Re: CoL49 group reading ch3 - “so began”

[Joseph Tracy]

> On May 23, 2024, at 3:08 AM, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> “So began, for Oedipa, the languid, sinister blooming of The Tristero. Or
> rather, her attendance at some unique performance, prolonged as if it were
> the last of the night, something a little extra for whoever’d stayed this
> late. As if the breakaway gowns, net bras, jeweled garters and G-strings of
> historical figuration that would fall away were layered dense as Oedipa’s
> own street clothes in that game with Metzger in front of the Baby Igor
> movie; as if a plunge toward dawn indefinite black hours long would indeed
> be necessary before The Tristero could be revealed in its terrible
> nakedness. Would its smile, then, be coy, and would it flirt away
> harmlessly backstage, say good night with a Bourbon Street bow and leave
> her in peace? Or would it instead, the dance ended, come back down the
> runway, its luminous stare locked to Oedipa’s, smile gone malign and
> pitiless; bend to her alone among the desolate rows of seats and begin to
> speak words she never wanted to hear?”

I am gong to speculate based on the parallel allegorical reading which I am continuing to rough out. In this view Thurn and Taxis and later national postal systems represent the communication systems of empires and nations as they develop through history and record themselves( usually in a self serving narrative) and the changes in power structures which are proclaimed as historical reality.  Tristero Co-exists with this  and is  both the communication network and the secretive parallel power maintaining apparatus of the ultra-rich, families , individuals, mercenaries, spies that see themselves as the proper nobility. I do not believe Pynchon is describing a unified hierarchy with a clearly defined agenda, merely the dialectic of social forces that is as ruthless in its doings as the mare apparent historical players. This often intersects with  rogue military and spy networks. Sometimes there is disruptive confrontations between the Tristero type structures and those individuals and entities deemed legitimate.
 That is what happened with the JFK assassination. There was a conspiracy managed by the CIA , Mafia and others to control by violence a leader signaling a change of direction and defying the Cuba manifested plans of a Tristero style bid for imperial power.   Oedipa in this allegory represents the american public as the nation with its post McCarthy freedom of thought asking many uncomfortable questions about the JFK murder and the escalation in Vietnam, What is moving toward Oedipa in the above passage, and what is soon to be revealed in its terrible nakedness is the murderously dark side of the American Dream, the Shadow vigilante, the ownership who thrive on military spending and project a landscape carefully shaped like a circuit board for its own ends. She has sensed that it wants to communicate but is rightly terrified of what . 





> 
> 
> What kind of passage is this?
> 
> I realize that others will probably have different interpretations - & hope
> to read about them
> 
> But for my money,
> 
> a) it’s descriptive of what Oedipa might be thinking quite a bit later -
> reminiscing, or a journal entry, or maybe she’s talking to a trusted friend
> or a shrink, possibly even a new husband (since we know from _Vineland_
> that she & Mucho will be splitsville)
> 
> b) that being the case is a strong indication that she will survive to look
> back upon it - I mean the paragraph works best (imho) as her thinking back
> “that’s what it seemed like at the time” — or more complexly, a narrator
> who does know what will happen but isn’t telling, suggesting some of the
> ways Oedipa might later look back on this executorship.
> 
> c) building upon the foreshadowing at the beginning of the chapter: “That’s
> what would come to haunt her most, perhaps…” -
> 
> d) the narrator has to put that “perhaps” in to preserve the mystery as a
> reminder that more stuff will happen, as a guide to the parameters of the
> story -
> “Best case, she learns about the Tristero, it leaves her alone; worst case
> it turns nasty - read on & find out”
> 
> 
> Phrase by phrase:
> 
> “the languid, sinister blooming”
> 
> languid and sinister, as opposed to energetic and dexterous?
> 
> Quite different, then, compared to the direction of the additions to her
> sort of Weltanschauung one might expect after a straightforward
> executrixship, of which she might say later,
> 
> “oh yes, I went down to LA, checked in right away with the attorney.
> 
> “My co-executor Metzger was very businesslike and professional and helped
> me to understand what needed to be done. I stayed with him and his wife in
> a spare room.
> 
> “ I went back to Kinneret on the weekends, and it’s funny, but Wendell and
> I have started to feel much closer. Absence makes the heart grow fonder,
> maybe?
> He found a new job as a social worker.
> 
> “The estate allowed me a salary which I banked, and expenses. He’d left me
> his stamp collection, which I sold to a nice young man named Genghis Cohen.
> I gave him a discount because I felt a little protective - he didn’t seem
> very organized.
> 
> “Pierce had set up a charitable foundation, and most of his holdings went
> to that. I declined further involvement, and after 6 weeks went back home.
> It was nice of Pierce to think of me, I guess, but I never will understand
> why.”
> --
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