CoL49 group reading ch3 The Courier's Tragedy

[Michael Bailey]

Joseph wrote:

Questions:
1)I guess the big question for me is what is this bloody mysterious 17thC
murder mystery with its invocation of an entity that is part competing mail
service , part expert assassination service for ambitious royals doing in
the center of a Pynchon novel about the settlement of a post war
California tycoon’s estate?

“Post war” - at first I thought you meant a postal war…

It sure is a murderous play.

Boilerplate kind of answer: the horror of the occurrences in the play
contrasts with the placidity of Oedipa’s life thus far; not unusual for
entertainment except in how far into gore it goes -
- the fact that it to some extent mirrors real occurrences during and after
WWII is meant to be unsettling, but also compelling, leading her further
into the mystery.

Speculation: the Hobbesian gestalt of “The Courier’s Tragedy” & the
Beaconsfield bones, and the soporific calm of the Inverarity legal
proceedings, function as a figure/ground contrast.
Is the seemingly endless parade of revenge a background against which the
orderly transfer of assets is taking place, or vice versa?