Symbolism of the Muted Horn and Other Dead Ends in Pynchon s Novel Lot 49

The Muted Horn Symbol in Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49

The horn is a symbol of alert—a signal of calling one to attention that a message of importance might be communicated. In Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, the protagonist Oedipa is spurred on by the symbol of a muted horn—a sign that suggests the opposite: no message is coming; nothing of any significance will be communicated. The message perhaps is that there is no meaning to be received. In a postmodern world, post-truth is what best describes the character of the culture. The world has moved beyond respect for truth; now it is enraptured by the enveloping chaos of illusion and disillusion. Yet one is simultaneously haunted by the idea that maybe there is some meaning and significance to it all anyway.

What is interesting about Pynchon’s novel is that the same ideas and themes were explored in a film called Under the Silver Lake by writer/director David Robert Mitchell. In that film a symbol is often found that resembles a cross between the infinity sign and a pair of superhero eyes watching one. Does the image refer to infinity? Does it refer to a mask over one’s eyes? Does it refer to the idea of looking at a reflection of one’s self? The mystery is never fully solved, but half the fun of the film is the journey—and it is the same in Pynchon’s novel. Oedipa meets myriad characters and breaks out of her own doldrum existence in which she is at risk of being poisoned to death by her LSD-toting psychiatrist. The mystery of the muted horn compels her and the hinted at associations and relationships between characters draws her to investigate more closely the meaning of Trystero. All the while, the symbol of the muted horn remains—and it is reflected in the meaning suggested by the title of the play that she watches with the (absurdly and aptly named) Paranoids band member: The Courier’s Tragedy. A courier is, of course, a messenger. And what would be the tragedy of a courier? Why, if his message did not reach its destination, of course! The novel is completely about some message that is supposed to get through that is not getting through for whatever reason. Perhaps the channels are blocked. Perhaps a secret society is preventing the message from getting through. JFK did warn about secret societies in 1963 prior to his assassination, after all. Or perhaps there is no message at all and it is all simply a game played for absurdist purposes—entertainment for a nihilistic, self-indulgent but ultimately meaningless society.

The southern writer Walker Percy does explore this idea of a message that needs to be communicated not getting through in his fiction and non-fiction. Message in a Bottle is about how difficult it is for the “good news” of Christian salvation to get through in the modern world because it is believed the “good news” is no longer needed or relevant: life is really just fine without it. That is the premise of virtually every Percy work of fiction—and the reality that the protagonist experiences turns out to show that life is not as “just fine” as was first thought—that something is wrong, and that perhaps there is a need and purpose to the “good news” that is not getting through. Pynchon is not nearly as overt or centered on Christian meaning as Percy in his novel, but the symbolism does compel one to draw parallels. The symbol of the horn is often associated with the “good news” of some kind in the Middle Ages art: an angel trumpeting the arrival of God; a horn on a church blaring the bells of the church, bringing everyone to prayer. But in the postmodern world where post-truth characterizes society, the horn of religious truth cannot have any purpose or utility. Is this why the horn is muted in Pynchon’s symbology? Or is such a reading merely a reflection of this reader’s own religious paranoia, which could be anticipated and reflected by Pynchon through the band the Paranoids, who guide Oedipa for part of her journey? In the postmodern world, there are more questions than answers—but like a good mystery, whether this one or one written by Raymond Chandler, there is bound to be more questions than answers. The postmodern world is too chaotic to allow for anything else.

The muted horn is an excellent symbol of the postmodern world because in this world there is such a great deal of noise and “fake news” that to get a meaningful message across one essentially has to attract attention by being quiet and not saying anything. The mystery of the quiet messenger is far more compelling than the noise that inundates one’s ears and eyes from any of the various types of media today. Still the question remains: The muted horn signals something—doesn’t it?

The irony of postmodern literature is that there is something about it that borders the nihilistic—if it does not completely cross that line altogether. The absurdist works of Ionesco or Albee are not without meaning and yet they are labeled as Absurd because they go against the established grain of social expectations. But what is absurd about Albee’s The Goat? Or Seascape? Underlying these works is something potent and serious and compelling because each is an attempt to get at the heart of the human experience and reveal something true.

Yet in the postmodern world truth is a casualty. People are told to tell “their” truth as though there were no such thing as telling “the” truth any longer. The postmodern world is a post-truth world—which makes it difficult to understand truth as a concept at all, since it would seem that the term has tended, traditionally, to refer to an objective reality. Is reality unreal? Is life a simulacrum? These are common questions in postmodern literature. The indie film Uncle Kent 2 pokes some fun at the idea of living in a simulacrum; but other mainstream films like The Matrix have put forward the idea in a much more vivid and spectacular way. In Pynchon’s novel, the world through which Oedipa moves is so surreal and strange that one would be right to question it if one weren’t aware that life in California at that time was actually quite a bit like what Pynchon describes. If one is accurately reflecting absurdity, is one’s work accurately described as absurdist?—or is it more accurately described as realist? Such questions are rhetorical, of course, for Pynchon is not following in the genre of realism; instead, he is writing in the style of one like Vonnegut—playing with ideas and conventions and twisting them—yet not fully abandoning them because there is some benefit to adhering to the structure of conventions. For instance, plot is what keeps the reader engaged: solving the mystery is why one reads mystery books. Even if the mystery is not solved, one enjoys the search and the investigation and the suggestion that perhaps even still, at the end, as Oedipa waits for the bidder on Lot 49, the meaning of the mystery will be revealed.