Communication Breakdown-Zeppelin and Pynchon

"Communication breakdown, its always the same, I'm having a nervous breakdown, Drive me insane"

These are such wise words from Bonham, Jones, and Page, words that apply eerily well to Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. At its core, the novel is all about communication. Although it could be said that the most prevalent theme is Oedipa’s search for meaning, what goes hand in hand with her desire for meaning is the communication of that meaning. Oedipa perpetually and eagerly awaits the arrival of “the word”. During her “religious instant” while observing the “printed circuit” that is San Narciso, she is comforted by the “unexpected, astonishing clarity” she gains from the appearance of the place (14). She gets a “sense of concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate,” and feels as if “words were being spoken” (14). The connection between the greater Truth she seeks and communication is quite obvious here, and it continues on throughout the novel. Looking for signs on the walls of a woman’s latrine, she cannot explain why, but she feels “threatened by this absence of even the marginal try at communication” (53). Oedipa desires “the word,” or a sign, really any indication of communication, so badly that the absence of it is actually intimidating to her. She takes comfort in communication and fears the lack of it. This absence however, is inevitable, as is made clear by the Courier’s Tragedy. Oedipa and the reader are made aware of a “ritual reluctance” which will become characteristic not only of the play within the novel, but of the novel itself (55). Oedipa and the reader, I believe, are meant to take this as a warning from Pynchon. This “ritual reluctance” is a reluctance to communicate, it is stated that “certain things” “will not be spoken aloud,” that the Duke in the play and the novel itself “may not, enlighten us” (55). Then there is the Nefastis machine debacle, in which “Communication” is said to be “the key” (84). It represents yet another failed attempt at communication for Oedipa. Immediately after she it told how communication is key, she responds by saying “you’re not reaching me,” which, oddly enough, in keeping with the rock music theme of this passage, makes me think of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortable Numb” (85). The excessive intake of information from the machine makes communication impossible. Just as the excessive amount of information that Oedipa attempts to take in eventually makes communication impossible for herself. Her search for a “direct, epileptic Word” leads her to the deaf-mute congregation in a hotel lobby, which becomes her “anarchist miracle,” the very thing she is most fearful of, a complete loss of communication (107). “Like literary critics,” Oedipa is “utterly devoted” to the Word, and, in the long run, as she waits for a “winged brightness to announce its safe arrival,” she only finds “silence” (128). She is forced to come to terms with the fact that “she could not communicate” (134). And, as was mentioned in the Zeppelin song, Oedipa is left with only a nervous breakdown, and encroaching insanity.