CoL49 Group reading - more responsive responses

[J K Van Nort]

Greetings Michael,
I went on Google Maps, and the Uris Library has a western slope where it seems obvious students would lay, sit facing west. You would have to be looking uphill, against the grain, to see a sunrise come over the building. There is a path, from where the maps street view image is taken, that they may have been walking along to see a sunrise, while everyone else was looking west.
Oed’s memory felt like a moment when the two lovers had simpatico, feeling their love allowed them to see what others didn’t. Along with the images of the birds flying and the Bartok music, are sacred/sublime memories set against the door slamming and the Gould bust profane images, hinting at their different views that possibly led to their breakup.
I posted the view of the library and slope in the Pynchon wiki, if you’d like to see it.
In solidarity,
James


Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone


On Monday, May 6, 2024, 02:27, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, May 6, 2024 at 12:04 AM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 1) How do Mucho Maas' self-recriminations reflect an alternative to
> Oedipa's Tupperware world?


He’s one of the many in the Schlemiel line. The noble loser.  They each
have specific flavors, eras, and sometimes gender.  Mucho and Oedipa are
both in the plastic hell-purgatory, and we don’t get the sense that either
one is on any fulfilling path. Both stuck in limbo until Oedipa is Pierced
from the other side of the Veil.

Whet she accepts her quest, she graduates from the passive Schlemiel to
active Mensch, following a heroic path.  It might also be observed that
some Pynchon’s questing mensch become deranged, some transcendent.

David Morris
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