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Postmodern Reality in The Crying of Lot 49

The difference between the modern and postmodern can be characterized by the shift
from an individual to a collective reality that was largely influenced by the development of mass
media during the twentieth century. First published when the world was still settling into this
new, shared existence, The Crying of Lot 49 exemplifies what this change meant in both its story
and in the structure of the text itself. The progression of the narrative and the narrative form are
both centered around a proliferation of information; Oedipa weaves her way through chaos
surrounding Tristero, an underground communication system, while Pynchons readers engage
with the text in a similar quest for meaning. While the written word, the means of
communication that is central to the novel on both levels, has not changed with the transition to
the postmodern era, society has -- and so has the way in which it understands and utilizes this
medium. The Crying of Lot 49 presents the idea that truth and reality in postmodernity are
socially constructed out of a balance between order and disorder and asks its protagonist and its
readers to create meaning out of chaos.
Oedipas quest for truth begins when she finds out that she has been named executor of
the estate of an ex-boyfriend, Pierce Inverarity, with assets numerous and tangled enough to
make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary (1). While she is confused and a bit
daunted by this responsibility, she does not seem to regard it as a burden; rather, it is an
opportunity for her to escape the routine -- the order -- that has come to characterize her life. In
trying to think of an explanation for Pierces choice, Oedipa shuffles back through a fat deckful
of days which seemed (wouldnt she be the first to admit it?) more or less identical, or all
pointing the same way subtly like a conjurers deck, any odd one readily clear to a trained eye
(2). Her dissatisfaction with this monotony becomes clear as she considers what she might gain

in straying from it: she recollects her experience with the Remedios Varo painting Bordando el
Manto Terrestre, an image of frail girlsprisoners in the top room of a circular tower,
embroidering a kind of tapestry which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking
hopelessly to fill the void: for all the other buildings and creatures, all the waves, ships and
forests of the earth were contained in this tapestry, and the tapestry was the world (11). Oedipa
interprets the artwork in a way that makes it reflective of her own situation as a captive maiden
trapped in an incidental tower by magic, anonymous and malignant, visited on her from outside
and for no reason at all (11). This connection is the first of many Oedipa makes in her search
for self-knowledge; the painting inspires her to take on an active role as her own conjurer, to
seize control of the magic that has determined her fate thus far.
As she travels to meet Metzger in San Narciso she consciously takes on this role, reading
into everything she sees: the ordered swirl of houses and streets remind her of the unexpected,
astonishing clarity of a transistor radios circuit card (14). Both patterns convey a hieroglyphic
sense of concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate. Thered seemed no limit to what the
printed circuit could have told her (if she had tried to find out); so in her first minute of San
Narciso, a revelation also trembled just past the threshold of her understanding (14). Oedipas
sensitization to everything from city plans to circuit cards leads to her discovery and exploration
of the Tristero system which, regardless of its relevance or even its existence, brings an end to
her perceived encapsulation in her tower (31). The progression of the story relies on Oedipas
methods of close observation, drawing connections and coming to conclusions as a result of
these observations and connections; however, the cliffhanger ending of the novel makes it clear
that her careful organization of the information she has gathered is actually irrelevant. The point
that the novel is driving towards is not, as it might seem, whether or not Tristero exists. It is that,

in an informationally entropic society, Oedipa is able to find so much proof of its existence. A
surplus of information gathered through various forms of communication enables Oedipa to
construct a collective reality that is meaningful to her, and it is only through a balance between
order and disorder that her ideas about truth can continue to exist.
Pynchons narrative form makes the text itself just as proliferative as Oedipas story. The
reader experiences a state of indeterminacy similar to the protagonists in the beginning of the
novel -- the scattered ironic puns and pop culture references make the message of the text
difficult to discern. Countless connections can be formed and meanings ascribed out of the
allusions and implications embedded in the authors language, which makes The Crying of Lot
49 a kind of variation on Oedipas incidental tower. It is restrictive in that certain assumptions
accompany the form of the novel, but these conventions are essentially the equivalent of
Oedipas anonymous and malignant [magic] visited on her from outside and for no reason at
all (12). Defiance of restrictions -- that is, order -- by Oedipa and the reader enable the fictional
character and the real person to do more with the information available to them.
Ironically, in the third chapter of this novel that is largely committed to the idea of selfawareness, Driblette basically denounces the written word. When Oedipa confronts him about
the reference to Tristero in The Couriers Tragedy, he answers her questions with one of his own:
Why is everybody so interested in texts? (61). Oedipa, by this point completely absorbed in
her own intricate Tristero narrative, takes this and Driblettes familiar smile as evidence of his
role in the reality she has constructed. She creates this link for two reasons: because she can, and
because she needs to in order to maintain the entropy that fuels her quest. Driblettes elaboration
when Oedipa persists does not provide her with any further relevant information, but the reader,
for whom the conventions of the form of the novel carry along with them certain inherent

assumptions, finds a clue towards his or her own search for meaning within the text in the
directors rant: You guys, youre like Puritans are about the Bible. So hung up with words,
words. You know where that play exists, not in that file cabinet, not in any paperback youre
looking for, butthe reality is in this head. Mine. (62). Driblette, a scholar who has dedicated
much of his life to studying Richard Wharfingers plays, is actually not particularly interested in
the playwrights intentions. Instead of assuming that meaning exists in The Couriers Tragedy
and spending his time trying to discover just what that meaning is and how it works, Driblette
takes on an active role and, like a magician with a deck of cards, conjures up a truth. You can
put together clues, develop a thesis, or several, about why characters reacted to the Trystero
possibility the way they didyou could waste your life that way and never touch the truth.
Wharfinger supplied words and a yarn. I gave them life (62-63). His perspective encourages
Oedipa to look even further outside her tower and asks the reader to do the same with the text.
Driblette is completely aware of the idea that reality is socially constructed and while
Oedipa has not yet grasped this concept she certainly utilizes it in choosing what to take out of
this interaction. She envisions herself as an agent of truth with a duty to bestow life on what
had persistedto bring the estate into pulsing stelliferous Meaning by taking on the role of
projector at the planetarium, as Driblette puts it (62, 64). The question that she continues to
ask herself throughout the remainder of the novel, Shall I project a world? also compels an
active readership in that the amount of information related in the last three chapters of the book
seems to increase exponentially, forcing the reader to make conscious decisions about what is
important for his or her deduction of meaning from the text. By the end of the novel, though,
this all seems irrelevant. Oedipas quest has finally culminated in the realization of the massive
number of possibilities that have existed and will continue to exist outside of San Narciso, which

has come to represent her tower:

Shed lost her bearingsSan Narciso at that moment lost (the loss pure, instant,
spherical, the sound of a stainless orchestral chime held among the stars and struck
lightly), gave up its residue of uniqueness for her; became a name again, was assumed
back into the American continuity of crust and mantle (147).
The pure, spherical loss of her bearings and therefore any sense of confinement shows that
Oedipa has recognized her intricately constructed reality as a projection of a world that is
meaningful to her. She has arrived at the conclusion that truth can continually be built upon, and
it is this deduction that provides the reader with a sense of closure at the end of the story
regardless of the remaining uncertainty about the existence of the Tristero system.

MODERNISM vs Postmod http://www.examiner.com/article/modernism-v-postmodernism-partone-the-crying-of-lot-49