Tanner on naming in TCOL49

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

On Mon, 9 Oct 2006, Martin Hinks wrote:
> On 10/9/06, David Casseres <david.casseres at gmail.com> wrote:
> > But I'm not sure how that applies to Oed Maas.
> Oed as a nickname for Oedipa. I believe this was a slightly
> tongue-in-cheek comment.
> On 10/9/06, David Casseres <david.casseres at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 10/6/06, Erik T. Burns <eburns at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > not to mention line 42 in TS Eliot's "The Waste Land":
> > > "Oed' und leer das Meer."
> > "Empty and desolate the sea."
> > But I'm not sure how that applies to Oed Maas.
> >

Hmm, besides TWL itself being a major intertext of TCoL49, the
following points can be made for starters:

1) the oceanic references in the Pynch novel; however, there
seems to be no escape to any oceanic womb in TCoL49, as the
reference also suggests
2) Oedipa as "empty" (this and the above note have, of course,
strong Freudian resonances)
3) as Eliot quotes Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde",
3a) TCoL49 in the genre of romance
3b) Oedipa trapped between the official America and Tristero
a bit like Isolde is trapped between King Mark and Tristan
3c) structural similarities: Wagner's harmony of suspension,
evasion and anticipation.
Etc.

Heikki