CoL49 (3) The W.A.S.T.E.land [PC 41]

[Mark Kohut]

I, too, am all for taking the author at his word---and words. 

I am more willing to read him focussing on History, American History, in an overarching way.


 


----- Original Message ----
From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 1:57:06 PM
Subject: CoL49 (3) The W.A.S.T.E.land [PC 41]

I'm all for taking the author at his word, and The Crying of Lot 49 is as good a place to start as any.

Literary Plot—say it a couple two/three hundred times, until it sounds like lyrics from the Cocteau Twins. CoL49 is a novel, not a documentary, and I see more of the plot complications of CoL49 derived from [and aiming towards] literary games than documenting secret, revisionist histories. Mind you, both are happening all the time—there's plenty of revisionist history going on in there here parts.

    Laura:
    Keep in mind that Pynchon wrote (of) the Courier's Tragedy in
    the mid-60s, so he could stick any current-day allusions he
    wanted into it.

Arrabal, anyone?

http://tinyurl.com/pjogfl

    Likewise, Driblette interpreted (enhanced,
    tampered with) the "original" text in the fictional 1960s, adding
    or clarifying the role of the Trystero in the play for his own
    reasons.  Driblette's "...words, words" an echo of Hamlet.

Orson Welles, anyone?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZLrqJka-EU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1_I36qHDts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPkBmoMfp1I

    Did Driblette stage the Courier's Tragedy with the addition of the
    Trystero assassins to catch the conscience of some watching
    king?  Who would that king be?  Oedipa?  Metzger?  Pierce
    Inverarity?  Us?

Gengis Cohen?

Did Pynchon stage our introduction to the "Courier's Tragedy" in this muddy lagoon for any particular reason? Significance, if any?

"Fangoso" is Spanish for "muddy." There's a resonance with Bob Dylan's Outlaw Blues:

    Outlaw Blues
    Ain't it hard to stumble
    And land in some funny lagoon?
    Ain't it hard to stumble
    And land in some muddy lagoon?
    Especially when it's nine below zero
    And three o'clock in the afternoon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbBkSZWnZoQ

    They came in among earth-moving machines, a total absence
    of trees, the usual hieratic geometry, and eventually, shimmying
    for the sand roads, down in a helix to a sculptured body of water
    named Lake Inverarity. Out in it, on a round island of fill among
    blue wavelets, squatted the social hall, a chunky, ogived and
    verdigrised, Art Nouveau reconstruction of some European
    pleasure-casino.
    CoL49, 41

Hieratic:

    Ancient Egyptian scripts: Hieratic script

    The Hieratic script was invented and developed more or less at
    the same time as the hieroglyphic script and was used in
    parallel with it for everyday purposes such as keeping records
    and accounts and writing letters‡. It was used until the 26th
    Dynasty, though by that time, it was only used for religious texts,
    while the Demotic script was used for most other purposes.
    http://www.omniglot.com/writing/egyptian_hieratic.htm

‡ Sounds kinda "W.A.S.T.E.-y to me.

European pleasure casinos figure seriously in GR and AtD. I recall something in the Secret Integration, but my copy of Slow Learner has dematerialized along with a significant number of brain cells, so I beg for your indulgence.

Pynchon was making particular points about the mob and un-buried bones in the process of setting us up for "The Courier's Tragedy."  My "Magic Eye"* reading of CoL49 points to Pynchon family history. To begin with, there's the historic Pynchon v. Stearns decision—check out page 95:

http://tinyurl.com/qzyslq

http://lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=duke/fs

More on Pynchon v Stearns

http://books.google.com/books?id=xgsQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA304&dq=pynchon+vs+stearns

This decision concerning a renter's additional development of the property they reside on constitutes America's "Waste Doctrine," a crucial law concerning property management.

T.S. Eliot's mother came from the Stearns clan— Stearns is the "S' in "T.S."  And there is Pynchon's line in "Slow Learner" about overworking "The Wasteland" in his early stories, the author indicating that he felt that he reached some sort of nadir with The Crying of Lot 49, what with it's hammering of the entropy theme as some sort of universal plot-devolving solvent, and T.S. Eliot lurking behind the bushes with his gorilla mask on, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting esthetes. Or maybe it was just too much time spent hanging out in the Paranoid's blueish haze of smoke. I plan on diving into the abyss of p-list notes I churned out while working through "Against the Day." There's a fair hunk of material displaying how family research would lead to George M's side of the family. The day-to-day business of Pynchon & Co. leads to multiple alternative explanations for all those weird stamps and the history behind them.

My "Magic Eye" reading of CoL 49 also points to the Waste Doctrine, noted in my first link and this line:

"Section 49. WHO MAY COMMIT WASTE."

. . . so it seems only proper that the "plot" to turn Oedipa on to "The Trystero" [like it's making her an acolyte to Dick Cheney's "dark side" or something equally sinister] would be happening on a hunk of land & water all tied up in the sorts of land management deals that the Waste Doctrine---our national W.A.S.T.E. system—AND Pierce Inverarity are all about. The darkness of that plot is reflected in the exaggerated theater-of-cruelty darkness of "The Courier's Tragedy."

The used car lot, the scarred hunk of San Narcisco now known as "Lake Inverarity", Oedipa's "Nighttown" episode in San Francisco, the despoiling/wasting of all these lands—all these lots are crying.

* I feel like I should stick a copyright label next to "Magic Eye View", and pay a fee.  I'm well practiced in crossing my eyes [there's plenty of yoga for that] and always checked out the magic eye books. I'm seeing some different layers than the Dude but seriously folks; no disrespect, I'm just seeing—looking at—different layers, that's all.

-----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>

> 
> So, some dark W.A.S.T.E system from way back had a recent staging alluding
> to the assassination (by more elements of that Tristero system) of America's Fisher-King,
> so to speak?
> 
> And how does that fit into The Courier's Tragedy? Lust, greed, mutilating torture and death in a play from the Jocobean era?
> 
> I am reminded of the mysterious black horsemen in Against the Day. Anyone else?
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 6:01:44 PM
> Subject: Re: Inherent Good: back to Rich's work on Chap 3 COFL49
> 
> Hollander's take on the three-assassin theory of the Kennedy Assassination seems pretty relevant here. A hint at three shadowy assassins not referred to in the official text (Warren Report). Also, three is the minimum number needed for a V-shaped assault.
> 
> By the way, just finished reading the great article Robin posted a while back:
> 
> http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6750/is_46-49/ai_n28819965/?tag=content;col1
> 
> about Pynchon's writings at Boeing.  He made a number of references to the V2 rocket and had a tendency to use triangular bullets, instead of the customary round ones, for his lists.
> 
> Laura
> 
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>> Sent: May 21, 2009 4:20 PM
>> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Subject: Inherent Good: back to Rich's work on Chap 3 COFL49
>> 
>> The 'worst' thing--darkest; morally?--- about the Tristero are the three assassins-----
>> which were brought on stage by Driblette----not by Wharfinger's text.

The worst thing—the darkest, morally—is Dominico's awful de-tongue-ing and fiery demise. That points to Giordano Bruno and science as heresy. And I'd say that Courier's Tragedy has a lot to do with heresy and the Inquisition in the Jacobean age, a thread that would point back to William Pynchon of Springfield Mass and "The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption."