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The Crying of Lot 49

By Thomas Pynchon
The Crying of Lot Suffused with rich satire chaotic brilliance verbal turbulence and wild humor The Crying of Lot opens as Oedipa Maas discovers that she has been made executrix of a former lover s estate The per

  • Title: The Crying of Lot 49
  • Author: Thomas Pynchon
  • ISBN: 9780060913076
  • Page: 243
  • Format: Paperback

    • Suffused with rich satire, chaotic brilliance, verbal turbulence and wild humor, The Crying of Lot 49 opens as Oedipa Maas discovers that she has been made executrix of a former lover s estate The performance of her duties sets her on a strange trail of detection, in which bizarre characters crowd in to help or confuse her But gradually, death, drugs, madness and marriagSuffused with rich satire, chaotic brilliance, verbal turbulence and wild humor, The Crying of Lot 49 opens as Oedipa Maas discovers that she has been made executrix of a former lover s estate The performance of her duties sets her on a strange trail of detection, in which bizarre characters crowd in to help or confuse her But gradually, death, drugs, madness and marriage combine to leave Oedipa in isolation on the threshold of revelation, awaiting the Crying of Lot 49.

    • [PDF] Unlimited ¾ The Crying of Lot 49 : by Thomas Pynchon
      243 Thomas Pynchon
    The Crying of Lot 49

    About Author

    1. Thomas Pynchon says:
      Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr is an American writer based in New York City, noted for his dense and complex works of fiction Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon spent two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known today V 1963 , The Crying of Lot 49 1966 , Gravity s Rainbow 1973 , Vineland 1990 , Mason Dixon 1997 , and Against the Day 2006.Pynchon is regarded by many readers and critics as one of the finest contemporary authors He is a MacArthur Fellow and a recipient of the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature Both his fiction and non fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, styles and themes, including but not limited to the fields of history, science and mathematics Pynchon is also known for his avoidance of personal publicity very few photographs of him have ever been published, and rumours about his location and identity have been circulated since the 1960s.

    Comment 448 on “The Crying of Lot 49”

    1. mary says:
      so imagine you re browsing through a bookstore on a lazy saturday afternoon you stop in the pynchon section, and there, out of the corner of your eye, you see this guy and he s checking you out you think, wow this is one for the movies does this actually happen this is a sexually oriented biased review, sorry you proceed to chat, laughing at the length of gravity s rainbow and you go next door with your new books to grab a cup of coffee, which turns into dinner, whuch turns in to crepes at this [...]
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    2. Ian "Marvin" Graye says:
      Appetite for DeconstructionMost readers approach a complex novel, like a scientist approaches the world or a detective approaches a crime with an appetite for knowledge and understanding, and a methodology designed to satiate their appetite The Crying of Lot 49 TCL49 presents a challenge to this type of quest for two reasons.One, it suggests that not everything is knowable and we should get used to it.Second, the novel itself fictionalizes a quest which potentially fails to allow the female prot [...]
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    3. Stephen says:
      My first excursion into the Pynchonesque and it left me disorientated, introspective and utterly confused about how exactly I feel about it I m taking the cowards way out and giving it three stars even though that makes me feel like I m punting the responsibility football and doing my best imitation of an ostrich when trouble walks by I am going to have to re read this My assumption is that I began this book taking Pynchon a little too lightly I decided to start my exploration of Pynchon here be [...]
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    4. SJ Loria says:
      The kind of book that makes people hate books Literally one of, if not, the worst story I ve ever read A classic English majors only book, aka people like talking about this book and that they get it make you feel like their intellectual inferior This book is the literary equivalent of some hipster noise band that everyone knows sucks but people will say they are good just to be in the know I must say this before I get a bunch of messages from people looking down their nose at me I do get it I g [...]
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    5. Seemita says:
      Muted I am in an alien way,Post reading this weird novel about aHorn that despite many mouths, remainsMuted across the Post offices of circuitous US lands although the blare of this Horn is audible to a secretive group that moves inMuted shadows and sews in its hem, highPost bearers and zany professors who insist toHorn out any intruders who, in public orMuted way, attempt toPost any letters sent with thisHorn bearing stamp to anyMuted or alive estate holder, even ifPost delivery, the estate hol [...]
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    6. J.L. Sutton says:
      Thomas Pynchon s The Crying of Lot 49 is not for everyone mostly I know this because I ve recommended this book before and been dismayed when it was not loved I ve been reading a lot of books lately which are not easily classifiable, and The Crying of Lot 49 definitely fits that mold For me, it is a wild ride through layers of conspiracy, alternative history mostly in the form of an underground postal system , some heavy duty neurosis and 60s LA suburbia When you have all that, it s just a waste [...]
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    7. Jenn(ifer) says:
      Once upon a time I won this book from Stephen M Apparently, Mr M had purchased this book used The previous owner being a young scholar filled the inside cover pages with erudite observations gleaned from the text I present them for you here in their entirety along with my parenthetical comments 1 Immoral in beginning mostly about how we think deep 2 Mucho takes drugs to escape problems ya don t say 3 She s searching for answers because she thinks there s a conspiracy in the male sic.4 Dr Halariu [...]
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    8. Arthur Graham says:
      Quite fittingly, I m sitting down to write this review after having just checked the mail Nothing today but junk and bills Save for my paltry royalty checks and the occasional bit of fan mail here and there fans, you know who you are , that s about all I get most days, but this still doesn t stop me from checking the box two, three, or even four times until something shows up On the odd day there s no mail before suppertime, I m usually left somewhat disconcerted What, no catalogs No supermarket [...]
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    9. Kemper says:
      I really want to like Thomas Pynchon I love the whole brilliant but reclusive author act, and all the cool kids at the library seem to think he s the cat s ass But I m starting to think that he and I are never going to be friends I tried to read Gravity s Rainbow twice and wound up curled up in the fetal position , crying while sucking my thumb Supposedly, this is his most accessible book It was easier to read than GR, but easier to understand Well.Oedipa Maas unexpectedly finds herself as the e [...]
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    10. Manny says:
      So, what do you think it s about she asked, as she took a preliminary sip from her cocktail Entropy, to start with, he replied If only he d known the Holographic Principle It follows from thermodynamic calculations that the information content of a black hole is proportional to the square of its radius, not the cube, and the Universe can reasonably be thought of as a black hole Hence all its information is really on its surface, and the interior is a low energy illusion Wouldn t you say that the [...]
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    11. Richard Derus says:
      Og think nasty writer man laughing at Og.
      Reply

    12. Michael Finocchiaro says:
      I know everyone thinks that this along with Gravity s Rainbow is Pynchon s masterpiece and yes, Oedipa Maas is one crazy ass protagonist and an incredible addition to the post modern canon The story itself was funny and absurd and exciting I guess I just wanted a conclusion Sort of like with V where I was really invested but then was like, ummm so what does this all mean All that being said, it is still Pynchon and is still amazing.
      Reply

    13. Paul says:
      Where do you start with a novel like this There are so many trails and plays with words and their meaning that it is dizzying There is a central character called Oedipa who becomes co executor of an ex flames estate and inadvertantly steps into what may or may not be a global conspiracy stretching back through the ages Lots of interesting characters turn up and may or may not be part of the conspiracy Oedipa s therapist turns out to be an ex Nazi who worked in Buchenwald and there is an ongoing [...]
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    14. Fabian says:
      Dumb Overrated The only plus It s a short novel.A mystery with no solution I think the only person that can pull it off is David Lynch This is absurdism and pretentiousness at its utmost I really did not enjoy trying to figure out a, truth be told, lost cause.Skip Please vanish from the 1001 Musts list We do not need a hybrid Don DeLillo, Nathaniel West, David Cronenberg Truly A ridiculous embarrassment.
      Reply

    15. Mary says:
      Reading The Crying of Lot 49 reminded me of the first time I watched Mulholland Drive There was hair pulling There was rewinding and pausing and what what thefuck what The remote was flung across the room There may have almost been tears It was wonderfully frustrating and deliciously delusional Yes, Mr Lynch, Mr Pynchon , you re so so clever and lil average me is a mere mortal squirming around on your chess tables But I don t care Confuse me It s better than most of the crap out there I d rather [...]
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    16. Richard says:
      Harold Bloom and apparently everyone else I know is clearly out of his G.D mind This book is not hilariously funny I did not appreciate the humor in this book at all I liked the bit about the play but the book seemed too cutesy and gimmicky to me I ve been looking at reviews all over and much like the reviews for the film No Country for Old Men I seem only to find the same old enthusiastic descriptions of the book and no compelling reason for why I should appreciate the longest 183 page book I v [...]
      Reply

    17. Sofia says:
      49 , 10 10 , , , Pynchon 49 , , , , , , , , Pynchon , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .
      Reply

    18. Martine says:
      I m not sure how much I care for Thomas Pynchon s brand of postmodernism On the one hand, The Crying of Lot 49 contains interesting ideas, culminating in a weird trip down Paranoia Lane On the other hand, the writing is so detached and plain weird that it is hard to emotionally invest in the characters As a novel of ideas, then, The Crying of Lot 49 has some merit as a reading experience it s rather less rewarding It feels like a 200 page story crammed into 127 pages, and that s not a compliment [...]
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    19. Trevor says:
      This is one of those books you know, those books where the author would be too clever by half if he wasn t so clever to be able to get away with it There is something very adolescent male about this book accept it is probably just too smart to be really understood by your average adolescent male It is also, at times, very funny.I was going to write a review that would be just the string of discordant images this book throws at you at machine gun speed but instead I am going to put myself on the [...]
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    20. Paradoxe says:
      , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , sms, viber , .21.06.17, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .
      Reply

    21. Praj says:
      Interested in sophisticated fun You, hubby, girlfriends The the merrier Get in touch with Tristero, throughWASTE only, Box 49.Its funny how Pynchon does not scares me any He is not the tentacled Cthulhu thanks Mr Lovecraft for my insomniac exhibits I thought he was I guess Gravity s Rainbow was the ice breaker But what s this obsession with myriad dimensions of entropy, Thomas The explosive universal black hole Drives me nuts at times Who am I kidding Entropy and thermodynamics are Pynchon s bi [...]
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    22. Vit Babenco says:
      Beneath the notice, faintly in pencil, was a symbol she d never seen before, a loop, triangle and trapezoid The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven Revelation 11 15Thomas Pynchon is a cognoscente of all sorts of conspiracies and The Crying of Lot 49, a somewhat sad post noir burlesque, set amidst trashy cultural and behavioural patterns, concerns itself with a weird global postal conspiracy Decorating each alienation, each species of withdrawal, as cufflink, d [...]
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    24. Stephen M says:
      The first and only time that I read Hamlet was in my High School AP english class The teacher, being by far the best english teacher that I ve had throughout my oh so illustrious english career, was a wonderfully animated and intelligent fellow For our reading of the Oresteia, he drew stick figures on the board, highlighting with screaming delight the furious eyebrows of Clytemnestra Every class was a surefire combination of zaniness and intelligence that I came to love from one day to the next [...]
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    25. Oscar says:
      Una locura Una tomadura de pelo Estas, y otras, son las expresiones que se te pasan por la cabeza mientras lees esta delirante novela de Pynchon Mientras vas ley ndola, no puedes dar cr dito a lo que te est contando ni a los personajes que ta va presentando Pero, como si de un sumidero se tratase, o de un maelstr m, no puedes evitar quedar atrapado en su brillante e inteligente historia.De inicio los nombres son curiosos, Edipa, su marido Wendel Mucho Maas, el doctor Hilarius, la empresa Yoyodin [...]
      Reply

    26. Mike Puma says:
      Language that cannot be attended to casually A novel where the plot isn t used to move the story but to move the language, to compel it Whitman s 20th century novel If you re wanting a good story, this probably isn t what you re looking for so, by all means, blame the author for you re having read the wrong book If you re looking for a good story told with a compelling use of language language to be savored and considered and wallowed in this is a great one For a good intro to this novel especia [...]
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    27. Matthew says:
      Maybe 3.5 starsIt was weird It was unique Hey, Thomas Pynchon could you write us a book where a woman goes to oversee the estate of a real estate mogul and along the way deals with her DJ husband on LSD, an adulterous pedophilic lover, a Nazi psychiatrist on a shooting spree all in search of information about a secret society who s only anti government movement is to run their own postal system which she becomes intrigued about because of a play she sees with one word that seems out of place.Tho [...]
      Reply

    28. Dusty Myers says:
      I m if anything a fussy writer The sort of guy who prefers to come up with excuses why all the factors surrounding the writing of some story or chapter aren t quite right, rather than actually sit down and let the thing get written anyway I like to worry sentences, and I like to worry about sentences that sound like other sentences I ve read so many times before She got out of the car and looked searchingly up at the sky There s some piece in me that could never be satisfied with that sitting on [...]
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    29. Agnieszka says:
      I ve no idea what Pynchon took while he was writing but I ask for the same.But seriously ,I really don t know what to think about that book Great conspiracy or great baloney Have to admit that I m in a dither It s useless to describe the plot but in short Oedipa Maas has been made executrix of her former lover Pierce Inverarity s estate Fulfilling her duties discovers the existence of mystery postal service called Tristero Mafia ,freemasons , secret signs Is someone manipulate Oedipa Is this rea [...]
      Reply

    30. Greg says:
      UPDATE This author interprets the Beatles famous song, She Loves You, in a way I had never thought about Whether it is a new interpretation or not, I don t know But in summary, she is every woman who has ever lived, and you is all of us And given further thoughts supplied by other goodread readers, I m gonna add a star to my original two star rating Change my mind, please, I always say The ending might indeed be the perfect ending for this book after all, as my friend Tobias says in comments abo [...]
      Reply

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