On some Fantastic Practices in Postmodern Fiction: Alternative(s) as an Instrument of ‘perpetual’ Interpretation in The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

Abstract

This dissertation joins a vibrant discussion about fantastic literature, tackling its very encompassing nature and agreeing, thus, with Hume in viewing it as a practice that consists in inexhaustive interpretation. By expanding the significance of the fantastic (here and elsewhere), it becomes easier to understand its perpetual- "meaning-giving experience" (Hume) manifested in The Crying of Lot 49. The dissertation aims to decipher a unique tone of Pynchon's fantastic found in its perpetual qualities that assist in forming the extension of experience (Alazraki). Moreover, the main endeavour of the discourse has to do with depicting and explaining alternatives, which should be understood as chances and possibilities that create a sense of uncertainty and complexity within the novel. The inviting comparison with The Garden of Forking Paths by Borges will reveal how Oedipa's probability of having 'all manner of revelations,' is, in fact, a self-reflexive instrument for inexhaustible interpretation; in a condition of non-reality, characterized by an endless potential of being invented-through participation (Borges). The dissertation will also have a constant underlying focus on postmodern literature, viewing it in the light of the fantastic. By addressing Pynchon's novel, this dissertation intends to illustrate the delicate merge of fantastic and postmodern literature, to create a literary piece that becomes an associative loophole of interpretation.