term paper abstract, summer semester 2006, Potsdam university by Lars Dittmer
this paper is building up on postmodern patterns of fragmentation, loneliness and disorientation. The Quest is a central storytelling technique – in times where traditional ways of living and social constellations fade and the grand narratives have lost their guiding functions, people have to „mind-map“ their own routes through a fagmentary world. The paper establishes the quest form in the 1966 book by Pynchon and draws lines of tradition to Jarmusch’s 2005 Browken Flowers.
Table of Contents
1. General Introduction 3
1.1 Overview: The two stories 3
1.2 Approach of this term paper 5
1.3 From modernism to postmodernism 7
2. Social fragmentation as a postmodern determinant 8
2.1 Oedipa Maas: “They are stripping away, my men” 8
2.2 Don Johnston a.k.a. Don Juan 10
2.3 Drugs and unreliability 11
3. To slow for a globalizing/ globalized world? 2
3.1 Miss Maas and Mass Media 12
3.2 “I was in computers” 13
3.3. The United States as a setting 14
4. Me against the system: anxieties and paranoia 16
4.1 mind-mapping against the machine 16
4.2 The non-solution to nothing 18
5. Conclusion: Internet and Postmodernity 19
6. Bibliography 20
1. General Introduction
„Hey”, said Oedipa, “can I get somebody to do it for me?”
“Me”, said Roseman, “some of it, sure. But aren’t you even interested?”
In what?”
“In what you might find out.” (Pynchon 1966: 12)
“I prepared the strategy. Only you can solve the mystery” (Winston in Broken Flowers).
1.2 Overview: the two stories
There is hardly a novel that outlines a cultural epoch as precisely as the 1966 published book “The Crying of Lot 49” (COL 49) by Thomas Pynchon. On barely more than one hundred pages probably every concept that has ever attributed to the set of ideas we today refer to as “postmodern”, can be identified. The book, that many describe as one of the most important post World War II novels, is a challenge in every respect: Pynchon’s dense and intricate style of writing with its often loose and disconnected sequences leave many readers baffled – what on the first glance seems a humorous and easy read on the second requires profound knowledge of American and European history and sketches a sometimes bleak and dreary picture of human isolation and paranoia. Nevertheless connoisseurs describe “The Crying of Lot 49” as his most accessible book.
Thomas Pynchon as a person remains as mysterious as his novels – the fact that he never appears in public and discusses his books, leaves literary theorists room for interpretation and speculation. This is reflected in literature about Pynchon – there is hardly a self-respecting scholar of 20th century American literature that has not elaborated on his work: “Pynchon’s novels have lured literary theorists and critics to such an extent that they have spawned an industry” (Coale 2005: 135). But also to other artists he is a constant source of inspiration – as we will see, not only to writers like Paul Auster, Don DeLillo or Susan Sontag, but also to movie artists. Filmmakers like David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino or last but not least Jim Jarmusch constantly process postmodern elements and sujets – what started as “independent cinema” has – thanks to blockbusters like “Kill Bill”, “Jackie Brown” or “Mulholland Drive” – gradually entered the mainstream and is now being received by major audiences.
But though postmodern elements in these movies can be isolated and discussed – sure enough, literature has dealt with most of them – a direct comparison with “The Crying of Lot 49”, one of the archetyps of postmodernism, would be barely fruitful, as the latter’s appearance equals a mystery novel. However, the 2005 Jim Jarmusch production Broken Flowers, starring Bill Murray, is arranged following a “Pynchonesque” quest pattern and can be therefore directly placed in this context; there are obvious parallels as to structure, story and background setting between the two pieces. To discuss the elements that qualify Broken Flowers as a movie in this tradition will be the task of this term paper.
At first it is necessary to deliver short synopsises of the two stories – many of the elements will be dealt with in-depth in the course of this term paper. The protagonist in COL 49, Oedipa Maas, “a suburban housewife and English major from Cornell” (Cornis-Pope 2001: 104), receives a letter saying that her ex Pierce Inverarity died and that she “had been named executor, or she supposed executrix,” (Pynchon 1966: 5) of his estate. She accepts the challenge that takes her “from her suburbanite home in Kinneret-among the Pines to the Echo Courts Motel in San Narciso, the housing estate at Fangoso Lagoons, the aerospace company Yoyodyne, the Berkeley campus, and the Greek Way bar in San Francisco. (Cornis-Pope 2001: 105).
Continue on Hausarbeiten.de or contact me
