CoL49 group reading ch3 The Courier's Tragedy

[Joseph Tracy]

Aesthetically and psychologically this  light dark contrast  suffuses Pynchon’s work.  The effect  veers from renaissance chiaroscuro  to road runner cartoon with blood.  I get the feeling that Pynchon  wants to pull the dark background of distant events into the foreground of mundane affairs  to amplify both the comedy and the way most human lives are inevitably in  contact with their historical moment, and some cannot avoid either  direct collision, or direct  collusion. Some also prefer escape, which is rarely easy and Pynchon seems to respect that response also.  
   My thought is that for a work of fiction or non-fiction to evoke such a strong curiosity and investigation as Oedipa Maas  gives to The Courier’s Tragedy,  it has to connect to something very real to them, something they need to cope with and understand.  That P in Lot 49 seems to avoid the normal paths of inquiry  and has OM, with her Academic background push into seemingly esoteric avenues seems a bit unrealistic and it is not the norm after V and Lot 49. In later novels the obvious is combined with the circuitous, and I wonder if that accounts in part  for misgivings he seems to have about this novella.

> On Jun 1, 2024, at 5:39 AM, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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?
> --
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