Just finished my first read through, interested in how /lit/ interpreted the novel
I saw it as an epistemological critique of language. Namely how our means of communication is entirely mired in the socio-political landscape du jours;how we can never really separate ourselves from this landscape and any attempts to do so result in alienation and confusion.
This was demonstrated literally in the war between Thurn and Taxis and Trystero, a political conflict that would decide who controlled the means of communication.
Keep in mind this is after a single read, didn't take notes or anything and is more just a general thesis I've gleaned from the text than any definitive interpretation.
Can anyone build on/refute my interpretation?
Anyone else care to share their respective interpretations?Anyone else not realize that a novel where paranoia is a central theme prominently features a band named the Paranoids until they're explicitly referenced near the end?
I never read it but i think its about bugles right, thats whats on the cover
Couldn't you have just said it's about communication errors? I don't mean to be anti-intellectual but man,
>an epistemological critique of language. Namely how our means of communication is entirely mired in the socio-political landscape du jours
yikes. I ain't your prof sonny
>>7373872
Probably, but ironically enough if I'm not specific to the point of pretentiousness I fear I'll fall into the very trap the novel is trying to point out
>>7373849
kek
>>7373849
I could see it
And the Trystero is a personification of the all annihilating Bugle Claw
>>7373889
How droll
I thought it was about badgers, actually
>>7373832
Isn't it about Taxis and Christopher Marlowe's bowel problems?
Why does everyone on /lit/ always overlook the anonymous inamorato aspect? Does badgering come into play when in love?Anyone?
I'm ready for some deep cuts tn family.
TORQUATO
O
R
Q
U
A
T
O
>>7373941
But why?
>du jours
I think you mean "du jour" or "des jours"... pleb.
>>7373832
Problems in communicating are featured prominently throughout the book I think. Oedipa does not get a lot of help from the people she asks about Trystero, and when she finally does know about the organisation she can't ask Driblette about the connection to the Courier's Tragedy because of his death.
Also it seems significant that Mucho works for a radio station (also essentially some kind of communication) and that he has problems with his boss reharding his show (I think? It's been a long time that I've read it).
In general Pynchon obviously does not focus on a single topic, entropy plays a big role (Maxwell's Demon) and, like you said, Paranoia and probably much more.
please talk me out of getting a muted post horn tattoo
>>7373971
Pinecone wrote it to pay for booze n puss.
>>7373889
kek thats actually a pretty good post
alright ill let your first one slide
>>7373971
do it bitch
>>7373967
blowing-up-synecdoche/10
>>7373971
It's lame as fuck
You'll regret it after your undergrad years
Anyone who appreciates it will probably be a pretentious non-reader asshole
>>7374002
>non-reader
o u :')
>>7373967
This is why Pynchon is one of my favourite authors
He fits more into a single novel than most do in their entire careers
>>7373971
Maybe I'm just trapped in the same madness but that sounds like one of the few good ideas for a tattoo I've heard
>>7373986
Apparently looking back he thinks it's shit too
"...The Crying of Lot 49... in which I seem to have forgotten most of what I thought I'd learned up until then."
>>7374006
>good ideas
>tattoo
:')
>>7373849potshornsactually.
>>7373832
I pretty much thought it was about paranoia, miscommunication, and like a da vinci code sort of novel satire. Not sure if the solution is Oedipa was completely out of her wits, or she really was sent on a goose chase for shits and giggles. Probably need to read it again.
>>7374088
I'd like to think the point is that you're never really sure as to whether Oedipa is actually unearthing a conspiracy or if she's just paranoid;it makes the feelings of paranoia more real for the reader. The novel ends with her no closer to the truth, the auction will just string her further along the path with no end in sight. It's purposefully unsatisfying in order to carry its themes beyond the page and into the daily life of the reader.
>>7374088
Solution? Wha?
>OEDIPA MASS
>Say it out loud
>"Head up my ass"
>>7374106
"Mike Fallopian cannot be a real character's name,"
- Wikipedia review for Lot 49
>>7374100
What are the chances all those experiences she had were planted? Let's not befucking retarded, here.
>>7374116
Isn't it implied that Inverarity had enough money to realistically pay off everyone involved?
>>7374106
eh-dih-puh-mahs...?
>>7374118
Coincidence =/= able to 'pay off' pranksters.9/11 was an inside job ZOMG
But seriously, let's get 2 the bottom of this. I honestly don't think that is likely. Inverarity is dead.
>>7374122
ed ip-uhm ass
ed ip muh ass
head up my ass
>>7374133
mass =/= maas
mucho my ass?
>>7374133
>Oedipa
>pronounced Edipuh
no
>>7374192
OED IPA
Oxford English Dictionary
Imperial Pale Ale
OED preserved to be shipped across seas
yfw?
>>7374192
It's a 'long E' but enough people pronounce it with a 'short E' for me to deduce what he meant.
I'm a third party, by the way.
>>7374206
>third party
third par·ty
noun
1.
a loudmouth or idiot interrupting or talking over the two intelligent humans primarily involved in a situation, especially a dispute.
adjective
1.
of or relating to a disabled or homosexual interrupting the two primarily involved people in a situation.
"third-party asshole needs attention"
>>7374214
I'm one of the two previously involved presumable humans and am not intelligent.
>>7374227
So >>7374206
wasn't a third party.... leave it to a third party to call himself that.... or HERself....
>>7373832
The answer is Torquato Tasso
>>7373832Konrad?
>>7373832
pretty sure that after my first read thru I had enough evidence to prove that pynchon was a closet nazi
I think it was about the general problem of interpretation, and how to derive meaning (or really, anything) from chaos. The main image in the novel is that of Oedipa imposing a structure on the world in an attempt to make it comprehensible (see Remedios Varo, "Shall I project a world?", "They're taking away all my men", Maxwell's Demon, paranoia).
People here talk a lot about Torquato Tasso because of that remarkable absolutely-not-Pynchon poster from back when. Yet, nobody talks about Hans-Georg Gadamer, how his vision of the hermeneutic circle and the process of interpretation (which he conceptualizes as the concecutive "projection" of foremeanings and forestructures upon that which is being read/interpreted) could lead to a not so pessimistic reading of the novel, one in which Oedipa indeed fails to solve any of the misteries, but has nevertheless achieved some kind of illumination (as foreboded in her ecstasy of San Narciso and her staging of Michelangelo's Piety).
