COL 49 CH 5 Arrabal to Hilarius and arrival of cops

[Michael Bailey]

Nice breakdown. Respectful response:

My theory of the novel is not to take it too seriously.

Primary goal of CoL49: to be a novel, in the  novelistic tradition. An
entertainment.

Everything between the covers serves that end.

For me, it was entertaining earlier to speculate that the estate might be
broke & try to prove it (came up pretty short but it was a learning
experience.)



On Mon, Jul 15, 2024 at 1:37 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> I guess I just don’t see how anyone could predict or stay ahead of her
> enough to know what bus she would take or where she would sit on the bus.
> Her pattern of movement was crazily erratic or arbitrary.


Exactly when people are easiest to manipulate.


Also what would be PI’s motive in all this?



The hypothetical Harlequinish novel that I was projecting would have Pierce
intensely loving her, and putting her thru all this so she would go to the
auction, where he would have his hand-picked new love interest for her
declare himself and Oedipa find him acceptable.

I wouldn’t necessarily prefer, after reflection, such a plot, but I did
like that episode of (Cumberbatch) Sherlock, where one watches as Watson
enacts every single thing just as Sherlock had planned, unlikely as it
seems - that’s part of the enjoyment.

I see this whole line of thought as the kind of paranoia that is desperate
> and illogical and ascribes an impossible level of power and manipulative
> skill to the presumed controller of events. Once a person sees any such
> deception in a powerful person or organization it is hard not to wonder how
> much of that is directed at you.  It seems rather to me that Pynchon is
> carefully presenting a story where the protagonist is stirred to
> investigate something that looks highly unlikely but is found to be so real
> and troubling that she can barely cope, and looks for any possible
> explanation.
>

Yes, but is that fun?

I agree that both the “broke PI” and the “lovelorn puppet master” aren’t
very satisfying theories

But bouncing around, using those now proven-wrong deviations to get off the
beaten path - because I’m not enchanted by the sort of grim conclusions we
seem to be heading for - I like the idea that Oedipa uses the executrix gig
to skive off from Wendell’s pointless drama and infidelities - then uses
the Tristero as an excuse to skive off from boring estate duty -
then skives off from diligent sleuthing - to a stamp auction where maybe
Genghis (or maybe even Pierce himself, in rags or a sari & turban, behind a
Bertie Wooster kind of glue-on beard, having faked his death) will show up
& turn out to be a gratifyingly adept hair-climber.

Because I’m yes, earnestly reading and not rejecting other interpretations,
but essentially I dip into a novel in the first place as a way to skive off
from grimness, to receive both “sentens and solas” - and never stop looking
for that.

There’s a tension between the desire to be responsive to the text as it is,
and the desire to find the specific things I want to read about, which is
enjoyable.

The many quite good comments here I’ve been reading are undoubtedly more
responsive to the text than the ideas I’ve been floating!

But I keep wanting to read this as a fun book without completely ignoring
its contents.


> Also if we assume that PI did set all this up and also made sure that the
> evidence of this large secret network  would be made to disappear early in
> the disposition of the will, I would argue that this leads to something
> very much resembling the course of events following the Kennedy killing and
> the scope of the efforts to prevent contrary evidence and testimony to the
> magic bullet riddled narrative of the Warren commission, including the high
> likelihood the Dorothy Kilgallen was murdered and her files stole. Maybe a
> plausible for-instance  type explanation of what PI could have been up to
> and why he would have set up this elaborate and expensive illusion, would
> give more credibility to this idea.


Love; crazy love

I honestly can’t think of how that would work to explain the events of the
> story. P does not have human villains without human motives. Is it really a
> parable where PI is the Devil( Ala the world the flesh and the devil)? What
> is his goal as a devil? I’m really trying to think this through with
> everything on the table so far.
>
>
>
I think - I hope - that positing PI as a devil is tongue-in-cheek, he’s
just a rich dude with his flaws, nobody’s perfect

And although Oedipa’s anguish is real, her situation within the spectrum of
human experience is enviable - she’s a modern embodiment of one of the
Aristotelian ideas about having the characters be of high social status or
something like that…she’s got internal class to move in many circles &
think worthy thoughts even in her confusion while she keeps moving (and
skiving)




>
>
>
>