CoL49 (6) Leery of What She Might Find

[Michael Bailey]

Dave Monroe wrote:
>
>> Has anybody actually done this? "Wrote down what you can't deny" at
>> al. Is it at all possible to do so?

mmm, think we're each doing it here...

however, to dig a little deeper...

caveats
a) I mostly read Pynchon for the descriptions of meals
- so, I noticed that we progress from homemade lasagna,
to eggplant parmagian' sandwiches alfresco,
and then a long spell of mostly drinking and thinking, neither of
which I'm very good at...
so by the end I'm bl**dy hungry and can only hope they'll have some
canapes at the auction

b) I'm inclined to step back a level or two; while I have no problem empathizing
with Slothrop, or Rachel Owlglass, say, I don't find the same affinity
with anybody in CofL49.  Oedipa's perplexed by the Tristero, and I -
shallow critter that I am - wouldn't be, in her place.  I'm not saying
those emotions weren't there to be had: someday I might weep behind my
own bubble glasses...I'm just saying this particular book prompts me
to think more than feel, like other people say about all his other
books.  And since I'm not any great shakes as a thinker, I soon give
it up.  However, since we did just do a read (thanks, everybody...and
Dave, if you're not host of hosts, you are worthy of *some* kind of
title...) some thoughts did crop up.

1) somebody getting drawn in by a conspiracy.  I remember my roommate
dragged me to see the Zapruder film back in the 70s.  He was all
excited about it.  I guess I had never grokked that government wasn't
something I should be scared of: I remember telling our back fence
neighbor when I was 'bout 10, of some mail-order thing that I sent
away for: "and I had to send to *Washington DC* for it" in a tone
suggesting that the seat of government was a center of terror.  She
said, "So?" - so I guess that attitude isn't (or wasn't) universal.
But d**n, that's where they start the wars, that's where they spend
the taxes, and there isn't a freakin' thing we can do to stop them,
seemingly, is where I was coming from back in the 70s, so why not just
try to ignore them and go on about my business, or if forced to deal
with them, do so with appropriate mortal fear.
(I've evolved a bit since then, civically speaking...)
But anyway, a real life correlative exists for Oedipa: Mae Brussell.
A prosperous housewife, she - g*d knows why - sat down to read the
Warren Report, all 22,000 pages of it.  By the end of it, she'd found
a life's work, unraveling all the Squamuglia-Faggio-like doings of
those who live by the sword.
So for Mae Brussell, the Tristero, or something like it, did exist...

2) but that's not where I see Pynchon taking us.  He makes what I
consider to be a valuable point that reiterates the main thrust of V.,
or at least of the Stencil portions of it.
Let me see...how to put it?  Under the aegis of V., Stencil brings
together disparate elements like a metaphysical poet (heterogeneous
something linked by something... as somebody once said) - but the
aegis is cockamamie
In V. I can feel with Stencil, the "gov'nor" passed on, left these
remnants shored 'gainst his ruin, he misses the old bird, he's
o"stenc"ibly looking for V. but he's also revisiting his Dad's haunts
- and though he is totally NOT focussed on the fact of what he reveals
for the reader, still he does turn up lots of clues to what's
important about the 20th century during his sentimental journeys.  So
I end up grooving to the cockamamie aegis anyway.
-- likewise in CofL49, Oedipa conceptualizes the Trystero -- but it's
about as scary as the Counterforce in Gravity's Rainbow.  I mean, it's
like in African Queen, when Bogies say, "The Jerries'd give their
eyeteeth f'r the African Queen," and you look at the little scow and
laugh - I did anyway -  like a jackal.  "*That* thing?"
And CofL49 doesn't develop any feeling in me for the personalities
involved in the Trystero.  It's not long enough, I guess, or
something.
Mostly - and I think, correctly - I'm building an Oedipa in my mind.
But she's SO DIFFERENT from what I would be, as her...
I wouldn't screw the lawyer guy, I would've taken Hilarius's acid, I
would've had McMingus et al send me the papers and just signed them,
actually I would've stayed with Pierce in the 1st place, or gone on to
grad school at Cornell...

3)  that said, what are the 4 possibilities again?
a) there's a Tristero that she's discovered
b) Pierce is having a joke (my favorite variation is, he's the mystery
bidder and is trying to win her back)(In my dream 7th chapter, she'd
reject him in favor of Genghis Cohen, who is the only character I find
simpatico, beyond a certain on-principle sympathy with Oed, and a
susceptibility for the winsome Paranoids and their chicks)
c) she's paranoid and has cobbled the whole thing up
d) she's schizophrenic and is hallucinating

- note the distinction betw paranoid & schizophrenic...
again, I'd just say "crazy" and have 3 possibilities
- there's probably a good reason he doesn't.  I could make something up,
(like, how I remember psychiatric terms being bandied about back in
my earliest youth, for instance by my cousin, with the same ominous tones
I applied to the government, and - tone-correlation-wise anyway -
paranoia might be the US gov't, schizophrenia, other gov'ts)
but instead, I'll admit I'm stumped, and ask for help. Dave?  Anybody?
 ...Bueller?

anyway, them is my thotz

> I think that only Descarte has done it successfully, and he only came up with one item on his list: "Cogito ergo sum."
>

that casts a wider net, of course...
but I can only speculate whether if he had my thoughts, he'd have
considered them
proof of anything at all, even his existence...


-- 
"My God, I am fully in favor of a little leeway or the damnable jig is
up! " - Seymour Glass