An Immortal Talent

As I read this chapter one of the only things I could think about was immortality. A few weeks ago I decided to write a blog about this very same topic: Human Race: Outgrown. In this blog I mentioned how a person can become immortal if his ideas are immortal. The concept states, that if you leave something for the rest of the world you will be remembered. Chapter 4 specifically mentions how our society has “only one man per invention“ (70). In a way this can be considered selfish. If more people are able to take credit for certain things more people will be remembered. Nobody remembers the man who made the TV a smaller machine, but everyone remembers who made the TV. At this point, I was very happy since a topic I had mentioned before came up. The next few pages then mention immortality. Pynchon had connected the ideas in the same way I had. Maybe it is very common, but I still felt inspired. To my surprise, I had come to a conclusion too fast. The connection is made but the conclusion is totally different.

The most important realization I came upon was about myself. I had thought that I was on the right track and that most people agreed with what I had said. I was wrong. Oedipa continues to make the reader laugh through a smart type of satire. Some might read satire to entertain themselves, and others too learn. Pynchon was able to do both. At the beginning of the book I thought that we were reading it to learn about satire. I now know that it approaches some very deep topics. The reader is given a great opportunity and a choice when reading The Crying Of Lot 49.