Here we go, friends!
A mighty showing, one and all! Well done careening collectively toward the finish!
And yes, this is a wee book. But the language is thorny, scenes swirl into each other, the comedy is mixed with some horror, intentional or otherwise. And it’s a Pynchon gol-dang it. Just picking it up off the shelf earns you an arched eyebrow and a round of applause coming from somewhere unclear.
Now comes the wrap, and as always, I don’t know about other folks — but you — you’re made of the stuff.
This coming week: We charge many-as-one, Mucho-style, for the back cover. Shout out when you make it, with closing thoughts. And then next week, in addition to hinting at and not really telling you much about The Mystery Prize, we’ll also offer up a glimmer of the plan for the idea of a January Meander, with a twist or two new to these adventures.
Happy Lot 49ing — enjoy it to the last. And thanks again for the excellent companionship and commentary at every step!
-Cecil
I’ll be honest- although I was first seriously irked at the ending(??), in retrospect I can’t see it closing out any other way after the sheer chaos of Oedipa’s journey. Pynchon’s prose is such a firehose of context in minutia I’m pretty sure I’ll end up taking a second pass to fully unpack it all.
Wow (and bravo)… although I think I’ll need a stiff drink and a long walk now. Really really glad to have meandered this one with you all!
“She would give them order, she would create constellations. It was her duty, it was her love, it was her stuckness, it was her humanity.”
~Oedipa Maas
As the possibilities narrow and the time to the revelation shortens, in the end, there is always another delta-t
That infinitely small fraction in which the outcome seems so certain, but just like playing Strip Botticelli as a part of a bet on movie, anything is actually possible despite that certainty
We are always so close to knowing if it’s all random or all rigorously plotted, but there are so many delta-ts between us and it
Cecil — I’d like to share a photo of a post horn sighting with my fellow Meanderers. Can that be arranged?
it can! Sam sent me the photo and I’ll share it in the Sunday post. Thanks Sam!
If ever there was a book that should have “The End?” at the bottom of the last page, this is it.
When does The Crying of Lot 50 come out?
I thought having coffee in my Against the Day mug would be appropriately celebratory as I made it to the finish line. I thought what a nightmare it would have been to be the copyeditor on this book. I thought, is that actually a typo on page 151 (“was” for “way”) in a book that has been reprinted dozens of times in the last 60 years? I related to the ones and zeroes section–“Another mode of meaning behind the obvious, or none.” I feel like if I read it again I could excavate a bit more meaning. But I don’t want to. Glad I was along for the meander, glad for all the enlightenment that wiser commenters than I provided. Thanks to all!
In her conversation with Fallopian, Oedipa “sensed what he was going to say and began, reflexively, to grind together her back molars. A nervous habit she’d developed in the last few days.” Then, after she was “teaching herself to breathe in a vacuum,” and realizing that “there was nobody who could help her,” the teeth are back again. “Odd fillings in her teeth began to bother her.” I picture the molar grinding reaching a crescendo as Genghis escorts Oedipa into the auction room and waits for Loren Passerine to begin to cry Lot 49.
Thank you, Cecil, for a most difficult and downright ornery Meander! Awaiting the January reveal!
“The first piece to provide substantial information about Pynchon’s personal life was a biographical account written by a former Cornell University friend, Jules Siegel, and published in Playboy magazine. In his article, Siegel reveals that Pynchon had a complex about his teeth and underwent extensive and painful reconstructive surgery.” -Wikipedia
Just a few pages into this chapter and I feel beat up. First Serge and his 8-year-old; then Winthrop Tremaine; then this:
“You’re chicken, she told herself, snapping her seat belt. This is America, you live in it, you let it happen.”
Damn, Tommy, why you gotta do me like that?
Same reaction and I underlined that one too as yet another line that felt too close to home… And that said, happy election day! 🙂