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A comparative study of Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Jacques Rivette’s Céline et Julie vont en bateau.

Jacques Lacan argues that there are ‘paranoid affinities between all knowledge of objects as such’, suggesting that the subject’s means of acquiring knowledge is a paranoiac process.¹ In this case, paranoia reflects the subject’s own desire to bridge their lack of knowledge. This is echoed by critics reading Lacan, citing Jon Mills as example, who states that paranoia is ‘the dialectic of being in relation to lack.’² Here, Mills defines the aims of paranoia as a means to transcend one’s lack and attain ‘being’ or presence. In an epistemic framework, this translates to attaining knowledge, truth, or meaning. Thus, paranoia can be read as functioning as a hermeneutical mode. This notion was not unique to Lacan, as paranoia was understood as a process of interpreting and gaining understanding of reality as far back as Freud’s own analysis of Dr. Schreber. Here, Freud witnessed the paranoid view whereby everything is loaded with meaning, including linguistic ‘accidents, slips of the tongue, [and] lapses of the memory.’³

Hence, when Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick reads paranoia as a hermeneutical project, this is ultimately an assured reading. Sedgwick defines some of paranoia’s features as ‘the aversion to surprise’ and dependent on the ‘efficacy of knowledge’ – features that reinforce paranoia’s relationship with epistemology.⁴ Ultimately, Sedgwick finds paranoia as structured by ‘negative affect’, a categorisation which in turn implies an inverse hermeneutical mode based upon ‘positive affect’.⁵ Positive affect is described as ‘reparative reading’, which is associated with multiplicity, creativity and love and can be understood to forego the interrogative nature of paranoia in exchange for a more aesthetic focus.⁶ This dichotomy echoes Brian McHale’s framework for understanding modernist and postmodernist texts through the former’s epistemic focus and the latter’s alleviation of these concerns.⁷ Instead, postmodernism prioritises ontological questions that interrogate the notion of multiple ‘worlds’ or realities and how they interact and coalesce within the text.⁸ Sedgwick’s reparative reading is echoed here through the shared focus on plurality and the aesthetic, but most definitively through relegating the paranoiac pursuit of knowledge and truth as an unworthy endeavour.

Thus, this essay will read paranoia as a lens which emphasises the distinctions between modernism and postmodernism. This will be done through the comparative close reading of Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Jacques Rivette’s Céline et Julie vont en bateau. These texts appear either side of the boundary between literary movements, as Pynchon’s late modernism of epistemological angst and paranoia provides a counterpoint to Rivette’s postmodern employment of ontological play. Furthermore, this essay will draw on the aforementioned frameworks of paranoia developed by Lacan and Sedgwick, using them to enrich the comparative analysis between the two texts.

However, before delving into the analysis it is worth considering the literary debate concerning the categorisation of Lot 49 as a late modernist text. This essay is aligned with McHale’s stance which states that the text ‘threatens to’ cross into postmodernist ontological foregrounding, ‘but does not quite do so.’⁹ This is due to the text failing to completely accept the reality of the countercultural world of the ‘Tristero’, preferring instead to focus on the epistemological quandaries generated by this act of non-resolution. Yet, other critics have disregarded McHale’s claims, providing Nicholas Frangipane’s declaration that postmodernism is defined through its awareness that ‘knowledge [is] socially constructed and is not connected to any sort of absolute truth.’¹⁰ Similarly, Bran Nicol also equates epistemological concern with postmodernism by stating that it remains ‘almost as epistemologically dominated as modernism.’¹¹ These critics seemingly miss the fact that McHale’s framework does not deny that epistemological concerns cannot be generated within the postmodern text, rather what is important to the literary distinction is what questions are foregrounded. These critics do not deny that Lot 49 is loaded with epistemological anxiety yet they fail to see that it is the novel’s disavowal of ontological concerns which renders the text solely as late modernist.

Paranoia is therefore explored within Lot 49 in a distinctly modernist mode as epistemological angst remains rife throughout the narrative. This is primarily shown through the novel’s protagonist, Oedipa, as she drifts through consumerist America in search for some form of transcendental meaning. Lot 49’s vision of America is seemingly primed for Oedipa’s sense of paranoia as its ‘proliferation of signs’ forces her into a constant process of interpretation.¹² This is evidenced early on within the narrative as Oedipa muses that ‘there [is] revelation in progress all around her’, illustrating how she perceives the world as imbued with deeper meaning.¹³ An example of Oedipa encountering ‘revelation’ can be seen when she watches The Courier’s Tragedy, becoming aware of the intrigue generated by the word ‘Tristero’.

Trystero. The word hung in the air as an act ended and all the lights were for a moment cut; hung in the dark to puzzle Oedipa Maas, but not yet to exert the power over her it was to. (p. 54)

The importance Oedipa assigns to the word ‘Trystero’ is thematised metafictionally as it is contained within its own sentence, aligning readers with Oedipa’s paranoid processing. Furthermore, the moment of Tristero’s enunciation is written with an eerie suspense as a multitude of caesura prompts incessant pauses. The doubling of ‘hung’ mimics this tension, reinforcing the feeling of anticipation felt by both Oedipa and the reader. This constitutes as merely one example of Oedipa’s continual assignment of importance to seemingly innocuous signs. Elsewhere, she finds the likes of human bones, postage stamps, and the ever-present muted post horn, as brimming with surplus meaning.

As the narrative portrays her mission to resolve the open-endedness of these signs through interpretation, it showcases Oedipa’s desire to bridge her own lack of understanding. Thus, paranoia acts as the mechanism that attempts to alleviate Oedipa’s lack. However, by drawing on Lacan’s concepts of the Symbolic Order – where signifiers themselves are without fixed meaning and can only deflect to other signifiers – Oedipa’s quest for truth is shown to be a futile endeavour.¹⁴ Her desire to transcend her own lack merely propels her to go through an endless chain of signification, where each sign only leads to another. For example, where the digging up of human bones leads Oedipa to encounter a 17^th century play which in turn leads her to the sign of ‘Tristero’ and so forth. In this manner, Oedipa’s paranoiac ‘obsession with order’ can only replicate the signifying chain as her incessant attempts to connect disparate signs and clues always falls short of uncovering a stable or objective truth.¹⁵

As the narrative progresses, Oedipa seemingly becomes aware of the futility surrounding her epistemic quest. For example, she deliberates over the various options surrounding the conspiracy of the Tristero, labelling these likelihoods as the ‘symmetrical four.’ (p. 132) These span from the Tristero being a genuine countercultural force to it solely being the product of Oedipa’s own paranoia. Similarly, she later ponders if ‘behind the hieroglyphic streets there would either be a transcendent meaning, or only the earth.’ (p. 140) The consistent evocation of her own impasse reveals that her paranoia has not gotten her any closer towards an objective truth – merely conflicting possibilities. Furthermore, Oedipa’s epistemic standstill manifests in her own physical deterioration, as ‘old fillings in her teeth began to bother her’ alongside ‘headaches, nightmares and menstrual pains.’ (p. 132) Paranoia’s ‘negative affect’ is showcased here in full swing, as Oedipa’s adherence to this hermeneutical mode leads her towards mental and physical collapse. Her inability to find solace in non-resolution – reflected in Oedipa’s dismissal of ‘excluded middles’ (‘they were bad shit’, p. 140) – condemns Oedipa to a perpetual state of paranoiac uncertainty.

Lot 49’s expression of paranoia is also replicated at the level of the reader’s own consumption. This is through the novel’s various structural elements that forces the reader’s recognition of their own uncertainty. For example, as Simon Malpas and Andrew Taylor suggest, the plot of Lot 49 closely follows the trajectory of a classic detective story.¹⁶ This is a genre which McHale labels as the ‘epistemological genre par excellence’ whereby mystery and uncertainty becomes the driving point of the narrative.¹⁷ This seems to be a conscious decision since the text continuously remains self-aware of this fact. For instance, a common interpretation surrounding Oedipa’s name is that it alludes to Oedipus of Oedipus Rex, serving as one of the earliest detectives in literature as he is pitted to solve the riddle of the sphinx. Elsewhere, Oedipa is even referred to as a ‘private eye’ as the text remarks that ‘sooner or later [she] has to get beat up on’ (p. 94) – a playful observation that references the familiar beats of the genre that the text imitates. However, as Mendelson states that the common objective of the detective narrative ‘is to reduce a complex and disordered situation to simplicity and clarity’, the reader finds this trope defiantly subverted.¹⁸ This is through the state of non-resolution administered by the narrative, leaving complex plot threads unresolved and subsequently denying the reader catharsis which stems from resolution. In this manner, the reader is condemned to be perpetually constrained by their lack of understanding. They are forced to remedy their lack through paranoid reading, incessantly reading the text for clues that administer a sense of closure to the text. Unfortunately, this process is further thwarted by the difficulty of the prose itself as Pynchon continuously ‘backtracks’ and ‘interrupts’ through the aid of his frequent usage of parenthesis and dashes.¹⁹ This denies the reader a coherent reading experience as they are forced to exert great efforts into drawing out understanding from the text. The difficulty of the prose functions as an enigmatic barrier whereby paranoid reading acts as seemingly the sole process that rewards comprehension. Thus, Lot 49’s epistemological unease pushes paranoia to embody central importance within the novel, a sentiment that is not only repeated within the contents of the narrative, but also in the structural mode which readers encounter the text. The ubiquity of paranoia within Lot 49 effectively renders it as a modernist text, as the novel is forced to concern itself with the epistemological uncertainties.

Céline et Julie also evokes paranoia in a similar fashion. This is primarily carried out through the protagonists’ interaction with a ghastly mystery staged at a haunted mansion. The narrative depicts how each time one of the protagonists leaves the house, they do so within a state of confused amnesia. The only key Céline or Julie have in recalling the forgotten events is through sucking on a piece of candy that they leave with each time. The first of such scenes is when Julie, having just left the mansion, attends Céline’s cabaret show. Here, the scene is continuously interrupted with abrupt intercuts that depict the events from the house.

This technique breaks up the logical coherency of the film as it imposes a parallel reality alongside the main action, aligning the audience with Julie’s own uncertainty as to what is unravelling. This uncertainty is exemplified by Julie’s subsequent outburst of not being able to remember or understand what had occurred in the house. The protagonists’ epistemic lack prompts their paranoiac desire to return to the house in the hopes of uncovering a ‘truth’ or understanding. However, the result of this quest only reveals a subplot filled with deceit and subterfuge that culminates in the death of a young girl. In this manner, the protagonists’ initial basis for their paranoia is substituted for another premise as the question of who killed the young girl takes centre stage. This mirrors the continual deflection of signs explored within Lot 49, as Céline et Julie stages a similar signifying chain that seemingly skirts round an objective truth. As Dennis Lim describes, the narrative becomes characterised as a perpetual ‘search for meaning’ whereby the protagonists paranoically interpret enigmas to attain a modicum of ‘truth’.²⁰

However, the mystery surrounding the subplot remains the sole part of the film that foregrounds epistemic concern as the rest of the film adopts a laissez-faire attitude towards knowledge, understanding, and truth. This is established from the film’s outset as the opening title card states: ‘Le plus souvent, ça commençait comme ça.’²¹ The card effectively undermines the authenticity of the reality presented in the ensuing narrative, denying the possibility of extracting any stable form of truth from it. Moreover, by delivering this fact in a deadpan style, it suggests that this assertion does not even matter. Thus, the paranoiac objective of attaining truth is denied an empirical foundation to carry out this endeavour, relegating epistemic concerns to the backdrop of the film. This also implies that the subplot, endowed with the promise of epistemic catharsis, is deprived of significance regarding its resolution. Elsewhere, epistemological concerns are further undermined by the film’s direct disavowal of the processes of knowledge acquisition. For example, Julie faultlessly assumes Céline’s earlier lie that she related to her friends, stating that Julie was an American celebrity. However, the film discloses no moment which shows Céline relaying this information to Julie, thereby rejecting narrative continuity that is traditionally used to establish the characters’ knowledge and understanding. Elsewhere, when Julie asks Céline for the address of the mysterious house that Céline had previously mentioned, Julie ends up answering the question for her. This moment rejects causality, supplying further evidence to what Julie Levinson describes as the film’s continuous challenge of the laws of reality and fiction.²² Thus, Céline et Julie denies paranoia the space to operate as uncertainty is transformed into a desired quality within the film. This works in stark contrast to Lot 49’s incessant fervour in attaining truth or meaning since Céline et Julie almost entirely foregoes these concerns.

Thus, as Céline et Julie positions itself as the antithesis to Lot 49’s paranoiac mode, the film aligns more closely with Sedgwick’s ‘reparative mode’. This is where Céline et Julie solidifies itself as a postmodern text as the film resists the ‘negative affect’ associated with paranoia’s hermeneutics. As opposed to being driven by epistemic lack, the film revels in the postmodern processes of ontological play. This is evidenced by McHale who states that the postmodern condition is the ‘anarchic landscape of worlds in the plural.’²³ This plurality is undoubtedly present within Céline et Julie, where contemporary Paris and the haunted house coexist as distinct ontological realms. This is reflected through contrasting framing techniques as the kinetic and mobile lens used to capture Paris stands in contrast to the static shots that depict the mansion. The house’s mise-en-scéne further emphasises the self-sufficient nature of this world, as it almost entirely excludes the inclusion of windows that signify the existence of an external reality – confining its characters within the enclosed reality of the interiors. In contrast, Paris is often depicted through usage of wide shots that emphasise the vast liberatory expanse of the city.

Nonetheless, the film resists privileging one reality over the other. As Jonathan Rosenbaum states: ‘each [reality] is as outrageous as the other’ suggesting a deliberate refusal to establish a dominant ontological realm.²⁴ Instead, Céline et Julie consistently sustains ontological plurality, even depicting moments where these distinct realities converge and coalesce. This is exemplified when both protagonists enter the narrative of the haunted house, bringing a sense of joy and play into this macabre scene. Both protagonists frequently mess up their lines, clown about, and even perform anachronism as they dance tango within a 19^th century setting. By introducing a sense of ‘play’ into the narrative, they are also able to actively reconstruct the initial ghastly narrative as Céline and Julie ultimately save the young girl – ironically through an open window, a portal between ontological realities.²⁵ As Céline, Julie, and now Madlyn – the young girl rescued from the house – wake up in contemporary Paris, the film reaffirms its motif of layered realities. This culminates in the penultimate scene, which depicts the inhabitants of the haunted house drifting past the protagonists on a boat – a final assertion of ontological plurality and interplay within the film. Céline et Julie’s commitment to multiplicity exists in stark opposition to Lot 49’s lament against ‘excluded middles.’ In this manner, McHale’s conception of postmodern plurality is testified to, while the film’s playful tone also evokes Sedgwick’s reparative reading – the antithesis to the paranoiac mode. Thus, Lot 49’s paranoiac mode is substituted for Céline et Julie’s positive embrace of ontological play.

In comparing Lot 49 and Céline et Julie, this essay has demonstrated how paranoia serves as a lens for distinguishing the shift from modernist to postmodernist modes of fiction. In Pynchon’s novel, paranoia is emblematic of a late-modernist anxiety surrounding the futility of the epistemological project, where cracks begin to form in the search for meaning in an increasingly fragmented world. Oedipa’s quest mirrors the reader’s desire for resolution, a desire ultimately denied through the open-endedness of the ending. By contrast, Rivette’s film takes the failure of the epistemological project as a starting point, allowing the film to ultimately reject paranoiac sentiments and therefore align itself to a multiplicity and positivity that recall both the postmodern and Sedgwick’s ‘reparative mode’.

1. Jacques Lacan, ‘The Other and Psychoses’ in J. A. Miller (ed.), The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book 3: The Psychoses, 1955–1956 (New York: Norton, 1993) pp. 29–43 (p. 39) ↩︎
2. Jon Mills, ‘Lacan on Paranoiac Knowledge’, Psychoanalytic Psychology, 20.1 (2003), 30-51 (p. 47) ↩︎
3. Margaret Iversen, Beyond Pleasure: Freud, Lacan, Barthes (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007) p. 53 ↩︎
4. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity (Duke University Press, 2003) p. 130-138 ↩︎
5. Ibid. p. 136 ↩︎
6. Heather Love, ‘Truth and Consequences: On Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading’, Criticism, 52.2 (2010) 235-241 (p. 237) ↩︎
7. Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction (London: Routledge, 1987) pp. 9-10 ↩︎
8. Ibid. p. 10 ↩︎
9. Ibid. p. 22 ↩︎
10. Nicholas Frangipane, ‘Freeways and Fog: The Shift in Attitude between Postmodernism and Post-Postmodernism from The Crying of Lot 49 to Inherent Vice’ Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 57.5 (2016), 521-532 (p. 522) ↩︎
11. Bran Nicol, ‘Reading Paranoia: Paranoia, Epistemophilia and the Postmodern Crisis of Interpretation’, Literature and Psychology, 45.1 (1999), 44-62 (p. 52) ↩︎
12. John Johnston, ‘Towards the Schizo-Text: Paranoia as Semiotic Regime in Lot 49’ in New Essays on The Crying of Lot 49, ed. by Patrick O’Donnell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 47-78 (p. 48) ↩︎
13. Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (Dublin: Penguin Random House, 2022), p. 29 ↩︎
14. Jacques Lacan, Écrits, trans. Bruce Fink (New York: Norton, 2006) pp. 418-419 ↩︎
15. Charles Cullum, ‘Rebels, Conspirators, and Parrots, Oh My!: Lacanian Paranoia and Obsession in Three Postmodern Novels’, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 52.1, 1-16 (p. 5) ↩︎
16. Simon Malpas and Andrew Taylor, Thomas Pynchon (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015) p. 54 ↩︎
17. Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction (London: Routledge, 1987) p. 9 ↩︎
18. Edward Mendelson, Pynchon: A Collection of Critical Essays (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1978) p. 123 ↩︎
19. William Gleason, ‘The Postmodern Labyrinths of Lot 49’, Critique, 34.2 (1993) 83-99 (p. 87) ↩︎
20. Dennis Lim, ‘A Winding Trip Reverberates in Cinema’, New York Times, 2012 https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/movies/revisiting-jacques-rivettes-celine-and-julie-go-boating.html [accessed 04/05/2025] ↩︎
21. Céline et Julie von ten bateau, dir. by. Jacques Rivette (Les Films du Losange, 1974) ↩︎
22. Julie Levinson, ‘Céline and Julie Go Story Telling’, The French Review, 65.2 (1991), 236-46 (p. 240) ↩︎
23. Brian McHale, Postmodern Fiction (p. 37) ↩︎
24. Jonathan Rosenbaum, ‘Work and Play in the House of Fiction’, Sight and Sound, 43.4 (1974) ↩︎
25. Douglas Morrey and Alison Smith, Jacques Rivette (Manchester: Manchester University Press: 2009) p. 132 ↩︎