CoL49 Group Reading - Week 1 Summary & Questions

[Mark Kohut]

YES!.... to Oedpa being ensnared in robber baron capitalism...The tower is
everywhere.

Yes, a pretentious budding capitalist would lug a bust--he becomes a
'developer' we remember, and wealthy early---and see
what Pynchon thinks of that in the rest of his fiction, particularly his
other sixties novel,
*Inherent Vice*



On Fri, May 3, 2024 at 9:28 AM Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've always assumed Pierce was older, but the reference to the hillside on
> the Cornell campus (obviously a personal one for Pynchon) could indicate
> that he was a college friend.
>
> The bust of Jay Gould looming over them in bed ( would a pretentious
> proto-capitalist lug a bust of his idol to his college dorm?) is maybe an
> ironic homage to the quintessential robber baron. Was Pierce (and by
> extension, Oedipa) hoping or fearing to become him? Maybe succumbing to
> Capitalism, in its most brutal, robber baron form, is a kind of death wish.
> Oedipa was spared, but maybe Pierce got what he deserved,or asked for. It's
> not for the faint of heart.
>
>
> On Thu, May 2, 2024, 11:54 PM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com
> >
> wrote:
>
> > Extrapolating from footwear to narrative stances and attributing
> > avuncularity to the author -
> >
> > Treatment of the super-rich as a phenomenon and as people in CoL49 is
> > evoked in a few of Oedipa’s memories of Pierce, and a lot of details of
> his
> > footprint in the economic landscape of Southern California
> >
> > There’s a way to see this treatment as a way of inveighing against the
> > effects of extreme wealth (and possibly part of a tendency evinced in
> AtD’s
> > Vibe family - certainly malefactors of great wealth - and also in Jess
> > Traverse’s “monopolist” quote from Emerson in _Vineland_)
> >
> > But it could also be a thought experiment - how does someone cope after
> > rejecting the more unsavory aspects of capitalism embodied in Pierce,
> when
> > the effects of it are all around her and he made provisions to keep her
> > involved?
> >
> > There’s a modicum of tenderness to the portrait of Pierce that emerges -
> > nowhere does Oedipa remember him being deliberately cruel*, just not
> > connecting with her Rapunzel self-concept - and bringing them into
> jeopardy
> > with the precarious bust of Jay Gould on a narrow shelf above their bed
> > (which apparently she never felt empowered to move.)
> >
> > The chance of mishap would be non-trivial in the event of an earthquake
> or
> > strong tremor.
> >
> > What a vivid way to dramatize the risks to Pierce and Oedipa of his
> > admiration & emulation of the ethically challenged financier!
> >
> > In fact - maybe that’s how Pierce died?**
> >
> > * I think it would have almost certainly have been she who slammed the
> > hotel room door - but his “Shadow” warning to Mucho doesn’t seem very
> > friendly of a flex,
> > does it?
> >
> > ** I think of him as much older, but he could just as easily have been a
> > Wunderkind, couldn’t he?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, May 1, 2024 at 2:11 PM O G <octogonalyoyo at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Association is the way a higher order of consciousness can operate.  If
> > > you see your uncle's favorite footwear, you can immediately see and
> know
> > > everything about all your uncle's favorite footwear in all of his lives
> > > forward and backward.  That is, the entity who plays your uncle, all
> its
> > > other lives in which is obtained favorite footwear.  You would never
> have
> > > to read about the footwear, or hear or learn about them.  They're all
> > just
> > > there, present, in a flash.
> > >
> > > That's how it is possible.  So then you just assume the entity playing
> > > Pynchon is bleeding through to a degree.
> > >
> > > Yes I am being whimsical when I say forward and backward, as there
> isn't
> > > any.
> > >
> > >
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>