The Ends of Legal Fetishism

[Dave Monroe]

Oklahoma City University Law Review
Volume 24, Number 3 (1999)

THE ENDS OF LEGAL FETISHISM: OEDIPA MAAS AS POSTMODERN CARTOGRAPHER

CHRIS KOCELA

   Although many studies address the epistemological implications of
Oedipa Maas' search for the Tristero in The Crying of Lot 49, few
address the legal motivations behind that search. This Article reads
Oedipa's responsibilities as the executrix of Pierce Inverarity's
estate in relation to the legal theories of J.M. Balkin and Boaventure
de Souza Santos. It argues that Oedipa's attempt to bring coherence to
Inverarity's "tangled estate" leads her to an understanding of her
subjective role in establishing legal coherence, and to a cartographic
vision of the law in keeping with postmodern theories of space and
geography.

http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/okla/kocela24.htm