The Crying of Lot 49 (Perennial Fiction Library)

Lot 49 is a unique book, and one of my favorites of all time. I read it for the first time years ago in a class which had T.S.Eliot's Wasteland as central theme, and it was in this context that I came to explore its different levels of meaning. The most fascinating quality of Lot 49 comes from its weaving a highly colorful tapestry, where comical anecdote, subcultural jargon, social satire, historical revelations, and philosophical discourse on moral values are all entertwined. The result is a complex, highly entertaining concentrate of food for thought that I'm not about to forget, and a book to which I am in fact deeply attached. (For those who have trouble understanding the underlying themes, try reading Grant's "Companion to Lot 49", or the York Notes.)

"The Crying of Lot 49" is a metaphysical mystery as well as a hilarious satire. "The Courier's Tragedy" is probably the funniest episode I have ever read. However, there is much more to this book than meets the eye. In fact, I'd recommend, after you read it, to go back and re-read it with the help of J. Kerry Grant's Companion. There are many allusions in this work that you probably weren't aware of (I sure wasn't) that make the mystery of the book all the more intriguing. Though it is Pynchon's shortest novel, "The Crying of Lot 49" packs enough paranoia into its pages to fill a thousand page epic. This is probably his most accessible book, but do not be fooled: it is no easy read. However, the rewards of it are well-worth the necessary efforts put forth.

I was told that this book was a very good intellectual read. I am someone who had previously struggled through Joyce's Ulysses. As difficult for me as that book was, this one was a lot tougher to get through. I am not big on stream-of-consciousness writing and enormous difficulty understanding and following what was happening in this book.
I can see that the book has some good writing. I am sure that the book is quite good if it is your style. That is why I am still giving it 3 stars. It is quite possible that this book is like an IQ test. Only people with Mensa stats can get what's going on here. I guess I have not arrived at that level.

I would give this book 2.5 stars if possible. Good, but not great.

I "get" the book, and I sympathize with those on both sides; read any of the reviews here and you'll see how extremely polarizing this book (and, indeed, Pynchon, in general) is.

As another reviewer said: it is interesting but not compelling. Paranoia for paranoia's sake. The ending was fitting, and I don't fault that. It has its moments as well as some genuinely funny passages. But the characters are forgettable. A lot of it is forgettable. It's one of those books where it's more satisfying to describe the plot than it is to actually read the book. In all, there may be about five memorable passages in the whole story.

I'm glad I read it and, perhaps, I may read it again to give it another chance. I found that it was a hard book to hate, and easy to like--or, rather, easy to *want* to like. But after giving it some thought, it seems that it tries too hard to say too much without saying anything of any significance at all.

But worse things could be said about a book. At least he tried.

Crying of Lot 49 is a great indtroduction to the world of Thomas Pynchon. Having read this book first, a person can expand their vocabulary and find a way to understand the turbulent 60s (when one wasn't born then). Pynchon developed his characters with great care and are fully believable. Oedipa Maas is the best main character I have ever enjoyed reading about. Plus the rock band scenes are funny. Give this book a chance. Having picked up other Pynchon classics, all of his books are classics, this novel is way shorter

I first read this novellete as an assignment for my 11th grade english class, and I will admit, most of it flew over my uneducated and naivete-ridden head. Upon reading it a second time as a fully educated and aware 12th grader at my own leisure, and with the benefit of having read about entropy and began the cyclical process of comprehension and discombulation that comes with it, I was, to put it midly, blown away. I finished the book, and once again suprised that number at the bottom of the page was 154 not 451, I had been bum-rushed by humanity. This is life, regardless that the story took place in the 1960's, for this story will still be painfully relevant in the next 60's.

Thomas Pynchon has a death grip on human society and proves it in The Crying of Lot 49; however, instead of the squeezing it and picking out the seeds then feeding it to the reader in a glass, he picks it up and throws it at the reader.

Such a positive review, but I give this only a 9, because, well, Mr. Pynchon seems to get so involved in his social critism, that he forgets to develop his means: the characters. I just wish that his characters were used less as an avenue for his theme. Instead, I wish that he had considered his characters an indepedent entity, then built his story around them.

Nevertheless, Pynchon is able to keep these characters alive via a life-support of drugs and sex, thereby diverting the reader's attention from the comatosity of the characters and towards the ferverency and vivacity of the plot.

Very well done. If only I could write so well.

Back in the sixties, I remember carrying a well-worn copy of LOT 49 around with me wherever I went, wherever I hung out in Berkeley. Pynchon was God; He knew. He gave us the California landscape, its craziness, its mindscape as no other author had done before. So what if the book was a put-on? So what if it was really about the "selling" or "crying" in real estate terms of the lot that is California, the state created by the 49ers? So what if the characters were straight out of comic books? It was the way he had woven it all so artfully together, a California of one piece, comprehensible for a change, maybe even understandable. I thank Pynchon for doing that. From time to time, I go back to LOT 49, taste the language and descriptions, do a few mental jumps in time back to that bizarre period in American life. Pynchon saw it all so early, so clearly.

Easily surpasses almost everything you've ever read!!
I love Don DeLillo. I think Jonathan Foer is going to carve out his niche in the next 10 years. Dave Eggers is fun and thought provoking. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE THOMAS PYNCHON! And this is the book EVERYONE needs to read.

I found the book moved slowly at first, but like a perfect mystery, you find that every phrase is a slow unfolding of a much grander scheme. There are simply no wasted words- everything matters. Every plot point will be reflected at a later point and the mystery will deepen with every page. After awhile, you will be convinced that there actually is a major conspiracy afoot going on around you. You will look at America in a way that is very uncomfortable. You will not trust your mailman. You'll look at mailboxes in a different way. You will scour the internet searching for Tristero. You will try to convince yourself over and over again- IT'S JUST A BOOK!!

"Lot 49" is the book for every one of you that has ground their teeth at every suggestion of "The DaVinci Code". It's the book for everyone who winces at a "Bush/Cheney '04" sticker. It's the book for everyone who looks over their shoulder when walking for no reason at all but knows there's a reason and it doesn't matter how many times your friends call you paranoid because damn it, you know you're right!

I've read most of Pycnhon's books (didn't make it all the way through "Mason and Dixon"-due to timing, not quality). I am one of the few people on this earth that actually stuck out all 750+ pages of "Gravity's Rainbow". I have researched and debated much of the works. THIS BOOK is the one I will stand by through heaven and hell.

DON'T EVER ANTAGONIZE THE HORN!!
You've been warned...

The novel's protagonist, Oedipa Mass, starts out as a housewife in a "ticky-tacky" little suburb and gradually and seemingly randomly starts noticing things in her daily life that seem to be evidence of a secret society. Its purpose is to conduct a secret alternative mail system. She starts investigating this secret society and becomes engrossed in the belief that it actually exists, though in the end she's not sure whether it's for real or, as a few people she meets claim, an elaborate hoax.

As far as I can tell, The Crying of Lot 49 is basically an allegory about the nascent stages in the growth of various subcultures (the New Left, Reaganism, etc.) in Southern California during the early sixties (represented by the secret mail society) and mainstream America's slow realization of their existence and its subsequent fascination with them (represented by Oedipa).

Interestingly, this secret society seems to have adherents from both the cold warriors of the libertarian right and The New Left (or rather allegorical equivalents of these movements), suggesting some deeper similarity between these opposites - namely, their dissatisfaction with various (though mostly different) aspects of the anti-individualistic rigidity and staidness of middle-class post-war America.

Characters who submit to the shallow satisfactions of conventional society - such as Oedipa's husband, who becomes a sort of middle-aged teeny-bopper - come to look like freakish zombies. Yet the alternative doesn't look so nice either. Feeling pressed upon on all sides, the characters who don't submit want to escape into some sort of freedom but have little idea of what sort of freedom they want or what to do with it.

The only thing that unites all the people in this secret society is their unwillingness to participate in a generally accepted institution, the US mail system. Yet they don't have much of a good reason for not participating considering that it's not as if the US mail system was corrupt or broken at the time. In practice, this secret mail system is useless and absurd, so it's almost like they're not participating merely for the sake of not participating, as if they didn't know what to do with their willingness to drop out of conventional society.

What's interesting about Pynchon's book is that while we generally remember the more purposeful, driven radical elements of sixties culture (everything from the yippies to Goldwater), Pynchon reminds us how much of that dissatisfaction with Post-War America was just a vague, general ennui or anomie. Of course, the book leaves open the possibility that the secret society doesn't exist at all, in which case it's all an illusion projected out of Oedipa's head, a fantasy generated by Oedipa's own wish for escape.

Considering how shallow and conformist America still is, it's easy to see the continuing relevance of this book even though so many things treated in the book have changed since then, such as the ascendancy of the radical right into the mainstream and the utter disappearance of the New Left.

Yet I have to admit that the book's critique of bureaucracy rings a little hollow these days, considering how many Americans there are now who wouldn't mind the staid yet secure postwar world so hated by these characters and probably Pynchon too. As a temp worker who can't afford anything better than catastrophic health insurance, I know I wouldn't mind a bit more security, even at the cost of having to be a "company man" in a gray suit.

Regarding the notorious pranksterism of the plotting, the cartoonishness of the characterization, and the manic, elaborate parodies of all sorts of contemporary modes of rhetoric, I do have to admit that Pynchon overdoes it sometimes. There are moments of hard-earned pathos if not sincerity, but as in the films of Godard, it's hard not to wish that they came little more often and with a few less caveats. Still, fans of Nathanial West and Flannery O'Conner (or for that matter, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Harvey Birdman, and Radiohead) should feel right at home here in this cynical, scathing, absurdist brew.

This is a relatively easy book to read given the complexities of the Pynchonian oeuvre, but as some people have noticed it is not an easy book to understand. In it, I believe that Thomas Pynchon is challenging both the classical notion of a hidden structure and the modernist notion of a self-created structure. This is the first book in which the author tries to articulate a coordinated human response to being thrown into an apparently indifferent, degenerate Copernican acosmos, a universe without intrinsic values. Because of the book's compact size, nearly linear plot and concentration on a single, central protagonist, 28 year old Oedipa Maas, we are compelled to view her imagined discovery of the dystopian structure, the Tristero, as one way of giving meaning to the entropic disintegration of human life, of finding "a reason that mattered to the world," (p. 150).

Oedipa Maas becomes trapped between the two idealizations of (i) existential power to create, and (ii) gnostic ability to establish values. Oedipa's existential state is exemplified by a painting in the book (mentioned on p. 11) by Remedios Varo, which inverts the Christian creation and tries to construct an independent self; but this only leads to solipsism and narcissism: with the anthropological fear of non-existence, of there being only "the void" (p. 141). Through another metaphor, that of a slow "whirlwind," (pp. 14, 16) we cannot hear the words of revelation because the wind is rotating too slowly (God spoke to Job out of a whirlwind) and so Oedipa tries to construct an alternative source of gnostic value, "the languid, sinister blooming of The Tristero," (pp. 39-40) with its symbol of the muted post horn, to mute the trumpets of the Apocalypse through bureaucratic waste; but this only leads her into deeper gnostic paranoia and the self-construction of projected revelation: with the cosmological fear of becoming a machine, "a great digital computer" (p. 150).

By showing how Oedipa can neither become an independent self, nor can realize her own personal revelation, Thomas Pynchon indirectly re-establishes a route back to reality: "the reality principle" (p. 111). Oedipa's failure is the failure of her mystical search for charisma, the gift of tongues, "the direct, epileptic Word, the cry that might abolish the night," (p. 95) but without the necessary and corresponding rational order of tradition. This one-sidedness provokes Oedipa (and the reader), in the final auction, into an implicated choice between some kind of objective truth and paranoiac self-centering, between the spiritual and the material: thus, the crier, Loren Passerine is "the finest auctioneer in the West," (p. 151) but also, maybe "a descending angel;" (p. 152) an indirect positing of the choice between God and idolatry. However, Oedipa's potential revelation, the "high magic to low puns," (p. 105) is a recovery through satire from the stilted, post-romantic pretentiousness of modernism; a passerine is a perching song-bird, "Loren Passerine, on his podium, hovered like a puppet-master," (p. 152) about the size of a sparrow.

I've read all of Pynchon's works, and while I can't say that Crying of Lot 49 is his best, or his most complex, it is certainly his most accessible. If you want to get into Pynchon, this is definitely the place to start. This book has all of the wacky conspiracy theory that you'll get in V and Gravity's Rainbow, but it doesn't require all of the background knowledge that you really need to get anything out of it. Pynchon tends to show off how much research he has done by throwing all sorts of obscure facts and references at you, but he keeps that to a minimum here. In addition, it isn't anywhere near as long as some of this other works, so you can get a good feel for the author without having to commit several months of reading.
If you are a fan of conspiracies in general, or you are looking for a great weird book that will challenge your perception of reality without causing you to bang you head against the wall in frustration, you can't beat this book.

I've read this at least 49 times. If this sounds like pathology, obsession, madness... ...well... ...you're on target. There is a fine line between Gnostic revelation and the leap into insanity. The central issue of this little book---the moment just prior to Gnosis---gets tied up in a morass of puns, satire, smartass language and sophomore humor. A lot of the themes of "49" reappear in "Gravity's Rainbow", in much greater detail and with much greater emotional impact . Part of my infatuation with this novella comes from living all my life in California, mostly on the coast, in places like South Central and Berkeley. The places he describes, sometimes hidden by pun ridden psudonymns, are all familiar haunts. But most of my attraction to "Lot 49" comes from being haunted as Oedipa Maas was haunted, wondering if those connections she encountered---between a need for an alternate communication network... ...anybody remember "underground" radio?... ...and the need to supress the moment of ultimate revelation... ...anybody remember "Eve of Destruction?... ...well... ...I guess that I've walked in Oedipa's shoes more than once. Pynchon has an altogether remarkable ability to express ulitmate paranoia. "49" is not as well written as "Gravity's Rainbow", not as fun as "Vineland", not as "Literary" as "Mason & Dixon", but well worth investigating if you are drawn to that territory. "49" is an occult book that stays occult.

There are many better reviews of this book than mine, so I will keep it short. I read a selection from this book out of my Postmodern Literature and Film class and decided to go out and buy the actual book. There is level upon level upon level in this story. You can read it ten times and still see new things and make new connections. Very confusing at first but very rewarding. And as a bonus, it is based on fact. Search the internet for Thurn and Taxis and you'll come across websites that detail in fact and pictures what this book talks about. Fantastic book. Very short. Good for a weekend.

Subversive? Stupid? Both? The Crying of Lot 49 is a satire of something, perhaps itself. Characters and places have silly names, witty parodies engage in absurdist hijinks, and deep down there might be some sort of meaning about the failure of language. Of course, you're not supposed to care about the meaning if you want to enjoy this book. It's a long and clever joke whose only true target is itself. While the creative or inventive potential of this is high, the result just falls apart as it goes on. (But then again, this is supposed to represent entropy probably. It's clever, see, but not very enjoyable for being so)
All this said, the one thing this book left me wanting to do most was read another Thomas Pynchon book. His writing (except for in the beginning few chapters) was solid, and the ideas he does communicate are interesting. He's quoted as saying that The Crying of Lot 49 was a mistake of a book, and agreeing with that and wanting to get an actually representative representation of his work, I move on to Gravity's Rainbow. But later. I'm tired enough of The Crying of Lot 49.

Whose Conspiracy is it?
In The Crying of Lot 49, Pynchon seems to be trying to spoof the conspiracy-theory story, but I believe he fails to write a convincing story because there are no believable characters moving the plot.
Ever since I started high school in 1952 I have been aware that individuals have descried and the media have described grand theories of covert conspiracies at all levels of our society. In my earliest recollections it was the "dirty pinko commies" who had infiltrated Hollywood, the Army, and all levels of the U.S. Government and "they" were determined to destroy our Judeo-Christian-military-industrial society. When I started college in the early sixties, the hot conspiracy was the work of the rabble rousers trying to subvert the status quo among the minorities and women. After the Kennedys and M. L. King were assassinated, wonderfully chilling, probing novels, TV documentaries, dramas, and fantastic movies promoting a vast array of conspiracy theories were produced. Modern America has been primed to expect a conspiracy in any place or at any time as a part of our partisan political process. We love a good conspiracy-theory story.
As an engineer who lived in Southern California in the sixties and worked a few years for a small electronics company that made subassemblies that wound up on the moon, I could identify with the poor slobs who worked for Yoyodyne. As a stamp collector, the name "Thurn and Taxis" sounded very familiar. As an avid reader of the plays of the Seventeenth Century, I could identify most of the scenes in the Courier's Tragedy. As a fan of David Lodge, I smiled at the allusion to Morris Zapf. All of Pynchon's characters range from oddball to extreme stereotypes, and the plot unfolds driven by an extremely long series of tedious coincidences that drive Oedipa through an improbable quest that ends at an auction.
What bothered me was that Pynchon has Oedipa jump to a conclusion that there is a conspiracy early in the plot and then she sets out on a liminal quest and builds a hermeneutic conspiracy theory which the author presents in as realistically detailed a fashion as Dreiser does in An American Tragedy. Granted Pynchon follows the postmodernist formula of introducing a wide ranging pastiche of clues, provided by widely different, mostly unreliable, repressed to paranoid characters, but they all reinforce in Oedipa's mind that there is a rational conspiracy that has existed for almost three hundred years, which has the effect of being a substitute religious experience and post office for the usual outcasts of society.
There were many warm smiles along the way, but the relentless sledge hammering of the mindless, paranoid clues Oedipa follows wore me down. Satire needs a believable, naïve straight man, or woman, to carry the story line. Ode didn't do it for me.
I rate the book two and a half stars.

A great cross-section of society, where a middleclass suburban woman's psyche is cleaved into multiple parts and has to deal with more than what the world is outside of her expertise. Written with a Carrollian whit and humor, "Lot" exposes the idiosyncratic. No matter what interpretation one chooses, "Lot" is a hysterical journey, surrounded by the absurd and possibly one of the biggest jokes played on the literary public, where red herrings bound from page to page and reality is weaved by those who are shut out from society.
~John J. Petrolino III: November 5, 2008
Author of Galleria: A collection of poetry and the short story "Three Lonesome Travelers"

One day Mrs. Oedipa Maas discovers that she has been made executor of her ex-lover's will. As she proceeds she discovers that the legacy with which she has been entrusted draws her ever deeper into a complex web of conspiracies. Yet what she has discovered may be no more than her own paranoia, and the novel ends ambiguously with the final revelation still impending like a judgement day forever suspended.

The book walks a careful line between the comic and the tragic. It is a difficult balance and Pynchon maintains it beautifully. Unlike many literary comic novelists Pynchon is genuinely funny. Yet as Oedipa wanders around San Francisco encountering alienation and loss everywhere she turns a genuine pathos creeps into the humor.

I'm sure there are many ways to read the Crying of Lot 49. I think we may approach it as both a social satire of consumerism and as a larger statement about the breakdown of communication in all human communities.

On the whole I consider this to be one of my favorite novels.

After my second reading, I am still too affected to write an emotionally unbiased review. So let me just say that this work is absolutely wonderful, and is one of those few works that really reaches out and grabs you in the gut -- one thinks, if but for a moment, that despite his apparent absence one has really made contact with Pynchon...or at least with a fellow presence amongst the noise, and that together it might be safe to tempt or, better yet, pursue fate (even if only for 180 pages) .
Also, this book is soooo much more than merely a Pynchonesque statement about America in the 50's and early 60's (though it is certainly also that and in the most briliant way imaginable): the book plays with the big themes..too big and amorphous to get right here, right now...but you know, don't you? If you have ever thought that you might just be making out against the sensual din about you the Word, momentarily finding some order amongst the oh-so-entertaining flickering of everything about you, only to feel the butterflies in your stomach signaling and guiding you towards 'safer' ground which may not in fact feel so safe or sensible, then you have already met with the Tristero...or perhaps, they have met with you...or, just maybe, you're nuts!

"The Crying of Lot 49" slowly unfolds into a conspiracy theory so crazy it just might be true. After reading it, I started looking for signs of its truth, and, either it is true, or fans of the novel have planted the signs themselves. Maybe both.
Not just a paranoid lark, though, "49" is a wonderful satire of power structures. Like the best cyberpunk novels (Stephenson, Gibson), the satire is not so broad that it slaps you in the face immediately. But by the time you get to "KCUF" radio, you're pretty sure that not everything is meant to be taken at face value :-)
Maybe it's the fact that we're recycling a lot of 70s culture now, but the satire doesn't seem that dated. Like Swift, it ages well.
If you've been afraid of Pynchon for his pop-yet-pomo reputation, try this one out.

Let's start with the good stuff: what other author has so respected the intelligence of its reader? "The Crying of Lot 49" offers a staggering plethora of wordplay and discourse drawn from the wide world of cocktail parties, thermal physics, greek drama, and us postal history. Your synapses will explode with color. The charcters are drawn with beautiful quirkiness, from housewives suffering from 20th century ennui to urban cowboys. The anticipation of watching them interact is much like pouring yellow into green in the chem lab, and the results are not in the least dissapointing.
Now the bad stuff: behind all the flash, what's left, really? A pale conspiracy book that suffers two major ails: 1. The conspiracy isn't believable, and 2. Though novel, the conspiracy fails to maintain your interest once the novelty has worn off. The book reminds me of Nabokov's "Pale Fire"--interesting from a technical standpoint, but beyond the styling, there is nothing significant. However, just like Nabokov, it's clear that Pynchon is an excellent writer. My suggestion is you try another Pynchon novel (I haven't read any others personally, but everyone seems to think "gravity's rainbow" is where it's at) or a good conspiracy book, like the Illuminatus trilogy.

For everyone out there who quakes at the thought of starting Gravity's Rainbow, this book is the best jumping off point to enter the Pynchon universe.
But more than that, this book is a marvelous tale, compactly told. In it you can see the germs of much of what would become dominant themes in Pynchon's later works (such as an interest in the channels through which information pass and the people who run them). Yes, this isn't his first novel, and it's by far not his most well known -- but in my opinion, it provides the most satisfying read, without the feeling of being overwhelmed by the immensity of Gravity's Rainbow or some of the missteps that seemed to plague V. and Vineland.
Find yourself a rainy Sunday, curl up in your favorite chair, and read this. It's an overlooked treasure.

Pynchon seems to rub many readers here the wrong way, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. 'Lot 49' makes us reconsider what a novel is capable of - it helps push some of the limits of a genre that has become banal so often nowadays.
Pynchon's book overflows with a mixture of references to science and pop culture, and manages to weave them into all a wonderful fabric that wraps around Oedipa's search for the truth and order in her world. Conspiracy and intimation are central threads in the fabric, and the connection between ideas as disparate as Maxwell's Demon and a gay bar in California lead us to wonder what all the bits and pieces of our lives might add up to (if anything).
If you're interested in a standard novel that does not ask you to consider anything more than a few plot turns, then perhaps 'Lot 49' would not be the best book for you. But if you'd like to be taken on a ride to places that other books might not have taken you before, by all means pick up Pynchon's witty and intelligent take on 20th century America - and hold on tight...

My brother sent this to me for Christmas... forgetting that he is the literary genius... and I read horror stories and classics. I loved this book. I was so utterly confused that my brain couldn't seem to stop analyzing the situations. The symbolism and paranoia in this book are amazing... And, don't fool yourself into thinking that you will sit back and enjoy the ride. You will find yourself squinting at anyone in uniform...wondering, if the author knows something that we don't. Well, what fun is life if you don't really wonder about conspiracy therories?

I just finished reading this book about 2 weeks ago. I've started reading it again, and it's so much simpler now, I don't even notice any complexity in the text anymore, and it's much more entertaining and much more funnier. After I finish it again, I am planning on buying the companion to this, and try to get underneath all of the underlying themes, all the symbolism and cubism of this artful book. It's a must-have book for any book lover.

Like many readers, I must confess that I have difficulty reading "stream of consciousness" style writing. For some, this is what makes writers like Pynchon and Joyce hard to read. The run-on sentences make the middle school grammar teacher in me scream out for order. Despite this, I decided to give Pynchon's writing a chance. While I did enjoy the overall story, the presentation was not to my preference.

In a series of conspiracies, Oedipa Mass finds herself executor of the estate of her late boyfriend. Not only does she reveal the sources of his wealth, but she also discovers an underground network of conspiracies. Scattered amid historical references, one door of conspiracy leads to another. Dry humor and wit preceed the doors, yet I thought the attempts at humor did not always deliver a payoff.

I can appreciate the talent in Pynchon's writing, but I must admit that it is not my cup of tea. It is apparent that his books have a rather devout following, yet his books are not for everyone.

This is my favorite book, but its not for everyone. Pynchon's style is dense and you'll find yourself reading sentences two or three times before you can make out the grammar.

The story reads like a mystery, but this plot is only a cover for the philosophy Pynchon is proposing. Once you find the philosophy, though, a second and third read will reveal that the story of Oedipa and even the structure of the book are examples of that philosophy. Oh yeah, and its funny as hell too.

If you can deal with Pynchon's style and stave off the idea that he is simply toying with his readers, then The Crying of Lot 49 is one of the most rewarding little books you'll find.

This book is sheer genius! I thought the whole "Cashiered" movie sequence was one of the funniest and most black of satires ever written. Anyone who doesn't see the humor in a little boy, his father and faithful St. Bernard fighting WWI germans in a miniature submarine as absolutely hysterical, well, oboy, they need to have a funny bone transplant. Read this book over and over. Then read it again.

For those who want to read Pynchon but don't want to go near V or Gravity's Rainbow this is the one for you... It is very accessable and has a lot of the craziness that is characteristic of Pynchon's other works. His genius is there on every page, and although he substitutes aesthetics from time to time (there will be moments when you will wonder 'where exactly did the setting go?' or 'this character really doesn't need to be here, isn't that obvious?') in order to wow you with the sheer power of his brain, it is still a great book. There are so many humorous scenes in this book, especially with Dr Hilarius, that it is worth it to read it just for them. But beware there is a lot going on beneath the surface here, and even if you're a highly intelligent person, you will still be scratching your head from time to time. I located an online study guide and followed after each chapters and it enhanced my enjoyment of this slim but heavy book.

I wrote a paper on this book. In his comments, my TA wrote: "sometimes you eat the bear, well, sometimes the bear eats you..." Ha, Ha. It's simply unbelievable how big that bear is. In fact, it reminds me of those fractals in math: infinitely complex -- whenever you think you've "got it," take one step back, and "it" turns out to be just one almost negligible part of the infinite complexity of this strange tale of conspiracy, religion, history, love, criticism on literary critics, LSD, Nazi doctors, anarchy, American Dream... the list goes on and on. They are all connected, and very powerful. The style and content are fused with such wonder unlike anything I've ever dreamed of. One point may deserve special notice for historic purpose: Pychon is truly a visionary -- he saw The Information Age, with all of its power and frailty, more than 30 years ago, long before cellphone, internet, pc, and all of those modern technological wonders.

I admit, and I think 95% of Pynchon's readers should also give in, that this piece, and all of Pynchon's pieces, are absolutely maddeningly complex, almost impossible to keep together in your head, or even if you write notes, keep track of every character, "story"lines, etc. That being said, the prose is top-notch, obviously, and that's why ya read it, right? 5 stars.

But boy, this book just turned me off completely. I take the point of the reader who wrote the review "Great Writers Are Not to Blame for Your Lack of Education", but I also believe that one should feel free to say, "I just didn't like it" and not have to worry about having your intelligence or lack thereof implicated. Having said that-- the character names; silly. Plot development; nonexistent. Characters; flat flat flat. This is all purely my opinion-- I'm definitely more of a classics reader. But I did get an education, and continue to educate myself, so I don't feel too bad about not liking Pynchon. And I think I may still give Gravity's Rainbow a try, you never know...

This is only the second Pynchon novel I have read. Pynchon is just as infuriatingly talented as he is infuriatingly vague. I like his work despite not ever fully understanding exactly what it is I have just read. If you like Pynchon, you will like this novel.

You give Thos. Pynchon 200 or so pages and that's it. Then you get a decent read. Pynchon is indeed required reading at some point, so start here. Forgive him the half-sentences, and some parts that seemed to need an editor, and just enjoy. This book is fine, and again, he's an author we ought to have read.
And when you like this, which you probably will, be warned. For as his novels double ( triple ) in size, so then do his shortcomings become too painful to endure.

"The Crying of Lot 49" is satirical, trippy, and complex. And while it may be analyzed on many different levels, what strikes me again and again is the comedy of the novel. Anyone who reads "The Courier's Tragedy" section of Pynchon's "Lot 49" and is not rolling with laughter should be examined.

Mrs. Maas uncovered a plot so old and deeply rooted, that it turned her life into a festering paranoia. Trystero became an obsession of her's at the moment it's existance became known to her. Why should an organisation as hardly significant as a secret underground mail service be so facinating to her anyway? --@--<|i

My high school teacher's best friend tried to write her PhD
on Thomas Pynchon. She gave up after three years though:
after reading and re-reading his books, she couldn't tell if
he was joking or not.
Welcome to Pynchon's world, where a combination of extreme
fact and a unique imagination provide you with books like no
other. "The Crying of Lot 49", his second (and shortest)
book, is the best way for newcomers to appreciate Pynchon's
take on the world. When the main character is named executrix
of an old lover's estate, it begins a search into a secret
postal service, and conspiracy after consiracy. A truly
original novel that asks as many questions as it answers.
If you like books that challenge as well as entertain, Pynchon
is well worth looking into, and this is his most accessable
work.

At my father's urging, I finally picked up CL49 this past Sunday and began to read. When I put it down after a smidge over three hours, I was, like him, finished in a day. Simply put, The Crying of Lot 49 is the Thomas Pynchon gateway. I'm now on Gravity's Rainbow, with V and Inherent Vice soon to follow. It's a masterwork.

W.A.S.T.E. And if you don't get it, read the book.

This is a short, clever, easy-to-read book. Very clever! Maybe too clever! It's about a woman who maybe uncovers a really, really big conspiracy. Maybe. Or maybe she uncovered a small conspiracy. Or maybe she's just had a wee bit too much to drink. Who knows! W.A.S.T.E. rocks. Just ask Radiohead. Three thumbs up!

I didn't much care for this book. I felt it was bland, believe it or not. It was a fairly challenging read, yes, and it had a few redeeming ideas. But what disturbs me the most is the idea that if you don't like this book you're some TV gorged ape or other simian counterpart. The types of people who tell me that I don't like this book because I possess not the lofty intellect to appreciate it, are the same types who tell me I am racist for not liking "The Invisible Man," or I am sexist for not enjoying Sylvia Plath in general. As the "Great Writers Are Not to Blame for Your Lack of Education," guy stated that he feared complaints that some novels are too challenging would lead to "The Dumbing Down of America," I fear the uglier problem at hand is the inability of a person to state his/her opinion without being assailed as some sort of saboteur to a school of theory or line of thinking.

Rarely have I been so profoundly affected by an author's words! I read Lot 49 as part of a literature course this past Spring at Rollins College. I ended up writing two papers about it: "Is Oedipa on a quest for God?" and "Is Oedipa on a quest for her own sexual identity?" The first paper led me to the second in a warp-speed realization that the book is actually about everything! It addresses the holistic nature of the universe. Everything is interconnected; nothing in life happens in a vacuum. I ended up writing my application essay for my masters program on the impact this novel had on my life. Without exaggeration, Lot 49 is now my favorite book. I can hardly wait to read more by Pynchon.

I find it difficult to believe that people found the prose of this book to be unreadable. This book is fast reading, I finished it the same day I bought it. Of course, my first Pynchon novel was Gravity's Rainbow. I could understand somebody not liking Gravity's Rainbow even though I loved it, because that book is a lot more challenging. But not liking The Crying of Lot 49, which was written straightforwardly with a single plotline, is beyond my comprehension.

Whether you enjoy this book or hate every last pretentious minute of it, understand it or are puzzled by it's calculated circular logic, whether you lightly skim it or read all the endless sholarly notes on it, this book will make you think. And it's the thought that counts.

Brief, rich, and dense, this is the perfect place to start if you want to get into Pynchon (which is an admirable quality). A tale of madness, mail, conspiracy theories, forgotten history....it doesn't get much better than that!

I agree with the reviewer who is troubled by the idea that you have to be "Educated" in order to get certain books. I felt in reading this book that one had to be "hip" to Pynchon's "jive" to have a prayer of enjoying it. He presents us with a labyrinthine plotline filled with hipsters, weirdos and satire descended from the beatniks, all of which, ultimately, does not deliver anything close to a profound conclusion. It's as if Pynchon sets the reader up for a revelation and then, poof, there is no revelation, the revelation is made of feathers and dandelion puffs. Which left me feeling as though Pynchon is simply having fun at the reader's expense, weaving elaborate, dense, and bizarre language with very little substance. And the hijinx, while sometimes funny, aren't entertaining enough to sustain the weight of it all. This book is ultimately Dada-ist, which in my opinion is bad enough, but worse, it doesn't mean to be. It means to be profound and witty and elegantly irreverent. Please. Spare me the self-important novelist's language games. To be fair, I would try reading V or Gravity's Rainbow to see how it compared with this novel, since his use of language and insight are quite brilliant at times. But as for this book, whew. What a let-down.

Every once in a while I discover a book that is not meant for me, one that is beyond my mere mortal sense of narrative, one beyond my definition of what a novel is and should be.

The Crying of Lot 49 is one of those books. I have put off reading Pychon my whole life until now, for fear that his well-deserved reputation for inventing the Pynchonian style of writing would be too much for my pea-brain to comprehend. His book are not destined for the masses, and he is fine with that. I respect that.

I will not give up on you, Pynchon. I have the feeling that, with practice and a real honing of my literary skills, someday I may love you. Alas, that day has not arrived yet.....

Profoundly disturbing, if only for its impenetrability. This strikes me as acid jazz for the literary set--angelically resonant prose that surrounds some "deeper meaning" like a cage. The reader can see, but never grasp, the glittering, captured daemon of meaning beneath. I'd recommend this only to readers willing to wade through much maddening obscurity to claim a higher ground.

This was my first Thomas Pynchon novel and it took me a little while to figure out what was going on as it did Oedipa, the protagonist in the novel. This is a novel that may require a second read or maybe I need to read more Pynchon.

Gold. Gold. A hallmark of everything modern lit should be. This kind of writing is the heart and soul of our age. This is the stuff of canon, the kind of book and the kind of author they'll be studying 200 yrs from now in some 20th Century American Lit course, the professor will be saying "this is one of the best articulations of post WW2 cold war era american paranoia." this novel is gold jerry, gold.

Pynchon is poetic, razor-sharp, and funny.
Lot 49 is an odd trip into the world of a woman who is not quite sure who she is or what all the answers mean. Believe me, after reading this book I know how she feels. I gave this book four stars for the sometimes ethereal prose that comes with it. I didn't give it five stars because of its intrinsic difficulty to get through. However, if you are ready for something strangely wonderful and not just the average mindless fluff, give this book a try. It will make you want to read it more than once.

This is a good intro to Pynchon's works.
An unusual mix of light hearted, even slap stick humor, think Three Stooges, and deep literary references.
Combine it with an underlying conspiracy and you get a good feel for Pynchon's style.
I don't think this is his best work. Not as funny as Vineland. Not as deep or dark as V.

Through the use of deep reflection and mind-altering substances, I came to a Zen-like understanding of this book and used that understanding to write a brilliant paper on it. My knowledge of "The Crying of Lot 49" is infinite and all encompassing. Although Pynchon dismisses this book in his introduction to "Slow Learner" and critics have said that this book does not compare to either "V" or "Gravity's Rainbow", it is still a definitive postmodern text and far easier to read than a text like "Rainbow". Thanks to the short length and linear plot, readers should not have the same problems with "Lot 49" they may have had with "Gravity's Rainbow". The apparent readability of this text belies its complex nature, however. Through his use of dense language, intricate symbiotics, and an ambiguity on the plot level, Pynchon articulates a multiplicity of meaning that allows an incredibly diverse array of textual interpretations. When the main character, Oedipa Maas, wonders, "Shall I project a world?" she speaks for anyone who has attempted to sort through this novel. For any reader looking for a challenging and thought-provoking book who does not want to sort through 760 pages of "Gravity's Rainbow" I would highly recommend this book.

I've just re-read Pynchon's novel and, once again, I'm impressed. Its density is truly amazing. Like Oedipa, the reader gets lost within worlds of words trying to look beyond their meaning.
Pynchon's strategy (just like the strategy of ominous Inverarity) seems to be to keep his victim busy and paranoid. Being the paranoid reader I am (I hopelessly suspect meaning behind every awkward phrase), I really enjoyed The Crying. (And it surely makes for easier reading than Gravities Rainbow...)

Though I admire Pynchon as a monumental writer in postmodern American literature, I must say that reading The Crying of Lot 49 was anything but relaxing. I truly admire Pynchon's clever wit and humor, but the symbolism and references hidden behind every other word made me feel absolutely exhausted. I would still recommend this book, but only to someone who is up for a deep, mind-twisting read - not for a soothing novel for the tub.

I found the characters to be unreal, as perhaps Pynchon intended, the jokes and characters'names sophomoric, and the plot incomprehensible. Pynchon hits a lot of easy targets - right wingers, Southern California crazies, environmental spoilage and pointless wealth accumulation - but if there is a bigger theme, I couldn't find it. As a reader, I don't feel challenged; I feel defeated.

You know those really-need-to-give-medication-a-try types who constantly scribble in notebooks using tiny, densely packed letters and nodding knowingly at things that barely penetrate your attention? This is the kind of novel they'd write if they had somehow acquired an English degree with a specialization in Elizabethan England.

I found it not that difficult, at times amusing and a useful tool for understanding the last three decades of post-ironic, post-modern, post-clarity "serious" literature. But I was quite glad it was no longer than it was.

Although I could go on about this book until your ears bled. I just wanted to let sdfsdf (whose review graces the first page of this entry) know that he really oughtn't try so hard. So you are (or want to be) a logophile. Congratulations! But you, unlike Pynchon, scarcely warrant the reading of your review, much less looking up your impressive-looking (but lousily contextualized, and oft-misused) words. If the literati were more along the lines of the illuminati, you'd have been cut long ago. (It's nothing personal. It's just that I trip over people like you every day, where I'm at, and I'm pretty tired of having barked shins.)

I first heard about this from the S-T (Read the book--you'll know what it means) mailing list, and decided that I ought to read it. While I do not find it particularly humorous (maybe I don't "get" the jokes; the puns seemed flat), I felt that the characters were well-crafted and the plot was very interesting. A lot of the book is quite weird, but it produces a rich and captivating world. This was my first book by Pynchon, but it shall not be my last.

OHMYGOD!!! This book is hard to read because of the confusion, which I bet Pynchon intended. The postmodern retro feeling is fun as well as the googy names. If you hated the book, you probably hate analying symbolism. It seemed laden with it to me, which ROCKED MY WORLD.it. Very symbolic of life in america. What a fun web to tangle with!!! Email me about it!!!

"The Crying of Lot 49" taps directly into the root of "banal" literature that was seemingly omnipresent throughout the '60's. This is a difficult, yet very rewarding novel best suited for either a seasoned Pynchon fan or your run-of-the-mill disillusioned American cynic.

This book just feels nice, really. While the cover's texture is not the most interesting, it makes up for this by being quite flexible, and the binding is perfect.

Like most paperbacks of this sort, the paper it is printed on is anything but mindblowing. Still, it is heavier than most, and the typeface is delightfully clear.

While the graphic design of the cover is relevant, I am not sure that it is effective in a buy-for-its-cover kinda way. The design on the spine is awfully nice, though, so it may very well fit on your bookshelf.

Thankfully brief, this surreal satire may have been fresh and irreverent some 35 years ago when it was first published, but today it reads as a hyperstylized game of literary three card monte. The book is ostensibly about a woman who has been made executor of a rich former lover's estate, and her attempt to unravel the meaning of an ambiguous set of clues left behind. What this allows is for Pynchon to whisk her into and out of a number of wacky hi-jinks and meetings with post-beatnik weirdoes in an attempt to satirize both humankind's quest for knowledge and meaning, and post 1950s America. This is accomplished with a prose style that is going to either delight or dismay most readers with it's silly wordplay (especially in character names) and grab-bag referencing of physics, Greek tragedies, postal history, drug culture, and much more. I personally found the language tiresome, grating, and insubstantial-like too many Hollywood blockbusters of today, Pynchon is so busy throwing carefully constructed pyrotechnics at the reader that he never provides anything to care about.

First, the positives: this book is very short and recognizably Pynchonian. This combination has led it to be assigned in many literature and writing classes.

Unfortunately, it shows Pynchon in lazy and aimless mode. None of the stroboscopic brilliance of Gravity's Rainbow or the human mystery of V is available here. If you don't have time to read one of those books, read some fragment of them, and you will still experience more than by reading this ephemera, and enjoy it more as well.

I can see how Catch 22 influenced this novel. Except the funny names seemed to mean more in Catch 22, and the humor was more consistent. That said, the central plot with the libertarian mail system reminded me pleasantly of Milo Minderbinder's capitalist schemes moving supplies around bases.

I can also see how this (and apparently to a greater extend Gravity's Rainbow) influenced The Illuminatus! trilogy. While I loathed those as well, I at least appreciated that the smut was better and the self-depreciating humor of the negative book reviews was more evident.

I did like the "information wants to be free" theme that could still resonate with the Anonymous crowd. If they could make it past the obscure historical references and of-the-time but forgotten-by-time obscure pop cultural nuggets. I'd probably dig this a lot more if it was brought to modern day and took the same route with the internet as it does with mail. Or maybe a dark future. I should re-read Neuromancer.

I started this book 20 years ago and got about a quarter through it. Tried again last week and got to page 35. Whatever Post-Modern means, who cares? Cormac McCarthy had been writing almost contemporaneously with Pynchon, but his books, at the least the first 5 through Blood Meridian (1985) (the second greatest American 20th Century novel after 'Lolita') will still be read 50 or 100 years from now. Because the prose, the themes, are timeless and the writing is superb. But sorry, I was reviewing Lot 49, and can't add much to the other one star reviews, which are usually 'slammed as Not Helpful', even the ones much more thorough than mine. Since I'm not a poor college student forced to read the entire book, I won't. And for the scorners, is it not the case that if you like a book, you know 25 to 50 pages into it? I tried Vineland, then Mason and Dixon, and likewise threw up my hands and picked up something by Faulkner, Nabokov, Kerouac, O'Connor, Roth, Nin, etc.
What do I hate about this book? Dated language, dead cultural references, smug tone, mannequins for characters, names like Fallopian and Sick Dick. (I would have pissed myself with laughter reading those names when I was 17.) My opinion,just my opinion, skip this and try Dharma Bums, or Invisible Man, or Miss Lonelyhearts, or American Pastoral,or Dr. Glas, or Outer Dark, or Under A Glass Bell, or Naked Lunch, or anything Faulkner wrote )other than Intruder In The Dust.) Yes, this is an off-topic review, touting my own favorites, but I figure a hundred times more eyes will see it than if I posted a review of something by Hjalmar Soderberg or Nathaniel West. They are not as popular as Pynchon, or Stephen King, or Stephenie Meyer, or Danielle Steel, or as James Michener and Arthur Hailey used to be.

Okay, first off I'm not a conservative, I like modern life, I don't believe that things were better in the good old days etc. But how can modernist drivel like this ever be considered brilliant? Has there ever been a novel more pointless, more vague, with less interesting characters and with less redeeming value? I don't think so. Oh, I guess I'm supposed to applaud Pynchon for being so inventive and different from everybody else. Yeah, well that's all well and good, but not enough in itself to make a good novel. Maybe it's because I was born in the late 70's and I'm not a hippie that I don't understand the cosmic significance of the Tristero whatever that is. San Narcisco? That is supposed to be brilliant? It's just a clever little wordplay that any High School student could write in one of their papers. And the writing of the title as the last words of the novel? Please. Why is that such a literary feat?
I guess the point of the novel was not to have a point. I'm sorry, but that is just taking the easy way out. At least put some effort into making me feel something and ask questions about myself. Oh, the book was trying to do that? It's making me wonder what it all means and what is the meaning of life? Hello! Who needs to read this book to ask those questions? Everyone asks themselves those questions naturally. There's nothing particularly briliant in that concept. Anyway, I'll stop now because I'm not by nature a cynical guy and all this negativity is killing me. I'm just a little upset at having to torture myself reading this for a class.

I'm sorry...what?
This book reads like a giant riddle. It's entertaining, thought provoking and laugh-out-loud funny in places, but it's also very confusing in other places.
while reading this book, I got the feeling that someone had removed every third sentence. And when I finished it, I felt like the final chapter was missing.
At times, you wander if Oedipa is dreaming, and then you realize she's not...but maybe she was dreaming during the last sentance....
It's like that.

It was such a chaotic book that it only produces nonsense. It didn't stimulate me intellectually at all. The only scene I thought enjoyable was the encounter between Oedipa and Metzger in the hotel. I laughed out loud.

I was vaguely aware of the existence of Thomas Pynchon, and after hearing a brief summary of CoL49 I went to the library and grabbed this and 'V'. I got as far as page seventy before I hung it up and decided to take them both back. It's got that weird wacky 'everything ends up being connected' vibe of my favorite Vonnegut books, but without the humor or the sense that I cared about the characters or what happened next. I never really got a sense of character from anybody except Mucho Maas, and people seemed to behave in whatever manner would propel the chaos engine Pynchon was frantically trying to keep spinning with this book. The writing felt awkward and disjointed, sentences sometimes needing two or three readings to decipher. But it did keep making me think "I should read Slaughterhouse Five again".

I am afraid I finally have to use this cliche statement: This is really the worst book I have ever read. I wonder why I have even finished reading it. Probably because I wanted to find out what all the Pynchon-hype is about, or because I just expected that the book would take a turn for the better.

Some say that if something is hyped, then it is probably bad. Reading Pynchon has taught me that there is some truth to that. To compare this book or draw an analogy to Ulysses is not only wrong, but also an insult to one of the greatest writers ever.

The book is about a woman who might have or might not have uncovered a conspiracy. In other words, it is about a woman who tries to find meaning in something which probably does not have any. Well, that is certainly reminiscent of Kafka or Beckett. Only that Kafka or Beckett open new doors leading into a different direction on every page, add layer after layer, and truly disturb the reader. In Pynchon, there are no multiple layers. He only scraches the surface without ever adding any depths to his ideas.

"Crying of Lot 49" is for readers who are very amused about names like Fallopian or Genghis Khan, and think that an idea like the "Maxwell Devil" is incredibly creative. It is for readers who try to seek for qualities in a book which has none. It is fast-food existentialism for the masses and a total waste of paper.

There are so many good books out there. Don't follow the hype, don't waste your time. Go straight to the real classics.

Like it or not, I sometimes wonder if an author is more loved for his image than his abilities. Thomas Pynchon is one of those. If the Crying of Lot 49 is his best work, or exemplary of his work, as so many say it is, then perhaps he really should find a day job, to use the cliche. Lot 49 is an attempt at literature without any actual literature. It's what happens when you take out plot, character, and all the other devices that make up traditional story telling. I am very well aware that, Pynchon, like so many other authors of his era, are trying to prove that life in the modern world is soulless and meaningless. The problem is, he is not looking hard enough to find it. He is the literary equivalent of that cooky professor who says nothing written after 1900 is worth reading. My answer to the professor who tried to shove that one down my throat was to hand him a dozen books worth reading that were written in the last century. The problem is, you have to look hard to find the gems in the dross of life, and this book simply tells you that those don't exist. Finally, the content of the book often seems pointless, and the writing is weak. There is no forward motion, and nothing to interest a decent reader.

With a mordant pen and an incisive wit Pynchon playfully attacks the epistemological naivetes of the credulous and anthropomorphic philosophy serving as the backbone for many of our conventional beliefs about our universe. His slyly allusive and intricately woven prose serves as the stylistic equivalent of a misleading, chaotic, and jumbled cosmos where the only certainties are interpretative freedom and ceaseless dubeity. It is a testament to Pynchon's genius that he's able pack his narrative with so many hints and glints of profundity that the ordinary reader, disorientated from the sheer speed with which disparate and seemingly irrelevant information is dispensed, never pauses to reflect upon the implications of adopting Pynchon's alternative perspective on knowledge and existence.
Characters are typically one of two things: either the particulate projections of the author's personality, or the hoppled slaves of a demanding and unifying idea thought up by a wily and self-absorbed member of the literati. Pychon's character clearly fall into the latter category, with plastic personalities and rigid, affectless actions the norm, and mawkish tenderness strictly verboten. The main character, Oedipa, whose likability depends entirely upon whether or not you automatically like or dislike persons you know nothing significant about, is named by a former paracoitus as the executrix of his will. After some initial fumbling she, with assistance from legal-eagle Metzger, embarks on a quest that involves her in the shady shenaningans of secret societies whose dealings with a deceitful and delusive postal service (Tristero) are never fully uncovered by either the protagonist or the reader. The recurrent clues involving the corniculate emblem of Tristero lead Oedipa on an epic journey through an artfully constructed constellation of ideas that leaves her mystified and nonplussed. As you've probably deduced by now, the arc of the plot is non-existent; concepts and abstractions supply the riverbanks to Pynchon's stream of consciousness rather than story and character development.
Recondite tralatitions, regardless of their underlying contents, are exquisitely pleasurable to encounter when they're properly executed, and Pynchon's novella Lot 49 is no exception. I extracted more than a modicum of pleasure ferreting out the solutions to the symbolic puzzles and ciphers he sportively sprinkled throughout his peripatetic text despite their aimless and arbitrary nature. While many readers will be nonplussed and perhaps repulsed by the inky ooze of the text itself, those readers who see not a turbid river but a limpid stream, the bottom of which has been inscribed with the generative principle of all of Pynchon's puzzle books, will find its perusal a thrilling oblectation. A purely cerebral indulgence, bereft, however, of all human tenderness and emotion (the point, of course, but a sorry point it is).
One feels compelled to provide a brief antiphon to those who would lump Vladimir Nabokov into the same literary category as Thomas Pynchon. Primo, Nabokov isn't a post-modernist in any way, shape, or form. He was an avowed believer in indivisible monism, and expressed his recognition in more than one of his texts of the logical necessity of their existing an irreducible medium of existence; secundo, Nabokov wished to indict injustice and cruelty, whereas Pynchon simply wishes to convey "existential angst" and a banal form of claustrophobia. T hey both concoct puzzles, sure, and they both mastered prose, but one's a genius and the other a trifling epigone.
I am indifferent to whether or not you purchase this book. If you enjoy puzzles and have a large working memory, go nuts; if not, your time would be better spend flipping through Grisham or King.

I got half way in, expecting something to happen, but nothing ever did. I learned nothing about the characters, the story did not move forward, and massive amounts of irrelevant trivia were thrown in - to make the writer seem clever? In this book, the joke's on the reader. Stay away unless you also really dig monotonal music too.

This book comes across as severely dated and lame. All the people who love this book are either nerds who think they're in on Pynchon's "joke" or they are nerds who havent read a good book like Catch-22.