I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to do a blog post as we don’t have class this week…
Anyway, I was really mad about this last chapter. Everything had just accumulated, and I was getting just as tired of it all as Oedipa. All I wanted was some sort of resolution–even if it was a stupid one that didn’t live up to the expectations the rest of the book set (which I had begun to suspect would be the case as I reached the end). But the author managed to surprise me. He didn’t even give a crappy resolution to the story. It just seemed like a huge waste of time to have evaluated all of this and not get any sort of closure on it, and I don’t think it is enough to have a personal interpretation of what happened because I didn’t really care enough about this particular book to want to create my own interpretation. I just wanted the author to stop pestering me and tell me what this was all about.
The ending doubly angered me because the last few words were “the crying of lot 49″, which I thought was a weak substitute for a real ending and shallow attempt to tie it all up; however, I suppose, if were are supposed to be considering consumerism as the main point, it is good that the ending was shallow and unsatisfying as this would mirror the intent of the book. Still, I like to have a proper ending–especially when I have had to actually interpret the meaning within the book. It seemed like the author was just being lazy to me in not coming through with his little game, but I guess that also was in keeping with the lack of communication that we earlier discussed in the book. I guess the reader should have thought that maybe the author was providing hints that this book was going to have a hollow, unresolved, drop-off ending… I know it was the underlying meaning throughout the book that was supposed to be important, not the ending, ( or at least I think), but I still feel cheated. I may be conventional, but I think a book should have a proper ending. Sorry for my unenlightening blog post.
