The Crying of Lot 49, Chapter 1

So, this is at least the third time I've read The Crying of Lot 49, and it strikes me as uniquely funny. Really, I mean that. I love that in the opening paragraph Oedipa "tried to feel as drunk as possible" (10). I love the rhythm of "the layering of a lasagna, garlicking of a bread, tearing up of romaine leaves" for something so apparently mundane. I love the characters' names, Mucho Maas, especially. Can anyone tell me, is technology the enemy here? Mucho sees people trading in cars that are "metal extensions of themselves" (13). Have we become so enmeshed in technology that it is who we are in Oedipa's world?

One thing that strikes me the most about this opening chapter is the image of Oedipa in a tower, kept there by "magic." This, of course, is an image borrowed from fairy tale. Is the entire novel a fairy tale? Certainly, the repetitions and seeming coincidences are reminiscent of the fairy tale form.

Oedipa feels that "what really keeps here where she is is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited on her from outside and for no reason at all" (21). This "magic" then is not helpful or benevolent. Yet by the end of the novel, when Oedipa is, I assume, released from this tower, is she any better off? Arguably, being kept ignorant, being Rapunzel locked in a tower is easier than confronting the truth of the world in which we live.

Just random ramblings on Pynchon's work. I'm hoping that my friends who know more about all this might feel inclined to enlighten me. Or maybe I should accept that, as for Oedipa, full enlightenment isn't possible.