"Go back to page one and look again..." The Crying of lot 49

The sixth and final chapter of Lot 49 seems very different to me from the rest of the book. For the first time there is a grim mood to the novel. When Driblette, the play’s director killed himself, he took the answer to Oedipa’s obsession with him. This greatly disappoints Oedipa as she now knows that she cannot find the answer to one of her main doubts. The reason why the play mentions Tristero at the end will remain a mystery to her forever. Then she is given a terrible idea. What if everything is a fake? What if Inverarity orchestrated the whole thing to make a practical joke? She has been destroyed to such an extent by her obsession with Tristero that she brushes this idea aside. The problem however, is that as she investigates this theory the more she realizes that Inveraity can be linked to every aspect of Tristero she has checked. This gives her that feeling that all that she lost, all that she went through was for nothing. This takes a terrible toll on her physically and emotionally. The reader can now see how Oedipa is giving up, “I needed you [Driblette]. Only bring me that memory, and you can live with me for whatever time I’ve got (pg 133).” She has become desperate, but later she decided to stop pushing the issue, it was just too much for her.
This first major deception in his quest hit her like a train. She was powerless now to find the answer she desired so badly. Communication is a two-way street only and that is a problem according to Pynchon. Those communications problems, death, anonymity, misinterpretation, are what make the system fail. Pynchon also criticizes human nature itself in this final chapter. A rational person would never expect someone like Inverarity to even conceive such a sick act like this practical joke, if that is what it is. The high possibility of the entire novel being a joke is sickening, how can someone enjoy playing with another person’s head like that? Then I realized that is not as uncommon. The media keeps us in fear and governments tell us who our enemies are. Like in 1984, the whole purpose of society is to play with our heads to the will of the leaders.
Later on, Oedipa finds out what W.A.S.T.E means, “We Await Silent Tristero’s Empire.” One more answer given, but Oedipa, despite knowing a lot about Tristero, cannot finish giving up. Then, she hears news that the Tristero stamp collection is being auctioned as Lot 49. There is a mysterious bidder that wants to acquire the stamps and he seems the sole link left between Oedipa and Tristero. She goes to the auction and sits in the back looking for the bidder. “Oedipa sat alone, toward the back of the room, looking at the napes of necks, trying to guess which one was her target, her enemy, perhaps her proof (pg 152).” The novel ends without solving the mystery, without showing who is the bidder or what was Tristero in reality. Besides mocking the streamline whodunit ending of detective novels, the mysterious ending has a deeper meaning. The mystery doesn’t matter. Pynchon has told us everything worth saying, the satires, the analysis of human life and of society, everything. He also mocks the human necessity to have a goal and purpose here. The reader’s purpose was to analyze the book and find the answer to the mystery, Pynchon eliminates any possibility to see the ending. Miscommunication? Perhaps… The ending also shows us that in reality, Tristero was of lesser importance than Oedipa’s emotional development and the novel’s insight on life. If the reader by the end was only focusing on Tristero, Pynchon is now telling him, “Go back to page one and look again.”