CoL49 (5) Inamorati Anonymous

[Robin Landseadel]

On Jun 24, 2009, at 9:06 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> Is it possible that swearing off 'love' altogether, of any and all  
> sentient beings IS another way to "suicide"?

Yup:

	Well I don't care-for, th' things I eat,
	Can't stand that boogie-woogie beat—
	But I'm sold, on, suicide!

	You can keep Der Bingle too, a-
	And that darn "bu-bu-bu-boo."
	Cause I'm sold on suicide! . . .

On Jun 24, 2009, at 9:06 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> I mean Nefastis suggesting "sexual intercourse" just like that?...As  
> if 'free sex' was being judged (by Pynchon).
> As if we have to know that Oedipa wants ..something like love---per  
> Robin--- as she figures it all out.

What I'm seeing is an entropic progression [depression?] of Oedipa's  
relations with everybody [particular her significant others] as the  
book moves from Tupperware Party to the final auctioning off of Lot  
49. Perhaps after the book is over and Mucho & Oed break up things get  
back to "normal" [whatever the hell that was in 1967], but the novel  
seems to be charting Oedipa's progress as "a calculated withdrawal"  
from America, something like what the author must have been going  
through as he moved from Boeing to the Underground, circa 1966. With  
friends like Kirkpatrick Sale, who needs a phone tap, anyway?