Intro to The Crying of Lot 49

Q: What would happen if The Waste Land and Waiting for Godot and Cy Twombly all got together in a fit of Postmodern passion and had a baby? What could possibly result from: the expectation that a reader of any text must have a good knowledge of world history, literature, culture and art in order to truly understand and create meaning from it, mixed with absurdist and biting dark comedy expressing deep questions about, What is does it mean to have meaning? and an ability to simultaneously show the pointlessness of producing that depth of meaning in a text in the first place, both added to an instinctual urge to express and create signs and text and meaning that leads one to such questions as a part of their creation.

A: One healthy baby. Screaming, pissing and pooping deconstruction all over the damn place.


Important points that will easily morph into paper topics or issues you might want to explore in the art project:

1.This novel questions and demonstrates what happens when a culture is so saturated with texts that communication is virtually impossible. This culture was the culture of the USA in the early 1960's. Of the Baby Boomers. Of the world that helped to shape the way your parents and grandparents thought. Of the world that gave us both Clinton and Bush. The world that our nation finally might be leaving behind.

2.This novel also examines what happens when an artist's deconstruction of the current paradigm is nearly impossible because the current paradigm accepts and expects such a deconstruction by including that deconstruction as part of itself. How can an artist offer an alternative world and way of seeing by questioning the current paradigm when the current paradigm already lives those same exact questions? Well, Pynchon tries by mocking the living hell out of it.

3. In many ways the crisis of meaning in the novel predicts what our world today is like. Think about how much “meaning” is thrown at you everyday. Think how many texts you have to interpret and re-interpret every single day, every hour, every minute. Think about how quickly signs and signifieds pop in and out of existence or mutate from moment to moment. What does it mean that so much communication in our culture is via methods that are so easily and quickly sent and received?

PAPER #1 RUBRIC AND CHECKLIST

2 points: clearly states a thesis statement that connects directly to assigned paper topics
3 points: body paragraphs clearly connect to and help to support/prove thesis statement
3 points: texts are cited directly and accurately in order to support/prove thesis statement
2 points: meets spelling, grammar conventions, MLA conventions
10 points total





Paper Check List:

______: paper topic is from assigned list or has been approved in advance of due date

______: you have a second copy of the paper that is stored (via hard copy and/or             electronically) in a safe, secure place that you can access when you need to.

______: paper has been spell checked and edited for other basic spelling, grammar and usage errors BEFORE you have handed it in.

______: paper is correctly formatted according to MLA guidelines

______: paper is ready to be turned in AT THE START OF CLASS on the due date