CoL49 Group Read

[Laura Kelber]

We know that Oedipa went to Cornell and had a romance with an aspiring
robber baron, but instead of marrying up, she married down. Mucho Maas is
much less. The used car salesman was (and is, I guess) a cliche
representative of all that's vulgar and low class. Cleaning the scrounge
out of other people's cars, he's not poor, but he's poor-adjacent. Even as
a DJ, he's just a sad-sack working stiff.

Oedipa cares about him, presumably, but hangs out with somewhat affluent,
lasagna and fondue eating suburban housewives. Lasagna being a little more
exotic in those days.

So Oedipa exists between the elect and the preterite ( yep, the excluded
middle class) as she embarks on her journey. The perfect place to view the
two halves of America.

On Fri, May 10, 2024, 2:52 PM J K Van Nort via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

> Wendel Maas has no abilities of value it seems, only a pathetic,
> debilitating empathy. Is there a cringiness to his DJing? His boss accuses
> him of being too horny when he should be a father figure to the teenagers
> who call him. Mucho doesn’t deny this; he cowardly mutters “censorship”,
> which implies that he deliberately acts horny. His miserableness contrasts
> with the descriptions of his movements, which Oedipa notices: bounding
> through the screen door, gliding across the room like a large bird in a
> thermal. Is Oedipa happy in this marriage? It’s hard to say since she
> follows her routine of wifely duties. Their bodies remain interlocked when
> Hilarius calls, I think she wants this to be true love, but her memories of
> and the vagueness of when her relationship with pierce ended, make it
> difficult to identify where her marriage and relationship with Pierce
> entwined.
> In solidarity,
> James
>
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