circuit boards, sand frigates, elegies, actors, lawyers and bone hunters

[Robin Landseadel]

> On May 12, 2009, at 11:13 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:

>
> COFL49  seems, on one level, to be about WHETHER, WHAT KIND of  
> Angelic Orders might we/Oedipa hear now?
> It is pretty clear, it seems to me, that TRP thinks the Old Order/ 
> tower no longer can be heard.

http://funvampires.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/i-want-to-believe.jpg

I'd say that Oedipa, like Muldar, wants to believe even though she  
really can't.

Here is a great essay on religious themes in CoL49. If you haven't  
read "The Sacred, the Profane, and The Crying of Lot 49" by Edward  
Mendelson yet, here's your chance:

	. . . Pynchon uses religious terms and hieratic language not
	simply as a set of metaphors from which to hang his narrative,
	not merely as a scaffolding (as Joyce, for example, uses
	Christian symbols in Ulysses). The religious meaning of the
	book does not reduce to metaphor or myth, because religious
	meaning is itself the central issue of the plot. This creates
	difficulties for criticism. The Trystero implies universal
	meanings, and since universal meanings are notoriously
	recalcitrant to analysis, it will be necessary to approach the
	holistic center of the book from various facets and fragments. I
	hope the reader will bear with an argument that may, for a
	number of pages, ask him to assent to resolutions of issues that
	have not yet been discussed. . .

http://edphelps.net/bookclub/Callie/Crying_of_lot_49_03.htm