reminders and clarifications in response to an email tonight

 
In the first question/topic,
remember that some of the novel’s narratives end, while others do not properly “conclude.”
Consider: would you say the novel even has a “conclusion,” or just an ending?
(There are many other narratives besides Oedipa’s tracing the source of the stamp forgeries, after all…especially historical plots, some of which have ended or persisted.)
As we discussed in class, Oedipa’s concluding the “four symmetrical options” is the reductive result of binary logic, and none of which can be proven.
I’ve provided an “analysis” of the ending: Pynchon shows that binary logic will not work for interpreting this novel, especially by the ending, unless we see part or /all as “meaningless” in the exclusionary “filter” of binary “either/or” options.
The prompt asks for another interpretation, as consequence: “another mode of meaning beyond the obvious” without “excluded middles” (p.150) — what is another mode, to start? Then, illustrate…

 
The support examples will demonstrate the alternative mode (see above); this should be brief, with concise summaries of the various narratives and how they relate.
The example in the prompt is supplementary/constituent points in Oedipa’s narrative; binary logic views these as EITHER inherently connected, as in causality/consequence, OR random / chance (”coincidence”).
The lesson from the Oedipus myth disrupts conventional thinking, believing in “fate”: the oracle only “intimates” (suggests, implies); we only construct a narrative line of “fate” retroactively (in retrospect). Pynchon prompts (forces?) us to abandon this mode and consider the real operation or possibility of correlation instead of causation; the postmodern mode of thought sees events as BOTH correlated AND yet possibly “random” too, accommodating diverse understandings or “explanations.” Consider what sort of thought mode (”schema”) this is, which involves “resonance”…

 
Second prompt: (Q. specifically about “resonance”)

On Wednesday, I presented this alternative concept, with the examples of Maxwell’s Demon and the dandelion wine as the interface that “links” between two elements.
In short, resonance is the quality that occurs between two events, people, elements, places, (narratives, etc.) through mutual features, precisely as in the musical/auditory phenomenon
(possibly as “harmony” or “discord” — but these are binary as “good” and “bad,” which we’re avoiding).
In the example of the dandelion wine, the second/later reference of Cohen’s wine creates resonance of the earlier mention of the cemetery/graves/bones; there is no actual “memory” in the literal sense of a subject’s actual recollection (image/sensory), but a “present presence” (?) of the absent past in the wine.
This is arguably a better example, but the entropy link is similar: the equation for entropy for information theory in the 1940s incidentally resembled the thermodynamic formula of the 1870s, without direct “causation” (deterministic). This is fairly meaningless for most people, except those who are “sensitive” (”attuned”) to a certain frequency, like Oedipa and Pynchon’s readers.
Prompt: How does Pynchon produce resonance (through poetics), with what effects or consequences?