Understand

As I read through chapter two I found what might have been a metaphore to something very important. When Oedipa and Metzger are playing that game in which Oedipa will take off one piece of clothing for every question Metzger answers. But there is a catch. Oedipa had gone to the bathroom and dressed herself with as many layers of clothing as she could. Thus, this is what happened : "Oedipa removed a bracelet. So it went: the succession of film fragments on the tube, the progressive removal of clothing that seemed to bring her no nearer nudity . . ." (28) I saw this as a metaphor for how complex people are. This reminded of a quote from Neon Genesis Evangelion which said this: "No one can understand completely another person, it is already difficult enough understanding yourself, maybe that is why life is so interesting" (Evangelion) This two quotes are have a very similar meaning and could be even be used to explain one another.

In the Crying Of Lot 49 we try to get all the jokes and satire that happens while also trying to understand why the characters behave in such a way. Maybe that is also part of the game the author gives us, maybe not all that is there can be understood or has a meaning. This could be a way to describe how in life we try to give meaning to things that truly don't have any.

You could also see this to a more human level and it could mean (like in Evangelion) that you never truly know somebody, others will remain a mystery to us specially since many of the things we do are inexplicable to ourselves. We will always remain ignorant of true reasons behind people's actions. Still, the final part of the quote from Evangelion (which isn't said but is explicit in The Crying Of Lot 49) is that our curiosity and hunger for knowledge pushes further. We don't understand everything, but because of this there will always be something to surprise us and make us wonder.Thanks to that inability to understand and explain everything we are given a purpose. We see this in the Book as Oedipa tries to understand the conspiracy that is (or not since it might just be a hallucination) occurring around her but very possibly she will never be able to do so. In the end when we can't explain something, we should follow the example of the book and describe it, we should take pleasure from living it even if we can't comprehend what is happening completely.