Tuesday, May 1, 2012
The Crying of Lot 49 Follow-Up: Part I
Okay, so I guess this book is kind of cool. And by "kind of cool," I mean cool because when we discuss it and actually make some sense of this massive literary entanglement, it really does have some awesome themes to it. Problem is, when I'm reading the actual book, I kind of want to rip my hair out. Luckily I'm not too concerned with the dozens of random references and out-of-nowhere ramblings per paragraph, so as I read, I'm just letting whatever passes over my head stay there. The idea of this book about books is intriguing, and I like that Pynchon uses a detective plot and maybe crazy conspiracy theory to exemplify how literary critics tear apart literature, looking for meaning behind every little detail. I mean, isn't that what we've been doing all semester long? There never is a concrete answer, and we will probably never know for sure what the author meant by a blue scarf or metaphorical backpack, but here we are, pulling the pieces one by one to uncover some sort of hidden epiphany? It's interesting to me that he was so annoyed by this that he wrote a whole book on it. I'm excited to find out what the second half of the book all really means, because I'm certain I won't catch on to much of it myself.
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"I mean, isn't that what we've been doing all semester long? There never is a concrete answer, and we will probably never know for sure what the author meant by a blue scarf or metaphorical backpack, but here we are, pulling the pieces one by one to uncover some sort of hidden epiphany?"
ReplyDeletePerhaps. But what if, like Driblette's play, there is no inherent meaning in the text, in the scarf, in the metaphorical backpack. What if, without us, each is devoid of meaning?
Does that mean (this is about to get convoluted) they are without meaning? Or does that perhaps point to a different way of thinking about these things ... one in which it is the reader who performs the text that gives it its meaning(s)?