CoL49 Group Reading

[David Morris]

I said it earlier, but essentially I agree with your Hero Quest comments.
The “Everyman” is touched/anointed by an otherworldly force, and is sent on
a mission. In the course of his journey he is tested, tricked, sometimes
given a magic potion which transports him to another world and/or
transforms him into a higher level of consciousness.

It’s all in GR. Which makes me think of a seance. Pierce[the veil] brings
forth obscure messages, impersonating exotic spirits, and shakes Oed awake
to action…

On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 12:57 PM Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com> wrote:

> We never get to know (and, presumably, Oedipa never got to know) the real
> Pierce, just as the identity of The Shadow was unknown (until it wasn't -
> maybe revealed at some shark-jumping moment in one of the show's later
> incarnations). As JK says, Pierce vacillates between elect and preterite
> voices, making it difficult for at least the college-age Oedipa to know
> what he's really about. On the campus hill, he's romantic and approachable,
> but Gould is always looming over their relationship, if in whitewashed
> form. So Pierce is a kind of shape-shifter, like the Norse character Loki.
> I know that Pynchon references the icy North in GR. But are there any Norse
> mythology references in COL49, other than (maybe) Pierce as Loki?
>
> I haven't read Joseph Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces for ages, but his
> concept is that all world mythology shares some basic tropes. The Hero
> receives a call to adventure, causing him to leave the safety of his home
> and set out to find something and/or seek knowledge, and eventually, to
> return, enriched. The shape-shifter/trickster is a stock character. And
> it's this shapeshifting trickster who calls Oedipa to adventure from the
> safety of her drab suburban life.
>
> LK
>
> On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 11:36 AM J K Van Nort via Pynchon-l <
> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
>
> > Pierce’s late night phone call voices swing back and forth between
> > authority figures (elect) and disenfranchised (preterite). The
> > Transylvanian embassy and the Nazi gestapo alternate with the comic negro
> > and the Pachucos. The Shadow was an elect who acted as a vigilante in
> > cooperation with the police like Batman. Is this an indication that
> Pierce
> > might have vacillated between seeking wealth/power and something opposed
> to
> > that, ending as a tool of the elect? I’m not familiar with the Shadow,
> but
> > what little I know indicates a vigilante type character.
> > In solidarity,
> > James
> >
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