The Crying of Lot 49

Name: The Crying of Lot 49
Author: Thomas Pynchon

Thomas Pynchon · 1966

Oedipa Maas is named executor of an ex-lover's estate and, settling it, keeps finding the same muted post-horn scratched on walls and bathroom stalls. The symbol points to the Tristero, an underground postal network that may have feuded with the official mail for centuries, or may be an elaborate hoax at her expense, or may be her own paranoia finding a pattern where there is none. Pynchon never tells you which. Under two hundred pages, it is his shortest novel and the usual way in: entropy, conspiracy, and 1960s California, compressed to a fuse.

The case against

on the play scene
“he starts to describe an Italian stage play for ten pages in exhaustive detail”
a book blog
on the dense prose
“I have not read another book in recent memory that had me rereading paragraphs”
a book blog
on the difficulty
“it’s not to be read as much as deciphered.”
Unsigned review · Kirkus Reviews, 1966
on the style
“It has the feel of a novel written while under the influence of LSD”
a book blog