Character (WAS: COL49 - Chap 2: San Narciso as a circuit board)

[Dave Monroe]

On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 7:19 PM, Robin Landseadel
<robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:

> Of all of Pynchon's characters Oedipa has held a steady fascination for me.
> Perhaps it is because of her constant presence in the book, perhaps it is
> due to her being nearly a cipher and at the same time being a very
> sympathetic cipher—the crossroads of faith she stands on stands for all of
> us stuck in this world after religious certainty has left the station.

Oedipa, c'est moi.

Having reread the book the other night ...

... if I'm not mistaken, Oedipa's the only character with any sort of
... interiority, at least as depcted on the page, in Lot 49, she's the
only one we really get to "know"--and this I believe is more true of
her than of any character in the Pynchonian ouevre, only Mason comes
close--and we identify or whatever with her not only because of that,
but because she's in pretty much the same damn dilemma we are in re:
just what the hell is going on.  Slothrop may (or may not) get more,
uh, answers (if one can call them that) in that regard, but ...