of
their possible significance becomes in itself a 
metaphor for the paranoid pov and the need for
agents (of all ages!) to seek meaningful order in 
otherwise random assemblages of data. Wonderful.

It is an "out of the box" interpretation that Oedipa 
within the fabric of the novel cannot see, but the reader, 
with Hollander's assistance, is now made aware. But it 
will, and therein the art of the author, always remain a 
probability rather than a certainty, nor conversely, will it's
probability ever be reduced to zero.

That's just the nature of the world we share.
Uncertainty, except for death and taxes, to
turn a common phrase, are unavoidable.

regards

--------------------------------

"At Penn's Ascension of the Delaware,
Savages from the banks covertly stare,
As at the Advent of some puissant Prince,
Before whom, Chaos reign'd, and Order since..."

[Tox, of course, opening lines of Pennsylvaniad, Book One]