Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 is a trip, in many senses of the word. It feels like an acid trip, contains a number of actual journeys, and throws the reader off balance constantly as if he or she has stumbled on a buckle in the sidewalk. Thanks to Lurker Mike for encouraging me to read this remarkable book.
Pynchon's style is a barrage of imagery and sensation, rarely pausing for the reader to catch up. There is a tremendous forward momentum to the book, which makes me recommend that it be read in one sitting. I can't imagine having to throw my mind back into this narrative after leaving it.
The story revolves around Oedipa Maas, a woman who has been named executor of her dead ex-lover's will. In carrying out her duties, she is caught up in the quest to find out if a secret mail-carrying society exists or not. Doesn't sound like much, but Pynchon's prose is dense and, at times, laborious. Just when you think his grasp of sentence structure and language has gone too far, he uses a quick plot point to pull you back into the general flow of the plot. His characters have whimsical names (Ghengis Cohen, etc.) and the puns are plentiful and absurd. The long description of a play within the story (which sets the stage for the second half of the story) is reminiscent of Hamlet's 'The Mousetrap' device. Pynchon's apparent knowledge of a variety of topics had me scrambling to Wikipedia time and again to see what was fact and what was fiction.
This book (published in 1966) seems to take the piss out of the 1960s counterculture and wallow in it at the same time. Oedipa's paranoia and the situations she finds herself in reflect the times very well, especially for a novel that was contemporary to the events depicted. Pynchon riffs on the Beatles, Nabokov, Elvis Presley, and various lifestyle choices in California during this time.
Most aficionados of Pynchon say that this book is the best entry point. It is short and relatively easy to follow once you get the hang of it. It does make me both anxious and nervous to tackle his longer works.
I can't imagine reading a book like this very often, but I have no doubt I'll return to this one over the years. Pynchon's work has a wiki devoted to it, which may be helpful when tackling his novels.
6 comments:
Your suggestion to read this book in one sitting it spot on, Dave. I got about 75 pages in, put it down for a week or so, and COULD NOT get back into Pynchon's rhythm. (Also glad to know I'm in good company, struggling to derive meaning from a sentence that rambles on for most of a page.)
That's what makes me nervous about tackling some of his longer stuff. The sentences are pretty wondrous, but are easier to digest once you've committed to the style. This story is still ringing through my head a couple of days later though.
I'm thrilled that you conquered it! Not an easy task, for all the reasons you mentioned.
Spoiler Alert: Jay, stop reading now.
Here's the thing I love about Lot 49: Maybe there's a substratum to reality that I've never been aware of, some deeper connection between things, connections under the surface that if you just knew what to look for, would supply some unifying principle to life. And Oedipa finds it, in an ancient cabal and ongoing brotherhood, perpetuated through symbols assumed to be random: something deeper, truer, more meaningful than her previously life allowed her to imagine.
Isn't this the allure of religion? What Tillich called an "ultimate concern?"
And in the end it's a corporate marketing scheme! That's the unifying principle of modern reality. And all of yesterday's dreams of truth and meaning are items that are up for auction to the highest bidder after the death of a god.
Welcome to the desert of the real!
I really like your interpretation. That makes it reminiscent to 'Eyes Wide Shut' to my way of thinking.
I have to go back and watch that one again now. I remember the impression it left me with, but I've lost most of the details. I do remember that sense of being on the cusp of something daunting.
It's a very divisive film. While it certainly has its flaws, the whole idea of thinly veiled secret societies that infiltrate almost all parts of 'normal' life is fascinating to consider. There is a real creepiness in the film too, from the canned NY sets to the score, to the usual claustrophobic line readings you can expect from a Kubrik film. Most people I know hate it, but it has some strange pull on me.
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