The Crying of Lot 49: I hope to develop this so you can comment or delete now

[Mark Kohut]

In *The Crying Of Lot 49, *which just about everyone--except the author
himself--- even Harold Bloom
said is so good because it was of its time but for all time. All American
time
anyway, I'd say, the first, of Pynchon's California novels of America. When
Bloom reread it decades later during other American crises, he wrote
about how it applied to the political reality of the US then.

 The book was published in 1966, the just offcenter middle of that
turbulent decade with effects still rippling as Hegel is always saying.

The US postal system united America, democratically one could say. Everyone
had an address; as egalitarian as anyone could want then.
The Post Office started as a department with a Cabinet presence. Founding
Father Ben Franklin, printer, was the first Postmaster General.
Communication between Americans bound the nation. There were at times 3-4
mail deliveries a day in some cities, such as New York City.
Every town as it grew earned its own post office in the fullness of the
frontier thesis. Everyone could be reached.

We were the United states.

A major plotline involves the alternative mail system, the Trystero, which
goes in and
out of history as a communication vehicle.  [Describe more here].  Carrying
lots of ambiguity in
its metaphoric use, one thing stands out in this piece's context. America
was split over its meaning as Americans.
Did we believe we should be waging war in Vietnam or out protesting that
moral fiasco? Was plastics the future or should we
reject that future? Was it Rock & Roll or Pat Boone covers? Was it weed or
smoking outside the law--where you had to be honest to live? Commune or
Church wedding?
Hard hat or hippie.

Succinctly, were we as divided as a people as everyone has been saying
about our last decade, at least. Sixties historians seem to think so.
Read how 71% of Americans disagreed with the murder verdict sentence of
Lieutenant Calley. THAT HORROR!
That the Trystero could enter the US with an "underground' way of allowing
'those who know' to communicate was a way to say the counterculture and
the public culture could not exchange letters within Overt America, a new
meaning to the Other America. Postage stamps, still useable as currency,
weren't needed. Polarization ruled.

Today, 2022 in America the postage metaphor rules again. As America faces
the necessity to save its own democracy, in a way it has not since the
Civil War era, when the Trystero
was active too, there is more postal counterfeiting than ever in our modern
history. (I Know nothing about early American counterfeiting). One
could/can type USPS into Google and
have the first result be a decent forgery--The real-looking USPS logo is
the easy eye-deceiving counterfeit---of USPS offering stamps at a discount,
up to half off. The USPS never discounts stamps but a myriad of
"promotion" sites on social media offer them that way too. People bite and
lose their money. (a local non-profit caught the counterfeit after clicking
past the splash page)

The Big Lie, voter nullification, the counterfeiting of American reality
shows up in the great metaphor Pynchon found for Lot 49...

And, of course, that open ending.......this point in time. Crying anew.