CoL49 Group Reading - Week 1 Summary & Questions

[J K Van Nort]

Greetings,
Welcome to the first week of our group reading of CoL49. I'm your host for the week, James, and I'm providing a summary as well as some questions to ponder as we read. I'm really looking forward to this deep dive of Pynchon, as this will be my first group reading. So here goes!!

Summary -




Oedipa Maas comes home to find that she has been assigned executrix of the estate of a former boyfriend, the real estate mogul, Pierce Inverarity. She remembers images of their relationship and then spends the afternoon completing her housewife duties of shopping, preparing lasagna, and mixing drinks, while she tries to remember the last time she spoke with Pierce. Only while watching the news does she remember a 3am phone call from him where he uses a number of caricature voices without saying anything about why he has called. When her husband wakes and tells her to hang up, Pierce promises a visit from the Shadow and then hangs up. As she is remembering this, Wendell, her husband comes home, his sad work stories take precedence over her questions about the executrix role. Mucho’s job at the radio station is unfulfilling and his previous job as a used car salesman made him commiserate more with the purchasers than his profession. When she finally tells him, he suggests their lawyer, claiming to be incapable of helping. That night she gets a call at 3am from her shrink, Dr. Hilarious, who asks if she is taking her pills and if she will participate in his LSD experiments. She tells him no on both counts. She wakes the next morning and goes to their lawyer, Roseman, who first takes her to lunch and hits on her then offers his advice and services. Roseman has an issue with the tv show, Perry Mason, whom he considers a poor representative of his profession. Oedipa remembers a trip to Mexico City where she viewed a triptych by Remedios Varo. The center panel shows women weaving tapestries that flow out the window of a tower into a void that their tapestries attempt to fill. She cries realizing that Pierce is not the rescuing knight that would save her Rapunzel. She asserts to herself that an “anonymous and malignant” magic holds her in place. This magic can only be measured with her cunning and fear, leaving her to wonder what could rescue her from the magic.


Questions to ponder -





How do Mucho Maas' self-recriminations reflect an alternative to Oedipa's Tupperware world?

How are we to interpret the four images that come to Oedipa when she first receives the letter (Mazatlan hotel door, sunrise over Cornell western-facing slope, Bartok Concerto, Jay Gould bust)?

Is there a pattern to Pierce Inverarity's various voices in his cryptic phone call?

Who is speaking in the last paragraph? Is this the narrator, or is it a monologue inside Oedipa’s miind?

Why does the Rapunzel allusion appear here?

Can't wait to hear your responses. I'll respond to the questions later in the week (Wed?) with my thoughts.
In solidarity,

James
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