'No husband, no shrink?' - 'Both,' Oedipa said.

Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
quotation summary by young resolotta, back about 1990 oder noch früher...

Handlungsort:
San Narciso, California

Hauptdarstellerin:
Oedipa Maas, Hausfrau; ihr Mann, Wendell "Mucho" Maas [mucho bitte amerikanisch aussprechen...], nimmt an einem LSD-Experiment beim gemeinsamen Psychiater teil. Oedipa weigert sich mitzumachen.Der Psychiater ruft morgens um drei Uhr seine Patientin an [nicht umgekehrt!] - allererste Erwähnung des abgekürzten Wortes shrink, Seite 10:

It was Dr Hilarius, her shrink or psychotherapist.

'I worked,' Hilarius told her,' on experimentally-induced insanity. There is me, there are the others. You know, with the LSD, we're finding, the distinction begins to vanish. Egos lose their sharp edges. But I never took the drug, I chose to remain in relative paranoia, where at least I know who I am and who the others are. Perhaps that is why you also refused to participate, Mrs Maas?'

... a little something for her shrink to fix.

Nur leider, als sie später ihren shrink aufsucht, weil sie glaubt, er könne sie flicken [mit "ell"!], ist Hilarius durchgedreht und schiesst im Vorgarten seiner Praxis auf Oedipa [nein, nicht umgekehrt!]. Sie geht unverrichteter Dinge wieder. Auf der weiteren Suche nach dem Los Nr. 49 strandet Oedipa komplett verirrt in irgendeinem Pub an einem Ort, dessen Existenz sie bezweifelt und erzählt ihre bisherige Odyssee einem Mann, der eine Krawattennadel trägt mit dem W.A.S.T.E-Piktogramm.

'And,' scratching the stubble on his head, 'you have nobody else to tell this to. Only somebody in a bar whose name you don't know?

'She wouldn't look at him. 'I guess not.'

'No husband, no shrink?'

'Both, Oedipa said, 'but they don't know.'

'You can't tell them?'

She met his eyes' void for a second after all, and shrugged.

'I'll tell you what I know then,' he decided.

'The pin I'm wearing means I'm a member of the IA. That's Inamorati Anonymous. An inamorato is somebody in love. That's the worst addiction of all.'

Hopelessly paranoid: California

Things grew less and less clear.

Like all her inabilities to communicate, this too had a virtous motive.

'Mucho is losing his identity, Oedipa.'

Either she could not communicate, or he did not exist.

The salvation of Europe depends on communication, right?

Possibilities of paranoia became abundant.

Either way, they'll call it paranoia.

There was the true continuity, San Narciso had no boundaries.