CoL 49

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Yes, the dual nature of Tristero/Trystero is troubling.  As portrayed in the faux-Jacobean Courier's Tragedy, they come across as vengeful upstarts; somewhat mafiosi-like, squabbling violently in order to become The Elect.  Very different from the preterite Tristero, users of W.A.S.T.E. that Oedipa encounters in that single night. Historically disenfranchised from being The Elect, they've evolved into the down-trodden preterite that presumably grabs TRP's and our sympathies. It's the opposite of a group loosing its ideals when it comes to power.  What happens to The Elect when they lose power?  Do they become populists or simmering fascists? 

It's not always easy to locate people on the elect-preterite axis.  How about JFK?  Does his assassination, being the possible victim of a conspiracy, automatically place this wealthy (elected, if not Elect) Prince of Camelot in the preterite camp?  His death seems more in keeping with a murky dispute between Thurn & Taxis and Trystero over The Elect's pecking order. How about his lowly lineage via the bootlegging industry?  Are criminals automatically part of the preterite?  How about Organized Criminals?  On the one hand, the mafia cooperated with COINTELPRO, on the other hand you have Dylan treating Joey Gallo like a folk hero in "Joey."  If TRP (or we) allows nuance and the excluded middle in the Elect/preterite division, then why bring up the division at all?  

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>

    
>One thing that has come to trouble me about the story is the dual  
>role of the tristero/trystero.  In one sense they seem to stand for  
>an alternative to the official state controlled lines of  
>communication, and to connect the dispossessed in a community of the  
>preterite.  On the other hand they seem to simply represent the  
>bitterness and violent revenge and  self interests of an out of power  
>empire as nasty and murderous as any other.    Maybe this is the  
>journey that everyone follows who wants to understand what is going  
>on.  One starts from a particular identity and sense of moral  
>injustice and finds that what ever that group identity is it is  
>implicated in some of the very behavior one despises. In some sense  
>every successful nation, culture, religion is a kind of power  
>conspiracy with some ugly stuff lurking in the shadows or in the open  
>like knocking off Kings  or tribes  or religious and political  
>scapegoats and getting away with it.   This confronts one with a  
>lonely choice, particularly if one is unwilling to abandon core  
>ethical values or reasoned ethical equanimity.   In Oedipa's case she  
>has moved from the arms of a good looking actor/lawyer/firmly rooted  
>in the upperclass and despite his Jewish name not too concerned about  
>looting graves for profit, to the arms of a dying drunk , from the  
>Suburban Gallilee of the ruling class to the metaphoric Gallilee of  
>the lost , weak, pathetic, poor. To resolve the disposition of the  
>imperial estates of her time  she has plunged deep into the  
>political, religious and intellectual culture wars that led to that  
>moment  and traced them back as far as the end of the Holy Roman  
>Empire, but still has no sense of having discoered what she set out  
>to find.