CoL49 (5) Cammed Out

[Mark Kohut]

Terrific words from all on that crucial passage in C of L49.

Impressionism from me: First or later readings never had me believing 
that the guy was dying NOW as Fairchild seems to believe........

I have not been able to believe that Oedipa, just out in the world of the street
from her tower, could be a reliable narrator here when she says the old man is going to do
........she, anyone, knows he
is in very bad shape but.........it has happened before, I've thought. But, maybe I've missed
the clues...........

And, she doesn't try hard to do anything to save him, per Tore. 

But, per Fairchild's belief, Oedipa saying "I can't help", she whispered,
rocking him, "I can't help".....has always had echoes of a book I read
and reread before C of L49: Catch-22 and Snowden's death.....

"There, there"......"there, there"............says Yossarian, also haplessly, helplessly
to a dying man.

 


----- Original Message ----
From: Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Friday, June 26, 2009 4:25:31 AM
Subject: RE: CoL49 (5) Cammed Out



Robin quoted:

> The culmination of Oedipa's night in San Francisco significantly
> takes place at dawn. Walking past a rooming house she sees
> an old man sitting on the stairs in an open doorway. [...]
> Oedipa greets the man with the simplest and most poignant words 
> of the novel: "Can I help?" (125) More than compassion, Oedipa is 
> overcome by a need to touch this ancient mariner, to take him in 
> her arms, and in an image of the Pietà or Mother Teressa she "actually 
> held him" (126). This is the novel's apotheosis [...]. It is at
> this moment that Oedipa fulfills her spiritual journey, escapes
> from her self erected tower never to return. At this moment
> when she selflessly reaches out to embrace the deep suffering
> of another human being in her a terrible beauty is born. 

I suppose my take on this crucial passage in Lot 49 is somewhat less 
optimistic. The meeting with the old sailor is certainly Oedipa's CHANCE 
for an apotheosis, but IMO she doesn't grasp the chance. Fairchild sez 
that: "Oedipa greets the man with the simplest and most poignant words of 
the novel: 'Can I help?'" Poignant, all right, but on the very next page
Oedipa herself answers the question (twize, even): 

"I can't help," she whispered, rocking him, "I can't help." (126)

Note also that when she embraces the sailor, it is because she is
"overcome all at once by a need to touch him, as if she could not
believe in him, or would not remember him, without it." (126). Is this
really a selfless act, then, as Fairchild argues, or is it all for herself?
I would argue that it is Oedipa's need, not the sailor's, which leads her 
to this "selfless" embrace, and I would argue that when Oedipa tells the
sailor that she "can't help," she's taking the easy way out. On the
next page we hear:

"She ran through then a scene she might play. She might find the landlord 
of this place, and bring him to court, and buy the sailor a new suit at
Roos/Atkins, and shirt, and shoes, and give him the bus fare to Fresno
after all. But with a sigh he had released her hand, while she was so
lost in the fantasy that she hadn't felt it go away [...]." (127)

If Oedipa had really wanted, she could indeed help the sailor, but it remains
a fantasy for her, and she is so caught up in this "selfless" fantasy that 
she doesn't even notice that the sailor lets go of her hand. Again, is this 
true compassion, or is it Oedipa desperately needing some kind of anchor to 
cling on to after an unreal night? Does she really see the sailor, or does she
merely see a faceless opportunity for some semblance of selflessness?

In the end, Oedipa doesn't follow up on her fantasy of really helping the old 
sailor. She's on a quest, after all, a quest for Blinding Truth, so she slips 
him a tenner and promises him to deliver an old, crumpled letter both she and he 
know will never reach its intended target. She had the chance for a real apotheosis 
here, but IMO she blew it, and I think we are meant to recognize this; not necessarily 
to condemn Oedipa, but to realize that we would in all likelihood have done the same.

/Tore
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