I started listening to Pynchon’s new novel and I was overwhelmed with turn of the century gangster slang so I decided to give this book a shot as my first Pynchon: I did not really understand this “Modern Classic” novel. Or maybe I understood enough to think really hard about this book and read it twice looking for meaning.

Lets start with the prose. For one thing, Pynchon loves his crazy, pun-encrusted names and he loves long sentences and he loves obscure references and/or vocabulary. So this is not a book for, apparently, people whose attention wanders because this prose is difficult, for example the following single sentence:

Through the rest of the afternoon, through her trip to the market in downtown Kinneret-Among-The-Pines to buy ricotta and listen to the Muzak (today she came through the bead-curtained entrance around bar 4 of the Fort Wayne Settecento Ensemble’s variorum recording of the Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto, Boyd Beaver, soloist); then through the sunned gathering of her marjoram and sweet basil from the herb garden, reading of book reviews in the latest Scientific American, into the layering of a lasagna, garlicking of a bread, tearing up of romaine leaves, eventually, oven on, into the mixing of the twilight’s whiskey sours against the arrival of her husband, Wendell (“Mucho”) Maas from work, she wondered, wondered, shuffling back through a fat deckful of days which seemed (wouldn’t she be first to admit it?) more or less identical, or all pointing the same way subtly like a conjurer’s deck, any odd one readily clear to a trained eye.

At a very high level this book is about a woman who becomes the executor of a millionaire's will and is the process of these probate-related tasks she discovers a seemingly secret mail/courier service but she is not sure ever in the novel if she isn't being gas-lighted.

Before attempting this book it would be helpful to know a few things. First, the millionaire Pierce Inverarity is modelling closely on Howard Hughes. “Pierce” is possibly a pun on the drill bit (for oil) invented by Howard Hughes Senior which started his fortune.

Oedipa Maas is revealed to be PI’s last mistress and is therefore (I assume) super-model-beautiful, she is also a graduate of UC Berkeley so (I assume) fairly bright. And of course she will go to see what’s in the will down in “San Narcisso”; which is possibly modeled on Canoga Park where there was a big Rocketdyne (Yoyodyne) factory.

Some real things in the book:

• Thurn and Taxis postal system
• Remedios Varo
• Maxwell’s Demon
• Delirium Tremens DTs for short
• Delta Time also DT

What is the point of our main character? To me she is like many 60’s/70’s female characters who are sexual creatures for men (Oedipa is propositioned by literally every heterosexual man in the book) and yet at the same time they use sexual power to achieve their own goals, in Oedipa’s case, trying to research and pin down the tristero while avoiding the wrong men.

And, then again, Pynchon names his main character Oedipa which, since I can’t see any particularly incestuous themes in the novel, means that this symbolic naming is just a red herring. And I would say that this, Pynchon just riffing and bullshitting in order to be provocative, is a major “theme” of the novel.

But like I said, I still really don’t understand the novel, I read this book for bragging rights and just for credibility, what follows is my attempt at a summary.

Chapter 1

It is summer and Oedipa Maas gets letter saying that she is the executor of Pierce Inverarity’s will. PI died in the spring but they only found the will now. She reminisces about getting a call in the morning from PI a year ago (when he apparently told her) he also, jokingly threatens OM’s husband Mucho. Mucho is a DJ but was a used car salesman. He seduces women with his voice. OM tell’s him about the letter and he points her at their lawyer. She gets an early AM phone call from her psychiatrist (Dr Hilarity) that night where he pitches her (again) to take hallucinogens. The next day she see’s the lawyer who gives her no advice (but hits on her).

Chapter 2

OM drives down to SN to checkout PI’s holdings and the Yoyodyne company. The first night in SN, she is seduced and fucks Metzger (aka Baby Igor BI), another attorney also working on PI’s will. (The seduction occurs while OM and BI watch a WWII movie about a submarine battle in an Italian lake. There are many bodies left in the lake.) She also meets Miles the manager of the hotel and member of “the Paranoids”, an aspiring faux beatles musical group (Miles also hits on her). Also, the Paranoids serenade the couple during sex until their electric instruments short out the power.

Chapter 3A

Then a few days later she receives a letter from her husband (who, side note, sleeps with underage girls and OM knows, also she assumes MM knows that she’s sleeping w/ BI or somebody) with a misprint stamp. “REPORT All Obscene Mail To Your Potsmaster”. They go to an oscilloscope themed bar with Yoyodyne engineers where they meet Mike Fallopian (MF), who tells them the crazy civil war origin story of the Peter Pinguid Society (PPS). The whole bar (all/most in PPS) is part of a conspiracy (“the Tristero”) to send mail “illegally” by avoiding the US Mail. She discovers a message in the bathroom which is also related to the illegal mails and has a symbol of “mail horn”. Some days later (waiting for mail from PI’s other business units) they go to Lake Inverarity and the Paranoids steal a boat. They meet “Manny Di Presso” (MD), a buddy of MF who is suing the PI estate on behalf of mafioso Tony Jaguar who should be paid for the “white charcoal” in the Beaconsfield cigarettes (The white charcoal (soldier’s bones) came from the lake in Italy and were imported to the US by the Mafia). The boat drops them on an island in the lake but then MD flees TJ in the boat so the rest of the crew are stranded there. Someone says that this story about bones sounds like the plot of a Jacobean revenge play, “The Courier’s Tragedy.” (WTF?) So the next day OM & BI go to see the play written by Richard Warfinger (RW) and performed by the “Tank Players”.

Chapter 3B (The Courier’s Tragedy)

Duke of Faggio murdered Duke Angelo 10y before play opens by “by poisoning the feet on an image of Saint Narcissus,”. This enables Pascuale (regent) to murder Niccolo by shooting him from a cannon - but this is foiled by Ercole. When the play begins Niccolo as adult tells story. Thurn & Taxis (T&T) hold monopoly on mail in the Holy Roman Empire. Angelo wants to marry his sister Francesca to Pascuale (Franceska is Pascuale’s mom). Domenico gets tongue ripped out by Ercole… etc The last line of the fourth act of the play is:

“He that we last as Thurn and Taxis knew Now recks no lord but the stiletto’s Thorn, And Tacit lies the gold once-knotted horn. No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow, Who’s once been set his tryst with Trystero.”

The last act of the play is "like a Road Runner cartoon in blank verse.” everybody dies but Gennaro. OM goes back stage to speak with the director/Gennaro (named Ralph Driblette (RD)) about bones but instead RD somehow conveys that the Trystero assassins in act four are his artistic touch (not in the text). And RD hits on OM and tells her she has to go to another bookstore to get a copy of the play.

Chapter 4

OM is now obsessed with the Tristero (why?). She goes to a YY shareholder meeting (and is between two old men who touch her thighs ) OM gets lost and meets Stanley Koteks (SK) who is drawing the horn symbol. SK wants the IP clause dropped from his employment contract. Also Nefastis machine (NM) invented by John Nefastis (JN)… also James Maxwell… Because OM is a “sensitive” who can work the NM, SK gives OM JN’s address in San Francisco. OM goes to Zaph Books and gets a copy of the play. OM goes to Vesperhaven and talks to Thoth about his grandfather and the desperados dressed in black attacking a Wells Fargo carriage. Then she talks to MF but hes no help. Then Genghis Cohen, the stamp expert shows up. OM & GC drink dandelion wine and talk about T&T - existed from the 1300’s until bought up by Bismark in 1867. And GC shows OM many fake stamps (post marks?).

Chapter 5

OM goes back up to Berkeley & stays at a hotel holding a deaf/mute convention. Gets a book the next day: “No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow, ran the couplet, Who once has crossed the lusts". All the books are different so now up to UCB to talk w/ professor Bortz, but Bortz has left. OM finds JN and they talk about Entropy (physics and communications), then JN lets OM test her sensitivity (while he watches cartoons: Magilla Gorilla & etc) then, after she fails, JN wants to fuck her on the couch. She drives to North Beach and on the way, muses upon the conspiracy:

“She knew a few things about it: it had opposed the Thurn and Taxis postal system in Europe; its symbol was a muted post horn; sometime before 1853 it had appeared in America and fought the Pony Express and Wells, Fargo, either as outlaws in black, or disguised as Indians; and it survived today, in California, serving as a channel of communication for those of unorthodox sexual persuasion, inventors who believed in the reality of Maxwell’s Demon, possibly her own husband, Mucho Maas (but she’d thrown Mucho’s letter long away, there was no way for Genghis Cohen to check the stamp, so if she wanted to find out for sure she’d have to ask Mucho himself).”

OM winds up at a gay bar and begs the bartender to explain his post-horn & "IA" lapel pin. It stands for "Inamorati Anonymous" which helps people fallout of love and was founded by a Yoyodyne executive in the early 1960s. (references vietnamese monk-fire picture from 1963). OM goes drunkenly wandering around SF spotting post-horns. In a taco shop OM meets Jose Arrabal (whe she knows from Mexico with PI). More wandering. DEATH (Don't Ever Antagonize The Horn). Winds up in a tenement DTs vs dts (Delirium Tremens vs Delta Time). OM goes back to oakland and takes a bus back to the hotel in Berkeley. (How did she lose her car?) The next day drives to Kinneret and goes to see Dr Hilarious so he can tell her that she's crazy. But Dr. Hilarious has barricaded himself in with a gun in his office because he fears alleged NAZI hunters (and is arrested). The next day she says goodbye to WM (who is now on LSD from Dr H) and drives back down to SN.

Chapter 6

BM has gone to Las Vegas to get married. She calls RD but his mother answers. She calls Bortz and gets his wife. She goes to visit Bortz but passes the used bookstore that is burnt down. The neighboring shop owner says its arson. Bortz says the tristero quote is bogus and there is a pornographic one in the vatican library. RD has committed suicide by walking into the pacific and the party is a wake for RD. They watch pornographic slides. OM asks what is Tristero. (no answer) She visits MF again but he won’t really talk to her, but she discovers the meaning of W.A.S.T.E.

“It turned out to be an old American stamp, bearing the device of the muted post horn, belly-up badger, and the motto: WE AWAIT SILENT TRISTERO’S EMPIRE.”

She discovers that every place in SN is in someway owned by PI. GK explains that the tristero migrate to the US before the Civil War to work against WF and Pony Express. By the end of the chapter all the male characters who have confessed a connection to tristero are now either, dead, disappeared or estranged from OM. A stranger is bidding on a part PI's stamp collection, lot 49 that contains all the tristero-related forgeries. The book ends just as the auction begins where we might meet the representative of tristero who could, possibly, provide some clarity.

PS, in chapter five, during OM’s SF overnight drunken spree, it appears that Pynchon had her ditch her car in North Beach, but the next day, from her hotel in Berkeley, she takes her car back down to SN. This seems like a plot hole to me, but in the grand scheme of this book, who cares?