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title: "The Crying of Lot 49: A Novel (Perennial Classics)"
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# The Crying of Lot 49: A Novel (Perennial Classics)

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## Description

One of The Atlantic ’s Great American Novels “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.

Review: Guide to Being Paranoid - Thomas Pynchon writes the perfect guide to paranoia in The Crying of Lot 49 (published in 1965). His gutsy and self-reliant heroine, Oedipa Maas (more about Pynchon's fabulously funny names later) is named executor of the far-flung estate of an ex-boyfriend. Pierce Inverarity had his fingers in pies of all sorts, including a possible shadow group fighting the monopoly of the US Mail system over mail delivery. The struggle to control the mail dates back centuries (it really does: Pynchon is not making this part up) and the Trystero conspirators are gearing up for an overthrow, offering clandestine methods of getting mail around. Or are they? That's where the paranoia comes in. As Oedipa finds out more and more about seemingly unrelated (but are they?) subjects such as the history of postal subversion (including the philatelical dimensions of forged stamps bearing small, incongruous details in black), and the bones of GIs left at a the bottom of a lake in Italy during World War II and then brought back to the United States to serve as interest for scuba divers in a lake built and outfitted by Inverarity, and the history and performance of Jacobean revenge plays (including one play considered so pornographic and destabilizing that the Vatican keeps it locked up in its library -- another paranoid conspiracy waiting to be written) and resurgent Nazism in San Francisco (not so paranoid, after all), we are as drawn into the twisted story of Inverarity's schemes as she is, and left with the same question: has he created the whole paranoid conspiracy to punish Oedipa or is it a real conspiracy that he was a part of or are all the concurrent acts and facts just coincidences? And if you cannot understand a thing I wrote in this paragraph, don't blame me: read the book. The book was written over forty-four years ago and yet it not dated. The California he writes about is perhaps a bit more innocent and open-spaced than now, but the groundwork for the future is being laid in spiraling real estate developments, spreading smog, and disconnected persons seeking connection, even if it is only the most paranoid grasping for a connection that does not exist. However, there is a noted difference in The Crying of Lot 49 in the 1965 perspective on the Holocaust and World War II, and in today's. In 1965 many survivors and perpetrators of the holocaust were still alive, and WWII was the war people still talked about as a participatory event. It was not an academic discussion of genocide and war, and Pynchon makes the war and the genocide horrible and immediately relevant to his characters. In a way, the characters are seeking to distance themselves from that history, and aligning themselves with an even older history of the struggle against repression while at the same time flying on the balloon of the sixties, trying to get high and find themselves and get laid. I loved how Pynchon uses the 1960s backdrop for his naming of the characters. Pynchon is a timely and sophomoric (but still funny) version of Dickens with his Oedipa Maas (sometimes called "Oed" and sometimes just "Edna"), married to Mucho Maas; we also meet Manni Di Presso, Dr. Hilarius (a Freudian shrink), Stanley Koteks, Mike Fallopian, Genghis Cohen (who calls Oedipa "Miz Maas"), and so on and so on. Pynchon uses silly humor, slapstick, and sly inversions of reality to hold the readers' attention and it all works. The plot of The Crying of Lot 49 is crazy but Oedipa holds it all together, works out all the kinks and twists for me, and makes me a believer. Our Oedipa is an honest and serious girl (she does have some fun in a very funny scene of undressing layers upon layers); she is also an optimist and as dogged as a pit bull. By the end of the book, she accepts paranoia as a necessary state. And she is right, after all. Better to question and wonder, than to be complacent and therefore, unwittingly compliant in the conspiracy. What conspiracy? Take your pick, there are many out there, so keep your eyes open and your brain open, and your options, open. Great good comes from reading great books. For more go to [...]
Review: Baffling and irritating, but oddly compelling - I don't normally advocate criminal behavior, but if you're going to read this book, I might suggest you smoke something a bit stronger than tobacco if you're into that kind of thing. It might help to bring this book into focus. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the author was in a similar state when he wrote it. I'm not sure how much I can tell you about the plot. We start off with Oedipa Maas, a young suburban California housewife, who finds out that she's been named executor of her ex-boyfriend's estate. While diligently attending to the estate (not to mention attending to her co-executor), she stumbles upon a symbol scrawled on a bathroom wall with a reference to something called "WASTE". Oedipa develops an obsession with the symbol which seems to pop up with increasing frequency the more she pursues its meaning. Her adventures lead her from person to person, each character more bizarre than the last, and from unbelievable situation to impossible event. This book is maddeningly impossible to get your head around. Nothing ever quite makes sense, but there's always something tantalizing just around the bend. Maybe if you read a few more pages it will start to make sense. But the further you go on, the less sense it makes, but yet the more we feel we might just get rewarded if we read a little further. We follow Oedipa's descent into conspiracy madness through a long-winded description of a five-act Jacobean revenge play, an encounter with a truly mad scientist, an all-night ramble through the seamy side of San Francisco, the intricacies of stamp collecting, and epic accounts of the obscurest points of the history of mail delivery (although, how much, if at all, that "history" resembles reality is more than I can say). At one point in her obsession, Oedipa looks at the possibilities. Either she's stumbled into one of the most elaborate conspiracies in the history of the world, or she's been set up by her late ex-boyfriend in some sort of elaborate hoax, or else she's mentally ill. We sense all along that the author is playing with Oedipa, poking fun at her and her frail human ability to grasp and comprehend. But then we realize that he's poking fun at us too. And at life itself and all of our grand and serious searching for The Meaning of Life. The characters are mostly quite unsympathetic and unengaging. Mostly that's because they don't stick around long enough for us to get to know them. But even the main character, Miz Maas, doesn't arouse our sympathy. That's because none of the characters are actual human beings; they are mere symbols in Pynchon's game of life. Our clue is in their corny, punny names: "Mucho" Maas, Genghis Cohen, you get the picture. The book is not meant to be taken as a literal story any more than "Gulliver's Travels" is. Both are satires. But unlike "Gulliver's Travels", it is unclear who or what is being satirized in "The Crying of Lot 49". Some things are obvious, like America's post-war cookie-cutter suburban blight and the empty lives that accompany such blight. But it's more than that, though what the "more" is, is always just out of reach. Although this is a very slim volume, it's not easy reading. Pynchon's wordy prose can at times go on for pages without completing a single paragraph. It is almost always difficult to follow exactly what's happening and to keep the characters straight. Nonetheless, I recommend this book as an introduction to Thomas Pynchon largely because it is so short. Judging by the reviews, Pynchon has a devoted following and a number of critics. This book is perfect for discovering which you are. For myself, I'm not quite sure yet. I ended up liking the book in spite of myself, but I don't really think it will stick with me. Some ambiguous books leave me puzzling over them for weeks or months to come, but I don't think this will be one of them.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #9,925 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #13 in Action & Adventure Short Stories (Books) #31 in Sea Stories #34 in Indigenous Fiction |
| Customer Reviews | 4.1 out of 5 stars 2,605 Reviews |

## Images

![The Crying of Lot 49: A Novel (Perennial Classics) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81-Seah1fsL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Guide to Being Paranoid
*by A***R on January 20, 2009*

Thomas Pynchon writes the perfect guide to paranoia in The Crying of Lot 49 (published in 1965). His gutsy and self-reliant heroine, Oedipa Maas (more about Pynchon's fabulously funny names later) is named executor of the far-flung estate of an ex-boyfriend. Pierce Inverarity had his fingers in pies of all sorts, including a possible shadow group fighting the monopoly of the US Mail system over mail delivery. The struggle to control the mail dates back centuries (it really does: Pynchon is not making this part up) and the Trystero conspirators are gearing up for an overthrow, offering clandestine methods of getting mail around. Or are they? That's where the paranoia comes in. As Oedipa finds out more and more about seemingly unrelated (but are they?) subjects such as the history of postal subversion (including the philatelical dimensions of forged stamps bearing small, incongruous details in black), and the bones of GIs left at a the bottom of a lake in Italy during World War II and then brought back to the United States to serve as interest for scuba divers in a lake built and outfitted by Inverarity, and the history and performance of Jacobean revenge plays (including one play considered so pornographic and destabilizing that the Vatican keeps it locked up in its library -- another paranoid conspiracy waiting to be written) and resurgent Nazism in San Francisco (not so paranoid, after all), we are as drawn into the twisted story of Inverarity's schemes as she is, and left with the same question: has he created the whole paranoid conspiracy to punish Oedipa or is it a real conspiracy that he was a part of or are all the concurrent acts and facts just coincidences? And if you cannot understand a thing I wrote in this paragraph, don't blame me: read the book. The book was written over forty-four years ago and yet it not dated. The California he writes about is perhaps a bit more innocent and open-spaced than now, but the groundwork for the future is being laid in spiraling real estate developments, spreading smog, and disconnected persons seeking connection, even if it is only the most paranoid grasping for a connection that does not exist. However, there is a noted difference in The Crying of Lot 49 in the 1965 perspective on the Holocaust and World War II, and in today's. In 1965 many survivors and perpetrators of the holocaust were still alive, and WWII was the war people still talked about as a participatory event. It was not an academic discussion of genocide and war, and Pynchon makes the war and the genocide horrible and immediately relevant to his characters. In a way, the characters are seeking to distance themselves from that history, and aligning themselves with an even older history of the struggle against repression while at the same time flying on the balloon of the sixties, trying to get high and find themselves and get laid. I loved how Pynchon uses the 1960s backdrop for his naming of the characters. Pynchon is a timely and sophomoric (but still funny) version of Dickens with his Oedipa Maas (sometimes called "Oed" and sometimes just "Edna"), married to Mucho Maas; we also meet Manni Di Presso, Dr. Hilarius (a Freudian shrink), Stanley Koteks, Mike Fallopian, Genghis Cohen (who calls Oedipa "Miz Maas"), and so on and so on. Pynchon uses silly humor, slapstick, and sly inversions of reality to hold the readers' attention and it all works. The plot of The Crying of Lot 49 is crazy but Oedipa holds it all together, works out all the kinks and twists for me, and makes me a believer. Our Oedipa is an honest and serious girl (she does have some fun in a very funny scene of undressing layers upon layers); she is also an optimist and as dogged as a pit bull. By the end of the book, she accepts paranoia as a necessary state. And she is right, after all. Better to question and wonder, than to be complacent and therefore, unwittingly compliant in the conspiracy. What conspiracy? Take your pick, there are many out there, so keep your eyes open and your brain open, and your options, open. Great good comes from reading great books. For more go to [...]

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Baffling and irritating, but oddly compelling
*by D***E on January 19, 2011*

I don't normally advocate criminal behavior, but if you're going to read this book, I might suggest you smoke something a bit stronger than tobacco if you're into that kind of thing. It might help to bring this book into focus. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the author was in a similar state when he wrote it. I'm not sure how much I can tell you about the plot. We start off with Oedipa Maas, a young suburban California housewife, who finds out that she's been named executor of her ex-boyfriend's estate. While diligently attending to the estate (not to mention attending to her co-executor), she stumbles upon a symbol scrawled on a bathroom wall with a reference to something called "WASTE". Oedipa develops an obsession with the symbol which seems to pop up with increasing frequency the more she pursues its meaning. Her adventures lead her from person to person, each character more bizarre than the last, and from unbelievable situation to impossible event. This book is maddeningly impossible to get your head around. Nothing ever quite makes sense, but there's always something tantalizing just around the bend. Maybe if you read a few more pages it will start to make sense. But the further you go on, the less sense it makes, but yet the more we feel we might just get rewarded if we read a little further. We follow Oedipa's descent into conspiracy madness through a long-winded description of a five-act Jacobean revenge play, an encounter with a truly mad scientist, an all-night ramble through the seamy side of San Francisco, the intricacies of stamp collecting, and epic accounts of the obscurest points of the history of mail delivery (although, how much, if at all, that "history" resembles reality is more than I can say). At one point in her obsession, Oedipa looks at the possibilities. Either she's stumbled into one of the most elaborate conspiracies in the history of the world, or she's been set up by her late ex-boyfriend in some sort of elaborate hoax, or else she's mentally ill. We sense all along that the author is playing with Oedipa, poking fun at her and her frail human ability to grasp and comprehend. But then we realize that he's poking fun at us too. And at life itself and all of our grand and serious searching for The Meaning of Life. The characters are mostly quite unsympathetic and unengaging. Mostly that's because they don't stick around long enough for us to get to know them. But even the main character, Miz Maas, doesn't arouse our sympathy. That's because none of the characters are actual human beings; they are mere symbols in Pynchon's game of life. Our clue is in their corny, punny names: "Mucho" Maas, Genghis Cohen, you get the picture. The book is not meant to be taken as a literal story any more than "Gulliver's Travels" is. Both are satires. But unlike "Gulliver's Travels", it is unclear who or what is being satirized in "The Crying of Lot 49". Some things are obvious, like America's post-war cookie-cutter suburban blight and the empty lives that accompany such blight. But it's more than that, though what the "more" is, is always just out of reach. Although this is a very slim volume, it's not easy reading. Pynchon's wordy prose can at times go on for pages without completing a single paragraph. It is almost always difficult to follow exactly what's happening and to keep the characters straight. Nonetheless, I recommend this book as an introduction to Thomas Pynchon largely because it is so short. Judging by the reviews, Pynchon has a devoted following and a number of critics. This book is perfect for discovering which you are. For myself, I'm not quite sure yet. I ended up liking the book in spite of myself, but I don't really think it will stick with me. Some ambiguous books leave me puzzling over them for weeks or months to come, but I don't think this will be one of them.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This Novel Stands with The Great Gatsby
*by B***N on August 17, 2001*

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.

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