COL49 ,Chapter 3, 2nd section 5/26/24

[Joseph Tracy]

I have tried twice to post this following summary and questions and it is not showing up in my inbox and it is not showing up in the online archives.

I was wondering if  one or both of you could post this until I get this fixed.

Below is Joseph T’s SUMMARY of  the 2nd 10 pages of CH 3 of Thomas Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49 in which Manny Di Presso shows up at Fangoso Lagoon  and we discover the source of certain bones.

Metzger, the Paranoids, their Girlfriends, and Oedipa Maas have gone to Fangoso Lagoon, an artificial body of water made by Pierce Inverarityfor scuba divers containing sunken ships ,human bones. And other Disneyesqe touches. The name is od because it means muddy or murky in Spanish. The Paranoids suggest they pinch a boat and Metzger closes his eyes.

A telling question that starts to reverberate as Metzger closes eyes to many things:1)bones from La prieta, 2)involvement of Tony Jaguar 3)  questions about bones in lake,  curiosity about the CR play’s similarity to  events leading to PI’s acquiring the bones> And as he asks Oed to close hers and stop her questions.

Paranoids start 17 foot aluminum power boat called Gozilla2  and a person covered in blue plastic moves closer, says Baby Igor, I need help. Its Manny Di Presso, lawyer turned actor in scuba suit and wrapround glasses running from 3 men who work for Tony Jaguar( Cosa Nostra) and jhe asks to join them  in the boat which speeds away.( MD keeps referring to car on other side of lagoon, an XKE he bought while temporarily insane)

Metz asks “are we on camera? “Manny D says “this is real”  that “he” has someone watching lake. He is Tony Jaguar , Mob boss. and employer of MD, who’s now lawyer again. Manny D says only the way pilot of Metz's life will be shown is if he wins a big case like the one MD is bringing on behalf of Tony Jaguar against PI estate.

They dock at an island with an elaborate social hall and Metz and OM find out MD is fleeing Tony Jaguar his client to avoid pressure to loan Jaguar money against inverarity case. MD presumes they will lose case. TJ is in Gambling debt trouble; trouble  that MD wants to avoid. 

The case is about beaconsfield filters and the  bones supplied by TJ who says he wasn’t paid. Metz says PI scrupulous about payments; Metzger  presumes the bones were from cemetaries ripped up by contractors working for PI.     MD says no, these bones came from Italy  from Lago di Pieta , some into filters and some to decorate bottom of Fangoso, Lago di Pieta in COL 49 was scene of battle in which a company of GI’s was killed by Germans and their bodies and weapons put into lake and sank. 

Historically this is a reference to the Lake Maggiore massacre ( also 1943)in which Panzer division killed 56 greek and Italian Jews and threw bodies in Lake Maggiore. ( In 1957 an artificial lake was made in Pertulsillo province in Italy , finished in 1962) and called Lago di  Pietra.) 

Tony Jaguar had been corporal in Italian army and bought bones to sell in US through Mob.  failed to sell bones for fertilizer , stored in Fort Wayne Indiana until Beaconsfield interest. (Weird Fort Wayne connection to JFK assassination-https://jamesfday.medium.com/the-jfk-assassination-new-link-between-the-civil-air-patrol-and-wandering-bishops-2b42634449ec )

Then paranoids interrupt and say story sounds like that  ill Jacobean revenge play  they saw called The Courier’s Tragedy.
Manny D freaks that they have been listening,’ But we don’t repeat what we hear says paranoid girlfiend and don’t smoke Beaconsfields, we’re all on pot. Drummer produces fistful of MJ joints to be smoked.
 At this point 2 men chasing MD approach in boat and MD takes off in Godzilla 2, stranding others on the island. They are rescued by sending SOS with lit joints after juicing smoking and hearing paranioids  disjointed or perhaps jointed  version of Courier’s Tragedy.

OM decides to see this play at the Tank and gets Metz to take her.   (I will start  a summary of the Courier’s Tragedy next.)

QUESTIONS:
1) what is with all the lakes and  water bodies real and fake? Baby Igor drowning in the Mediterranean, Fangoso Lagoon, Lago Di Pieta, Knights of Faggio killed and dumped in lake, Kinnaret( older name for Sea of Galilee) , Peter Pinguid vs Popov in the Pacific off Pismo Beach story in earliest freedom fight with Russians? 
Stretching the possible instances of this imagery we have Boticelli’s naked Venus rising from the sea foam, Oedpa’s  copious tears at Varo Painting and her soulful relation to Pacific Ocean, Driblette drowning or being drowned in Pacific.
 Possible angle) Jung associates water with subconscious/collective unconscious.

2) what is with the specific repetition of the theme of bones at the bottom of the water, bones as ink, bones as cigarette filters, bones as human memory vs financial opportunity? 

3) Any thoughts on lawyers as actors, actors as lawyers? Accurate and inaccurate  information in fictional drama( movies, stories by characters, myths, plays, TV dramas) as Pynconian or theme? 

4)Why are there so many ex or not ex fascists: Hilarius, Tony Jaguar, Fallopian to the right of Birchers recommending Tremain’s Nazi armband and guns, to a lesser extent but connected to PI is Metzger and Yoyodyne anti-communism.

5) logic of  Manny Di Presso in skin Diving suit running from his employer to avoid loaning him money??? 

6) why Fangoso? 7)  What are Paranoids about?

HAVE A  GOOD LABOR DAY WEEKEND