Chapter Three
In chapters two and three, Oedipa's adventure down the rabbit hole only goes deeper. She travels to San Narciso, where Pierce's corporation is, along with many other companies he invested in. The town in located in the middle of nowhere, described as, "less an identifiable city than a grouping of concepts," almost embodying Pierce himself, as he was a mystery, invested in everything but somehow rustic. Oedipa leaves Mucho for the time being to meet up with Metzger, the coexecutor/lawyer responsible for Pierce's will. After spending several hours in a hotel room mourning over Pierce and reviewing their own lives, they sleep together.
As chapter three starts, Oedipa and Metzger are trying to find the new grounds of their relationship, while Oedipa calls Mucho to see if he knows yet. Metzger takes Oedipa to a bar where they meet Fallopian, a man who tells them of the Peter Penguin Society. The club is dedicated to a Russia vs the capitalists standoff in which nothing happened, kicking off the theme of conspiracy combined with paranoia. Oedipa then goes to the bathroom to find some strange symbols written on the walls, which she copies and is later warned against. When Oedipa and Metzger leave, they meet up with The Paranoids, an up-and-coming band, and Manny Di Presso, Metzger's actor/lawyer friend who has decided to resort to litigating and is on the run from a client of his. Several things are revealed while Metzger and Di Presso talk: 1) Metzger wants to file a lawsuit repossessing Pierce's belongings and 2) Di Presso questions Pierce's character, as he had sold old human bones as fertilizer, and ripped off the client that now chases him. Oedipa and Metzger go to see a play called The Courier's Tragedy, where paranoia overcomes Oedipa as she realizes too many things about the play fit her own life. Afterwards, Oedipa goes backstage to question the actors about the bones Pierce was selling, but winds up talking about something called Trystero.
In this chapter, things really just get more complicated. The whole conspiracy mixed with paranoia as a way of mocking society is really starting to develop. It is almost like a bad horror film, but luckily it knows it is, and simply flaunts the fact. Considering, I don't know what the Tryster are, it was hard to follow the whole last converation, but I hope Pynchon explains things further unlike the most of the book.
The Peter Penguin Society was probably the most satirical thing in that whole chapter. The story behind it was drawn-out to be something much more ominous than it really was, but basically it was that there were two ships, one Russian, one American, and they fired at each other, despite the fact that they were too far away to cause any real damage, and both ships left completely unscathed. It was just funny because that was really what the Cold War was like, looking back on it now. Russia and America were both slandering each other from a distance, but both got out of it without any real tragedies. The typical paranoia mixed with conspiracy theories lingered though, resulting in the Peter Penguin Society. This shows Pynchon's ability to relate the crazy paranoia to real lives, blurring the lines between reality and fiction even more.
In chapter three, Oedipa also goes to a lake Pierce owned, called Lake Inverarity, which she "fell in love with," after the first few minutes of being there. I think the lake reflects Pierce because she likes it so much and it is described to be grand and tastefully combined with buildings. It is funny that Pynchon actually says Oedipa fell in love with the lake because he has not really gone into depth with any of the characters feelings, so to say she loves the lake so bluntly is kind of suprising.
I don't really like Di Presso, although I have to say that he is very entertaining. He is another bizarre character that helps Oedipa get down to the truth about Pierce and his company. He tells her about the bone charcoal, and how "American tourists... would pay good dollars for almost anything." And they did; they bought ground up human bones for multi-purpose use. Despite his weirdness, I didn't like Di Presso because I didn't feel like he was reliable. For one, he left Oedipa and Metzger, his "close friend," on an island by themselves with no means of getting off. Friends do not do that, regardless of who they are running from, but more importantly, the do not let friends get into those situations in the first place. But I have a feeling that Di Presso will become more important later, as he knows something.
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