Starting in Chapter 5, Oedipa sees the Tristero/WASTE postal system at work. When she follows the WASTE mail collector around, he leads her back to John Nefastis. This eventually leads nowhere, and John Nefastis is not mentioned again.
In Chapter 6, Pynchon makes his first attempts to reveal some answers to the reader. Oedipa finally learns all about Tristero’s history, and generally how Tristero and Thurn and Taxis came to be. This however, offers no explanation to the question that originally piqued Oedipa’s interest, which is “why did Driblette refer to Tristero in the production she saw of The Courier’s Tragedy?” Well, Driblette immediately dies, closing the door on ever knowing the answer of including Tristero in the production. Ghengis Cohen, Oedipa’s hired stamp expert, contacts Oedipa to tell her that he has found WASTE printed in the corner of a stamp recieved from Zap’s Used Bookstore, the same place Oedipa first purchased her copy of The Courier’s Tradgedy. She goes on to find that Zap’s, and the Tank Theatre where Oedipa first saw Driblette perform, are all owned by the Pierce Inverarity Estate, which is beginning to serve as the common denominator to all things Tristero.
Finally, Oedipa is certain she will get answers when they do the crying of lot 49. However, Pynchon decides to end the novel there, leaving Oedipa and the reader with many unanswered questions.
Just looking at Oedipa’s quest to uncover clues and solve the mystery of the Tristero would really negate the assemblage of other, often seemingly unrelated narratives. The Crying of Lot 49 is written as an anti-detective novel, meaning what actually happened, the actual detective work that Oedipa did, eventually comes to no avail because it is not what the book is about. Pynchon purposefully let his story end without really finishing for a number of reasons. First, because this is not a detective novel, but rather a satire about different fragments of American cultural and how they piece together, Pynchon ended the novel at a more than appropriate time because he had finished discussing every aspect he wanted to cover. Second, Pynchon has Oedipa conclude that there can only be four, equally viable, symmetrical options, resulting from what we discussed in class to be reductive, binary logic. Deciding that there could only be four solutions to her dilema effectively “filtered” out a lot of information that either could or could not be important. Pynchon may have ended the book at the crying because Oedipa was not recognizing and reacting any longer to her changing situation (ie Driblette dying, Oedipa leaving Mucho) and would never be able to finish her mystery. Similarly, Pynchon can’t really put a finished period on his book because it’s written about a subject (fragmented American culture and integration) that is constantly changing, and what’s really definitive about that?
I feel like Pynchon’s inclusion of LSD (drugs), Oedipa’s growing confusion and paranoia, and the uber-complicated mystery she is trying to solve all resonate together, throughout the novel The Crying of Lot 49. We talked in class about resonance being a relationship between two narratives, and how they interact. Our class discussion prompted talking about how music notes work together to create pitches that are pleasing to listen to. I think each of these notes, when “played” together, make the novel what it is. First, Pynchon uses LSD (among other references like the Paranoids) as a tool to keep the narrative grounded in the 1960′s culture. Second, Oedipa is experiencing diminished physical and mental capabilities, increased confusion and paranoia as her search for the Tristero continues. What’s making her so confused; taking the drugs? The mystery Oedipa is trying to solve; all the different people she is forced to contact and deal with during her mission, reinforce the eclecticism of west coast American life during this time period. Seperately, each of these disparate elements could mean, or take on a number of different meanings. When heard “resonating” together however, we begin to understand why Pynchon included them and they make sense in the greater context of the novel.
Pynchon makes it abundantly clear that binary, very cause and effect, logic can’t be used by Oedipa to reach her desired solution. One of the key themes in the novel is that of entropy, or the measure of random, non-cause and effect related events that shaped the novel. By allowing each of the characters and narratives “resonate” as an assemblage, rather than being pigeon-holed into a specific role allowed the novel to come alive for the reader.
