COL 49

[Joseph Tracy]

COL 49 AS MODERN DAY ALLEGORY: ( roughing out some thoughts on this  organizing idea)

Oedipa/ America: Beach Ball protection outside, inebriated desire inside.  Quest for truth and for real history and inheritance. Conflicted feminist awakening

 Metzger/  agent of Ownership class : Baby Igor as bait,    game playing as hook, handsome self serving lawyer as agent of property.      

Pierce Inverarity: unscrupulously gotten national inheritance, seducer who never gives up, corporate identity with many voices

Wendell Mucho Maas: Talented sensitive middle;  salesperson secretly unsure of product;  dissatisfied compassion for the preterite;  DJ for youth but not a believer in youth culture;  finds change of direction through soul manifesting psychedelics and deeper attention to music and auditory vocal signals.

Hilarius/    : agent of fascistic  or control-based state  specializing in research and development in mind control.  He specializes in paranoia  (fear inducing faces), but is internally conflicted   and ends losing mental stability drowning in paranoia. I

Driblette :  possible relation to Pynchon;  artist  who is attracted to dark materials, conflict, social political power struggles. When questioned about Couriers Tragedy,  he is very defensive, insists it means nothing, is only entertainment, words unimportant, only dramatic effect, but is clearly nervous about those inquiring about textual details.    Ends up drowned like characters in play.

Tristero  vs. Thurn and Taxis:  clandestine power struggle over  communication system as violent as direct political wars .

Manny Di presso: agent of key figure in the Inverarity alliances, Lawyer/actor/lawyer connectied to criminal underworld and fascism. World of paranoia ruthlessness. 

Mythic layers include Narcissus and Echo, Oedipus based power/inheritance struggle  leading to 



OK I want to take this sketch of key players  in the drama further,  but think I will  post it as is,  and pick it up later. My own sense is that while there is no reducing the layers of Pynchon’s writing to allegory,  all satire has symbolic or representational characters and situations so that looking at the way the parts of his complex structures interact can clarify certain patterns and provide avenues of understanding.