The Dedication

 For Melanie,
and for Jackson

* * * * * * * * * *

Melanie is Pynchon's wife and Jackson is Pynchon's son. Apparently he wrote the book for them. Although if he'd never met Melania and Jackson was never born, I'm certain he would have written this book anyway. He probably figured he would have to dedicate a book to them at some point so why not dedicate this one about boundaries. The subtext is that they're the part of his life before the title page; everything past that point has nothing to do with them so stop trying to read into the occasional character who gets a boner because three young and horny daughters constantly fight to sit on his lap or how that other character falls in love with the daughter of the woman he's sleeping with or how that one character's name is Oedipa Maas which obviously means "I want to have sex with my mother, like, a lot!"

Anyway, this book is about borders and the dedication comes before the title page so I don't think it actually has anything to do with the book at all and I probably should have ignored it completely.