'It's what you can't avoid' : solipsism in Thomas Pynchon's The crying of lot 49 and Inherent vice

Abstract

Thomas Pynchon ( 1937- ) is considered to be one of the most important contemporary American writers. In my dissertation, I aim to explore how the philosophy of solipsism is particularly foregrounded in two of his novels: The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and Inherent Vice (2009). In the introduction, the link between solipsism and postmodern fiction in general is demonstrated to be both crucial and relevant. Through reference to relevant critical and theoretical work, postmodernism is revealed as sharing, within its very plural diversities, intrinsic epistemic and ontological concerns with solipsism. It is argued that a reading of an author paradigmatic of the postmodern, such as Pynchon, provides one with a clear demonstration of the link between the two concepts. The first chapter tackles The Crying of Lot 49, and how the binary patterns which saturate the novel serve only to highlight the impossibility of teleological truth. Revelation is perpetually deferred, leaving only paranoia and anxiety in its place. Both the reader and Oedipa Maas, the protagonist, are united in an unending quest patterned between rationality and insanity. These mutual possibilities are thus proven as being only illusions of ultimate knowledge, where solipsism is the only rational stance to be occupied. The paradoxes inherent to that position, which is hardly affirmative, are considered. Inherent Vice and the process of detection are investigated in the second chapter. The figure of the postmodern detective is revealed as a necessarily failing one, where possibilities only widen out as the search intensifies. The solitary private eye is inevitably contrasted with the systems instigated by paranoia, and angst proves to be deeply tied to the individualising, essentially lonely, nature of solipsism. The protagonist, Doc Sportello, and Bigfoot, another important character, are exposed as ultimately sharing similar solipsistic views despite embracing different ideologies. The two novels are then compared in the Conclusion, where the latest novel is shown as possibly being in a demonstrable line of continuity with the earlier one. Pynchon's development of theme, and incorporation of solipsism from one novel to another, is analysed in the light of concepts such as anomie and autopoiesis. Inherent Vice could thus be seen as being a caricature, rather than a reflection, of The Crying of Lot 49, especially in its retrospective shifting of perspective of the earlier novel.