COL 49 CH5 notes

[Joseph Tracy]

> 
> Hilarius is another layer of the culture of the time, in this case with a hidden ‘face’ . Freudian psychiatry was a new secular religion among the middle and upper classes with a promise of liberation from past traumas, from false social constraints, bad relationships, and anything blocking personal ‘fulfillment’.  It was also of high interest to those wanting to go further with Edward Bernays’s work in mass psychology to shape desired social attitudes, and had entered very dark terrain in the mind-control work of Sydney Gottlieb and MK Ultra.  Pynchon has been interpreted as a Freudian  but in Hilarius  he is pointing toward the potentials for abuse reminiscent of similar themes in GR.  Oddly Bernays went( much earlier) to the same high school and college as Pynchon. When OM seeks his help sorting out real from unreal, the old nazi has gone batshit crazy and she gets him into the hands of the police. One more layer discarded.
> 
One more layer discarded. OM is clearly perceptive,  intelligent, competent enough in basic physics to smell bullshit when that is what is being sold, has an instinct for an important line of inquiry and where evidence is pointing, a journalistic willingness to seek out witnesses, and  remains logical and meta-cognitively  deliberative despite the very startling evidence of her direct experience  with WASTE,  and finally more psychologically stable and willing to question herself than the supposed expert. She handles fear, the crazed arguments of Hilarius, the questionable competence and procedural delays of the police with a steady courage, perception and skill.  What? Pynchon asks, is the standard of sanity in a society engaged in MK ultra mind control experiments reminiscent of Nazi German?