- Hardcover: 183 pages
- Publisher: Lippincott; [1st ed.] edition (1966)
- ISBN-10: 0397004184
- ISBN-13: 978-0397004188
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,419,708 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Oedipa's Mess, but what an impressive one,
This review is from: The Crying of Lot 49 (Picador Books) (Paperback)
Despite its brevity in pages, Thomas Pynchon's `The Crying of Lot 49' is one of the most bizarre, erudite, referential and absurdly compelling texts of the post-war period. Truly a text for the intrepid reader, Pynchon's novel centers (if it can be said to do so at all), on Oedipa Maas; an intelligent woman given the task of executor of her employer and one-time lover Pierce Inverarity's estate. In true Pynchonian fashion, Oedipa's apparently routine duty drags her into a world inhabited by The Paranoids, a teenage rip-off of the Beatles, briefly into the embrace of charming former child star Metzger, and finally, into the bizarre world of W.A.S.T.E, a secret postal service, borne out of dissent from a centuries old feud in Europe, between Trystero, and Thurn and Taxis. These strands of plot, though they make a fascinating and purposefully disorientating narrative between them; sometimes press too many themes into too few pages, and whilst this battering of information and experience is impressive, there's a sense of issues overlapping and running into each other a little too much for Pynchon's implied meanings and symbolism to always be garnered by the reader.
There's an absolute wealth of reference in the novel, almost to the extent of `Against the Day' and `Gravity's Rainbow', which will prove both a delight and a frustration, depending on the reader. I personally found Pynchon's reference mixed; with his evocation of Thurn and Taxis' battle for power with Trystero fascinating, and the ten or so pages of a short novel describing a forgotten Jacobean play, a little on the side of overkill. The novel's evocation of Oedipa's experience is perhaps it's strongest point though, with it's interesting indications of her growing uncertainty and excitement, and fears of madness, over seeing the postboxes of W.A.S.T.E everywhere she goes, and acceptance of the loss of her husband Mucho, to the heady peace he seems to find in LSD. `The Crying of Lot 49' is a novel which will frustrate many readers, and one with imperfections; but for those who enjoy a rollercoaster ride through European history, bizarre TV specials and postal conspiracies, all underlined with some suberb subtext and commentary on the postmodern condition and the America of the `60s, then you're likely to find this novel one of considerable enjoyment and worth, even if it's bound to baffle even the most academic readers, at times.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great introduction to Thomas Pynchon,
By
This review is from: The Crying Of Lot 49 (Paperback)
Some people will find Thomas Pynchons's style almost inpenetrable(it's been described by critics as turgid and overwritten before) - so rather than getting stuck straight into V or Gravity's Rainbow (500 pages +) those who wish to read Thomas Pynchon may like to try this first at a little over 100 pages.
Although there are many comic scenes in the book the overall effect is starkly melancholy, as the main character, Oedipa Maas, prompted by the contents of an ex-lover's estate of which she is unexpectedly made executrix, obsessively pursues a secret postal service with medieval roots in Europe, which appears to exert a malign yet unclear effect on society...or does it? The book never answers this, as it ends just as Oedipa may be about to find an answer. Instead the reader is left with a bleak sense of Oedipa's growing paranoia, neurosis and unhealthy fixation with the apparent secret society, in a likely metaphor for conspiracy theorists and cults everywhere. It's a funny book, but the madness of obsession and paranoia are well conveyed in the subtext of the plot, and might leave you feeling creeped.......
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty Average,
This review is from: The Crying Of Lot 49 (Paperback)
I was glad this book was short as I had to read it twice before I (vaguely) understood it. When I first read the crying of lot 49 I thought the prose deliberately impenetrable and in places a bit too nerdy with a weak plot running through it. The second time I read it I began to get all the pieces of the novel, though some things I find as irrelevant, like the description of a Jacobean play, and the history of two rival postal systems. We are in the electronic age, right?
I am (partly) a Pynchon fan, loving Gravity's Rainbow, thought V al right, and hated Against the Day, but I don't know how to class this one, except maybe with a shrug of the shoulders. Read this if you want but you won't get anything out of it.
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