CoL49 Group Reading

[Joseph Tracy]

2nd half of ch 2 summary. COL 49. 

The bet about the ending ( death or victory) of the movie Cashiered is sealed with an odd arrangement where if Metzger wins he gets sex, but after he refuses to put up a bottle of Tequila if she wins, because it will put her to sleep,  there is no agreed prize for her. She bets on death under the waves.
(cashier2 | kaˈSHir | verb [with object] dismiss (someone) from the armed forces in disgrace because of a serious misdemeanor.) They are drinking lots of Tequila, she is reminded of first seduction with PI.  ?? Movie continues with father on Turkish Beach  but Metzger notes they must have mixed up the reels. ( coincidence  of movie showing that evening looks prearranged). They start to play strip Botticelli with OED having to remove item of clothing for every question asked. She clothes herself  to the point of being a human beach ball, then knocks down hair spray can which caroms  around accompanied by tv battle sounds, Paranoids & friends peek in, then leave. We find out Oedipa is 28( from broken mirror).

"Now and then a commercial would come in, each time Metzger would say, “Inverarity’s,” or “Big block of shares,” and later settled for nodding and smiling. Oedipa would scowl back, growing more and more certain, while a headache began to flower behind her eyes, that they among all possible combinations of new lovers had found a way to make time itself slow down. Things grew less and less clear.”

OM comes back from bathroom finds M "fast asleep with a hardon and his head under the couch. She noticed also a fat stomach the suit had hidden. On the screen New Zealanders and Turks were impaling one another on bayonets. With a cry Oedipa rushed to him, fell on him, began kissing him to wake him up. His radiant eyes flew open, pierced her, as if she could feel the sharpness somewhere vague between her breasts.”
 ( The word pierce here makes another a connection between M and PI.)

They fall asleep on the way, but as they climax the lights go out when the Paranoids, playing by the pool,  blow a fuse. 
Afterward, when the lights and TV come back on,  they watch final movie scene featuring Baby Igor electrocuted and screaming as water fills the sub and the father tells the dead Igor “you are for salvation;I am for the pit”. An unlikely fundamentalist-inflected last line. 

OM gets temporarily pissed because she should have won
“You won me,” Metzger smiled. 
“What did Inverarity tell you about me,” she asked finally.
 “That you wouldn’t be easy.” 
She began to cry. “
Come back,” said Metzger. “Come on.” After awhile she said, “I will.” And she did.

      ???? Here are some questions that struck me from 2nd half of ch 2.  No expectations of answers unless someone gets inspired to write something , but what questions do others have? For me the best questions I have are the ones that sincerely puzzle me. 

?Is America and/or Oedipa Maas easy to seduce but hard to keep a relationship with? 

?How does  this maudlin WW1 submarine drama, ending in drowning,  relate to the seduction of OM? Do either  or both relate to the larger arc of COL49?  

?Why does OM cry?

?  Real estate and ownership  as deeper layer of patriarchy, substrate of empire.  America  and 51% ownership.  51% of 1%, owning the owners? 

?Are booze and (unusual) men OM’s  primary vulnerability?  Liquor seems more prominent in COL 49 than any other Pynchon book. Reasons? 

? Beaconsfield  cigarettes with bone charcoal. OM asks “Bones of what?” M answers that PI knew , owned 51% of process. Why does Pynchon keep having human bones end in the cold depths or ink or a trail of smoke? Tobacco company as sign of founding father status?