English 310 at Clemson University

The Art of Sleep felt like a typical thought process of someone who cannot manage to get to sleep. Crazy ideas with some sort of distracting noise to harp on. I have to admit by the conspiracy point I was really hoping for the fellow to fall asleep. The music was very soothing, so I almost fell asleep myself. The Art of Silence was kind of weird, well, actually fully weird. Mostly robot voice bickering with one another, then switching sides to bicker even more. I thought it was hilarious when the guy called her “baby.” Robot voices showing emotion always cracks me up. The Dakota piece was hard for me to follow. I watched it last and the words went quicker than the others and I didn’t follow it as well. I cannot say I got the point of these things, but I thought the presentation was very intriguing. I did like the concept that everything was art, not can be art. That strips art of its specialness and artists of their ability. The fact that the guy forgot by the time he was almost asleep was amusing. He was ready to yell about it, then it slips from his mind. They were all interesting, though. Perhaps the purpose will be discussed in class.

Pynchon, may very well be a talented author. But I might have to agree with him that this novel is… lacking. I understand he uses the English language in a way that not many others have before. However, I never found where the story was going. I often found myself questioning the entire book (which I’m sure is due to his use of language).

With that over with I had a feeling Oedipa when completely lose control, as she was on the brink the entire text. The reader, seemingly becomes Oedipa in that you cannot really understand what is going on. We are asking ourselves the same questions she is, only through text. Yes, she is going through life, but are we not doing the same thing? We seemingly have not know what the text means, if there is no definite answer, we sit there breaking it down till there is no more.

Searching for truth or for an English major, clarity, are we not pursuing the same goal. A way to understand something that is going on around us. This constant drive to understand, and to have a grounding under our feet makes us the same as Oedipa. When I think of this, I see Pynchon in a chair laughing at how we are doing exactly what he wants us to do. We are searching for answers trying to solve the “issue,” because we as humans are never satisfied until we reach some kind of understanding.

OK, I cannot lie. Wikipedia might have saved me on this novel. There is so much information in this novel, and I had to Google almost everything I read. Pynchon stuffed this piece with hidden meaning “AH HA!” moments. However, after I finished the book, I needed to clear up my understanding of “post-modern literature.” As usually, I turned to Wikipedia. The clearest understanding I got was this line: “… instead of the modernist quest for meaning in a chaotic world, the postmodern author eschews, often playfully, the possibility of meaning, and the postmodern novel is often a parody of this quest.” Clearly, this is the definition of CL49. Oepida and the other characters unravel throughout the story. She sets out on a mission to uncover truth, but by the end of the book, she is left confused and injured, mentally and physically. Pynchon even leaves his reader asking “What the hell?” There is no absolute truth and no definite answer. The other characters share similar fates. Hilarius goes insane, Mucho begins heavily abusing LSD, Serge loses his girlfriend to Metzger, and Driblette commits suicide. What the hell? Cleary, Pynchon enjoys his freedom as a postmodern author. It’s almost as if he is poking funny at modern literature. Oepida is searching for a postal delivery conspiracy- can this really be what causes all the chaos in the world? Her quest to find meaning and truth leaves her crazy and without answers. But hey, at least she is alive (right? Hmmm). Wikipedia, I would appreciate the answer here.

My hesitations to blog about Lot 49 are forced to subside.  My apprehension of writing about this novel is in part due to my confusion.  Professor Croxall, you have stressed the ideas of ‘What?’ and ‘How?’ since the first day of class.  In every reading this year, with the exception of  The Crying of Lot 49, I have been able to somewhat answer these questions.

When I read Lot 49,  I am frustrated and am left without answers.  I am unable to find meaning or significance in relation to the text.  When I try to form a ‘what,’ I am immediately disproved.  For example, in chapter five, I had a hard time distinguishing events in Oedipa’s reality from events that were fabricated and external to her.

I feel that not only is there major miscommunication between characters in the text, but there is a huge miscommunication between the text and me.  The idea of miscommunication is the one theme that I can find throughout the novel.  Initially, I thought we, as readers, were going to try and uncover the mystery with Oedipa.  The more I read, the more details are uncovered and I feel that we, instead of making headway on the initial purpose, we are simply uncovering more details—details that I cannot determine as useful or not.  In class we categorized this book as a “mystery;” however, i cannot tell anymore what the exact mystery is.  Perhaps we should simply make the term plural.

While I read, I have this image of a mini-Pynchon sitting on my shoulder.  I can hear him mockingly laugh at my confusion.   Yes, the names are funny, but I prefer a concrete plot and I cannot (and probably will not) pinpoint one in Lot 49.

Of course we don’t find out who it is that bids on Pierce’s stamps. It is only fitting that Oedipa continually gets more confused as she hallucinates muted post horns. The whole point of this novel is to satirize the idea of communication and language; as the novel progresses, Oedipa’s situation gets more and more unclear, until, finally, we realize that Pierce may have orchestrated the whole thing. At the same time, we never really have indisputable evidence that it was Pierce who designed everything as a joke on Oedipa. At the end of the novel, nothing means anything, and this is what Pynchon intended.

I found the whole idea of the Nefastis machine and Maxwell’s demon very interesting. The idea of the machine is that it can order parts and sort molecules but that only sensitives can operate it. If we look at the machine as the ordering and disordering of communciation, or being able to interpret information, we can see that Oedipa not being able to ever completely uncover the mystery of Tristero is parallel to her not being able to operate the machine. Also, the machine itself is a kind of joke by Pynchon because its not even capable of existing itself, because it requires energy to run if it were a real machine. Maxwell’s Demon doesn’t even truly exist; there’s only a conjecture of “what if it did.” I think this is Pynchon’s satirization with the novel, when he is basically saying yes you can attempt to solve the meaning of this novel and wrap up all the loose ends, but in the end you can’t because there’s nothing to wrap up; I wrote it this way. And even if there was you couldn’t. Because you’re not sensitive. I don’t think what I’m writing makes any sense. But I guess in that way I’m acting like Pynchon.

that doesn’t mean I like his style.  So, Pynchon is kind of like a literary version of the Joker, to me.  He’s kind of weird, manical at times, and thinks it’s fun to torture people with what are his idea of jokes.  HOWEVER, I can appreciate old Thomas for what he’s worth.  He is certainly clever.  His knowledge of words, history, and society seem extensive, if everything in the book was intentional.  I believe everything in there is intentional because given how obscure some of his references are, I think it would be difficult for those to be an accident.  The book is definitely satirical, and maybe not funny in a “ha-ha” sort of way, but amusing nonetheless.  You have to be willing to work really hard to get a chuckle, though, at some parts.  I have a kind of admiration for Pynchon, even though I don’t see myself reading his work for an easy read in my spare time.  He writes the way he wants to, and he’s very original.  He makes jokes that are funny, even if not everyone else gets them, or has to scramble to do so.  I can see Pynchon as this creepy sadist who is watching us all through surveillance cameras, panicking about not understanding his work, and the joke’s on us:  it’s all the more amusing to Pynchon that we don’t understand.  We’re reading the book, trying to find what’s funny, but maybe the funny part (at least for Pynchon) is that we don’t get it, and we’re all too dense to see it!  Maybe the paranoia of the Crying of Lot 49 has gone to my head.  My conclusion is that Pynchon is a genius, but I still don’t have a desire to read anymore.

PS – I read an Amiri Baraka poem in another class, and it made a reference to Lamont Cranston. Interesting…

Well, I think it is safe to say that the ending of this novel did not really clear anything up for me. Not only did Oedipa go completely insane, but also we do not find out who the mysterious bidder is. I feel as though I am going insane too, wondering, which is probably Pynchon’s intention. I personally believe that Pierce himself is the mysterious bidder, and that this is all one big joke on Oedipa. It would not surprise me with all of the strange events that keep occurring in her life.
I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for Oedipa by the end of the novel. She has completely isolated herself from the world, only focusing on solving this bizarre mystery. She does not connect any longer with her husband and has lost him to a world of drugs, such as LSD. Sometimes I wondered whether Oedipa herself was on drugs, because she is unable to differentiate between what is real and what is imagined. A good example of this is in chapter 5 of the novel when she wanders into Golden Gate Park to find a circle of children who stay awake all night in their dreams. That same night she dances with a man at a deaf-mute convention in the lobby of her hotel. This events are so strange and out of the ordinary that you have to wonder whether she made them up in her head. Although we do not find out who the mysterious bidder is at the end, I hope Oedia does, for the sake of her sanity.

Holy crap, drugs. Better yet, LSD, like I said before. So everyone around Oedipa is using drugs, including Dr. Hilarius. He even went as far as to lose control of his life because of drugs. The ability to separate imagination from reality becomes difficult. Oedipa’s own husband was even a victim!

So that was basically chapter five. In chapter six Oedipa only wants to go back to the life she used to have. You know, before her ex-beau died when she was happy and content. But she realizes that is not an option. I think she thinks the future sucks because it is so unpredictable at this point. And Serge has an eight-year-old swinger for a significant other?! Geez.

I would not have figured this out: We Await Silent Tristero’s Empire – WASTE. However, I do not understand the situation with the stamps. They were auctioned off as Lot 49? What does that mean?

I am not really sure how to feel about the ending. I do not have a problem with it, but I do not have answers, either, including who the bidder was or what the “crying” was about. Was it Pierce? Or is the fact that we do not know the whole point – the unknown. The text says, “Those, now that she was looking at them, she saw to be alternatives.”

Lesson to be learned: the grass is not always greener on the other side.

In Chapter 5 there are ample examples of the recurring theme we have seen developing in the former chapters. First is communication. The very first thing I noticed in Chapter 5 was what Oedipa was met with a sign reading, “Welcome California Chapter American Deaf-Mute Assembly” when she entered the hotel in the Berkeley hills. Those who are deaf and mute must communicate with others in a different way than most people. Their handicaps introduce problems that they must overcome when it comes to communication. The second dominate example I found pertaining to communication was Oedipas meeting with John Nefastis. He introduces her to Maxwell’s Demon and she tries to communicate with him but nothing happens. Maxwell tells Oedipa that, “communication is the key,” but she is still unable to make a conversation with the supposed entity. She waits for it to contact her but nothing ever happens. Another example that I found to be ironic was the name of the street that Nefastis lives on, Telegraph. This name seed prominent to me considering it was the street where Oedipa begins and ends her late night journey, much like a message sent by a telegraph. Oedipa’s problems with communication show themselves at another point in the story when she is at the Greek Way. She begins a conversation with a man there. He says, “you don’t have nobody else to tell this to? No Husband, no shrink?” Oedipa’s response is that she has both, but with her problems of communication, Oedipa is better off talking to a complete stranger than speaking with her doctor or her husband. The point in which Oedipa decides to speak to Dr. Hilarious she isn’t able to have a session with him and tell him her problems, instead she must talk him down from his paranoid tantrum and hear about his problems. The one time in which Oedipa is willing to share her feelings with her doctor her ability to communicate with him disappears. This is just another example of how Oedipa has problems with communication.

Felix Smerd lit the cigarette with a move of unprecedented dexterity while he still held his service pistol at the room, clearly willing to execute anyone who dared make a move against the Chekist.
“I know who committed the murder,” he said.
“Oh, do you now,” said Mayor McDouchebag.
Smerd would have just blown his head off at that point, but he reminded himself that he was merely an Inspector on loan to the Greenville City Police Department for a month, in exchange for a V6 Dodge Charger which the Count’s asshole son needed for a drag race.
The one-eyed stripper looked at him and said, “Then tell us. Who strangled teen pop star Philostina Bubblebobble to death?”
Smerd took a long drag from his cigarette, enjoying the fact that he was smoking in a public building. He assumed it was similar to the pleasure that the Count’s asshole son got when he used that barbarian Panda Bare as a human toilet last campaign season.
“It took me a while to put the pieces together….”
All the events that had made no sense, even five minutes ago, now fit together. The terrorist attack made by the online evangelical atheist anarchists committed to their leader not having to get an IT job. The three strippers who had declared jihad against the Catholic Church, for the Popes unwillingness to declare a Crusade against Burlington, Vermont. And of course, Smerd’s quest to discover why the water was going down counter clockwise in this horrible place called South Carolina, instead of clockwise in the most Glorious Stygian Empire.
With the Badge of the Sword and the Shield gleaming on his watch cap, Smerd said, “It was the goat.”
“The Goat!” Pandemonium was about to ensue in the room, before Smerd continued.
“Don’t you remember? When Doc Brown showed up in the DeLorean to warn us? Before that crazed Nepalese sniper blew his head off? He was trying to prevent the end of the world. Because you see,” and Smerd pointed the service pistol directly at the head of Barack Ogoata, “they really did save Hitler’s brain!”
“Nein!!!!!!”