CoL49 - 2nd section of chapter 5

[Michael Bailey]

Questions:Why is it love and not capitalism that the founder of IA believes
has ruined his life?


The plot of his life has included career, advancement, and marriage. All
these things have been bestowed on him and his habits have been formed
around them, but he doesn’t really know how any of them work.

Not surprisingly, his response to losing his job and wife and finding the
posthorn is a non sequitur:

“Idly, he peeled off a stamp and saw suddenly the image of the muted post
horn, the skin of his hand showing clearly through the watermark. “A sign,”
he whispered, “is what it is.” If he’d been a religious man he would have
fallen to his knees. As it was, he only declared, with great solemnity: “My
big mistake was love. From this day I swear to stay off of love: hetero,
homo, bi, dog or cat, car, every kind there is. I will found a society of
isolates, dedicated to this purpose, and this sign, revealed by the same
gasoline that almost destroyed me, will be its emblem.” And he did”

- a) there’s a lot about his job but almost nothing about having any
feelings for his wife

- b) confronting wife and her new lover actually perks him up

- c) so how is his one mistake love?

- d) he reads an arbitrary meaning into the muted posthorn, showing the
same lack of understanding with which he used to read the specialized memos

- e) he founds an organization based on a made-up interpretation based on
*nothing*, and in reaction against a feeling of love, when in all of his
words or actions there’s no sign of it

- f) leaving unaddressed the only real fly in his life’s ointment: the
computer taking his job, which I guess you could blame on capitalism, but
wouldn’t it make as much sense to blame the computer?




The question arises - is this meant to be a “scherzo” sidelong view of AA?
- like some of the over-the-top satirical exploration around AA a few years
later in _Infinite Jest_?
- no, not for me anyway: yes, Oedipa does enjoy a drink and no, there’s not
a lot of condemnation of her for it, but rather the use of brand names and
drink names seems to imply an acceptance of drinking as a social ritual.
- but there’s no denying the “scared-straight” potential of the imagery
around the drunken sailor
- hence I see no sign of attempts to do any kind of a take-down of AA
- I think maybe taking AA principles and applying them to love tickles the
same sort of mordant funny bone as putting mail in a waste can.

— what it might be a takedown of, though, is specious “great moments of
insight”
- always reminds me of Kerouac in _Desolation Angels_ where he has the
bogus satori “you can’t fall down a mountain”
- patently untrue
- unimpressive movements to this day grow up around a charismatic leader
with some “great realization” and people retelling the tale




On Tue, Jul 2, 2024 at 6:37 AM J K Van Nort via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

> Greetings,
> Sorry this is late.
> Summary:
> Oedipa's conversation continues with the Inamorati Anonymous gentleman. He
> explains their purpose and also the story of the founder, who contemplating
> suicide after the loss of his job and marriage has a revelation. The story
> of how the muted posthorn symbol became a for the group involves a Yoyodyne
> mid level administrator who loses his job, his wife, and his reason to live
> and just as he is about to kill himself in the same form as a Buddhist monk
> protesting Vietnam, he has a revelation that love is the problem. The
> gasoline has soaked a series of letters that he received (presumably)
> through W.A.S.T.E. which wipes the ink to reveal a watermark with the muted
> posthorn. He forms the IA and uses the muted posthorn as its symbol.
> The Isolate leaves her to go to the bathroom and never returns. She leaves
> the Greek Way and wanders the city, finding the posthorn symbol everywhere.
> She finds children dreaming that they are playing together, In a Mexican
> restaurant, she meets Jesus Arrabal, a Mexican anarchist she had met in
> Mazatlan with Pierce. He describes Pierce as the reason he has stayed with
> anarchy, as Pierce represents everything he despises. He describes a
> miracle as 'another world's intrusion into this one. She continues through
> the 'infected city' where she sees more examples of the posthorn, finally
> finding an old drunken sailor with the posthorn tattooed onto his hand. She
> comforts him, and he asks her to mail a letter to his wife through
> W.A.S.T.E., which she says she doesn't know how to use. He tells her she
> can find a location under the highway. She helps him to bed and imagines
> that he will die by having his cigarette ignite his mattress when he falls
> asleep.
>
> Questions:Why is it love and not capitalism that the founder of IA
> believes has ruined his life?Why would a member of the IA be getting drunk
> in a gay bar?Why does Oedipa feel despair when she realizes that "nobody
> around her has any sexual relevance" to her?How does the founding story of
> the Isolate at the gay bar compare with the drunken sailor grieving his
> wife? Why is that important?
>
> In solidarity,
> James
>
> Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>