The Crying Of Lot 49
  • The Crying Of Lot 49
  • The Crying Of Lot 49
ISBN: 006091307X
EAN13: 9780060913076
Language: English
Release Date: Oct 1, 2006
Pages: 192
Dimensions: 0.4" H x 7.8" L x 5.2" W
Weight: 0.52 lbs.
Format: Paperback
Publisher:
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Book Overview

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A puzzle, an intrigue, a literary and historical tour de force. --San Francisco Examiner

The Crying of Lot 49 is Thomas Pynchon's highly original classic satire of modern America, about Oedipa Maas, a woman who finds herself enmeshed in what would appear to be an international conspiracy.

When her ex-lover, wealthy real-estate tycoon Pierce Inverarity, dies and designates her the coexecutor of his estate, California housewife Oedipa Maas is thrust into a paranoid mystery of metaphors, symbols, and the United States Postal Service. Traveling across Southern California, she meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not inconsiderable amount of self-knowledge.

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Book Reviews (12)

4
  |   12  reviews
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5
   A Delightful Introduction to Pynchon
A wonderful little book that I enjoyed far more than I expected. I'm sure there are all kinds of subtext that the post-modernist professors love to pour. For me, taken at face-value, it was an interesting detective story as our fearless heroine attempts to make sense of an ages old conspiracy involving the mail, no less-and how it continues to this day. A level deeper, it is the story of a suburban housewife given the chance to have an adventure and runs with it. It is impossible to say, but the mystery makes the mystery much more enjoyable.
 
Recommended to buy: Yes
2
   Well done, but....
Postmodern literature is really not my thing. I had to read it for school. I got it, liked it, but didn 't really like it. It is just not my thing.
 
Recommended to buy: No
2
   It wasn't a long book
Sometimes it seems like he is putting words in a sentence just to see how many will fit. Not so much for me.
 
Recommended to buy: No
5
   Early Pynchon
This guy was writing this lithe prose in the early 1960s. His rock 'roll style predates a lot of later writers. His idea of a good alternative mail service seems pretty secret in the NSA surveillance era.
 
Recommended to buy: Yes
5
   Pynchon delivers (as always)
This particular work may lack the nice, neat ending that ties the whole thing together at the end, but then that is not what we look for in Pynchon. We look to him for his prose, for the era and the region he is writing about, and that he so delicately riffs on while giving us charachters who are interesting and complete in their portraits. And that is what does this. As for that not clean ending, we get very cleanly why the book is titled as it is. In short, she loved it.
 
Recommended to buy: Yes
3
   A re-read is a must - is that a good or a bad thing?
It is a pity that this book is so obnoxious for about 50 pages or so. I'd bet that most of its worst reviews or the worst scores have been given to it by people who have not made it past that threshold. It is a great example of how you should try to give most books a chance and read on. The writing does get pretty dense at times, and some loooong sentences and paragraphs need to be read a few times to get MOST of the sense through your skull. Many references will probably go over your head anyway, but the Internet may help. I think that a full read is definitely mandatory for the best results. Also, try to read some explanations before reading it again ; it will definitely increase your appreciation of its themes and its intent.
 
Recommended to buy: No
1
   UNREADABLE!
For more than 60 years, I have been an avid reader. Almost never, I can not complete a book very seldom. And I struggled through many books that I eventually completed. But this -- I could not finish. To page 30, got to know. I have read Pynchons, Inherent Vice, and though I have struggled at times, I ended up with some enjoyment. Not so with the cries of Lot 49. I do not get it, the style, the storyline, etc. The best wishes for the readers who can read this book, but I can 't.
 
Recommended to buy: No
5
   Satire As An Art Form
He lampoons relationships, conspiracy theories, secret societies, religion, psychotherapy, government officials, everyday people and everything else you can think about. Even the names of the characters are sly satirical shots. Everything means basically something that the author does not think much of anything and he calls out all the bullshit in the world and man is there a lot of it. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this satirically chaotic book ''. If you like satire, you will like this book.
 
Recommended to buy: Yes
1
   The Worst!!
It was a monumental effort to get through this book, which is essentially without plot and full of flat characters. Easily, one of the absolute worst books I ever read.
 
Recommended to buy: No
5
   Swirling and immersive
Pynchon has a way of kidnapping your mind into an elaborate machination that is part of the conspiracy and part of the hoax. It is a form he uses in many of his works to communicate a particular symptom of a highly complex society that suffers the mid-to-late stages of a terminal lifestyle disease. It is pretty magnificent for those of us who believe that we are living in a dystopia and have for some time.
 
Recommended to buy: Yes
12

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