C of L49 few--mostly two-- straggling thoughts on Chap 5

[Mark Kohut]

Robin writes: 
A life where we plant deep appears to be no longer possible in the California of 1964. Rootlessness—cemeteries ripped up for new suburbs—is the essence of California Car Culture in the 60's.

Nails it, imho. 

And--Ah, yes, the courier circles back (as I dropped the ball/message myself)....the Tristero contains all kinds of concept-letter shuffling offs......



----- Original Message ----
From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 10:21:49 AM
Subject: Re: C of L49 few--mostly two-- straggling thoughts on Chap 5

On Jun 29, 2009, at 1:45 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> 
> With yet another read, I see many of the metaphors within Chap 5 as sorta, kinda  variations on that Demonic Maxwell's Demon.
> 
> Guy who is just under breaking even in life......stasis, entropic?

Vegas odds—a slow, albeit easily measured, slide into dissolution.

> That letter that circles back to Nefastis' place!?...WTF? more entropy?

The letter doesn't circle back to the Berkeley home of the Nefastis machine, the courier does. The letter was already handed off to another courier—the one that Oedipa didn't follow. But the circling back to Berkeley—back into some sort of groove, the groove of a broken record—later appears as an element in the web of paranoia that Oedipa develops. She sees all her information on the Trystero coming from the same sources, circling back to the estate of Pierce Inverarity. By this point it really doesn't matter if the connections are tenuous or easily verified—from here on, Oedipa is in a state of isolation and paranoia.

> Mucho losing his self and becoming a whole roomful of people?  like heat dispersion? Or like a group mind..a good union?

Good question, one that leads back to the question of the author's attitude towards psychedelics. While there probably been more lit-crit pieces on CoL49 than any other work by Pynchon I do not recall any large-scale works concerning psychedelics in Pynchon's writings. Sounds like it would be an extraordinarily fruitful area of research, the most obvious aspect to be overlooked.

> And "furrowed"......it is used three times in this chapter......remember TRPs seeming allusion
> to anthropological myths of a fertile land, fisher king, etc.......

Not to mention being 'in the groove'—surely a process where DJ Mucho Maas might have an interest.

> The old man has lived a "furrowed' life, says TRP....and a bit later says that Oedipa has not yet gotten any furrows........
> 
> A life where we plant deep......not possible until we--she--leave(s) the tower?

A life where we plant deep appears to be no longer possible in the California of 1964. Rootlessness—cemeteries ripped up for new suburbs—is the essence of California Car Culture in the 60's.