I had much of the same reaction as Brendan did. Everything in the book seems something that we cannot relate to, because all of it is the oddest things that could happen all one after another for Oedipa. Just her name alone rings the famous bell of Oedipus, and her last name, Maas, is Spanish for 'more'. Oedipus alone is enough, but 'more' of the female version of Oedipus? It all seems a bit weird to me, just that alone. Then when Brendan commented on the strip tease, combined with far too much liquor and the odd thought process of Oedipa, it was sort of hilarious, but in a morbid, sinking way. How she puts on all her clothes and just the image that Pynchon gives is amusing, but somehow completely off. The strip tease propagated by pop culture today does not have nearly so many layers, and she probably looks bulky and far from pretty. Then the continuing scene makes it all the worse, I don't know whether I felt embarrassed for Oedipa or just disgusted by the image of of her in all the clothing then having the accident with the hairspray can which goes completely out of control, as seems a theme in this book. Everything that is about to happen to Oedipa seems something so out of control and out of the ordinary that it becomes hard to draw the line between the reality we know, the reality she knows, and what she considers mysterious or out of the normal every-day activity. It just seems that the world she is in is one of chaos and every decision she makes cannot be seen as good or bad because it simply leads to something more uncharacteristic of the world we know. But that may not be uncharacteristic of the world she knows.

Like Brendan, I'm completely mystified by the beginning of this novel and I feel that it will only become much more so.