COL 49 2024 group read MPIN-AT

[Michael Bailey]

On Thu, Aug 8, 2024 at 5:21 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> I do not think that is the real realization she comes to....and I'll take
> Pynchon's words and vision on America
> any day over and over over yours....
>

Well, of course! Mine’s non-authoritative, and idiosyncratic. I’m not
wedded to it myself.

There’s not a lot from the author about the book:

“The next story I wrote was “The Crying of Lot 49,” which was marketed as a
“novel,” and in which I seem to have forgotten most of what I thought I’d
learned up till then.” (SL intro)

He doesn’t seem to give any pointers about what to look for.


IJS:
- She finds out more, bit by bit, about the stamps
- she often feels on the verge of a revelation
- She never actually has that realization - hence “asymptotic” as she keeps
learning more
- She goes to the auction to find out more about the source of all those
stamps.

But we already know: the author made them up.

That’s the truest revelation she could come to, & it would make it clear to
her that she’s in a fiction.

That’s kind of a short circuit, breaking the 4th wall from the outside as a
reader. One is always aware in the background that a story is a story. But
if in the course of examining things in the story, its fictive nature comes
to the foreground, then you have the option to think about that.

Or not (-;