Unlike the Men in Her World, She Doesn’t Cower
July 11, 2016 3:35 AM Subscribe
While Pynchon has been placed firmly into the masculine canon of the previous century, Oedipa is his breakout character: a woman who, against all odds, strives to remake the world into a place of meaning and structure. It is the men in Pynchon’s California who are secondary: they are duplicitous, flighty, and weak .... In our present moment, it is necessary, rather than radical, to be paranoid. Paranoia is now the result of being aware and observant. We are being watched, tracked, traced, and catalogued. Oedipa’s nightmare has become our reality. Therefore, 50 years later, we should allow her to become our guide. Nick Ripatriazone on Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49
Christ, I don't remember a bit of that. Need to reread soonest!
(Not a burden in any sense ... )
posted by oheso at 4:21 AM on July 11, 2016
(Not a burden in any sense ... )
posted by oheso at 4:21 AM on July 11, 2016
--o---<<|
posted by Fizz at 5:12 AM on July 11, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 5:12 AM on July 11, 2016 [11 favorites]
I like the idea, but I found the thesis to be poorly argued. There didn't seem to be much substantial evidence for considering Oedipa a woman apart.
posted by OmieWise at 7:20 AM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by OmieWise at 7:20 AM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
on a side note, i went to the wiki linked to Pynchon's books to see what items might be found about his last book, "Bleeding Edge", as I realized I had not seen or read much critical examinations of it.
tucked into the wiki was a news of Pynchon link which includes a theory published in Paste - that Pynchon might be the author of a little known 2014 book titled "Cow Country" by one Adrian Pearson ... interesting argument laid out in Harper's from last fall.
adding to the mystery, or conspiracy, just last month "Pearson" declared his renunciation of "literary citizenship".
posted by Mr.Pointy at 8:03 AM on July 11, 2016
tucked into the wiki was a news of Pynchon link which includes a theory published in Paste - that Pynchon might be the author of a little known 2014 book titled "Cow Country" by one Adrian Pearson ... interesting argument laid out in Harper's from last fall.
adding to the mystery, or conspiracy, just last month "Pearson" declared his renunciation of "literary citizenship".
posted by Mr.Pointy at 8:03 AM on July 11, 2016
Either you have stumbled indeed, without the aid of LSD or other indole alkaloids, onto a secret richness and concealed density of a dream; on to a network by which X number of Americans are truly communicating whilst reserving their lies, recitations of routine, arid betrayals of spiritual poverty, for the official government delivery system; maybe even on to a real alternative to the exitlessness, to the absence of surprise to life, that harrows the head of everybody American you know, and you too sweetie. Or you are hallucinating it. Or a plot has been mounted against you, so expensive and elaborate, involving items like the forging of stamps and ancient books... so labyrinthine that it must have meaning beyond just a practical joke. Or you are fantasying some such plot, in which case you are a nut, Oedipa, out of your skull.We Await Tristero's Silent Empire
But instead of via a private post office empire, the secret richness and concealed density of a dream, such as it is, happens amid the dross in plain sight over everyone's phone. It's funny how things work out.
posted by y2karl at 8:10 AM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Paranoia is now the result of being aware and observant. We are being watched, tracked, traced, and catalogued. Oedipa’s nightmare has become our reality.
I'm with Omiewise in wanting more evidence for Oedipa as a woman apart, especially as Ripatriazone doesn't establish a baseline against other female characters of the time. She is "seeking meaning in a confusing world," "strives to remake the world into a place of meaning and structure," "she is neither romanticized nor sexualized," "[h]er character is active, discerning, as much a part of the “game” as the dead man behind the curtain." In short, "Oedipa is a refreshing [! really? ugh] archetype: the female detective." Okay, now we're getting somewhere. But I would appreciate some textual contrast with typical female characters of the time, unless, perhaps, the author is expecting us to make assumptions about women who stay in line and asleep to the underlying realities? It's also possible that it's been some time since he read Susan Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers" (1916) but I digress...
Nor was I convinced by the speculative examples he chose as her descendants, Lauren Olamina, Moll Robbins, and Dana Scully. A more apt trio might be Maxine Tarnow, March Kelleher, and Heidi Czornak, all of Bleeding Edge, all already on board with the idea that hidden forces move around us.
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:22 AM on July 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm with Omiewise in wanting more evidence for Oedipa as a woman apart, especially as Ripatriazone doesn't establish a baseline against other female characters of the time. She is "seeking meaning in a confusing world," "strives to remake the world into a place of meaning and structure," "she is neither romanticized nor sexualized," "[h]er character is active, discerning, as much a part of the “game” as the dead man behind the curtain." In short, "Oedipa is a refreshing [! really? ugh] archetype: the female detective." Okay, now we're getting somewhere. But I would appreciate some textual contrast with typical female characters of the time, unless, perhaps, the author is expecting us to make assumptions about women who stay in line and asleep to the underlying realities? It's also possible that it's been some time since he read Susan Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers" (1916) but I digress...
Nor was I convinced by the speculative examples he chose as her descendants, Lauren Olamina, Moll Robbins, and Dana Scully. A more apt trio might be Maxine Tarnow, March Kelleher, and Heidi Czornak, all of Bleeding Edge, all already on board with the idea that hidden forces move around us.
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:22 AM on July 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
Mr.Pointy: "Pynchon might be the author of a little known 2014 book titled "Cow Country" by one Adrian Pearson ... interesting argument laid out in Harper's from last fall."
Seen previously on Metafilter!
posted by chavenet at 8:40 AM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Seen previously on Metafilter!
posted by chavenet at 8:40 AM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
I found a decently read audiobook version of this not too long ago and I was struck by how totally internal nearly all of the story is, EXCEPT for the night that Oedipa spends wandering around the city. That one sequence, that is pure hallucinatory gold and would make for an amazing scene in a movie. But the rest of the book is basically unfilmable.
I don't really agree with the thesis of the linked article, but it's always great to be reminded of Lot 49.
posted by hippybear at 8:43 AM on July 11, 2016
I don't really agree with the thesis of the linked article, but it's always great to be reminded of Lot 49.
posted by hippybear at 8:43 AM on July 11, 2016
Only tangentially related to the article, but in re the book:
Back in 1999 or so, somebody in Berkeley had a rubber stamp of the muted postmaster's horn from Lot 49.
One of my favorite Berkeley moments remains the weird day I asked the (oblivious) barista about the stamp under the counter at the now-defunct Wall Berlin. After watching a friend smoke a cigarette outside, I returned to my seat to find a hastily scribbled drawing of the same horn with the words "even the best sailors sink" and a screen printed pen from this company, whose logo, which I wasn't able to turn up with a quick google, actually looked a little like a bouquet of said horns.
Pynchon? The barista? Some other rando in the cafe? I suppose I'll never know, but it helped fuel the paranoia.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:53 PM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Back in 1999 or so, somebody in Berkeley had a rubber stamp of the muted postmaster's horn from Lot 49.
One of my favorite Berkeley moments remains the weird day I asked the (oblivious) barista about the stamp under the counter at the now-defunct Wall Berlin. After watching a friend smoke a cigarette outside, I returned to my seat to find a hastily scribbled drawing of the same horn with the words "even the best sailors sink" and a screen printed pen from this company, whose logo, which I wasn't able to turn up with a quick google, actually looked a little like a bouquet of said horns.
Pynchon? The barista? Some other rando in the cafe? I suppose I'll never know, but it helped fuel the paranoia.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:53 PM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Co-signing a lot of the criticism about the thesis not being argued all that well with respect to anything resembling a counter-example; and then we get this line,
It is the men in Pynchon’s California who are secondary: they are duplicitous, flighty, and weak
which opens up the argument to the many men in the rest of Pynchon's California books--Inherent Vice, Vineland, and Bleeding Edge, the last being set in NYC, not California, but that's the same thing, only different--and then fails to follow that scent as well. The basic argument is decent I guess, as far as it goes...
...which is not that far because, on the other hand, I remember having the thought during some lit seminar that the Oedipal triangle, as a literary trope, can seem like a danged useful and explanatory symbol to locate in a text, but a relationship among three characters who, however vaguely, correspond to mom-dad-baby is so generic that it can be superimposed on almost anything. And so often amounts to very little. So when our (frankly dunderheaded) lit professor asked us undergrads to explicate the name Oedipa, the proposed readings were so convoluted and illuminated so little that I started to assume that Pynchon had selected the name Oedipa with the uselessness of the Oedipal triangle in mind, to invite interpretation knowing that such readings would naturally proliferate, but have no particular meaning, or at least no relationship to the text as the author conceived it. A pretty classic po-mo trick, setting into motion a play of symbols so that almost any reading can be mounted. All that is to say that when the writer proposes that Oedipa is anything in particular, in this case something as anodyne as a, what exactly, role model? without a whole lot of fancy footwork in the argumentation, I get a little allergic.
Anyhoo, guess it's time to re-read the book, once I'm finished with my current, nth reading of AtD.
posted by Zerowensboring at 2:00 PM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
It is the men in Pynchon’s California who are secondary: they are duplicitous, flighty, and weak
which opens up the argument to the many men in the rest of Pynchon's California books--Inherent Vice, Vineland, and Bleeding Edge, the last being set in NYC, not California, but that's the same thing, only different--and then fails to follow that scent as well. The basic argument is decent I guess, as far as it goes...
...which is not that far because, on the other hand, I remember having the thought during some lit seminar that the Oedipal triangle, as a literary trope, can seem like a danged useful and explanatory symbol to locate in a text, but a relationship among three characters who, however vaguely, correspond to mom-dad-baby is so generic that it can be superimposed on almost anything. And so often amounts to very little. So when our (frankly dunderheaded) lit professor asked us undergrads to explicate the name Oedipa, the proposed readings were so convoluted and illuminated so little that I started to assume that Pynchon had selected the name Oedipa with the uselessness of the Oedipal triangle in mind, to invite interpretation knowing that such readings would naturally proliferate, but have no particular meaning, or at least no relationship to the text as the author conceived it. A pretty classic po-mo trick, setting into motion a play of symbols so that almost any reading can be mounted. All that is to say that when the writer proposes that Oedipa is anything in particular, in this case something as anodyne as a, what exactly, role model? without a whole lot of fancy footwork in the argumentation, I get a little allergic.
Anyhoo, guess it's time to re-read the book, once I'm finished with my current, nth reading of AtD.
posted by Zerowensboring at 2:00 PM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
'The Crying of Lot 49' is Thomas Pynchon's masterpiece, he got the balance perfect there. 'V.' is cool, and most everything after seems a bit too stylized for my taste. This essay just touches on it..
posted by ovvl at 7:03 PM on July 11, 2016
posted by ovvl at 7:03 PM on July 11, 2016
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