CoL49 group reading ch3 pt1, 41

[Michael Bailey]

Okay, at the beginning of the chapter the narrator’s foreshadowing
specifically specifies “Oedipa’s encapsulation” as the thing which “might
be” being undone by all this Tristero business. And that action being
incepted, as it were, by her first act of coitus (“infidelity”) with
Metzger.

Whereas later on, the slow denuding of her - now that she’s de-encapsulated
- on the occasion of their umptieth coupling is compared to the slow
revelation of The Tristero. So it’s also the beginning - of the next step.


They arrive at Lake Inverarity.

“Out in it, on a round island of fill among blue wavelets, squatted the
social hall, a chunky, ogived and verdigrised, Art Nouveau reconstruction
of some European pleasure-casino. Oedipa fell in love with it.”

Hmmm. Rachel Owlglass only loves her car - Oedipa must like the strong
silent type.

Is there a word for love of a building?
One Quoran says aesthete / another, “architecturalophile”

But is this love a displaced love, newly realized, or refreshed, for
Pierce?
Is Metzger a proxy for Pierce, who’s watching from the Great Beyond as his
factotum shows her what a fabulous guy he was, how wonderful his creations
were?

“Now aren’t you sorry?” type thing - and maybe she is, a little?
Is that why she cried when Metzger told her Pierce had said she wouldn’t be
easy?
Or because the idea of Pierce doing all that is pretty fricken sad?

Oedipa’s as-yet- (and maybe always-to-remain-) unconsummated love for the
social hall recedes into the background - she might’ve made it work, if it
weren’t for those meddling Paranoids! (Well actually they’re trying to get
out to the island too…)

At least there’s a picnic of sorts.

Eggplant parmagian’ sandwiches and tequila sours, sounds nice.


“Hey, blokes,” yelled Dean or perhaps Serge, “let’s pinch a boat.” “Hear,
hear,” cried the girls.