CoL49 Group Reading

[Joseph Tracy]

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


What comes to mind is the Icy unswimmable waters of Lago di Prieta, rhyming with icy waters navigated by the submarine Justine, rhyming with the cold lake where the flower of Faggian youth ended up in their battle with Tristero, by which Nicole was killed,,  and the strangely named Fangoso lagoon( strange because it is for scuba divers who would want clarity to explore the imported Spanish galleons, but Fangoso means muddy, murky.) Bones in the cold depths everywhere. And some question as to who knows where the bodies are buried which Oedipa is curious about but  Metzger, Cohen and Driblet discourage.


Water is the commonest symbol for the unconscious.
The lake in the valley is the unconscious, which lies, as it were, underneath consciousness, so that it is often referred to as the “subconscious,” usually with the pejorative connotation of an inferior consciousness.
Water is the “valley spirit,” the water dragon of Tao, whose nature resembles water- a yang in the yin, therefore, water means spirit that has become unconscious.
Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious
Paragraph 40