Pynchon's reply

[Rob Jackson]

Robin:
>
>> even more to the
>> point is just how isolated Oedipa's tower in Kinneret in the Pines is
>> from the sights you can see late at night from an AC transit bus
>> tooling about in San Francisco. It is easy for anyone reading the
>> Crying of Lot 49 to lose track of the human story, much as Oedipa
>> loses track of the human element while she pursues these puzzles of
>> symbology.

On 21/05/2009, at 5:47 AM, Tore Rye Andersen wrote:

> This, to me, is as good a description as any of what Lot 49 is  
> *really*
> about, and a quick peek at the two Pynchon texts bracketing Lot 49 -  
> The
> Secret Integration and A Journey Into the Mind of Watts - would seem  
> to
> affirm that such matters were indeed on Pynchon's mind as he wrote  
> the novel.

Yes, this is that beautifully rhetorically-balanced paragraph  
describing Oedipa's journey through her own "Eternal City":

	... So it went. Oedipa played the voyeur and listener. Among her  
other encounters
	were a facially-deformed welder who cherished his ugliness; a child  
roaming the
	night who missed the death before birth as certain outcasts do the  
dear lulling blankness
	of the community; a Negro woman with an intricately-marbled scar  
along the baby fat of
	one cheek who kept going through rituals of miscarriage each for a  
different reason,
	deliberately as others might the ritual of birth, dedicated not to  
continuity but to some
	kind of interregnum; an aging night-watchman, nibbling at a bar of  
Ivory Soap, who had
	trained his virtuoso stomach to accept also lotions, air fresheners,  
fabrics, tobaccoes and
	waxes in a hopeless attempt to assimilate it all, all the promise,  
productivity, betraytals,
	ulcers, before it was too late; and even another voyeur, who hung  
outside one of the
	city's still-lighted windows, searching for who knew what specific  
image. Decorating each
	alienation, each species of withdrawal, as cufflink, decal, aimless  
doodling, there was
	somehow always the post horn. She grew so to expect it that perhaps  
she did not see it
	quite as often as she later was to remember seeing it. A couple-three  
times would really
	have been enough. Or too much. ... (Lot 49 100)

Compare it with Pynchon's autobiographical comments in the SL intro  
which relate to the development of his literary method from the  
"strategy of transfer" of his own experiences to his "journeyman" phase:

	... By the time I wrote 'The Secret Integration' I was embarked on  
this phase of the
	business. I had published a novel and thought I knew a thing or two,  
but for the first
	time I believe I was also beginning to shut up and listen to the  
American voices around
	me, even to shift my eyes away from printed sources and take a look  
at American
	nonverbal reality. I was out on the road at last, getting to visit  
the places that Kerouac
	had written about. These towns and Greyhound voices and fleabag  
hotels have found
	their way into this story, and I am pretty content with how it holds  
up. (SL 22)

This is what Oedipa is learning, too: "to shift my eyes away from  
printed sources and take a look at American nonverbal reality".

We know Oedipa is Anglo-American only by the way that the narrative  
point of view reacts to the ethnicity of others. She's absolutely a  
consciousness but not a physicality at all.

In the passage from the novel, Oedipa reflects on the "Negro woman"  
and her "rituals of miscarriage" without judgement; the tenor of this  
description and that of the "child roaming the night who missed the  
death before birth" suggests an open mind on the topic of abortion.

Note the mirroring of Oedipa (and of Pynchon himself) in that shadowy  
impression of "even another voyeur ..."

Imho, Pynchon's reply (which was the new information here, after all)  
is as pertinent today as it was back in '81:

	... The sad truth is that you're giving me much too much credit. My  
own research is nowhere
	near as deep or as conscientious as yours. ... Plot and character  
come first, just like with
	most other folks's stuff, and the heavy thotz and capitalized  
references and shit are in there
	to advance action, set scenes, fill in characters and so forth ...  
Sorry to have to be the one to
	tell you. ...

best regards