COL 49 CH 5 Arrabal to Hilarius and arrival of cops

[J K Van Nort]

Mark sez:
The dead man, Pierce...   "Like" (equals?).....Maxwell's Demon....????
Rather than equals, perhaps more simile, comparing unlike things. They both manipulate information but for different reasons. Maxwell's demon to create energy, Pierce to create wealth. Again the coincidence of seeing Jesus after having learned about entropy and Maxwell's demon, Oed begins to relate how Pierce has used money to create power with how an idea can create energy or lead to entropy. The demon can no more escape entropy than the wealthy man can escape death.
On another note, since we are discussing Pierce's ability to curate Oedipa's experiences, it is worth asking to what extent Pierce knew about his death. Was it a surprise or was it expected? In order to curate on any level we're discussing means that he must have known his death was imminent. Is there any textual evidence to answer this?
In solidarity,James 

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone


On Tuesday, July 16, 2024, 02:45, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:

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)




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