A Tears-Based Epistemology in The Crying of Lot 49

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ต.ค. 2024

ความคิดเห็น • 48

  • @offthewallnovels1292
    @offthewallnovels1292  3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    I’m releasing a novel on August 15 called Lionel Lancet and the Right Vibe. It was undoubtedly inspired by The Crying of Lot 49.

  • @Surestick88
    @Surestick88 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    In a way you could look at The Crying of Lot 49 is a literary examination of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in which the act of observation changes that which is observed, or in this case changes the observer to the point the original act of observation is, perhaps, no longer relevant. I guess whether the observed or the observer is changed is really a question of your frame of reference.

  • @Snardbafulator
    @Snardbafulator ปีที่แล้ว +7

    Freudianism is satirized in the book (Dr. Hilarius). Oedipa as Oedipus is the mother of all red herrings we impose on the novel. Oh and speaking of names, we've got Stanley Kotecks (Kotex), Mike Fallopian and Emory Bortz (emery board, for filing nails). And Arnold Snarb, who is looking for a good time ;) And Manny DiPresso, ROTFL

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  ปีที่แล้ว +1

      It's astonishing how much significance he can pack in, I'm realizing that as I'm working on this next video essay about V.

    • @Snardbafulator
      @Snardbafulator ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@offthewallnovels1292 As you point out, Pynchon tries to get us to interrogate the ways we impose meaning, and he has an extraordinarily puerile sense of humor (which I love). Does "Genghis Cohen" have any significance beyond a monumentally bad pun? He said as much in a letter to the NYTimes.

    • @Snardbafulator
      @Snardbafulator หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@celam1244 Nahh, Lot 49 is not really a political allegory, despite the Peter Pinguid Society sending up the Birchers. Hilarius is definitely commenting on Freud's theory of repression which he comes to reject because revealing the monsters of the subconscious doesn't make them go away.

  • @ShadowWizard123
    @ShadowWizard123 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    I loved the parts about The Courier'sTragedy, and all the clues hidden inside of it. Absolutely enthralling.

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Yes! That was the most frustrating part to me at first, but in rereads I’ve learned to love it. My favorite is the scene at Fongosso Lagoons and Oedipa crying in front of the painting in Mexico.

  • @borisluzin2664
    @borisluzin2664 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Thank you for this great video! What I find hilarious about this book is that everyone who is trying to interpret it is put into Oedipa's position: you might be onto something, you might be wrong, or you might be completely insane. There is no better way to blow a punch at the heart of Meaning than to create a book which resists any interpretation. Another example - Philipp Dick's Ubik.

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@borisluzin2664 I love Ubik! Yes, Pynchon has a talent for baffling the reading while keeping them interested, it keeps me coming back. Thanks for watching!

  • @EveryoneWhoReadsitMustConverse
    @EveryoneWhoReadsitMustConverse 4 ปีที่แล้ว +16

    You have done a commendable job here! I love Pynchon and this is one of the best vids I have seen breaking down CoL49's meanings and themes. Just great, sir!

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Thanks so much! Pynchon is one of my favorite authors as well, so it was a joy to do.

  • @shewanella614
    @shewanella614 ปีที่แล้ว

    Great video, I was really struggling with this novel but your explanation helped me appreciate Pynchon's style more!

  • @zorrosharkland7170
    @zorrosharkland7170 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Excellent thoughts here. One thing I noticed when comparing how Pynchon ends his character’s arc is the tendency for very open-ended even nebulous endings. I’m reminded of Slothrop’s dissolution in GR- he never really wins (besides the gross out dinner scene) or figures shit out, just kind of dissolves. Gets credited for playing harmonica on an album, then never heard from again. Slothrop was trying to create a meaning and connect the actual real symbols that DID have an actual Them behind it (the Military-Industrial Complex, Jamf, his own father,&c.) so if we are to talk about Pynchonian paranoia we can clearly see how there was a tangible world behind Slothrop’s paranoia and the world he projected and meaning created was confirmed and it leads him to become different characters (rocketman) and then simply dissolve as a means of reaction or survival.
    Oedipa is different in that even with the preponderance of clues that do seem to point to some meaning or THEM (Trystero) she is never sure if she is chasing signal or noise. And her character is at least left trying to discover for certain (this time by trying to find the stamp collector at the crying/auction) whether the meaning exists- but I believe it will continue to lead her on a chase which is why Pynchon left it somewhat ambiguous. Perhaps the search and the collecting of clues is all we have and we will forever be looking for confirmation and meaning. As such it ends differently than Slothrop in GR, but I do believe that by comparing the two it might help us gain insight into a bit a what Pynchon was pointing at.
    Again- Great video!

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  8 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Great write up! It makes me want to read GR again, but I swore not to for another few years. If I don't set these boundaries, it will be the only book I read! Thanks for watching the video and for contributing your thoughts.

  • @Ray_D_Tutto
    @Ray_D_Tutto ปีที่แล้ว +1

    This was great thanks.

  • @eggandscorpion
    @eggandscorpion 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Great analysis. I would add, for what it's worth, that Oedipus was the first detective, which is certainly pertinent to the story. The fact that Oedipus discovers he himself is the criminal may or may not be pertinent, though it suggests a serpent that devours its own tail, which seems to me a very Pynchonian notion.

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I was not aware of Oedipus being the first detective, but that makes sense! I would have loved to see how he conceived the story, because that was probably a choice early in the process, making Oedipa’s journey a noir. He also loved detective novels. Thanks for watching and for the insight.

  • @camilabarros4425
    @camilabarros4425 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    I love this! Thank you so much for sharing your analysis. I just finished the novel today and there's so much going on in my mind! You gave me better words to describe what I thought about it and also enlighten new perceptions :)

  • @josephbacker507
    @josephbacker507 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I read this book at your suggestion...really like the way you explain things...

  • @thomasvieth6063
    @thomasvieth6063 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Three remarks: Iokaste is the female version of Oedipus in Greek mythology. Penelope is the famous weaver in the Odyssee. And finally, a great review

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Thanks! I’ll need to refresh my knowledge on this because it’s been a while. But thanks for watching!

  • @TheAngelofThrash
    @TheAngelofThrash 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    This is surreal, because I had the same reading order as you. I'm in mid 20's and read Gravity's Rainbow first, then went to this book and had the same "Dunno what this was about, but I'm all for it."

  • @johnhearn8292
    @johnhearn8292 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    SICK video, I like the clear Freudian analysis. Although I always thought of it more as a mythological/ontological reference than psychological. Oedipus do you know your feet? Oedipus your feet! Where are they? KNOW YOUR FEET OEDIPUS. boom he kills his dad and sleeps with his mom. The cycle is/was useless. The search for meaning deconstructs the original instruments/methods used to derive new meaning. You will find yourself wondering midnight streets, fucking around with polished lawyers, and rambling about post horns. But its probably good though

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  4 ปีที่แล้ว

      I think that's a good point. The post-modernist in me puts myth, ontology, psychology, and epistemology on a continuum, maybe erroneously so, because meaning is derived by somebody staring out of their face. It's interesting because Pynchon doesn't seem to conclude that Freud was right given the DR. Hilarius scene at the end, but Oedipa's name shows that maybe Freud can't be totally done away with, even if he was a modernist.

  • @MichaelWilliams-bx2ty
    @MichaelWilliams-bx2ty 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    quality birb content

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      😁I do post modern lit videos just to showcase the birbs.

  • @alexd.6229
    @alexd.6229 ปีที่แล้ว

    This is a very good video !

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  ปีที่แล้ว

      Thank you so much! If you don’t mind, share it with a friend who you think would enjoy it.

  • @birnamwoodfan
    @birnamwoodfan 3 ปีที่แล้ว

    You have such a chill budgie. I love how parrots are fascinated by human language.

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  3 ปีที่แล้ว

      He was cool, unfortunately he passed recently :( RIP Lawrence

    • @birnamwoodfan
      @birnamwoodfan 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@offthewallnovels1292 I’m so sorry to hear that. Birds are simply the best. I’m sure you two made lovely memories.

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@birnamwoodfan thank you. We did, we had a good 3 years together.

  • @newhorizonsforfifty2833
    @newhorizonsforfifty2833 ปีที่แล้ว

    I just figured out that this Inverarity character is a continuation of Dean Moriarty from the Kerouac novels. And if you think about it, also about despots/Cat In the Hat type like Trump and Putin in today's world.

  • @bryanbrown1601
    @bryanbrown1601 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Bird good - Adam Neely

  • @adversitycartoons4050
    @adversitycartoons4050 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    I like the parts of your review where you talk about the construction of meaning in our minds and the idea that the book explores the way we believe things, but I don’t quite see how any of it ties into her being oppressed. Don’t you think you are doing exactly what you refer to in the video about trying to put one specific interpretation on postmodern works, when you reduce Oedipa into some kind of political symbol?

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Great question. In short, no I don’t think my interpretation reduces her to a political symbol, but I think that this comes down to whether you believe postmodern deconstruction eats itself. I don’t think it does. But some people do.
      I think we can dismantle the dominant ways of interpretation without dismantling our own method of dismantling. The point of the book as I see it is to show a character who operates outside of traditional interpretation: she sees the world through tears. She isn’t Sherlock Holmes, the classic detective protagonist who gives a grand speech that logically connects all the dots through his intellect; she relies on “cunning” instinct and her own feminine magic, in addition to empathy and her ability to perceive pain. These are all essentially human traits, not symbolic traits or traits that typify her identity group in a mass political struggle; it’s her character traits as an individual. In fact, it’s that other see her as a symbol, a sexual opportunity, etc that causes her to suffer.
      I don’t think my interpretation is the only interpretation, I actually think all interpretations fall short, I’m just trying to offer a step stool to get at some of the ways to consider the book. I hope this helps, feel free to ask more if I misinterpreted your question.

  • @viniciusacmauro
    @viniciusacmauro หลายเดือนก่อน

    Great analysis. Still didn't enjoy reading it though...

  • @smilingface4222
    @smilingface4222 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    why is nobody addressing lawrence? I love him.

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      The serious literature is just a pretext to get Lawrence on camera. Unfortunately he died recently 😢

    • @linda-g7x6e4
      @linda-g7x6e4 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@offthewallnovels1292 sorry to hear that man

    • @offthewallnovels1292
      @offthewallnovels1292  2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@linda-g7x6e4 thanks. It was a while ago now. Unexpected at the time, but he’s flying around on another plane now.