If So, Then Who?

My reactions to chapter six, the concluding chapter in The Crying Of Lot 49, are difficult to describe. The problem is that I don’t really know what to think of the ending. It was definitely unlike anything I had thought of whilst reading. The whole time it kept me following a mystery, such as when I saw the DaVinci Code (which I really didn’t get), to end up nowhere. No mystery is solved, and the whole experience was a joke. Then I wonder what on earth was Thomas Pynchon thinking when he wrote a book so useless and meaningless for a while, only to conclude in desperation.

After taking a break from my anger, I come back to realize that this book was satire, which I had of course realized but failed to remember when reading the final chapter. This satire, though, is kind of unusual. It targets something which most of my previous experience in satire didn’t: itself. What am I supposed to do now? Am I supposed to take the text seriously when it is mocked by its author? Am I supposed to understand this as a higher level message or some proof about social interactions? Maybe it’s an approach to explaining life, or maybe it’s just a big group of words. Anyhow, I don’t quite come across its real intentions, if it happens to have any. Of course, I have come to many conclusions of my own, but I am skeptic whether they are what Pynchon intended.

I have come to think that I must learn to laugh at myself, or maybe I must learn to read for the mere purpose of entertainment. No doubt that the author is great at producing some laughs, and as a good comedian might judge, that’s more than enough. Maybe we can extract a psychological lesson from it, in which we learn to doubt sanity and social interactions as established. I am not quite sure at this point if suddenly I am the one being mocked. Is it explained by my recent lack of sleep, or am I simply the expected? Suddenly I identify myself with Oedipa and her madness, but mine must not be so.

Certainly you must, by now, have quit reading the words of this madman. If the previous is true, then what, why should I keep on writing?

Insanity

I expected a little bit of a different outcome in chapter five: a bit more Trystero, a little less madness. Everything turns around on its head, and what used to be no longer is. As the mystery unravels, we no longer know who is sane and who sets the pace for the craziest, or if they are simply all out of their minds. The whole plot up to this point has revolved around a mystery so tangled up in itself that seems unreal and plain inexistent. As I read, the mystery was no longer Trystero or W.A.S.T.E, but figuring out who the sane characters are this far into the satire, but as absurd as it sounds, none convinced me.

We have doctor Hilarious shooting people out of a whim. He believed he was being persecuted by Israelis for some absurd deed, explaining his fear as such: “Your Israeli has access to every uniform known… I can’t guarantee the safety of the ‘police’. You couldn’t guarantee where they’d take me if I surrendered, could you (110).” Not only has he gone mad, but he is Oedipa’s shrink, whom she comes to in hope of help to get some obsession out of her mind. Soon enough, she ends up talking him out of madness, exchanging roles making out of him a patient, out of a shrink a madman.

We have Mucho Maas in a inexplicable change of personality occurring in Oedipa’s absence. As she encounters him after meeting the mad shrink, she get approached by the program director, who mentions her husband’s weir behavior to Oedipa. As he puts it: “Day by day, Wendell is more himself and less generic. He enters a staff meeting and the room is suddenly full of people, you know? He’s a walking assembly of man (115).” This is where we wonder if it is the program director or her husband who has lost his mind, for clearly they both give us reasons to doubt their sanity, supported by the books satire. But then soon Mucho shows a simple trait of sanity: “You’ll think I’m crazy, Oed (116).” It is relieving to read the words, because a insane individual would never admit the possibility, making Mucho sane. But the joy is not very lasting, for soon he revels a musical superpower that bursts through the past words, plunging us into confusion.

This whole plot is completely mad by itself, making out of the story a target for its satire. Not only does Thomas Pynchon instill satire targeting all sort of different historical and social facts, but ultimately, his book becomes the target of itself. It is so absurd and crazy that he mocks it. Suddenly nothing makes sense, and words become victims of their cruelty. It is amazing how the whole objective shifts even as we read through the mystery, making the literal basically unimportant. Otherwise, why have all of them gone mad out of nowhere: who knows, maybe it’s me?

W.A.S.T.E.

Chapter four presents the reader with an abbreviation of some mysterious society not yet explained: W.A.S.T.E. It suddenly appears as a mysterious reference to something quite elite. When Oedipa mentions it as a word, she gets a offended response: “Its W.A.S.T.E., lady… an acronym, not ‘waste’, and we had best not go into it any further (70).” As soon as that conversation takes place, this piece of what is surely satire starts to emerge as often as two times per page. It is only obvious that after the first few repetitions, we wonder what it is it stands for.

It appears in Koteks envelope, in a ring, in papers, in memories, and in all sort of absurd means. We may now recall the whole mysterious context of the novel. It is all treated as a great mystery which Oedipa must uncover on her way to Pierce’s will. It is all part of the satire so I am pretty sure the acronym is also a joke, but a very important one for the whole message of the overall satire.

I have never been a great fan of mystery. Even while my friends back in primary scrambled through mysteries trying to guess out the murderer I chose to spend time on different types of themes. Nonetheless, I have found this mystery very pleasing, precisely because of its interconnection with humor, which makes it much nicer to read. I hope to soon find the meaning of the acronym so much mentioned and of many other jokes which, due to contextual situation, I often go by without catching the humor that identifies Thomas Pynchon.

Absurd Parallels

In chapter 3 I encountered much confusion as I scrambled through absurdity. At the beginning, not much made sense as I tried to figure out those random words with intangible meanings. Then slowly, things started to fit into what has been, by far, the most absurd chapter of the three completed.

What called my attention towards absurdity was “The Courier’s Tragedy,” a play which Oedipa and Metzger attended. Its description was, quite frankly, absurd to the point of stupidity. It was shown as to make clear the banal work of the play’s writer which is part of the whole satire, possibly alluding to some tragedies which it resembles.

In the midst of the play we read: “They were-surprise- everyone massacred by Angelo and thrown in the lake. Later their bones where fished up again and made charcoal, and the charcoal made ink, which Angelo, having a dark sense of humor, used in all his subsequent communications with Faggio, the present document included (57).” After reading the previous and connecting it with a very absurd, but similar, plot the play was working with, I couldn’t help but to laugh. It resembled the imagination of a 10 year old in some fantastic story.

I am no authority in satire, and much less in any field of literature, but I have some opinions on the text read. It may seem like this work was the product of mediocrity to some, but to me, this satire is genius. Thomas Pynchon seems to have great concept of satirical writing, not only achieving his general objectives with me (whichever those may be), but demonstrating mastery in aspect of writing which I am so new to.

In The Mood

The first two chapters of The Crying Of Lot 49 present increasing absurdity. It is almost like recent horror films, where you never know what to expect, including extreme humor in the midst of terror. At first one might not catch on to all of the absurdity presented by Thomas Pynchon, but it is soon that, even if you can’t define the reasons, the text become a story out of normal parameters. Besides the introductory problems and contexts, the novel works like a Colombian soap opera, where parallel plots and intentions between characters spark up confusion if one is not a constant viewer.

I can’t help to wonder the purpose of these absurdities as I read the novel, but I assume I am too early on to make any reasonable conclusions. Absurdity, apart from its required inclusion in satire, can fulfill many roles in a novel, including grabbing the reader’s attention. When reading absurd plotlines, like when listening to absurd jokes, one must be completely focused to “get it.” To set an example, when we read “small office buildings and factories whose addresses were in the 70 and then 80,000’s (15),” it is not really important to understand the number as to produce a perfect mental image in mathematical concepts, but rather to catch meanings behind absurd events. If I were to tell you my address contained a number in the seventy thousands, would you take me seriously? Of course not! You would definitely accept it as a joke, or in an absurd case, take me as an ignorant. That is exactly why absurdity in text requires a different reading, for it is far from literal. Be expecting the joke, even if it seems like it is all a big joke: maybe that’s part of the message.

When reading science one can trust the text to come across as it is worded exactly, and that is fine. When reading history you may check on the author, and further information given you shall take as true for its literal reproduction. The previous are fine in their context, but this novel is definitely far apart from science or history, even if they appear as themes of the absurdity. It will all come down to mood. The success in reading and comprehending the satire in the pages to come depends on my disposition and correct mood when reading: hunt down the messages and untie the absurdity, but don’t disregard it.

Not So Natural Selection

In the last chapter, more than a summary and a conclusion of the points mentioned, Dawkins provides more new information to tie to whole concept together. But this last piece of information, as the long expected vacation after months of hard study, comes in just in the right time. The concept of phenotypes helped, at least much in my specific situation, to connect the whole message to our social characteristics in order to analyze the: “if so, then what?” Prior to the mentioned I had found the theories posed clever, but not of much help beyond the scope of intellectual understanding. After the concept, I started to comprehend how this information could make me a better individual, but beyond that, a better neighbor, a better member of a society, which, in my opinion, is the ultimate purpose of the education I am receiving.

Dawkins explains phenotype as “the bodily manifestation of a gene, the effect that a gene, in comparison with its alleles, has on the body via development. The phenotypic effect of some particular gene might be, say, green eye color (235).” The scientific aspect focused is very thrilling, but I’d rather discuss its application in a social interpretation. It is often that people regard themselves as the center of existence, and in this I must, empty of pride, include myself. When this mentality takes hold we act on our behalf as selfish individuals in order to obtain personal goals, but we forget the effects our behavior may have on those around us. When confronted, we defend ourselves with banal excuses such as stories where other people have done that to us in the past, or how it wasn’t your intention. It is almost like the Prisoner’s Dilemma, where we live our lives by the strict rules of an unforgiving strategy, which has a great long term memory.

Enough criticism of the social aspect present in society, for even though I’m not trying to ignore them, that is not what we intend to understand. As mentioned, what I want to share is how after understanding these principles and theories, I have come up with ways to implement them in a positive way. For our terms we will interchange the gene with the thought and intention, taking biology over to psychology. Every gene has certain phenotypes, and many times the phenotype has an area of effect beyond the direct body, affecting vehicles around. In such a way, every emotion and intention has certain effects triggered both within ourselves and, according to our level of self-control, on those around us. In such way we must develop a thought-selection system in ourselves, and learn to master it.

Whenever an emotion begins to take control, experience it, understand it, but maintain yourself from expressing (reproducing) it until you have its effects (phenotype) completely analyzed. It is a long process of inner training, in which you evolve in your understanding and mastery of your surroundings starting from within. I can’t finish of a better way to enclose my reading of the text than that with which Dawkins began his novel: “Let us teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs (3).”