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The crying of lot 49
  
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The crying of lot 49 (Paperback)

by Thomas Pynchon (Author) "One summer afternoon Mrs Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find..." (more)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (106 customer reviews)

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-- New York Times

"The comedy crackles, the puns pop the satire explodes." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

-- Chicago Tribune

"The work of a virtuoso with prose.intricate symbolic order [is] akin to that of Joyce's Ulysses." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
One summer afternoon Mrs Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executer, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

106 Reviews
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4.2 out of 5 stars (106 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars The Crying of Lot 49, April 17 2004
By Damian Kelleher (Brisbane, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Crying Of Lot 49 (Paperback)
The Crying of Lot 49 was Pynchon's response to people who considered his first novel, V, to be too difficult, too complex and just plain old too weird to stomach. It is considerably shorter, clocking it at only 152 pages, but each one is jam packed full of patented Pynchon weirdness, with zany characters, ridiculously implausible scenarios and plots within plots within plots.

Speaking of plot, there are two ways to describe it. One is to say that it is about Oedipa Maas wandering California trying to figure out a conspiracy that seems to involve everyone she knows. The other is to read the book. There really isn't any middle ground. The problem with that is that the former doesn't mention Vatican cover-ups, child movie stars, highly lethal cans of hair spray, horn symbols, a band by the name of the Paranoids who aren't, LSD-addicted radio announcers or archaic postal systems trying to destroy American society, while the latter would take up just over 150 pages, far beyond the scope of this review.

The writing is typical Pynchon. Some sections meander into ruminations on a character's psyche, or page-long sojourns into plays, conspiracies, wanderings, etc. Other paragraphs are so fast paced that if your mind wanders for a second, you'll miss something important and have no idea what is going on. Often these crucial sentences are buried within a morass of extraneous information, so readers should pay attention at all times.

The names are fun and ridiculous. Mike Fallopian, the duchy of Squamuglia, Yoyodyne, Wharfinger, Chiclitz, Dr Hilarious, the list goes on. Settings are predictable only in the way that they will be completely unpredictable, in essence, you never know when or where the story is going to take you next.

Does it end satisfactorily? Can Pynchon recover all the myriad threads into a cohesive whole? No. But then, if he did, the story wouldn't make sense. By being about paranoia and conspiracy, an actual concrete resolution would hurt the book more than it would help. The closing sentence is a perfect example of this, and will probably seem frustrating to a casual reader, but if you sit back and think about it, no other ending would suffice. A masterful work, one that is extremely accessible for those people who are (rightly) intimidated by the monster that is Gravity's Rainbow.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars You need to like the writing style to like the book, Oct 30 2003
By Michael A. Newman (New Hyde Park, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Crying Of Lot 49 (Paperback)
I was told that this book was a very good intellectual read. I am someone who had previously struggled through Joyce's Ulysses. As difficult for me as that book was, this one was a lot tougher to get through. I am not big on stream-of-consciousness writing and enormous difficulty understanding and following what was happening in this book.

I can see that the book has some good writing. I am sure that the book is quite good if it is your style. That is why I am still giving it 3 stars. It is quite possible that this book is like an IQ test. Only people with Mensa stats can get what's going on here. I guess I have not arrived at that level.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Top of the line, Jan 6 2005
This review is from: Crying Of Lot 49 (Paperback)
THE CRYING OF LOT 49 has to be one of the most intricate books ever written. The good news is this: It's beyond anything out there today on the market. The bad news? Few will "get" this book since you need to be hyper-educated-the same way you need to be educated to "get" THE SIMPSONS or MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000, which, by the way, if you enjoy, then you'll love this book. The story surrounds Oedipa Maas and the adventure she begins when she is called upon as executrix of the estate of her deceased ex-lover Pierce Invererity. There is level upon level upon level in this story. You can read it ten times and still see new things and make new connections. The only other book I've read that came anywhere close to this was Jackson McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD with its anagrams, puzzles, weird characters, and mixture of light and dark. But CRYING surpasses even that. Kudos to the author.
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 		 Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Going Postal
Pynchon lets the threads dandle in this oblique satire of suburban sprawl, conspiracy theories, and sixties hipness. Read more
Published on Mar 20 2004 by Michael S. Mahoney

3.0 out of 5 stars Left me feeling kind of stupid
I haven't felt like this after reading a book in a long time. This is not to say that I dislike difficult books. I typically enjoy a challenging read. Read more
Published on Feb 20 2004 by David Robinson

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy It - Point Blank!
The crying of lot 49 is a self-conscious literary masterpiece that draws on most literary genres to present a series of pastiches of the sentimental child-star movie, Victorian... Read more
Published on Dec 24 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars .94 toL fo gniyrC ehT
An outstanding novel and a wonderously imaginitive story.
Published on Dec 1 2003 by R. Douglas

5.0 out of 5 stars I don't have much to say, really
Although I could go on about this book until your ears bled. I just wanted to let sdfsdf (whose review graces the first page of this entry) know that he really oughtn't try so... Read more
Published on Nov 24 2003 by Regular Chickens

4.0 out of 5 stars sdfsdf
With a mordant pen and an incisive wit Pynchon playfully attacks the epistemological naivetes of the credulous and anthropomorphic philosophy serving as the backbone for many of... Read more
Published on Nov 22 2003 by Jason Young

5.0 out of 5 stars Short Stunning Epic
At a slim 150 pages, this novella works as a good, and indicative, introduction to Pynchon. Perhaps it is far more impressive, formally, than his other longer novels (Gravity's... Read more
Published on Nov 7 2003 by Jimmy Chen

5.0 out of 5 stars Deeper than I can see.
There are many better reviews of this book than mine, so I will keep it short. I read a selection from this book out of my Postmodern Literature and Film class and decided to go... Read more
Published on Oct 27 2003 by Jason Schaeffer

5.0 out of 5 stars Profound and Fun!
The Crying of Lot 49 was written by Thomas Pynchon and set against the turbulent sixties. No, this isn't a historic book per say; yet it combines examples of pop culture and... Read more
Published on Oct 22 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the Other Book.
I'm ready for the shouts of "Madness!" and possibly "Oh, the humanity!" but I tell you, if you squint and kinda read this book sideways, you'll see it's really the 21st century... Read more
Published on Sep 24 2003 by Vostromo

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