The Crying of Lot 49

Rating:
Summary: It's the thought that counts.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Quite stressful
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Fun With Paranoia
Review: I have read this twice, and both times come out of it confused, yet wanting to go at it again. It is a mystery where by the end no solution is readily available, and the possibility of there being a solution is also called into question. For the reader also into modern pop music, the band Radiohead named their fan club WASTE, after the secret organization in this novel.

Rating:
Summary: A great introduction to Pynchon
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Review
Review: Pynchon does for the postmodern literature scene with "The Crying of Lot 49" what Pink Floyd did to the music scene with "The Wall."

However, I find it odd how the literati, in their esoteric little ramblings called criticism, are in favor (well, most of them anyway) of Pynchon's satire, when he satires the pomp of Western, educated society as to be so well off that we have begun to invent connections for conspiracy.

To recommend one Pynchon book over another would be a fallacy, for they are all important to the face of modern writing--if you can call what we do now writing.
"The Crying of Lot 49" is by far Pynchon's easiest book to read. His satire and allusions are less obscure, in my opinion, in The Crying ... than they are in, say, "Vineland."

I would advise, however, that if you are not knowledgeable in grammatical theory, history, social theory, chemical use or agreeing on the exact melancholy state of Modern Man and of the human condition in general with most of the writers from the late nineteenth century (those contemptuous luddites), that you do not read this book, most of the satire in this book will slide over your head; and you will find a novel full of disconnected ravings, comma splices, fragments and a general discombobulated literary sense.

However, I'm sure you will find the characters interesting.

This book, I would like to add, can serve, as well as Kasey's, as an example of the new consiousness.

Rating:
Summary: This will mess with your head
Review: "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.

Rating:
Summary: A beginner's guide to entropy
Review: So much of the "Pynchon phenomenon" centers around his reclusiveness and his epic novels like Gravy's Rainbow and V, so it seems unfair that shorter, more accessible works like The Crying Of Lot 49 sometimes get overlooked. Pynchon's genius is almost immediately apparent in this seamless blend of the comic and the poignant, the scientific and the human, the universal and the intimate.

There's very little I can say here that hasn't already been said by the literary intelligentsia. The critics seem to agree on a few general points: that the novel presents a compelling exploration of the equivocality of human perception, that the Trystero embodies the often-underestimated power of the word, the sign, and codes, and that Pynchon's discussion of entropy runs parallel to the disorder of information overload-a predecessor to the chaotic overabundance of input and information found in DeLillo'sWhite Noise.

First, a note on the book's plot, or lack thereof: Pynchon leaves every option open, every thread untied. He leaves every possibility open in order to sustain the agonizing rigidity of an either/or dilemma. Writing in 1964, he is well ahead of his time as he describes the baffling possibilities of a digital world, and its binary all-or-nothing schema. Oedipa is left wandering under a sky blanketed by zeroes and ones, faced with a multitude of decisions, the results of which are irrevocable: She must decide blindly, not knowing whether she has made the "right" choice until after it has been made, and cannot be reversed. Pynchon wants his work to acknowledge this open-ended and infinite series of binaries which confound ordered plots and resolutions. Neither Pynchon nor Oedipa are content to relax and settle for easy answers, surrounded as they are by people who will.

Besides Pynchon's enthusiasm for science and Crying's discussion of entropy, the one most recurring theme in the book is that of fantasy versus reality. This is hardly a new theme for a contemporary writer to tackle, but Pynchon seems to put a twist on it, like he does with everything else: he proposes that there really isn't a boundary between the two, and that we shouldn't really care about finding one. Throughout the novel, Oedipa questions whether her experiences-the eerie recurrence of the post horn icon, the chance meetings with acquaintances, operatives, and intellectuals-are innately charged with predestined, synchronous coincidence, or if she is just being too fatalistic, and attaching more significance to these events than necessary. She never really seems to make up her mind on this point, and at the book's closing anti-resolution, we still haven't determined whether all these events have been orchestrated by fate, or simply coincidence; we haven't learned whether this really was a centuries-old underground conspiracy or just an elaborate practical joke Pierce wrote into his will. The reader gets the feeling, as Oedipa's quest continues, that maybe she is only seeing the post horn because she wants to see it; she sees it where it isn't there, so it can affirm the significance and urgency of her mission. We've all been in this position: we will shape events and signals in our environment to fit our agenda, attach meaning and consequence to random elements so we can feel like a part of something important.

The promise of hierophany is what drives Oedipa, and nearly any other human being, to attach spiritual, cosmic significance to secular events. By sublimating our secular world in this way, we attempt to order it and block out the horrific chaos threatening to impede on our paradigm. An atheist would say this is precisely what religion does: much as Oedipa strives to shape her experiences so they conform to her expectations, so do most major religions create world orders and belief systems in order to make sense of their experience, often in direct contradiction to non-believers' notions of validity and common sense. The Christian hallucinates the face of the Virgin Mary in everyday objects much as Oedipa probably hallucinates the post horn symbol throughout San Francisco.

The Crying of Lot 49 straddles the fine line between the sacred and profane, between the spiritual and the secular. In much the same way, it also conflates the "hard" science of thermodynamics with the personal and the emotional plight of a fictional protagonist. Few authors are smart or brave enough to do this; it probably doesn't even occur to most, and incorporating scientific minutiae into prose fiction is rarely valued as anything more than a means of showing off. But Pynchon manages to put a theoretical phenomenon like Maxwell's demon into pedestrian terms, and a scientifically impaired reader like me doesn't mind that he ends up hitting us over the head with the analogous relationship between Oedipa and the Demon.

Rating:
Summary: Dazed and confused....
Review: 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?

Rating:
Summary: why did i do it?
Review: why did i do it? i listened to someone who i thought would know. this book reminds me of my brother-in-law. he refuses to buy a house in new jersey because he thinks it's sinking. he thinks the government controls the weather so no one can go to the shore on weekends. he won't get a computer because he's sure "they" are tracking him. drug culture and conspiracy theories. is there really anything more boring?

Rating:
Summary: This Novel Stands with The Great Gatsby
Review: Her name is Oepida Maas. Her husband is Mucho Maas. Her lover was Pierce Inverarity who ran Yoyodyne Corporation in San Narciso. He psychiatrist is Dr. Hilarious. You get the idea - there are funny names in this story. Oepida is made the executor of Pierce's estate. Diligently, in this romance, satire, antidetective novel, she tries to find out the extent of her duties and the extent of the estate. Along the way, things go from simple to complex, ordered to disordered, concrete to abstract, just the opposite of the usual novel, and she becomes enmeshed in either a worldwide conspiracy called Trystero or enmeshed in her imagining of a worldwide conspiracy called Trystero, and organization, if it exists, dedicated to alternative culture and government derived from the Thurn and Taxis Postal system started in 1577 in Holland. Oepida's quest reminds me of the Faerie Queene charmed from her human virtues while searching for self-knowledge. Her sensitivity to external events and the hidden meanings in the nature of things (are they really there, those meanings?) reminds me of Emily's sensitivity to external things in The Mysteries of Udolpho. But her and Pynchon's language reminds me of nothing I have ever seen: It is an original blend of erudition, and slang with scintillations, multiple meanings, cross references, parody, outlandish puns, pawky black humor -- all of which is steadily and intelligently directed and reflects an extraordinary writing talent. The characters are everywhere plugged in elsewhere, so Oepida can't connect with anyone except perhaps her two lovers and then only tentatively: one leaves her for a teenager; the other kills himself. The plot is driven by concepts in physics including the second law of thermodynamics and Maxwell's demon as well as by the idea that information theory equations reduce to entropy equations. Indeed the theme is that the world's entropic decline is evidences by its capacity for bureaucracy, atomic war, and domestic violence, all of which can be prevented by an increase in meaningful human communications. I like that idea and I like the comic ribbings of California manners and pop culture gone to rock and ruin. This novel stands with The Great Gatsby in concise attempt to capture dangerous exaltations in the closed entropic system known to us as America and in so doing reasserts the wonder that can animate the novel.