CoL49-Revelation & chapter 5 beginning

[J K Van Nort]

I agree Mark. This time reading CoL49 really has me looking at all the men in Oedipa’s life. Is it the time? Reminds me of trying to watch Mad Men and not wanting to see men behave so glandularly driven. 

Benny Profane didn’t do well with relationships, but he did care about each of the women he had relationships with. We really have a surface view of all male characters in the 3rd person limited. We have a narrator who comments on Oedipa’s inner world, but he doesn’t comment or explore any of the inner worlds of the males. Does that help the reader to see/empathize with Oedipa’s character more? I think yes.


In solidarity,
James

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone


On Sunday, June 23, 2024, 08:14, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

You have focused me more than ever on this: ..There are no strong interpersonal emotions in this novella; not even thehint of romance
It is just sex....
None of these guys would every climb her hair to Rapuzel's hideaway tower....
America then, or suburban married America then?     
On Sun, Jun 23, 2024 at 7:32 AM J K Van Nort via Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

Oedipa decides to go to the Bay area to get a copy of the Wharfinger text at Berkeley and possibly visit John Nefastis. Like Mucho, Metzger seems indifferent to her leaving, and she passes Kinneret before she realizes it, so she doesn't visit her husband. On reaching Berkeley, she checks into a German-baroque hotel that his hosting a convention of deaf-mutes. The hotel is silent but lit up brightly, and Oedipa falls asleep, waking up to find she is looking at herself in the mirror.
She goes to the campus, but they don't have a copy at the library, so she must go into Oakland and get it from a warehouse. The quotation of Trystero has been altered and doesn't mention Trystero or any other version with a Trystero in the verse. She goes back to the campus to meet the Professor Bortz who edited the text, but he has moved to San Narciso University. 
Oedipa wanders through campus as a protest of the students occurs. She thinks how her Republican heroes have been left to a different time. She has no use for the protest. She goes to see John Nefastis, who is watching cartoons. He shows her the Maxwell Box and explains the concepts of entropy. She attempts to be a sensitive and move the pistons but fails. Nefastis soothes her and then suggests they have sex while watching the news about China, which gets him horny. She leaves disgusted and drives into San Francisco.
She begins her evening walking down Broadway and is encircled by a group of tourists going into a gay bar, the Greek Way. There she meets a man with a muted horn pin. She asks him several questions, trying to learn about Trystero and W.A.S.T.E., but he is an Inamorati Anonymous, or someone who has given up on love.

Questions:

   - Why are Mucho and Metzger compared by both not "being desperate" to see her leave?
   - When Oedipa walks through the protest, she thinks of three anti-communists from the Eisenhower administration era. Why does Pynchon use the term "numena" to categorize these three together? Why are they "In another world."?
   - Why does Nefastis' certainty about his Maxwell Machine make her feel like a "heretic"?

If I come up with more, I'll add.

In solidarity,
James

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
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