“Sufficient reason” (29) are a couple of words which I have noticed during the few pages I have read that they are mentioned constantly. It is amazing how these two words reflect so much about our author’s time period and thinking. One of the Enlightenment Era’s most controversial theory was one developed in the Renaissance but carried forward in history. This theory of which I speak of was that of Reason as our true way to knowledge. For this, when Voltaire mentions “sufficient reason”, he directly states, to discard all possible doubts from the reader, that that event is enough to prove his point. For example, when Candide meets Pangloss after being kicked form the castle, Pangloss is in a lamentable state, physically, which make the curious Candide ask Pangloss what was enough to turn him into the state in which he was: “and then enquired into cause and effect, and into the ‘sufficient reason’ that had reduced Pangloss to such a pitiable state” (29).
Then, to my surprise, it was love sheer love what had turned Pangloss into such a state that even Candide, a pupil who will never forget him, didn’t recognize him (28). First, with the “Inamoraty Anonimous” in the novel The Crying of Lot 49 and then in this book with Pangloss I have seen how love isn’t portrayed always as the best feeling tat ends up salvaging the day. Why? Why do these two authors, Voltaire and Pynchon, treat such a “wonderful” feeling in such a way? Were they hurt, or are they just portraying a crude reality of the sufferings one must go through (stress, pain, fear, etc.) due to love? “…I tasted delights of Paradise, and they produce these hellish torments by which you see me devoured. She was infected…” (30). Notice, that Voltaire mentions how for some exquisite minutes of pleasure caused by love, Pangloss has to suffer a horrible disease for days until his death or his health come. Also, speaking of love, I recall when in the first chapter Candide due to his love for Cunégonde ends up being kicked out off the best of all castles. Once again love proves to be painful.
This is the Best of Lives…Not!—Candide
Panlgoss is a tutor for the nobles that live in Westphalia in the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh. Pangloss is specifically a philosopher who follows a philosophy which I find very strange and rather ironic in history. Since our religions have been professed, humans have though, although in a different way, about the world as a place of judgment before going to the true and only paradise where our God awaits. Never have humans preached of this life being paradise; however, Panlgoss the philosopher talks about a world where every event happens for the greater good. He speaks of a world where everything that event in life manifests itself in the best of all possible possibilities in which it could happen. “He [Pangloss] proved incontestably that there is no effect without a cause, and that in this best of all possible worlds…”(20). This philosophy seems absurd when compared with our beliefs and religions of a greater and eternal paradise. Maybe Voltaire, being a philosopher, was mocking the philosophers of that time (XVII century) who believed in this strange philosophy which, due to its beliefs, could be regarded as sheer optimism in the present. Optimism in the fact that every event develops always in the best of all possible outcomes in which the occurrence could have developed. I believe that this philosophy will continue to appear as I read the novel meaning that it is a target of satire which Voltaire already showed its readers.
Then something really characteristic of Voltaire’s character sprung up form the page. The Enlightenment movement of which Voltaire was taking part of came to influence Candide as a person. “Free Will” (24) was one of the most strong and fundamental arguments of which the Enlightenment was based on. “Free Will” where two very significant words that enclose the meaning of rights, in a sense. Voltaire was a noble who ironically enough fought for civil rights. His essays and declarations against the godly monarchs often made him pay the consequences in jail. I believe that this experience influenced enough to break through the pages of Candide. Candied was punished to death, although he was spared, for following his instinct, his right to walk wherever his legs could carry him: “ One fine spring morning he took it into his head to decamp and walked straight off, thinking it a privilege common to man and beast to use his legs when he wanted” (24). After walking not more than a few miles he was restrained by the army (possession of the king) and ripped off of his rights, his Free Will: “It was useless to declare his belief in Free Will and say he wanted neither; he had to make his choice” (24). Then, Voltaire to give his opinion about the suppression of the natural rights by the monarch some humor, he continued to make satirical jokes about how he was “free” to choose how to die: “So, exercising that divine gift called Liberty, he decided to run the gauntlet thirty-six times, and survived two floggings” (24). This attack on the king’s power, I think, will again present itself in Candide’s life.
Candide was fighting in the Bulgar army, and the fight ended after a great slaughter. Then Candide, famished, went to beg on the houses of a near village for food. While he was doing this, Voltaire introduces a heavy critique against the hypocrites and the church. Voltaire mentions that Candide, due to the fact that he didn’t answer correctly the minister’s question about the pope, he was shunned and bathed on a big pool of putrid substances; however, the real criticism to the church is that the minister was preaching minutes earlier about charity: “At last he approached a man who had just been addressing a big audience for a whole hour on the subject of charity”(26). Voltaire heavily attacks how the Church abuses of its power, given to her in those times, to brain wash people, well maybe the charity the preacher was talking of was meant to be given to the church. Also, since Voltaire lived during the Enlightenment Era, a period which followed the Renaissance, Voltaire may have been influenced by the new ideologies in which true knowledge was based on facts and reason making him react violently against the church which was corrupt. This was proven with facts. Since the 95 Theses of Martin Luther, people have begun to see the true word of God through the Bible and not through the politically biased interpretations of the church.
Then something really characteristic of Voltaire’s character sprung up form the page. The Enlightenment movement of which Voltaire was taking part of came to influence Candide as a person. “Free Will” (24) was one of the most strong and fundamental arguments of which the Enlightenment was based on. “Free Will” where two very significant words that enclose the meaning of rights, in a sense. Voltaire was a noble who ironically enough fought for civil rights. His essays and declarations against the godly monarchs often made him pay the consequences in jail. I believe that this experience influenced enough to break through the pages of Candide. Candied was punished to death, although he was spared, for following his instinct, his right to walk wherever his legs could carry him: “ One fine spring morning he took it into his head to decamp and walked straight off, thinking it a privilege common to man and beast to use his legs when he wanted” (24). After walking not more than a few miles he was restrained by the army (possession of the king) and ripped off of his rights, his Free Will: “It was useless to declare his belief in Free Will and say he wanted neither; he had to make his choice” (24). Then, Voltaire to give his opinion about the suppression of the natural rights by the monarch some humor, he continued to make satirical jokes about how he was “free” to choose how to die: “So, exercising that divine gift called Liberty, he decided to run the gauntlet thirty-six times, and survived two floggings” (24). This attack on the king’s power, I think, will again present itself in Candide’s life.
Candide was fighting in the Bulgar army, and the fight ended after a great slaughter. Then Candide, famished, went to beg on the houses of a near village for food. While he was doing this, Voltaire introduces a heavy critique against the hypocrites and the church. Voltaire mentions that Candide, due to the fact that he didn’t answer correctly the minister’s question about the pope, he was shunned and bathed on a big pool of putrid substances; however, the real criticism to the church is that the minister was preaching minutes earlier about charity: “At last he approached a man who had just been addressing a big audience for a whole hour on the subject of charity”(26). Voltaire heavily attacks how the Church abuses of its power, given to her in those times, to brain wash people, well maybe the charity the preacher was talking of was meant to be given to the church. Also, since Voltaire lived during the Enlightenment Era, a period which followed the Renaissance, Voltaire may have been influenced by the new ideologies in which true knowledge was based on facts and reason making him react violently against the church which was corrupt. This was proven with facts. Since the 95 Theses of Martin Luther, people have begun to see the true word of God through the Bible and not through the politically biased interpretations of the church.
“The Lie” by Coraghessan Boyle--Rest in Pieces
When I was in the process of reading this short story by Coraghessan, I felt that I was in a moment living, absently, the life of Lonnie. Coraghessan manages to describe every scene and emotion in few but precise words. “…hardened as they climbed from my shoetops to my face, where they rested like two balls of granite” (Coraghessan). The expression “balls of granite” fully describe the look of Clover, staring heavily into Lonnie’s eyes. Personally, I liked the author’s descriptions due to the fact that he limited himself to the usage of few words, keeping the reader always focused due to the rapid change of events.
Passing on to my real interpretation of the text I am obliged to say that this story took me by surprise. At first, as I read along, I thought to myself that this was a very simple short story where its plot was easily deciphered. Lonnie was just a average man exhausted from his monotonous work, having as a consequence he inventing lies of any kind to skip work: “If I could make it to the weekend, I was sure that by Monday, Monday at the latest, whatever was wrong with me, this feeling of anger, hopelessness, turmoil, whatever it was, would be gone” (Coraghessan). As a reader I new from the instant that Lonnie had invented to skip work that his only child had died, that he was eventually going to get caught somehow by his wife or boss (Radko); however, the end suddenly hit me, I was never expecting it, I thought of the end just being a bad dream or just that the story continues, but I never though of this ending which so powerfully enjambed in the story an intricate meaning.
“And I wasn’t about to answer her because the baby was dead and she was dead, too. Radko was dead, Jeannie the secretary whose last name I didn’t even know, and Joel Chinowski, and all the rest of them. Very slowly, button by button, I did up my shirt. Then I set my empty beer bottle down on the counter as carefully as if it were full to the lip and went on out the door and into the night, looking for somebody I could tell all about it.”
This paragraph is the ending to the short story “The Lie”. Notice how the author wrote the word was (in the first line before dead) in a cursive from trying to make it stand out. This ending made it seem as if Lonnie was completely crazy, or even autistic. The fact that Lonnie would eventually accept that his living daughter is dead wouldn’t of impacted me this way since a lay told many times could come true; however, in the ending the speaker tells the reader that every single character that appeared in this story (except for the women in the bar) “was” dead. What is the author exactly telling the reader here? This ending completely lost me, I really don’t know what the author wanted the reader to receive from this ending. The first line in the ending of this short story is Lonnie directly telling he reader that he wasn’t going to answer what Clover had told him due to the fact that everybody around him was dead. Then, in the last line he, still talking to the reader, says that he is going out to tell this story to another person. Both of these lines could also suggest that the author portrayed himself as Lonnie, and made up this story to entertain, or even play with the reader. The fact that Lonnie mentions him going to look for another person to tell this story to made me think about the above conclusion. Maybe, just like in The Crying of Lot 49, the author plays with the reader by first catching his attention then make the reader look for a meaning to the story to find that there was no meaning, that the author just played with the naïve fellows that happened to get interested in their works.
In this short story, Coraghessan may be mocking the unsatisfied workers of the world who invent ridiculous and rather dangerous excuses to not attend work: “The baby’s dead,” I said. “She died.” And then, in my grief, I broke the connection” Coraghessan). What kind of a sick man would invent that his daughter is DEAD to skip work? To go to such extreme where your excuses have ran out, forcing you to invent something such as the death of someone you allegedly love is just inhumane. My dad has always said to me that the day he doesn’t want to stand up from his bed to go to work, that day he will be dead man.
“…all I felt was regret and the cold drop of doom” (Coraghessan). This specific sentence caught my attention because it told the reader what was going to happen, Lonnie was going to get caught; however, Lonnie knew from then on that he was “doomed”, that he had just lost everything in his life for skipping a couple of days at work.
Passing on to my real interpretation of the text I am obliged to say that this story took me by surprise. At first, as I read along, I thought to myself that this was a very simple short story where its plot was easily deciphered. Lonnie was just a average man exhausted from his monotonous work, having as a consequence he inventing lies of any kind to skip work: “If I could make it to the weekend, I was sure that by Monday, Monday at the latest, whatever was wrong with me, this feeling of anger, hopelessness, turmoil, whatever it was, would be gone” (Coraghessan). As a reader I new from the instant that Lonnie had invented to skip work that his only child had died, that he was eventually going to get caught somehow by his wife or boss (Radko); however, the end suddenly hit me, I was never expecting it, I thought of the end just being a bad dream or just that the story continues, but I never though of this ending which so powerfully enjambed in the story an intricate meaning.
“And I wasn’t about to answer her because the baby was dead and she was dead, too. Radko was dead, Jeannie the secretary whose last name I didn’t even know, and Joel Chinowski, and all the rest of them. Very slowly, button by button, I did up my shirt. Then I set my empty beer bottle down on the counter as carefully as if it were full to the lip and went on out the door and into the night, looking for somebody I could tell all about it.”
This paragraph is the ending to the short story “The Lie”. Notice how the author wrote the word was (in the first line before dead) in a cursive from trying to make it stand out. This ending made it seem as if Lonnie was completely crazy, or even autistic. The fact that Lonnie would eventually accept that his living daughter is dead wouldn’t of impacted me this way since a lay told many times could come true; however, in the ending the speaker tells the reader that every single character that appeared in this story (except for the women in the bar) “was” dead. What is the author exactly telling the reader here? This ending completely lost me, I really don’t know what the author wanted the reader to receive from this ending. The first line in the ending of this short story is Lonnie directly telling he reader that he wasn’t going to answer what Clover had told him due to the fact that everybody around him was dead. Then, in the last line he, still talking to the reader, says that he is going out to tell this story to another person. Both of these lines could also suggest that the author portrayed himself as Lonnie, and made up this story to entertain, or even play with the reader. The fact that Lonnie mentions him going to look for another person to tell this story to made me think about the above conclusion. Maybe, just like in The Crying of Lot 49, the author plays with the reader by first catching his attention then make the reader look for a meaning to the story to find that there was no meaning, that the author just played with the naïve fellows that happened to get interested in their works.
In this short story, Coraghessan may be mocking the unsatisfied workers of the world who invent ridiculous and rather dangerous excuses to not attend work: “The baby’s dead,” I said. “She died.” And then, in my grief, I broke the connection” Coraghessan). What kind of a sick man would invent that his daughter is DEAD to skip work? To go to such extreme where your excuses have ran out, forcing you to invent something such as the death of someone you allegedly love is just inhumane. My dad has always said to me that the day he doesn’t want to stand up from his bed to go to work, that day he will be dead man.
“…all I felt was regret and the cold drop of doom” (Coraghessan). This specific sentence caught my attention because it told the reader what was going to happen, Lonnie was going to get caught; however, Lonnie knew from then on that he was “doomed”, that he had just lost everything in his life for skipping a couple of days at work.
And Then (Chapter 6 The Crying of Lot 49)
Pynchon developed his modernist novel through Oedipa’s eyes, taking into consideration may aspects of life such as honesty (lawyers and Oedipa’s affairs with Metzger), Love (IA), Communication (Mail system, Tristero and Maxwell’s Demon), Capitalism and Communism (Yoyodyne), etc. Pynchon developed these topics in great entertaining ways but left the novel “half” finished. At the end, Oedipa finally understands what Tristero, W.A.S.T.E and the muted horn meant; however it produced no apparent reaction that made the character change the way they see life. Oedipa just figured out one of her curiosities nothing more. It is weird how Pynchon made me believe that those stamps and Tristero would be something huge and enlightening, but it wasn’t it was just a vendetta made by a pissed off kid who didn’t receive his inheritance: “He styled himself [Tristero] El Desheredado, The Disinherited, and fashioned a livery of black for his followers, black to symbolize the only ting that truly belonged to them in their exile” (pg, 132). The strangest thing of all is that Oedipa’s Tistero system to end her encapsulation in the tower ended up falling apart as soon as she learned about Tristero.
“You think a man’s mind is a pool table?” (pg, 127). I had never thought of a man’s in the way of a pool table; however, it does apply in a sense. First of all, I have to start by demonstrating (in accordance to my sister) how she looked at a pool table in relation to a man’s mind… she saw the white ball as his will, and the other balls as his ideas. Then she spoke of these ideas being pushed down the holes of the table by the white ball; however, a man’s ideas were always fake and bad due to the fact that they ended up once again in the same place, restarting the cycle again. In my point of view, a pool table is similar to a man’s mind in the sense that it shows how we are. Again, the white ball is the one in charged of carrying out our ideas; however, I picture the white ball as the decisiveness that men have to pursue only one idea at a time regardless of how many colored balls (ideas) are on the table. Then, we try to look for the most simplest way of applying our ideas and meeting our goals, which in the pool table would be dumping a colored ball into a hole (one at a time). Finally, we men end up patiently carrying out everything we planned until new ideas come again; however, some men become lazy and arrogant and choose to let go of the stick that moves the white ball in every direction needed.
Finally, I found this book a good and inspiring challenge which entertained me. I do hope I could read it again sometime to fully grasp its puns and its usage of satire. In a way Pynchon reflects his personality in the novel. He as the author completely excludes himself from appearing in the novel, just like he has hidden himself from the world.
“You think a man’s mind is a pool table?” (pg, 127). I had never thought of a man’s in the way of a pool table; however, it does apply in a sense. First of all, I have to start by demonstrating (in accordance to my sister) how she looked at a pool table in relation to a man’s mind… she saw the white ball as his will, and the other balls as his ideas. Then she spoke of these ideas being pushed down the holes of the table by the white ball; however, a man’s ideas were always fake and bad due to the fact that they ended up once again in the same place, restarting the cycle again. In my point of view, a pool table is similar to a man’s mind in the sense that it shows how we are. Again, the white ball is the one in charged of carrying out our ideas; however, I picture the white ball as the decisiveness that men have to pursue only one idea at a time regardless of how many colored balls (ideas) are on the table. Then, we try to look for the most simplest way of applying our ideas and meeting our goals, which in the pool table would be dumping a colored ball into a hole (one at a time). Finally, we men end up patiently carrying out everything we planned until new ideas come again; however, some men become lazy and arrogant and choose to let go of the stick that moves the white ball in every direction needed.
Finally, I found this book a good and inspiring challenge which entertained me. I do hope I could read it again sometime to fully grasp its puns and its usage of satire. In a way Pynchon reflects his personality in the novel. He as the author completely excludes himself from appearing in the novel, just like he has hidden himself from the world.
Inamoraty Stoics (The Crying of Lot 49 Chapter 5)
I mentioned communication as one of the fundamental aspects that keep the world alive and “organized” so to speak. In this chapter, communication is again brought up in a bigger and more specific way by mentioning the Maxwell Demon machine. This machine will only organize the molecules/information that it contains if a person, a “sensitive”, is able to catch its message and communicate with the Demon: “Communication is the key, cried Nefastis. The Demon passes his data on to the sensitive, and the sensitive must reply in kind” (pg 84). Basically, this machine shows how things, even science, are unable to work without communication; however, Pynchon mocks this dependency on communication that us humans have. The author jokes about communication stating that only some humans understand the real message. “Only people with the gift. Sensitives, John calls them” (Pg, 69). Now, the machine communicated with a sensitive through a picture of Clerk Maxwell; however, this picture was a picture specially selected from the “Christian Knowledge Society” (pg, 69), which made me think that the “sensitives” were Christians only, and they could only communicate through faith. This was weird in the sense that Pynchon passed on to mock religion and the difficulties that a religious being goes through to supposedly receive a message form God. While Oedipa fights desperately to communicate with the machine, monks fight even more wholeheartedly to receive the word of God which in the end, allegedly, they receive.
“…I’m a member of the IA. That’s Inamorati Anonymous. An inamorato is somebody in love. That’s the worst addiction of all” (pg, 91). In a sense I deeply agree with Pynchon when he refers to love as the worst addiction. Well, love is a wonderful thing, and although I haven’t experienced true love towards another person that isn’t part of my family, love is still just wonderful. Love is an extended and complex theme but I had never before seen it as an addiction. It is strange to look at love as something that as soon as it takes hold of you it doesn’t ever loose its grasp. In this way, Epictetus came to my mind. Well, if you start to love someone, you will eventually love that person for the rest of your live making you somewhat dependent on the existence of this person. As a consequence, if this person dies or is gravely injured in someway, you will probably mourn your beloved until death, in contrast to what Epictetus tries to tell his readers about the world and love. Generally speaking, Epictetus motivates its reader to achieve happiness by looking at events in an indifferent way. This emotion is reflected in the Inamorati Anonymous in the sense that by loosing themselves form love’s grasp, they will never look at a person or object with another feeling than that of indifference eventually causing, in a Stoic point of view, happiness.
“…I’m a member of the IA. That’s Inamorati Anonymous. An inamorato is somebody in love. That’s the worst addiction of all” (pg, 91). In a sense I deeply agree with Pynchon when he refers to love as the worst addiction. Well, love is a wonderful thing, and although I haven’t experienced true love towards another person that isn’t part of my family, love is still just wonderful. Love is an extended and complex theme but I had never before seen it as an addiction. It is strange to look at love as something that as soon as it takes hold of you it doesn’t ever loose its grasp. In this way, Epictetus came to my mind. Well, if you start to love someone, you will eventually love that person for the rest of your live making you somewhat dependent on the existence of this person. As a consequence, if this person dies or is gravely injured in someway, you will probably mourn your beloved until death, in contrast to what Epictetus tries to tell his readers about the world and love. Generally speaking, Epictetus motivates its reader to achieve happiness by looking at events in an indifferent way. This emotion is reflected in the Inamorati Anonymous in the sense that by loosing themselves form love’s grasp, they will never look at a person or object with another feeling than that of indifference eventually causing, in a Stoic point of view, happiness.
What Are You Saying? (The Crying of Lot 49 chapter 4)
“…and in view of other details—the hatching, number of perforations, way the paper has aged—it’s obviously a counterfeit. Not just an error (pg 78).
“I’ve come up so far with eight in all. Each on has an error like this, laboriously worked into the design, like a taunt” (pg 78).
These quotes both show how the stamps of the U.S. mail system have been tampered on purpose. First Oedipa saw in the letter she received from Mucho a “typo” in which Postmaster was spelled Potsmaster, and then this? For now, I really don’t know what to expect; however, I think that Pynchon wants the reader to understand that communication (mail) is really what controls every human being. In the book for example, the unhappy workers of Yoyodyne are carrying out a boycott against the government through the company’s mail system. This fact makes me think that maybe the author wants to show us the importance of the mail system, long-distance communication, in the human world.
This postal boycott made by the Yoyodyne workers is very similar to a conclusion brought up by Cohen about a watermark: “The black costumes, the silence, the secrecy. Whoever they were their aim was to mute the Thurn and Taxis post horn” (pg 78). The fact that some secret, disguised people wanted to “mute” the post horn of the postal service Thurn and Taxis reflects the situation of the workers clearly. The workers are trying to take some of the power that the government has by boycotting the mail system, just like the black bandits. What does this analogy mean? What is its purpose? It is very strange how Pynchon relates these two topics with no apparent reason; however, I can’t draw any final conclusion before ending the novel.
In years past, an invention was attributed to its single, or most distinguished, creator. For example, the light bulb is attributed to one man, Thomas Alva Edison, while in the present a creation is credited to a whole company. In The Crying of Lot 49, Pynchon does a slight allusion to this my mentioning the patent laws: “Koteks explained how every engineer, in signing the Yoyodyne contract, also signed away patent rights to any inventions he might come up with” (pg 67). With this said I believe that Pynchon is stating how massive, capitalist corporations take the knowledge of their employees and exploit them without giving them any credit. This could be an attack made by Pynchon towards a capitalist nation, or it could be an attack to communism by stating, that if people (by their own will) submit themselves to these types of unfair jobs in corporations, how would the force labor of communism be? I imagine a hardcore communism as a big patent law stating that the nation created something, not a single citizen, which is even more general than a single company. While in a capitalist society an engineer may say, I work in Yoyodyne where the nuclear bomb was created, in a communist nation a person says I live in China where the camera was created. In a communist nation, even more credit is taken off from the real creator.
“I’ve come up so far with eight in all. Each on has an error like this, laboriously worked into the design, like a taunt” (pg 78).
These quotes both show how the stamps of the U.S. mail system have been tampered on purpose. First Oedipa saw in the letter she received from Mucho a “typo” in which Postmaster was spelled Potsmaster, and then this? For now, I really don’t know what to expect; however, I think that Pynchon wants the reader to understand that communication (mail) is really what controls every human being. In the book for example, the unhappy workers of Yoyodyne are carrying out a boycott against the government through the company’s mail system. This fact makes me think that maybe the author wants to show us the importance of the mail system, long-distance communication, in the human world.
This postal boycott made by the Yoyodyne workers is very similar to a conclusion brought up by Cohen about a watermark: “The black costumes, the silence, the secrecy. Whoever they were their aim was to mute the Thurn and Taxis post horn” (pg 78). The fact that some secret, disguised people wanted to “mute” the post horn of the postal service Thurn and Taxis reflects the situation of the workers clearly. The workers are trying to take some of the power that the government has by boycotting the mail system, just like the black bandits. What does this analogy mean? What is its purpose? It is very strange how Pynchon relates these two topics with no apparent reason; however, I can’t draw any final conclusion before ending the novel.
In years past, an invention was attributed to its single, or most distinguished, creator. For example, the light bulb is attributed to one man, Thomas Alva Edison, while in the present a creation is credited to a whole company. In The Crying of Lot 49, Pynchon does a slight allusion to this my mentioning the patent laws: “Koteks explained how every engineer, in signing the Yoyodyne contract, also signed away patent rights to any inventions he might come up with” (pg 67). With this said I believe that Pynchon is stating how massive, capitalist corporations take the knowledge of their employees and exploit them without giving them any credit. This could be an attack made by Pynchon towards a capitalist nation, or it could be an attack to communism by stating, that if people (by their own will) submit themselves to these types of unfair jobs in corporations, how would the force labor of communism be? I imagine a hardcore communism as a big patent law stating that the nation created something, not a single citizen, which is even more general than a single company. While in a capitalist society an engineer may say, I work in Yoyodyne where the nuclear bomb was created, in a communist nation a person says I live in China where the camera was created. In a communist nation, even more credit is taken off from the real creator.
God, Those Lawyers are a Real Pain in the… ( The Crying of Lot 49 Chapter 3)
As I started reading chapter three, I noticed something peculiar in the novel, but by no means meaningless. Pynchon described the TV set as the “TV tube”… the TV tube revealed the father…” (pg, 30), which made me think about when you look very closely through a tube. As you look into a tube, your vision becomes more limited and specific in a certain object due to the fact that the tube’s walls hamper your vision. And limiting your vision is exactly what the TV set does to its viewers, it shows most of the times only one perspective about an event. It evens show the viewers tampered images and videos of things that never happened. So, the fact that the TV only lets the viewer see what the person controlling the images wants you to see made me think on how a tube, by limiting you vision, only lets you look at what it wants you to see.
“Things then did not delay in turning curious.” ( pg, 31). This is the line which the speaker uses to begin chapter 3. I found this line very interesting in the sense that it directly gives the reader a clue that something “curious” will happen shortly. Normally, I as a reader can see if something is going to be “curious”; however, Pynchon may use this line not only to introduce what will happen soon, but to mock the reader. I believe that Pynchon mocks the reader because he explicitly tells the reader that something IS going to happen in case the reader was too distracted, or in some cases incapable to catch.
“If one object behind her discovery of what she was to label the Tristero System or often only The Tristero (as if it might be something’s secret title) were to bring to an end to her encapsulation in her tower, then that night’s infidelity with Metzger would logically be the starting point; logically.” (pg, 31). Notice how the speaker emphasizes on the word “logically”, but why? Is Pynchon trying to make the reader remember Metzger and his role in the newly created Tristero system? Is Pynchon just foreshadowing or playing one of his tricks on the reader to humiliate his naive fan? Maybe, I’ll like to find out as I read the novel.
Pynchon once again made me laugh with one of his jokes against private lawyers: “…Leonard the drummer now reached into the pocket of his beach robe and produced a fistful of marijuana cigarettes and distributed them among his chums. Metzger closed his eyes, turned his head, muttering, “Possession” (pg, 48). Metzger, a lawyer is closing his eyes to make himself believe that he wasn’t a witness of the drugs that Leonard carried. This attitude that Metzger demonstrates is, I believe, a target of Pynchon’s mockery. Pynchon wants to laugh at the attitude that private lawyers take toward their guilty clients. Even though the client may be guilty of an atrocious crime such as a raping, the lawyer just ignores this fact and manipulates the evidence in such a way that the criminal can walk free with the condition that the lawyer receives his paycheck. What I mean, is that private lawyers tend to apparent ignorance towards his/her client’s crime.
Speaking of lawyer jokes, Pynchon again makes a jeer at the lawyers of the U.S. and their lawsuits. For me personally, the U.S. is completely ridiculous when speaking of lawsuits due to the fact that anybody can sew an entity if they screw up. For example, a kid was skating in a building and fell and broke an arm. In my opinion, it was the kids fault of braking an arm; however, in the U.S. the kid is allowed to sew his building manager because he fell. In the book, Di Presso, a private lawyer, is going to sew Inverarity for not paying some bones left over form deceased soldiers in the Second World War. What kind of lawsuit is that? Nobody wants the bones, so why is it a big deal?
“Things then did not delay in turning curious.” ( pg, 31). This is the line which the speaker uses to begin chapter 3. I found this line very interesting in the sense that it directly gives the reader a clue that something “curious” will happen shortly. Normally, I as a reader can see if something is going to be “curious”; however, Pynchon may use this line not only to introduce what will happen soon, but to mock the reader. I believe that Pynchon mocks the reader because he explicitly tells the reader that something IS going to happen in case the reader was too distracted, or in some cases incapable to catch.
“If one object behind her discovery of what she was to label the Tristero System or often only The Tristero (as if it might be something’s secret title) were to bring to an end to her encapsulation in her tower, then that night’s infidelity with Metzger would logically be the starting point; logically.” (pg, 31). Notice how the speaker emphasizes on the word “logically”, but why? Is Pynchon trying to make the reader remember Metzger and his role in the newly created Tristero system? Is Pynchon just foreshadowing or playing one of his tricks on the reader to humiliate his naive fan? Maybe, I’ll like to find out as I read the novel.
Pynchon once again made me laugh with one of his jokes against private lawyers: “…Leonard the drummer now reached into the pocket of his beach robe and produced a fistful of marijuana cigarettes and distributed them among his chums. Metzger closed his eyes, turned his head, muttering, “Possession” (pg, 48). Metzger, a lawyer is closing his eyes to make himself believe that he wasn’t a witness of the drugs that Leonard carried. This attitude that Metzger demonstrates is, I believe, a target of Pynchon’s mockery. Pynchon wants to laugh at the attitude that private lawyers take toward their guilty clients. Even though the client may be guilty of an atrocious crime such as a raping, the lawyer just ignores this fact and manipulates the evidence in such a way that the criminal can walk free with the condition that the lawyer receives his paycheck. What I mean, is that private lawyers tend to apparent ignorance towards his/her client’s crime.
Speaking of lawyer jokes, Pynchon again makes a jeer at the lawyers of the U.S. and their lawsuits. For me personally, the U.S. is completely ridiculous when speaking of lawsuits due to the fact that anybody can sew an entity if they screw up. For example, a kid was skating in a building and fell and broke an arm. In my opinion, it was the kids fault of braking an arm; however, in the U.S. the kid is allowed to sew his building manager because he fell. In the book, Di Presso, a private lawyer, is going to sew Inverarity for not paying some bones left over form deceased soldiers in the Second World War. What kind of lawsuit is that? Nobody wants the bones, so why is it a big deal?
Ha ha, Oedipa's Society (The Crying of Lot 49 Chapter 2)
In the second chapter, the trip that Oedipa had to “San Narciso” is narrated. San Narciso is in Southern California, in accordance to the book, fact which made me think that San Narciso is in fact a mockery towards San Francisco. “San Narciso lay further south, near L.A. Like many places in California it was less an identifiable city than a grouping of concepts…” (Pynchon pg. 13). Continuing, the speaker starts to describe San Narciso through Oedipa’s eyes: “But if there was any vital difference between it and the rest of Southern California, it was invisible on first glance.” (Pynchon pg. 14). With this I really don’t know what Pynchon means, is he trying to state that every American city is the same dull unattractive place? Why San Francisco /Narciso? I really want to grasp the hidden answer of these questions as I read more of the book.
The speaker also mentions Southern California’s, always through Oedipa’s eyes, dull impact on every newcomer. In accordance to Oedipa, the city causes the same impact that she received when changing a transistor’s radio battery.
The ordered swirl of houses and streets, from this high angle, sprang at her now with the same unexpected, astonishing clarity as the circuit card had. Though she knew even less about radios than about Southern Californians, there were to both outward patterns a hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate. (Pynchon pg. 14).
There’d seemed no limit to what the printed circuit could have told her (if she had tried to find out); so in her first minute of San Narciso, a revelation also trembled just past the threshold of her understanding… she and her Chevy seemed parked at the centre of an odd, religious instant. (Pynchon pg. 14).
The fact that the city had a “concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate” is a very singular thing to state in a city’s description. Maybe, Pynchon was trying to point out the excessive signs and advertisements that the American cities have due to capitalism. And if this is so, this will definitely confirm my theory of him being a procommunist.
“She and her Chevy seemed parked at the centre of an odd, religious moment”, why not a moment? Why a religious moment? Or, jus why religious? Is Pynchon trying to say that every single aspect in society has some connection or relation with religion? Is this just an enjambment made by Pynchon to try to show how just every single aspect in the present has to do with religion. For example, even the most concrete facts of science, such as the present theories of evolution, have discords with the influence that religion has made on society. Well, due to religion, a teacher in the 1920´s (Scope) was fined with 100 dollars for teaching evolution in his science class. Or maybe Pynchon being a complete atheist, tried to mock how a revelation in religion is just a blurry and painful “vision”. “Smog hung all round the horizon, the sun on the bright beige countryside was painful; she and the Chevy seemed parked at the centre of an odd, religious instant.
Miles Song
Too fat to Frug,
That’s what you tell me all the time,
When you really try’n’ to put me down,
I’m hip,
So close you big fat lip,
Yeah, baby,
I may be too fat to Frug,
But at least I ain’t to slim to Swim. (Pynchon pg. 16).
Come on! I have to say it, Miles song is a disgrace to music; however, I believe this song has a big meaning behind it. In my opinion, Pynchon was trying to imitate the meaningless songs that play in the presents, and, although they sound good and have a great beat, they are a shame. Or, isn’t “The Candy Shop” by Fifty Cent an obscene meaningless song?
Ha ha ha ha ha, Pynchon really made me laugh when he makes the comparison of an actor and a lawyer. “Me, I’m a former actor who became a lawyer.” (Pynchon pg. 22). This small statement clearly reflects who the speaker sees lawyers as hypocrites, and false, just like actors. Well, actors constantly play roles of other people in the movies, making them seem as false people, or even hypocrites, just like the speaker sees the lawyers of the present. This comparison made me laugh, because many private, rich lawyers do have this reputation.
As I continue this great novel, I hope that my questions are answered, and I do expect more satire about society (especially American).
The speaker also mentions Southern California’s, always through Oedipa’s eyes, dull impact on every newcomer. In accordance to Oedipa, the city causes the same impact that she received when changing a transistor’s radio battery.
The ordered swirl of houses and streets, from this high angle, sprang at her now with the same unexpected, astonishing clarity as the circuit card had. Though she knew even less about radios than about Southern Californians, there were to both outward patterns a hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate. (Pynchon pg. 14).
There’d seemed no limit to what the printed circuit could have told her (if she had tried to find out); so in her first minute of San Narciso, a revelation also trembled just past the threshold of her understanding… she and her Chevy seemed parked at the centre of an odd, religious instant. (Pynchon pg. 14).
The fact that the city had a “concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate” is a very singular thing to state in a city’s description. Maybe, Pynchon was trying to point out the excessive signs and advertisements that the American cities have due to capitalism. And if this is so, this will definitely confirm my theory of him being a procommunist.
“She and her Chevy seemed parked at the centre of an odd, religious moment”, why not a moment? Why a religious moment? Or, jus why religious? Is Pynchon trying to say that every single aspect in society has some connection or relation with religion? Is this just an enjambment made by Pynchon to try to show how just every single aspect in the present has to do with religion. For example, even the most concrete facts of science, such as the present theories of evolution, have discords with the influence that religion has made on society. Well, due to religion, a teacher in the 1920´s (Scope) was fined with 100 dollars for teaching evolution in his science class. Or maybe Pynchon being a complete atheist, tried to mock how a revelation in religion is just a blurry and painful “vision”. “Smog hung all round the horizon, the sun on the bright beige countryside was painful; she and the Chevy seemed parked at the centre of an odd, religious instant.
Miles Song
Too fat to Frug,
That’s what you tell me all the time,
When you really try’n’ to put me down,
I’m hip,
So close you big fat lip,
Yeah, baby,
I may be too fat to Frug,
But at least I ain’t to slim to Swim. (Pynchon pg. 16).
Come on! I have to say it, Miles song is a disgrace to music; however, I believe this song has a big meaning behind it. In my opinion, Pynchon was trying to imitate the meaningless songs that play in the presents, and, although they sound good and have a great beat, they are a shame. Or, isn’t “The Candy Shop” by Fifty Cent an obscene meaningless song?
Ha ha ha ha ha, Pynchon really made me laugh when he makes the comparison of an actor and a lawyer. “Me, I’m a former actor who became a lawyer.” (Pynchon pg. 22). This small statement clearly reflects who the speaker sees lawyers as hypocrites, and false, just like actors. Well, actors constantly play roles of other people in the movies, making them seem as false people, or even hypocrites, just like the speaker sees the lawyers of the present. This comparison made me laugh, because many private, rich lawyers do have this reputation.
As I continue this great novel, I hope that my questions are answered, and I do expect more satire about society (especially American).
A Hallucinated Escape (The Crying of Lot 49 Chapter 1)
Before I start my analysis, I’d like to question why would Thomas Pynchon decide to maintain anonymous? Most of the people, when they become famous, decide to show themselves as much as possible in contrast to what Pynchon is now doing. Maybe he doesn’t feel that the capitalist world in which we live in deserve to know him. I don’t know, there may be hundreds of reasons; anyway, I hope he reveals his true identity before he dies.
Oedipa Maas has a husband, Mucho Maas, which currently, to my opinion, lives in a constant emotional crisis where nothing satisfies him or consoles him. Mucho Maas is working in a radio station (KUCF) where he greatly detests his boss and dislikes his job; however, Mucho Maas had once a job as a cars salesman, but had to quit the job as soon as it became unbearable since he saw a persons life through the cars.
…he could still never accept the way each owner, each shadow, filed in only to exchange a dented, malfunctioning version of himself for another, just as futureless, automotive projection of somebody else’s life. As if it were the most natural thing. To Mucho it was horrible. Endless, convoluted incest. (Pynchon pg.5)
Mucho Maas couldn’t help seeing what a person was through their cars. By demonstrating this, Pynchon tells the reader that an object’s condition actually demonstrates, no matter how hard you try to look at them objectively, the way their owners are. And once that object has been naturally modified by the owner’s attitude, there is no way to replace it. This is why Mucho Maas was so disgusted when the owners of the cars changed the car’s original parts. Pynchon may also want to reflect through the crisis in which Mucho Maas constantly lives in as the way how the capitalist bosses in America, and the world, suppress their employee’s opinions.
Talking about capitalism, I believe Thomas Pynchon referred, in a mocking kind of way, the form in which the rich capitalist society solves their problems. Pynchon does this mockery through the image that Oedipa has of her life and the life of Pierce.
And had also gently conned herself into the curious, Rapunzel-like role of a pensive girl somehow, magically, prisoner among the pines and salt fogs of Kinneret, looking for somebody to say her, let down your hair. When it turned out to be Pierce she’s happily pulled out the pins and curlers and down it tumbled in its whispering, dainty avalanche, only when Pierce had got maybe halfway up, her lovely hair turned, through some sinister sorcery, into a great unanchorched wig, and down he fell, on his ass. But dauntless, perhaps using one of his many credit cards for a shim, he’d slipped the lock on her tower door and come up the conchlike stairs, which, ha true guile come more naturally to him, he’d have done to begin with. (Pynchon pg. 11).
This excerpt of the book was how Oedipa pictured herself. Now, the parody here is how, after plotting the problem, which is not being able to climb the tower through Rapunzel’s (Oedipa’s) hair, he has to recur to money as the way to solve the problem. Pynchon also does this to mock how everything in this world, even love at times, can be bought with money.
In this chapter I also noticed a certain similarity between this book, and the book of Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim uses time traveling as a way of escaping his life, while in this book Oedipa uses Pierce as a way of escaping her confinement in her tower (her life). “… that what she stood on had only been woven together a couple thousand miles away in her own tower, was only by accident known as Mexico, and so Pierce had taken her away from nothing, there’d be no escape.” (Pynchon pg. 11).
Oedipa Maas has a husband, Mucho Maas, which currently, to my opinion, lives in a constant emotional crisis where nothing satisfies him or consoles him. Mucho Maas is working in a radio station (KUCF) where he greatly detests his boss and dislikes his job; however, Mucho Maas had once a job as a cars salesman, but had to quit the job as soon as it became unbearable since he saw a persons life through the cars.
…he could still never accept the way each owner, each shadow, filed in only to exchange a dented, malfunctioning version of himself for another, just as futureless, automotive projection of somebody else’s life. As if it were the most natural thing. To Mucho it was horrible. Endless, convoluted incest. (Pynchon pg.5)
Mucho Maas couldn’t help seeing what a person was through their cars. By demonstrating this, Pynchon tells the reader that an object’s condition actually demonstrates, no matter how hard you try to look at them objectively, the way their owners are. And once that object has been naturally modified by the owner’s attitude, there is no way to replace it. This is why Mucho Maas was so disgusted when the owners of the cars changed the car’s original parts. Pynchon may also want to reflect through the crisis in which Mucho Maas constantly lives in as the way how the capitalist bosses in America, and the world, suppress their employee’s opinions.
Talking about capitalism, I believe Thomas Pynchon referred, in a mocking kind of way, the form in which the rich capitalist society solves their problems. Pynchon does this mockery through the image that Oedipa has of her life and the life of Pierce.
And had also gently conned herself into the curious, Rapunzel-like role of a pensive girl somehow, magically, prisoner among the pines and salt fogs of Kinneret, looking for somebody to say her, let down your hair. When it turned out to be Pierce she’s happily pulled out the pins and curlers and down it tumbled in its whispering, dainty avalanche, only when Pierce had got maybe halfway up, her lovely hair turned, through some sinister sorcery, into a great unanchorched wig, and down he fell, on his ass. But dauntless, perhaps using one of his many credit cards for a shim, he’d slipped the lock on her tower door and come up the conchlike stairs, which, ha true guile come more naturally to him, he’d have done to begin with. (Pynchon pg. 11).
This excerpt of the book was how Oedipa pictured herself. Now, the parody here is how, after plotting the problem, which is not being able to climb the tower through Rapunzel’s (Oedipa’s) hair, he has to recur to money as the way to solve the problem. Pynchon also does this to mock how everything in this world, even love at times, can be bought with money.
In this chapter I also noticed a certain similarity between this book, and the book of Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim uses time traveling as a way of escaping his life, while in this book Oedipa uses Pierce as a way of escaping her confinement in her tower (her life). “… that what she stood on had only been woven together a couple thousand miles away in her own tower, was only by accident known as Mexico, and so Pierce had taken her away from nothing, there’d be no escape.” (Pynchon pg. 11).
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