We’ve obtained three four seven ate TEN!!! Likes so the following Float is no longer necessary. It has been removed.

I published this “review” about five minutes ago and have received no Likes. So I’m Floating it.


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And so is inaugurated what became known as Pynchon Lite.®*

It’s a step up in the game of Pynchon Prose.®** From V.. But a step down in page count (you noticed?). Thing is that it’s as if Lot 49 (TCoL49 is atrocious ; maybe “L49”?) were a chapter, not a novella. But maybe that’s just me. Short stories and novellas always look like lost little abandoned novels or fragments thereof. And that’s really kind of what V. is, isn’t it? It salvages a bunch of/several novellas and hinges them together into a pleasant novelistic unity. Friend Curtainthief has a link to a nice little article which grabs this hinging thing from Heidegger’s Beiträge Zur Philosophie: Vom Ereignis ; check it HERE. This kind of novelistic unity is pretty common.

So anyways. Statistics. I’ve read it three times now. Although in all pedantic honesty, I’ve still got a few pages to go. But the first two readings were ages and ages ago relative to the age of our planet. CoLt49 was probably the first Pynchon I read. There’s no reason not to make it your own Virgin Pynchon ®*** too. Why not? It’s 183 pages long. It’s nearly twice as popular on gr as is Gravity’s Rainbow which is his second most popularly read work. 117 gr=Friends of mine have added it ; which really isn’t enough given how sort of syllabustic/canonical it is.

Lot 49 is a short story really (in the novellette it’s  a selection of forged Trystero stamps being sold at auction) so it shouldn’t be the basis of any kind of sophisticated opinion about Tom’s work in general because that opinion should be built upon all those works which are not Pynchon Lite® although, truth be told, your opinion regarding Tom in relation to his Pynchon Lite® will not diminish on account of their relative low calorie count. But seriously, folks, Everything Is Relative we are told until we say something like “Pynchon Lite®” and then that principle is oddly dropped and it is objected unto us that, Those books are just as Heavy Duty, Judy . Fine, but, you know, I have to say in response that if you object to the connotation but have no quibble about the denotation then I say, You Sir! possess a serious lack of vocabularic imargination!!

My gods people! you think I’m going to disparage Pynchon? Me?! People object to the weirdest things. The phenomenon itself -- I’m speaking of Pynchon Lite® -- has long deep rich historical roots, reaching way back at least to 1990 when those Cultists of the Divine Rainbow were asked to read Vineland and not somehow react with WtF? I rreally like Vineland (and all of Pynchon Lite®!) and I like it so much that I am overjoyed not to have read it in 1990 and have been faced with such utter disappointment. The faithful were of course shortly rewarded with the Magnificent Mason & Dixon. So there’s that.

[Paragraph hinge.]

It (back to LOL49) kind of suffers from what I’m going to call The Great Gatsby Complex®**** What do we mean by “The Great Gatsby Complex”®? Just that if it’s a perfect novel then it’s not a novel but a novella (which in German just means “short story”, so there’s that). I mean because a novel, by definition and transcendental constitution (and even by socialistic constructivisticness), has something wrong with it. Flawed. Fallen. In a state of sin. Missed the mark (hamartia, for you with your Greek NT’s). Which is of course what makes it that most human and anti-divine of all artistic forms. And but then if it is a novel, then it’s not perfect. See, if there where just a second half (You Bright and Risen Angels contains an unwritten second half, thereby solving the problem of perfection once and for all -- just amputate half of the thing), making The Lot 49 a diptych, even if that second half were lost, we’d be able to declare it a Perfect Novel in the precise sense of having something Seriously Wrong with it, an entirely full half-fraction missing! See? This is what V. accomplished, it salvaged a bunch of perfect little novellas and mussed them up by hinging them together into a kind of bafflingly impossible unity.

[Paragraph hinge.]

Okay so I just wrapped up those last few pages. I won’t spoiler nothing. But I do have a Fresh Hypothesis. That is, if and only if Closing Reading is still hip because I heard that there’s a thing called Surface Reading. Probably about the only thing I ever do. Skim across the surface. Er, well, since my hypothesis is in fact a surface, a superficial, a not-deep hypothesis. That hypothesis is that Lots(for=sale)49 isn’t so much about Tristero (whether it.... etc) but muchmore about HCE. Seriously, he’s there. More so than Kilroy in V.. Just try to read this thing without seeing HCE everywhere everywhere you can h’imagine! Sometimes it’s just an H and a C and you say to yourself, Where’s the E? (drop a tab of?) or you find a C and an E and you wonder where the atch e double hockey stick is that H? Kind of thing. It’s maddening!!!

None of this may be true of course. Mathematical formulae notwithstanding.





* Not absolutely certain I’m to blame/credit for this felicitous phrase ; but from the looks of my Bleeding Edge review it would seem reasonable so to suspect. So then this apologia. There is no controversy regarding the term’s extension ; it gathers together a set of Pynchon novels which are not V., Gravity’s Rainbow, Mason & Dixon, or Against the Day. The objection is the association with such Amerikan products as the one from Miller and the one from Bud. Fine. But there’s no need to make that association (fucking-close-to-water). But I’m gunna stick to it as the more felicitiously flowing phrase. Compare :: Session Pynchon (what they’re doing with Session IPAs, for instance, is fantastic) (but then Real Ale advocates will start whipping you if you do anything over 3.5ABV or whatever their arbitrary number is) ; Table or Tafel Pynchon, you understand, is simply atrocious (although Du Pont’s Avril is quite nice) ;; you could also go with Lawnmower Pynchon cuz that California sun can get rather hot -- but then some jackass would object that growing (lawn) grass in CA is kind of a waste of precious resources) ;; Single Pynchon (in the row: single, dubbel, tripel, quad) is just going to confuse the hell out of folks, so we won’t bother although New Belgium’s recent Single (they call it “Porch Swing”) is pretty damn good) ;; so I go with the widely recognizable “Lite” (assuming that Sam Adams “Light” was a failure) (and besides, the issue here is not one of luminosity).

** Have fun with this one!

*** So obvious it’s dumb.

**** If you object to this terminology herein invented and coined, then your right to make use of “The Holden Caulfield Complex”® is revoked.

"Η συλλογή των 49 στο σφυρί" ή αλλιώς ο πρόγονος του "Εκκρεμές του Φουκώ".

Στον Πίντσον δεν τα καταλαβαίνεις ποτέ όλα, ή μάλλον δεν χρειάζεται να τα καταλάβεις ποτέ όλα. Υπάρχουν τόσες πολλές πληροφορίες που από μόνες τους στήνουν ένα σκηνικό αντάξιο της οπτικής επαφής από μια ταινία. Είναι ο καλύτερος στο να βρίσκει πολύ εξειδικευμένες πληροφορίες σε τομείς όπως η φυσική, άλλωστε εντροπία λέγεται η τεχνική που χρησιμοποιεί, όπως αναφέρει ο Δημηρούλης, ο μεταφραστής. στην πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα εισαγωγή του. Πολλές από αυτές τις πληροφορίες δεν χρειάζονται πουθενά πλην όμως αποτελούν αναπόσπαστο στοιχείο του συνολικού σκηνικού.

Συνηθίζει να χρησιμοποιεί συμβολισμούς. Η πρωταγωνίστρια έχει το ασυνήθιστο όνομα Οιδίπα, σαν τον Οιδίποδα απέναντι στην Σφίγγα προσπαθώντας να λύσει το μυστήριο στο οποίο έχει περιέλθει ή έτσι νομίζει.

Έχοντας διαβάσει πριν απ' αυτό το "Ενάντια στη μέρα" το οποίο γράφτηκε 40 χρόνια μετά (2006), έχω να πω ότι ο Πίντσον από τα πρώτα του γραπτά βρισκόταν σ' αυτό το ψηλό επίπεδο. Σίγουρα μου φάνηκε πιο εύκολο αυτό το βιβλίο, γιατί ήμουν πιο υποψιασμένος για το τι θα συναντήσω, το τελειώνω όμως εξίσου γοητευμένος με την πρώτη φορά. Αποτελεί μια πολύ ιδιαίτερη κατηγορία και μας θυμίζει γιατί η λογοτεχνία πρέπει να είναι απαιτητική και να μας εξιτάρει.

Υ.Γ. Πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα είναι η κριτική του Harold Bloom (ίσως ο κορυφαίος κριτικός λογοτεχνίας) στο "Πως και γιατί διαβάζουμε", που το συμπεριλαμβάνει ανάμεσα σε τεράστια έργα των Φώκνερ, Μέλβιλ, Προυστ, Ντίκενς, Μακάρθυ, Μαν κτλ.

Σιγή...
δεν ήθελα να τελειώσει, όχι για να μάθω κάτι περισσότερο αλλά γιατί το κομφούζιο γράψιμο θα μου λείψει. Είναι σαν τη ζωή. Αν κοιτάξεις το χώμα, θα δεις ένα έντομο να περπατάει στο έδαφος, μετά ελευθερώνοντας τη σκηνή από την εστίαση σου, παρατηρείς τον αέρα να κινεί τα φύλλα, τα κορδόνια στα παπούτσια κάποιου που διασχίζει την απέναντι γωνία. Αυτά και άλλα ήταν εκεί ταυτόχρονα με το έντομο, συνηθίζεις όμως με τάξη να στοχεύεις ένα πράγμα τη φορά, όλα όμως κι εσύ ακόμα γίνονται μαζί, σαν το μπλέντερ που κομματιάζει τα σκληρά φρούτα και πολτοποιεί τα μαλακά, μαζικά. Έτσι είναι η γραφή του Πύντσον. Είναι ακόμα σαν το αγαπημένο μου παιχνίδι στα μαθηματικά: τις πεπλεγμένες συναρτήσεις.

Κλειδιά υπάρχουν διάσπαρτα σε όλες τις σελίδες. Το θέμα είναι ποιο ορίζεται ως το κιβώτιο που πρέπει να δοκιμάσουμε να ξεκλειδώσουμε;

Σ' ένα κόσμο που έχουμε παραδοθεί στο να μας κάνουν ο,τι θέλουν, να μας λεν πως η ψήφος μας δεν έχει αξία, η γνώμη μας είναι λίγη, η φωνή μας σιγανή, να μας αρνούνται τη δύναμη από τις προσπάθειες ενός ανθρώπου που θα δώσουν ώθηση σε άλλους γιατί οι εταιρίες μπορούν περισσότερα, να μας κλέβουν το λόγο, να ακούν τα χαμόγελα μας, να πατροναρουν τις σκέψεις μας, παραδοθηκαμε στο sms, στο viber, στο μεσεντζερ.... Κι αν υπήρχε ένας άλλος τρόπος να μιλάμε όχι για να κάνουμε κάτι κακό αλλά επειδή το δικαιούμαστε να στερούμε το μονοπώλιο σ' αυτούς που το πααχωρήσαμε, μία τέτοια ελευθερία δε θα άξιζε πολλά; Αν το δεδομένο γινόταν πραγματικό δεδομένο. Δεδομένο ελευθερίας.

21.06.17, μια ακόμη προσέγγιση: Μιλάει για την ελευθερία της βούλησης και την πατροναρισμένη εκδοχή της ελευθεριότητας της βούλησης. Μπορείς να κάνεις ό,τι διάολο επιθυμήσεις, αλλά μόνο αγνοώντας τα αόρατα νήματα των παγίδων. Απ' τη στιγμή που τα αντιλαμβάνεσαι, το αλάτι και το κίμινο δεν αρκούν στο πιάτο. Δεν αλλάζει η γεύση κι ας τρως πάστα κρέμα μπισκότο, ή μακαρονάδα με κιμά, παρά τη στιγμή που θα κινηθείς εξουθενώνοντας μέσα σου την κλισεδιά για τους τελικούς στόχους. Δεν υπάρχουν τελικοί στόχοι γιατί μόλις αναγνωριστούν φαίνεται πως δε διαφέρουν σε τίποτα απ' όσα ήδη ξέρεις και η κορύφωση είναι τζούφια. Πρόκειται για όλη αυτή την αμηχανία, τον εκνευρισμό, το ανασήκωμα των ώμων, την παραίτηση σε κάθε στροφή που μοιάζει με την προηγούμενη. Και τι μένει; Τί σου λέει ο έρημος που δε σου είπαν άλλοι; Με το δικό του ιδιαίτερο τρόπο σου λέει την άλλη γνωστή κλισεδιά για τη διαδρομή. Το πως φτάνεις κάπου, ο συνδυασμοί, οι έλξεις κι οι απωθήσεις, οι άνθρωποι που συναντάς και τα στοιχεία που επιλέγουν να σου αποκαλύψουν για τον εαυτό τους στην παρούσα φάση δημιουργούν αυτό το ενιαίο σώμα που κάθε στιγμή όμως αποτελείται από μόρια, συγκρατούμενα αλλά μόρια. Η ενότητα της παλάμης σου, του ψωμιού, του κορδονιού είναι σημειακές, φαινομενικές με τα συν και τα πλην που οδηγούν σε αυτό ακριβώς το αποτέλεσμα και κανένα άλλο.

Q: Name an action you can take to really piss off a feminist mathematician who loves/also studied physics.
A: Write a rabidly misogynistic, inanely pretentious novel supposedly illustrating/embodying mathematical/physical "paradoxes." (*, **)

*Not true paradoxes, as there is no such thing in physics/math. I will get to all the math and science after the feminist rant.

**I will admit that the latter part of my assessment is based more on my contempt for Pynchon re: the former complaint. Had he demonstrated mere sexism, I probably would have rated this at a 4 or so, because, begrudgingly, yes, I know, Pynchon is pretty brilliant and well, who doesn't love a story about information theory/ thermodynamics & the Big Ideas of mathematics/physics? BUT:

// start rant
BUT I simply don't care how clever Pynchon thinks he is. This is the most misogynistic piece of crap I've ever read in my life, and I am left trembling mad, seriously horrified, utterly disgusted, and 100% turned off to whatever else Pynchon tried to do in this novel.

On a spectrum of dis/respecting women, here's where Pynchon lies (or at least, this particular work of his):
n  n

How do I even begin? There's too much to cover, but let's start with the clueless, idiotic woman, Oedipa, wandering aimlessly through a man's world. (There are no other named women in this book; the handful of instances other women appear can be counted on one hand; and they are always "the anonymous girl in a subservient position", like the admin assistant).

n  "Somehow, Oedipa got lost. One minute, she was gazing at a mockup of a space capsule, safely surrounded by old, somnolent men; the next, alone in a great, fluorescent murmur of office activity. As far as she could see in every direction it was white or pastel: men's shirts, papers, drawing boards. All she could think of was to put on her shades for all this light, and to wait for somebody to rescue her" (p. 66 in the Harper Perennial 2006 edition)n

Oedipa is an insecure, "easy" (his word, not mine) woman who is constantly looking for affirmation from men. She uses her sex to her advantage ("she rested her shades on her nose and batted her eyelashes, figuring to coquette her way" [into something], p. 69). She can be "tricked" into having sex with men (p. 30). She is a woman who "has no apparatus except gut fear and female cunning... she may fall back on superstition, or take up a useful hobby like embroidery, or go mad, or marry a disk jokey" (p. 12). She is accused of acting like a "lib, overeducated broad with the soft heads and bleeding hearts" (p. 59).

Worse, men are not to be held accountable for their violation of women. When Oedipa sits down between two men at a meeting, for example, their hands, "alternately (as if their owners were asleep and the moled, freckled hands out roaming dream-scapes) kept falling onto her thighs (p. 65, because, you know, men's hands just do that sometimes).... Oh yeah, and that guy who "tricked" Oedipa into sex? Well, it's ok because she liked it and wants to keep doing it, just as she wants to continue relying on his support on her quest.

Who is Pynchon kidding? Satire, MY ASS. You DON'T get to satire women into submissive, subservient roles of clueless, insecure, emotional messes who stumble through life while being used and molested by men. I mean, you can, but don't expect this woman to take you seriously on any other matter.

I was so aghast at what I was reading that I did a bit of research into Pynchon's life and it seems he was not a rabid right-winger (he's a postmodernist, after all!). Also, he wrote this in the 60s - for God's sake, the second wave of feminism was well underway! The Second Sex for example, appeared in 1949. Plus: only the entire raison d'etre of the post-modern, deconstructionist movement was to call into question ingrained layers of social constructs that we take for granted, but that are indeed, not inherent in our "nature", but just a product of how we've come to think about things given our historical past and its promulgation. So, Pynchon gets NO FREE PASS for the "age" he was writing in (+ misogyny doesn't ever get a pass from me, not even given historical context; sexism, well, that almost can't be avoided when going some time back).

As a last point that may go in Pynchon's favor someday, if I ever reconsider his work, is that, despite the ways in which he portrays Oedipa, she is the main character, possibly "heroine" of this novel, and this is a satire. At this moment, however, I can not see how Pyncheon's misogyny can be excused as satire alone, because it's clear he wasn't truly conscious of his treatment of women as a whole in writing The Crying of Lot 49.

// end rant

Science/Thermo & Math/Information Theory
The Crying of Lot 49 attempts a metaphorical deconstruction of the concept of dis/order, brought into focus through its mathematical and thermodynamic-science incarnations. Some preliminary discussions:

Science: Most of us probably remember at least the term "entropy" from high-school physics - basically thermodynamic laws dictate that the entropy of a physical system increases over time (i.e. disorder increases. For example, if you put a bunch of multi-colored balls in a box, they tend to get mixed up over time; they do not tend to sort themselves by color. Maxwell, Plank et all ran experiments like this but on particles).

Math: In info theory (which is distinct from physics because it refers to a purely abstract field of "information"), another measure of entropy is defined, and it turns out its mathematical equation is virtually the same as that used by physicists (who would have thought, the concepts we come up to mathematically describe abstract situations are based on our real world experiences?). Theoretically information entropy measures the probability that we can predict the outcome. And, the more we know, it turns out, the less we can predict the outcome, because there's so many more possibilities to take into consideration ("The more you know, the more you realize you don't know" type of thing).

Maxwell's Demon is a supposed paradox about how a decrease in entropy/disorder could occur (no paradoxes exist in science or math; all is clear once one has adequate insight and knowledge). Theoretically, the thought experiment goes, we could have an invisible demon sitting there opening and closing a flap and thus magically guiding all red balls to one side of the box, and all blue balls to the other. In this case, disorder would decrease. Supposedly. Of course, it's quite easy to refute this paradox the moment you realize that the demon could not possibly exist as described, because a pure information decider would need to be embodied in some physical way. The moment you MAKE this demon out of physical materials, the moment this demon becomes incarnate, it's clear that the demon is part of the system and thus, while the disorder of the BOX might decrease, the laws of entropy are NOT violated by the NET system, including the demon.

---

I credit Pynchon for creatively satirizing this futile quest for ultimate Order/Truth. The ethos of modernity has been the search for Order/Absolute Truth - only, we have realized, in all fields, that the more we know, and the more we try to organize things, the more they slip out from under out control as net systems becomes increasingly chaotic. Just look at particle physics - in seeking to describe the ultimate nature of reality, physicists cooked up a veritable "zoo" of particles (their word, not mine), ever more ridiculous in its complexity (so much for the "Grand Unified Theory", which I consider a theoretically impossible quest, because of the laws of entropy).

There's a lot to be examined here, but it's been done already (many other times, too but that's a good place to start), and I'm not in the mood to be kind. Perhaps I will update someday (the probability decreasing over time, of course, consistent with the laws of entropy).

1.5 stars

It's been some time since I've hated a book with a passion like I did The Crying of Lot 49. Warning: some ramblings ahead.

It was a book club read and I wanted to start this about two weeks before the book club, because I wanted the book to be still fresh in my mind and it was only 150 pages or so. It went wrong immediately at the first pages. A sentence should not be half a page! (I immediately felt bad for complaining about the lack of full stops in Call Me By Your Name, because it was much worse here) I felt it was pretentious and a lot of words without actually saying something. Even just looking at the style, I disliked it because it was repeating words frequently so you got because, because, because, etc. This was clearly not something to read just before sleep, because I was dozing of after the first page.

The next evening I pick it up at an earlier time and I am "treated" to a misogynistic, ridiculous sex-scene. This put me off the book for another week.

And then it is the evening before book club and I am only 20% in and I don't want to read it, but I do want to read it as well so that I can at least base my opinion on the entire book. I had to watch a kid's movie before I felt like reading it again. And I finished about 2h before the book club - so mission accomplished, but sadly my opinions of the book didn't improve a lot.

I recognize it was written in the 1960s, but I thought it had aged very badly like a wine that has gone off. Thomas Pynchon writes a female character, Oedipa, but to me it is unclear if he ever met one in real life. She has no personality whatsoever, exists only in her relationship with the male characters in the novel and at some point exclaims (when said male characters have left her) that she doesn't know what to do now. She's on this sort of quest with which she is obsessed, but why she doesn't just walk away from it is anyone's guess. At this point, you might have guessed it doesn't pass the Bechdel test.

The mystery of the secret underground mail is mildly interesting, as was the ending which might break everything down, but there was just not enough substance and character to keep it all together. The best things about it - it was only 150 pages and I now know I never need to touch anything by Pynchon again in my life.

The main critique on the previous book in book club was that Recursion was too plot-focused and had too little character development. Unfortunately, there was zero character (development) here and the plot was also lacking, so it was indefinitely worse.

Surprise: would not recommend.

Find this and other reviews on my blog https://www.urlphantomhive.com

Maybe 3.5 stars

It was weird! It was unique!

Hey, Thomas Pynchon - could you write us a book where a woman goes to oversee the estate of a real estate mogul and along the way deals with her DJ husband on LSD, an adulterous pedophilic lover, a Nazi psychiatrist on a shooting spree - all in search of information about a secret society who's only anti-government movement is to run their own postal system (which she becomes intrigued about because of a play she sees with one word that seems out of place).

Thomas Pynchon: Sure - no problem! As long as I can make it jump haphazardly to a different part of the story every few paragraphs and leave everyone hanging in the end . . .

This was nasty. A horrible predictable car crash – no! Don’t drive when you’re angry! Aieeeee! Whump! Glass splinters!

Some authors you kind of think

a) you really should read at least something by them, they being so terrifically important and all, which people do not let up about; and

b) but you just have that bad feeling about them like when you catch the eye of some drunk in a bar (uh oh, let’s get out of here!) - I thought I am so not going to like this guy with his patent acidhead paranoid style and his 900 page novels that it’s just possible some readers do not actually finish what? I never said that. But I found that he’d written one that was less than 900 pages long.

The thing is that this guy’s thing is that he’s got everyone convinced he is using silliness (comedy character names, ludicrously complicated comedy plots which avoid resolutions like the bubonic plague, frantic references to the detritus of the everyday (car lots, plastic filters), conspiracies heavy in the air like Paco Rabane at an FBI convention, and plenty of LSD in the water) as a mask: because actually he is Deadly Serious.

There is a bright vibrant collection of writers who also use this headachy palette of loud screechy colours - Nathaniel West, Philip Dick, Hunter Thompson, David Foster Wallace, (it does seem to be a boys club) – and yes – it does seem that all these guys do this paranoid we’re all living in a Matrix thing better than Thomas Pynchon, if The Crying of Lot 49 is anything to go by.

I didn’t like this novel, it was mostly nails on a blackboard - (but I will say that Mr Pynchon can really sculpt a lovely surprising sentence, I would quote one or two but they are like a page long insert eyeroll emoji) - all the nonsense about private postal companies at war with each other since the 19th century, give me a break. And the Beatle parodies haven’t aged well. And the casual misogyny, well, that goes without saying. Sorry I even mentioned it.* This must be a Bad Pynchon, surely his other stuff must be better. One would hope.


* But for an exploration of that succulent topic, see Ioana’s review here

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

n  Mutedn – I am in an alien way,
n  Postn – reading this weird novel about a
n  Hornn – that despite many mouths, remains

n  Mutedn – across the
n  Postn – offices of circuitous US lands although the blare of this
n  Hornn – is audible to a secretive group that moves in

n  Mutedn – shadows and sews in its hem, high
n  Postn – bearers and zany professors who insist to
n  Hornn – out any intruders who, in public or

n  Mutedn – way, attempt to
n  Postn – any letters sent with this
n  Hornn – bearing stamp to any

n  Mutedn – or alive estate holder, even if
n  Postn – delivery, the estate holder might
n  Hornn – away in their favour but

n  Mutedn – and inquisitive, our heroine, Oedipa Maas,
n  Postn - receipt of the news of her ex-boyfriends’ death without any
n  Hornn – and trumpet, finds that a seemingly

n  Mutedn – journey of co-executor of his estate, shall
n  Postn – her in the midst of a raging war of
n  Hornn – ,one representing an established postal network and another, a

n  Mutedn – yet bizarrely active clandestine network that
n  Postn – marks its parcels with watermarks of
n  Hornn – with a bold acronym, W.A.S.T.E which may be

n  Mutedn – on an ordinary street but read its
n  Postn – and you know your deliveries are
n  Hornn – washed to conspirators in hiding whose

n  Mutedn – voice can be heard before, during and
n  Postn – a play and in the motel’s loo, the
n  Hornn – can be spotted with an eerie hue which isn’t lost in

n  Mutedn – acquaintances who slowly desert Oedipa
n  Postn – her unrestrained quest to reveal the
n  Hornn – secret which she finally witnesses as a

n  Mutedn – picture which appears to have been
n  Postn – scripted into lots of stamps that bear the
n  Hornn – and the auctioneer grins cries at Oedipa’s gut, torn.

I am not apologetic for churning out this insanely dust-worthy review, Mr. Pynchon. You go on blowing that muted post horn and throw at me concepts like entropy, teasing verses with Humbert Humbert, dandelion wine, Russian tanks, outdated cartoons and what was that: 'perhaps to arouse fractions of brain current your most gossamer microelectrode is yet too gross for funding.'(???) and expect me to be sane?! I mean just to tell a little story about a woman who goes to execute an estate and gets confused after stumbling onto a few secret letters flying through a postal network, you had to bring LSD drug into picture?? Heck, yes! Actually, this a story about this:

Conocer a Pynchon para entender la literatura contemporánea, para encontrar pistas de su legado aquí y allá, siguiendo un itinerario secreto, donde menos te lo esperas. A mí esta lectura me ha iluminado – entre otras cosas – las raíces de El cementerio de Praga, obra de mi admirado Umberto Eco, que en su momento me provocó una confusión mental importante y que ahora de repente cobra sentido. Porque donde Eco, en 2010, recrea una conspiración judeo-masónica que a su manera explica toda la historia europea del siglo XIX, Pynchon en 1965 recreaba una conspiración contra el sistema de correos con el trasfondo de todos los cambios ideológicos y sociales que tenían lugar en la California de esos años. Lo que pasa es que Umberto Eco pierde el humor y la despreocupación y se toma la cosa mucho más en serio. Común a los dos: una erudición desmedida, que necesitaría un glosario monumental para ayudar a lectoras como yo, más dadas al escapismo y la molicie en lo que a literatura se refiere.

Esta es una pequeña muestra de todo lo que me ha sugerido la lectura. La historia es más bien irrelevante, algo así como en un cuadro abstracto, la subasta del título se hace esperar y no nos da pistas sobre lo que vamos a leer. Lo que interesa es el viaje, el trayecto que se inicia cuando Edipa Maas se desplaza a San Narciso para hacerse cargo como albacea del testamento de un antiguo amante. Las pinceladas. El color.

Creo que de alguna manera esta obra – la segunda de Pynchon – es un paso más a partir del Ulises de Joyce, que ponía una lupa en la realidad, no sólo externa sino también en la psique del individuo. Aquí la realidad está aumentada, no sólo por la óptica individual, sino también por la cultura contemporánea, que es como un ruido/música de fondo, por la cultura clásica, la historia europea y también la ciencia actual – todo ello sumergido en una neblina lisérgica que nos hace dudar continuamente de lo que transmiten los sentidos y nos lleva a una paranoia sistémica.

¿Lectura difícil? Hasta cierto punto. Toda esta densidad está envuelta en un sentido del humor y un escepticismo que lo aligera todo, y lleno de guiños, que aunque no los pilles todos, alguno pillas (los Beatles…)

Creo que hubiera disfrutado más la lectura si:

-tla hubiera leído en versión original, ya que los juegos de palabras que abundan son difícilmente traducibles

-thubiera tenido más referentes culturales o explicaciones – aunque no estoy segura de que la idea sea entender todo, todo…

-tme hubiera concentrado más en la lectura – tengo la impresión de que hay que leerla con papel y lápiz, anotando los diversos personajes para no hacerte un lío – pero tampoco estoy segura de que sea buena idea…

- lo hubiera leído en su momento, en 1965, para apreciar realmente todo lo que tenía de novedoso y rompedor, y es que ahora ya estamos todos muy resabiados y todo nos suena conocido

En fin, que un poco loca sí que me ha dejado, pero con ganas de ir a por más, satisfecha de conocer a uno de los 4 grandes de la literatura norteamericana del siglo XX ( Roth, McCarthy, DeLillo y Pynchon). Quizá Vineland sea el siguiente, aunque con 480 páginas da un poco de respeto.

Διαβάζοντας και την τελευταία λέξη της Συλλογής των 49 στο Σφυρί, άφησα το βιβλίο πάνω στο τραπέζι κι έμεινα να το κοιτάζω κάπως αμήχανη για κανένα 10λεπτο. Σε αυτά τα 10 λεπτά, άρχισα έναν φανταστικό διάλογο με τον εαυτό μου (ας μου συγχωρεθεί αυτή η ελαφριά παράνοια) για το αν θα έπρεπε να το ξαναδιαβάσω ή όχι. Καλύτερα όμως να βάλουμε μία άνω τελεία ξεκινώντας, όπως πρέπει, με την υπόθεση του βιβλίου. Και κάπου εδώ σχεδόν ακούω το ειρωνικό γελάκι του Pynchon-καλή του ώρα όπου κι αν βρίσκεται- να μου λέει: Για να σε δω κοπελιά τι έχεις να πεις.
Η Συλλογή των 49 στο σφυρί ξεκινάει με μία διαθήκη που φτάνει στην Οιδίπα, μία τυπική νοικοκυρά της Αμερικής, βάσει της οποίας ο αποθανών πρώην σύντροφός της την καθιστά εκτελεστή της περιουσίας του. Το ταξίδι της κάπου στο Λος Άντζελες, προκειμένου να τακτοποιήσει όλες τις λεπτομέρειες γύρω από την διαθήκη, αποτελεί την αρχή της πιο αλλόκοτης περιπέτειας που έχω διαβάσει ποτέ στην ζωή μου. Η Οιδίπα αρχίζει σταδιακά να βυθίζεται σε έναν κόσμο γεμάτο συμβολισμούς και παράξενες συμπτώσεις από αυτές που σε κάνουν να αναρωτιέσαι αν πραγματικά βρίσκεσαι κοντά σε μία σπουδαία ανακάλυψη ή αν απλά τρελαίνεσαι. Ακόμα και το όνομά της άλλωστε είναι ένα σύμβολο: « Όπως ο Οιδίπους μπροστά στην Σφίγγα, έτσι και η Οιδίπα μπροστά τον κόσμο του αμερικάνικου ονείρου έχει να απαντήσει σε μία σειρά από αινίγματα και γρίφους, προκαλώντας την μοίρα της.»
Δεν θα είχε κανένα απολύτως νόημα να σας αναφέρω περισσότερα πράγματα για την εξέλιξη του έργου αφενός γιατί θα σας μπερδέψω χειρότερα και αφ’ εταίρου γιατί, ας είμαστε ειλικρινείς, δεν τα κατάλαβα όλα απόλυτα. Αυτός άλλωστε είναι κι ένας από τους λόγους που με έκαναν να αναρωτηθώ εάν θα έπρεπε να το ξαναπιάσω από την αρχή. Και θα σας εξηγήσω γιατί αποφάσισα να μην το κάνω.
Ο Pynchon είναι αδιαμφισβήτητα από τους πιο έξυπνους συγγραφείς που έχω συναντήσει με απίστευτη ικανότητα να πλάθει ιστορίες και χαρακτήρες. Ένας τόσο έξυπνος άνθρωπος λοιπόν υπάρχει περίπτωση να μην έχει σκεφτεί πόσο εξωφρενικά μπερδεμένο είναι το βιβλίο του; Να μην του έχει περάσει δηλαδή από το μυαλό πως, όταν σε μία αφήγηση μπλέκεις, αριστοτεχνικά φυσικά, την ιστορία, την φυσική, την θρησκεία, το μεταφυσικό και όλα αυτά μέσα από μία άκρως σημειολογική γραφή, ο μέσος αναγνώστης θα χάσει την μπάλα και τα μυαλά του μαζί;
Προσωπικά πιστεύω ότι είχε απόλυτη συναίσθηση του λαβύρινθου που σχεδίασε και στόχος του δεν ήταν να βγούμε από αυτόν κατανοώντας στο έπακρον όλα όσα συνέβησαν στην διαδρομή , αλλά απλά να χαλαρώσουμε και να απολαύσουμε το «χάσιμο» κάτι που μοιραία κάνουν και οι ήρωες του . Η σκέψη αυτή, δυστυχώς, μου πέρασε κάπως αργά από το μυαλό, ήμουν ήδη μετά την μέση του βιβλίου, αλλά μόλις την υιοθέτησα απόλαυσα πολύ περισσότερο την ανάγνωση και το Πιντσονικό σύμπαν. Το ίδιο το μυθιστόρημα άλλωστε δεν κλείνει με κάποιο συγκεκριμένο συμπέρασμα ή σαφή απάντηση γιατί πολύ απλά δεν είναι αυτός ο στόχος.
«Γιατί ήταν τότε σαν να περπατούσε στην μήτρα ενός μεγάλου κομπιούτερ, τα μηδέν και τα ένα ζευγαρωμένα στο πάνω μέρος, κρεμασμένα σαν ισορροπούντα κινητά τεμάχια δεξιά κι αριστερά, μπροστά, πυκνά, ίσως χωρίς τέλος. Πίσω από τις ιερογλυφικές οδούς υπάρχει ή ένα υπερβατικό νόημα ή μόνον γη…Το ένα και το μηδέν. Έτσι ήταν διευθετημένα τα ζεύγη.»
Ολοκληρώνοντας την ανάγνωση είχα την αίσθηση ότι μόλις έκανα έναν τρελό γύρο με τρενάκι στο μυαλό του συγγραφέα, από το οποίο δεν βγήκα αλώβητη, όπως άλλωστε μας προειδοποιεί και το εισαγωγικό σημείωμα, αλλά βγήκα σίγουρα καλύτερη. Γιατί όσο και να με μπέρδεψε/ παίδεψε, αυτό που κατάλαβα, ως ένα σημείο σχεδόν ενστικτωδώς, είναι ότι πρόκειται για ένα κυριολεκτικά μοναδικό βιβλίο.

Brief thoughts after a 2nd reading:

Even better than I remembered. Having a thematic understanding already allowed me to focus on the literal plot of Oedipa's wild travels among crazy characters - often laugh out loud funny - then return to consider how these settings and contrivances serve a symbolic purpose. Absolutely amazing just how well-built Pynchon's prose truly is, to serve these dual purposes. He seems to be making the point that what we perceive and how we perceive it is influenced by the channel we entertain, i.e. the official US Postal Service vs the shadowy secret Tristero WASTE system, or the difference between communal mass media signals vs sublimated firsthand personal experience. And the extrapolation of these issues of communication into issues of society— and the multiplication of layers of doubt, questionable premises, paranoia— it grows staggering, magnificent, mindblowing. I really dig this stuff, and this might become a regular re-read for me.
~



Pynchon, here in his exuberant "put-me-on-the-mapper," is an antic clown who cartwheeled into my life juggling with words in a way that astounds as it entertains. No one can talk this way but somehow I feel I think this way, a whirly-burly hurdy-gurdy of words and ideas fragmenting and recombining and popping and fizzing inside my skull until it might just crack. Reading this whirlwind of a book is like some bizarre accupressure along those mental fault lines, with Pynchon knuckle-rapping and pressing at various weak spots to see what reaction he can get.

Mr. Enigma through and through, Pynchon cries out to be read symbolically (among the cast names: Oedipa, Fallopian, Driblette) but obscures his leads so thoroughly that everything becomes a game to play, a puzzle to solve, a code to decipher. That's fun! That's maddening! That's expert craftsmanship.

5 stars. Inimitable and admirable, Pynchon writes circles around the competition. And this is far and away his most inviting novel (though the fun and games take on a dreadful sense of foreboding in time). There is a first-order plot and a second-order plot, and it's a wild ride bouncing between the two.

Harold Bloom (and apparently everyone else I know) is clearly out of his G.D. mind. This book is not hilariously funny. I did not appreciate the humor in this book at all. I liked the bit about the play but the book seemed too cutesy and gimmicky to me. I've been looking at reviews all over and (much like the reviews for the film No Country for Old Men) I seem only to find the same old enthusiastic descriptions of the book and no compelling reason for why I should appreciate the longest 183 page book I've ever read. A W.A.S.T.E. of time?