For some reason, the scene where Mucho interviews Oedipa after she has tried to talk Doctor Hilarius down is very memorable and interesting for me. It’s interesting because of the complex way that it deals with distortion and alteration as brought about by the process of simulation and reproduction. What really interests me is the idea that Mucho is aware of the types of alteration that will occur and even though he asks Oedipa to “just be [her]self” he calls her Edna on the air because of the “distortion on these rigs, and then when they put it on the tape” (113-114). First, this is interesting to me because it engages with the problems inherent in Baudrillard’s claim that the world has become basically hyperreal. When I was first introduced to the idea of the hyperreal my knee-jerk reaction was “so what?” That is, I couldn’t understand what the big deal was with the replacement of one reality with a simulation of that reality that is functionally indistinguishable, except for the fact that this hyperreality was ostensibly less “authentic.” So this section of the novel brings to light the problem of the hyperreal- that the simulation invariably alters whatever it claims to imitate.
Next, and more interestingly to me, is the idea that Mucho attempts to preempt this alteration in his description of his wife over the airwaves. What occurs is that Mucho is actualizing what he expects will ultimately be the hyperreal within the real. That is to say, instead of dealing with the real (in this case Oedipa’s actual name) he changes it in its initial utterance (the real) into the alteration that would occur through the process of media. This is a perfect dramatization of the way that that the hyperreal in Baudrillard’s conception comes in to existence because, once it’s broadcast in its “original” form (i.e. when Mucho’s utterance of “Edna” has been altered back to “Oedipa” by the radio) it is several steps removed from the actual original content of Oedipa’s name and her “being herself.”
This type of removal from “original” or “actual” content or acts happens constantly over the length of the novel. For instance, I’m reminded of the origin story for the Peter Pinguid Society where there are so many things that “might” have happened and that “possibly” occurred; they can’t be any more specific because no witnesses remain. Even more, although it is described as the first conflict between Russia and America, it becomes clear that nothing actually happened, “attack, retaliation, both projectiles deep sixed forever and the Pacific rolls on” (36). So, that the whole Peter Pinguid Society is based on a basically unverifiable historical story shows that it is, in a way, a hyperreal entity.
I think that you bring up an excellent scene for discussing Pynchon’s toying with reality and artificial constructions of reality. This is a prevalent topic throughout the novel, but this moment seems to twist that duality in a different fashion than in other parts. However, I focused more on the dialogue where Mucho Maas describes the revelations he has made as a result of taking LSD. He claims that “Everybody who says the same words is the same person if the spectra are the same only the happen differently in time, you dig (142, near end of Ch. 5)?” Beyond this, he continues to claim essentially that everyone is the same, they are only separated by time and space, and that “You’re an antenna, sending your pattern out across a million lives a night, and they’re your lives too (144).” I think this puts an interesting spin on the artificial/authentic duality by implying that the separation between artificial and authentic may not be as great as it sometimes appears. Mucho’s boss furthermore mentions that Mucho has become a multiplicity of people condensed into one. All of this seems to push the real/hyperreal debate into a different direction. It could show that the “real” which we think of as compared to the “hyperreal” is a construct in itself, and that everything is ultimately interwoven together. This fundamentally challenges the authentic/artificial duality by stating that there really is no authentic individual, only one piece of a diverse set. The fact that this is a drug-induced revelation only heightens the uncertainty and ambiguity with which the reader is supposed to receive these remarks, thus fitting it nicely within the rest of the story. Oedipa herself might be on some sort of drugs, but she does not take well to Mucho’s observations, and thinks that “she wanted to hit him in the mouth (144).” While Oedipa is trapped in this world in which authenticity is hard to discern, Mucho adds one more layer of doubt to her struggle. Her violent reaction to this doubt might indicate that she dearly wants to cling to her former construction of reality. Or maybe she is simply angry at losing her knight of deliverance.
ReplyDeleteI think it's great that both of you extend Baudrillard's concept of simulacra and simulation, and that moreover, you present not just how it might apply to Pynchon, but also how Pynchon's text complicates and extends Baudrillard's claims.
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