Lot 49 - Chapter 1

The style of Thomas Pynchon's writing seems, from the very beginning, wandering so much that it's almost (but not quite) incoherent. I had to stop and reread sections very frequently, not because I wasn't paying enough attention or focusing but because it seemed like the speaker isn't focusing. Her speech rambles around and mixes past memories, metaphors, and descriptions constantly. It reminds me of the way Faulkner's stories were written, except much less deliberate.

The longest paragraph, the one that ends the first chapter, sticks out as one connected thought, though it's still very convoluted. If I could only pick out one part of it to draw insight from, though there are several, it would be the when Oedipa mentions her ego. It is really just a mention, as the bit of Freud's vocabulary is only tossed in to one of many lengthy sentences: "Such a captive maiden, having plenty of time to think, soon realizes that her tower, its height and architecture, are like her ego only incidental: that what really keeps here where she is is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited on her from outside and for no reason at all." She's talking about herself, as earlier she compared herself to Rapunzel and Pierce to her rescuer, though only the starting situation is like the fairy tale, since she describes Pierce as climbing stairs in the tower and her hair falling off like a wig, among other things. The tower is her sense of self, and what she thinks of as her ego (the tower) is actually an immovable prison. Oedipa's conflicts and personal issues are explained a bit with this analogy, as she's basically saying that the functions of her ego (decision making, controlling urges and balancing her life) aren't working properly. Freud would definitely be concerned if she was a patient of his and he read this passage.

The "magic, anonymous and malignant" she talks about is definitely her id, and she describes it much the way Freud talked about it. It's in opposition to her ego, hard to understand, and impossible for her to completely control. Earlier in her thoughts, she describes maidens in a tower "seeking hopelessly to fill the void," by creating a tapestry made up of all the objects and places in the world. Oedipa sees herself in this role, maybe as if everything she's done since she left Pierce (including marrying Mucho) is only an attempt to fill that void. Though she doesn't directly admit it to herself, she feels very alone and incomplete. Maybe her new task with managing Pierre's possessions is going to bring her some resolution.