Main Points

Throughout the class on Thursday there were a number of questions which the class attempted to answer during our discussion.  First, how does Pynchon's book The Crying of Lot 49 relate to media theory?  More specifically, what forms of media pervade the book and what do they imply about the relationship between media and culture?  How does the author use media to make his point(s) throughout the novel?

We decided that media is pervasive throughout the narrative as well as Pynchon's book itself.  A variety of media play essential roles both within the story's dominant plotline and outside of it, the result of which is a novel that demonstrates just how big of an influence communication media have on the lives of its characters as well as its readers.  In the words of Marshall McLuhan, "the medium is the message" on a number of levels.

Pynchon's vast knowledge of pop culture aids him in depicting a 1960's reality effectively.  At a basic level his use of media is simply historically and culturally accurate, since from the 1960's forward media have played an inextricable role in the American life. 

A variety of media, such as television, radio, mail, and Maxwell's Demon, were noticable throughout the book.  However, it is the following comments on this media that the class felt had the most significant impact on the story:

1.  The mail system is disconnected and incomplete.  It requires insider knowledge and is a rebellion to conventional mail.

2. The mail system itself doesn't communicate very much of anything.  Rather the fact that it exists is of more importance.

3.  Is the medium is the message?  What does the mail system represent?  Or, is it what is being mailed that is important?  Perhaps Oedipa is getting lost in a world of illusion, an intriguing appearance with no substance. 

4. Media is an extension of oneself.  How does Pynchon use media symbolically?  (For example, the cars on the lot represent their owners).

5.  Medium as God.

Passage

Pynchon, 72

"She had caught sight of the historical marker only because she'd gone back, deliberately, to, Lake Inverarity one day, owing to this, what you might have to call, growing obsession, with 'bringing something of herself"- even if that something was just her presence- to the scatter of business interests that had survived Inverarity.  She would give them order, she would create constellations; next day she drove out to Vesperhaven House, a home for senior citizens that Inverarity had put up around the time Yoyodyne came to San Narciso."

This passage is important in understanding how consumed Oedipa has become with her search for more information about the different mail systems and her role as executor of Inverarity's will.  In class, we discussed the different roles the will itself takes on.  Originally, there is just Inverarity's written will.  Then, as Oedipa becomes transfixed with finding different clues, there is Oedipa's will to find more information and "bring something of herself".  This passage is an example of Oedipa taking it upon herself to find out more information.  While the will did tell her to go see Cohen, it never tells her to go to the Vesperhaven House.  

Another way the concept of a will plays a role in this novel is through the information the reader has that Oedipa is not aware of.  

Pynchon, 31

"Things then did not delay in turning curious.  If one object behind her discovery of what she was to label the Tristero System or often only the Tristero (as if it might be something's secret title) were to bring an end her encapsulation in her tower, then that night's infidelity with Metzger would logically be the starting point for it; logically.  That's what would come to haunt her most, perhaps: the way it fitted, logically, together.  As if (as she'd guessed that first minute in San Narciso) there were revelation in progress all around her."

In this passage we, as readers, are given information about the Tristero System that Oedipa, at that time, is unaware of.  Pynchon gives us clues throughout the novel that Oedipa does not have.  However, as readers, we are unable to impose our will on the text to help Oedipa in her quest for more information about Tristero.  

Terms

Indeterminacy: The state of being not definitely or precisely determined or fixed, or of having an infinite number of solutions.

Links

Media in the 1960s: A look at what was going on with media in the 1960s to see how accurately The Crying of Lot 49 used media.

Indeterminacy:This is a link to a case study done by the University of Texas School of Law.  The beginning of the study briefly discusses indeterminacy and communication as it was portrayed in Crying of Lot 49 and as it applies to the law.

The Crying of Lot 49 wiki: At PynchonWiki.com. Feel free to start contributing!