Artistic Synesthesiacs

Synesthesia: “(1) The production of a sense impression relating to one sense of part of the body by stimulation of another sense of part of the body. (2) The poetic description of a sense impression in terms of another sense, as in “a loud perfume” or “an icy voice”.” (Oxford English Dictionary). Garry Lutz’s essay, The Sentence Is A Lonely Place, describes, among other things, the characteristic of literature of attributing words and letters that have a secondary attribute, to a context in which the situation’s description is enhanced through such use of words. Many of these examples include those attributed to music and nature. Nature, in particular, is stressed: In Shakespeare’s plays, like Romeo And Juliet, the famous sonnet May I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day… (Sonnet XVIII) has tons of nature attributions.

A Nag, Anagnorisis.

Anagnorisis is immediately followed by the consideration of possibilities, somewhat like the “zeroes and ones” (150) of a computer’s binary code. Then the moment of shock falls upon the unfortunate one, followed by a brief period of denial, and then panic. The Panic is responsible for the need to corroborate the possibilities and find the truth, and then it helps the person deal with the damage as immediately as possible. Depending on the degree of revelation, and the adrenaline that the ensuing panic stage produces, we see the person’s sweat turn cold.

In Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, he mocks anagnorises by actually demonstrating one. He satirizes his character, Oedipa Maas’s anagnorisis by describing every possibility for the reasons of her past experiences and their causes. Normally, when an author writes a revelation, he leaves it to the reader to be surprised and figure everything out for him/herself. It’s more fun that way. Pynchon, however, forces the surprise upon us, exaggerating what he believes other authors do without meaning to. Some authors’ revelations, he believes, are either unwitty or waste the situation at hand, exiled by their makers to the hells of bad literature.

Is Pica Absurd?

A crazy psychiatrist, a philosophical beggar, "an aging night-watchman, nibbling at a bar of Ivory Soap, who had trained his virtuoso stomach to accept also lotions, air-fresheners, fabrics, tobaccoes and waxes in a hopeless attempt to assimilate it all, all the promise, productivity, betrayal, ulcers, before it was too late" (100), "a Negro woman with an intricately-marbeled scar along the baby-fat of one cheek who kept going through rituals of miscarriage each for a different reason, deliberately as others might the ritual of birth, dedicated not to continuity but to some kind of interregnum..." (100) are all characters which Pynchon uses to convey satire. The Mr. Hilarius' fit is ironical, for if anyone is expected to be sane, its those helping others achieve it. The beggar's case of teaching Oedipa a lesson of life (that we should try to help without concern for the outcome) is also ironical; for who would expect philosophical insight from a beggar? The night-watchman's pica case is a satirical example of not so absurd absurdity. The Negro woman's habit of carrying miscarriages out is an example of targeting. She satirizes the habit of abortion and the "mistake" of pregnancy.

So why the overloaded satire in one chapter? Maybe Pynchon is laughing at satire itself. He may be targeting undiscreet and mediocre satire with his own examples of what not to do. This would defenitely coincide with Pynchon's attitude towards other common things in other parts of the book, like when he laughs at the readers themselves for reading such a book (this mystery that Pynchon's Nancy Drew is trying to unveil is somewhat stupid).

Sweatshops, In General

The novel has now provided us with many more questions: Why was anybody’s aim “to mute the Thurn and Taxis post horn” (78)? First off, what was the Thurn and Taxis, and what does it mean “post horn”? What role does the color black have in the whole issue? Is it possible that black represents the secrecy and anonymity of the organization? The fraudulent postage stamps even contain a satirical “transposition-U.S. Potsage, of all things.” (78), which targets the possibility of pot trafficking throughout the US, or, even more probable, the fact that the US has always been a big drug-consumer of the world.

Enough with this satire, though. It is possible that the organization responsible for “muting” the Thurn and Taxis did so by unconventional means, and remains doing so, which is why so many people are still reluctant to divulge any information. Modern technology, made by “teams” of inventors, may be playing an important role in this silencing of the mysterious Thurn and Taxis. It is even possible that Yoyodine is participating, as many corporation giants participate in controversial issues such as sweatshops.

Postal Fraud

It is safe to say that a vast majority of my class’s blogs on this book, The Crying of Lot 49, will analyze the saturated satire within the novel. For this reason, I wish not to continue to burn the topic to over-analysis. No. This blog will be about something else: A play within a play/novel.

In chapter 3, most words describe a play that entices Oedipa’s curiosity through its possible connection with the hieroglyph she saw in the bathroom of that bar. In The Scope, her mystery-solving journey began with that WASTE symbol. She also had to solve the connection between the name ‘Trystero’, reluctantly mentioned in The Courier’s Tragedy directed by one Randolph Driblette, the inked bones, and the assassins, with the death of merchandized bones of not-fighting-any-more soldiers of WWII. Enough of that…

Why does everyone Oedipa inquire about the W.A.S.T.E. case close up, keeping more to themselves, as if the whole issue were something to fear? The person who fears the unknown is the philatelist Genhis Cohen, while people who know about the 800-year old conspiracy include director Driblette, who chooses to be courageously mysterious, the old man Mr Thoth who’s old age has erased any nature of fear, and the Yoyodine worker Stanley Koteks, who revealed to much. The “800-year old tradition of postal fraud” (79) can be compared to modern conspiracies that are to atrocious and powerful to even mention. Recently, I saw the last few episodes of the sci-fi series Heroes, where a group of people also attempt to solve a mystery of the past, only to be rejected by the locals by fear. Corral Springs was a place where inhumane treatment of people with abilities took place one generation ago. All those with abilities were brutally exterminated. Conspiracies often leave those implicated or those who witnessed in a traumatic state of denial.

Our Founding Fathers

The founding fathers: all those who helped establish the new Constitution of the United States in 1787. Pierce, a character from Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, “owned a large block of the shares [of the Galactronics Division of Yoyodyne Inc.], [and] had been somehow involved in negotiating an understanding with the country tax assessor to lure Yoyodine here [to San Narcisco] in the first place” (15). According to Pierce “it was part, he explained, of being a founding father”(15). Is Pynchon saying that corruption is a requirement for being a founding father? Is he somehow insinuating that America’s founding fathers were themselves corrupt?

We know through documented history that the Constitutional Convention of 1787 contained aristocratic participants who’s main purpose for redefining the laws of the time was purely economical. With this background, we know that Pynchon’s satirical target for this historical reference are the multinational giants which are controlled by wealthy minorities who exploit the poor majority. An epitome of this is McDonalds, which advertises super-low prices which are “beneficial” to the public, while lowering the health standards of the production and preparation of the food. The products are so mass produced that the care for each unit has been lost to the temptations of low-cost products.

The Life That Is Prison; The Prison That Is Life

It is a prison. Life, if not taken advantage of, becomes a jail cell in which we enslave ourselves. Victimizing our lives and choices is our way of not living life and giving an excuse for it. The guilt of knowing that one’s life has been utterly wasted to the oblivion of the past is beguiling. Is it easier to simply go with the flow? How shall we know if we don’t try it? It is also possible that we become hooked on indifference and inaction. If all our lives share the same destiny, death, what is the point in fighting for individuality?

Like Oedipa, we could “carry the sadness of the moment with her that way forever, see the world refracted through those tears…” (11), which is when we ponder and dissect our guilt into something we long to liberate from. There is a certain comfort in knowing that all one’s experiences have not been one’s doing, and thus, all disappointments and failures are not our fault. That’s truly heartening, for there is truly nothing to be gained from the past, right?

A Helpful Parasite

Macbeth and his wife’s relationship can be compared to that of the theoretical host-parasite relationship that Richard Dawkins describes in the final chapter of The Selfish Gene. He supports the logic that “our own genes cooperate with one another, not because they are our own, but because they share the same outlet-sperm or egg- into the future” (245). Since both Macbeth and his lady have the same objectives of being powerful so that their genes may be powerful, they cooperate to achieve that common goal.

Another aspect of Macbeth’s relationship with his wife, which can be applied to one of Dawkins’ arguments is that of the desire to give one’s genes a prosperous destiny. They must leave something beneficial behind. The fact that Lady Macbeth fails to produce an heir has both spouses worried. “It must have an impartial exit channel into the future, for all the genes inside it” (256). Their worries are same as those of every other organism on the planet: How to propagate one’s genes to achieve eternal legacy. So now what? Some people have failed to leave something behind and they are truly the ones who perish, especially if, as in Macbeth’s case, they didn’t live happily.

I Am Punctual. My Blog Post Is Not.

Does becoming a traitor by murdering the king and taking his place make Macbeth a bad person? According to Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, it does. If “a strategy’s niceness is recognized by its behavior, not by its motives (for it has none) nor by the personality of its author (who has faded into the background…), [and if] …a computer program can behave in a strategic manner, without being aware of its strategy or, indeed, of anything at all” (228), we can infer that Macbeth’s actions are not “evil” at all, but rather “strategic” and genetically selfish. Through the logic that Dawkins proposes, Macbeth is not the guilty party (for he is simply the computer program designed by a computer programmer, Lady Macbeth, who isn’t guilty either). The guilt lies in the strategy of achieving “success”.

The culprit in Macbeth, as The Selfish Gene proposes in Chapter 12, is Lady Macbeth’s strategy of achieving the crown by deceptive of “defective (231)” means. The mentality of receiving all and giving none is purely selfish. While Dawkins advocates that this selfishness lies in the strategy, I believe it is born, in Macbeth’s case, with the author, Lady Macbeth. Even if her motives are predictably selfish, for they are inscribed and programmed on her genes, she chooses to accept them. She, as all humans, has the luxury of choice. She does not appreciate it. Her instincts overpower her. This makes her program the malleable Macbeth into her survival machine.

So, is Macbeth truly guilty for his actions? According to our understanding of choice, he is. Macbeth had the choice, unlike “programmed strategies” to override his directive.