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Just absolutely and enthrallingly delightful to read from the very beginning to the very end, a rollicking psychomystery oddity that packs more content in 150-some odd pages than many authors would even attempt to in a 600-700 page epic. This book is dense, narratively layered like an apparatus of funhouse mirrors reflecting reality and myth (especially cultural myth) back at each other in a supernova of genre obliteration, the prose at times so verbose and high-minded as to be totally inscrutable and other times so simple as to be ridiculously easy. There are no easy answers plotwise in "Lot 49", a mystery without end or resolution, a web of twisted and surreally mundane conspiracies looping back in on each other in ways that may matter or may not at all. Pynchon's letting you into the water at whatever reading pace you're comfortable with, but if you wanna crack the codes upon codes hidden in this narrative, he ain't gonna hold your hand - it's engage totally on its level or not, and that philosophy is something more authors and artists in general could do well to prioritize.
But what this book really is, beyond everything else, is fun. This is, without exaggeration, the most wall-to-wall enjoyment I've had reading a book at least over the past 6 months, even if I fully admit there's no way I "got" all of this on first read (really, how could anyone?). "Lot 49" breaks genre and literary convention and it hops confidently from style to style and concept to concept in what I can only describe as anarchistic abandon; it never dourly posits itself as a literary morse code to be broken, even though its plot certainly is, but Pynchon's writing is so playful, punning, and suffused with an unmistakable air of mischief that it's impossible for this not to be an amusingly disorienting and cerebrally thrilling experience. At times as heady as an intellectual treatise and at times as gutbustingly hilarious as the best slapstick cartoons (seriously, this is one of the funniest books I've read in years; the aerosol/"beachball with feet" sequence speaks for itself, among countless others), philosophical monologues and paranoid ramblings and smashing together disparate philosophical concepts and technology, a coy and contemptuously sarcastic attitude toward American capitalism and Cold War consumerism, and general drugged out proto-hippie weirdness are all in equal parts spotlight in "Lot 49". Pynchon isn't holding your hand, like I said, but he's also making sure to provide you with as much oddball entertainment and intrigue as his impressive imagination allows for. And while I'm super down with the occasional hyperserious experimental novel, I'm glad Pynchon's sense of bizarro Dadaist abandon exists among the field to balance the scale.
Basically, if I had to describe the plot in any way, it's this: classy American everywoman Oedipa Maas is unexpectedly made executor to the will of a billionaire ex lover, and through a series of revelations and conspiratorial gestures from various eccentric characters, it's revealed of the possible connections between her now-estate and a centuries-long conspiracy involving a Jacobean revenge play, the depths and intricacies of the United States postal service, and a mysterious order revolving around a suspiciously occult horn symbol and the word "Tristero". What follows is a coked out run-on sentence fever dream down the twisting and contracting corridors of Oedipa's mind and suddenly odd life, full of paranoia, mobius strip plot threads, weirdos of all kinds, bureaucratic jargon, psychedelic slapstick comedy, technological thought experiments, and journeys through a surreal alternate dimension 60s California. It's really difficult to describe the narrative of this book with any coherence, because it completely does away with any conventional method of storytelling. Focus on the plot threads and try to piece them together, but don't be too mad if you can't get it all on the first try; novels are sensory experiences just as much as narrative ones, and in cases like "The Crying of Lot 49", sometimes even more so. It's by design; let go and enjoy the ride.
It's more than just pure visceral excitement that this book nails, though. The approach to conspiracy in "Lot 49" exposes the inherent paranoia beyond the mundane reality of existing in surveillance states such as the United States, one channeled through Oedipa's increasing madness and disconnect from reality (or is it the opposite, fuller clarity? It's never quite clear, lending further it to its status as a mystery without a resolution). Oedipa scratches the surface of a power structure vastly beyond her scope, and as the answers she seeks never fully unfurl, she begins to bend under the weight of the system's perceived all-seeing eye. It could just be paranoia, but isn't it possible that, given what we know about fascist establishments - their tendency towards historical revisionism, the right wing's increasingly open reliance on "alternate facts", the denial and covering up of US-funded tragedies and conspiracies, etc. - could it not be possible Oedipa is onto something no one wants her to know? The answers, while undefined, illuminate a disquieting proposition - that we are always and inevitably beneath the palm of an unfathomably vast system of hegemonic control and surveillance, regardless of one's own "madness" or not (Pynchon is appropriately careful to not make any prescriptive judgements on Oedipa). By leaving us as ultimately in the dark as Oedipa is, we are no closer to coming face to face with the truth than she, though the novel itself and her character both illuminate the fear of knowing what we all on some level understand we are situated beneath yet consciously choose to ignore for most of our waking moments.
If still unconvinced, then I'll just reiterate that this book contains the following: florid literary rambles, philosophy, childish cartoon humor and physics, impeccable comedic delivery and timing, sarcasm, the deceit of capitalism, Lynchian disconnect of reality and communication, Maxwell's Demon, psychological explorations, postage stamp art, nonsensical babblings from LSD addicts, Nazi therapists who put much stock into the funny faces they can make, musical numbers with highly abstract lyrical imagery, plays-within-books, TV-show-episodes-within-books, an implicitly alternate dimension America, Machiavellian medieval warfare, people named Genghis Cohen and Mike Fallopian, all wrapped up in the conceit of an absolutely oddball whodunit that is essentially about mailmen. And all of that in a less than 200 page volume. If any of that sounds appealing to you and you're willing to take a crack at something more cerebral than narrative, this is absolutely what you want to read. One of those novels that remind me why I love literature, and I am very excited that this was not only my introduction to the wide world of Pynchon, but my first read of the year. A fantastic way to kick off both journeys.
"Either way, they'll call it paranoia. They. Either you have stumbled indeed, without the aid of LSD or other indole alkaloids, onto a secret richness and concealed density of dream; onto a network by which X number of Americans are communicating whilst reserving their lies, recitations of routine, arid betrayals of spiritual poverty, for the official government delivery system; maybe even onto a real alternative to the existlessness, to the absence of surprise to life, that harrows the head of everybody American you know, and you too, sweetie."
918
September reread!! This was my first Pynchon back in January [the beginning of what has become the Year of Pynchon for me] and I was curious to see how I would react to it a second time through having read most of his other works since. My original review now kind of reads like slightly embarrassing gawking from a Pynchon first-timer in retrospect, but my enthusiasm wasn't unfounded, and this is still a great little book. With hindsight, it really is a much less complex works than his others; the central narrative device here is a pretty straightforward whodunit sort of mystery, it's just filtered through Pynchon's interest in open-endedness, hallucinatory prose and paranoia - it's such a condensation of his themes while not really fully tackling any of them, so I do kind of understand why the author himself thinks it's a lesser work. But there's still a lot working here nonetheless that he gives central focus here that makes the novel stand out - namely the focus on a personalized paranoia in Oedipa's character that becomes more institutionalized in TP's larger fares, an exploration of how every little bit of our daily life is made up of separate parts of a system we can only grasp fragments of, and maybe his most authentic depiction of mid-60s California counterculture and social tension, seeing as this was written in the middle of that era in real-time. Bizarre and thrilling, comic and amusing, and "The Courier's Tragedy" chapter is such a fucking neat device and setpiece that he's never replicated elsewhere and it alone makes the book worth reading. After all my experience with his work I would definitely still recommend newcomers to start here.
But what this book really is, beyond everything else, is fun. This is, without exaggeration, the most wall-to-wall enjoyment I've had reading a book at least over the past 6 months, even if I fully admit there's no way I "got" all of this on first read (really, how could anyone?). "Lot 49" breaks genre and literary convention and it hops confidently from style to style and concept to concept in what I can only describe as anarchistic abandon; it never dourly posits itself as a literary morse code to be broken, even though its plot certainly is, but Pynchon's writing is so playful, punning, and suffused with an unmistakable air of mischief that it's impossible for this not to be an amusingly disorienting and cerebrally thrilling experience. At times as heady as an intellectual treatise and at times as gutbustingly hilarious as the best slapstick cartoons (seriously, this is one of the funniest books I've read in years; the aerosol/"beachball with feet" sequence speaks for itself, among countless others), philosophical monologues and paranoid ramblings and smashing together disparate philosophical concepts and technology, a coy and contemptuously sarcastic attitude toward American capitalism and Cold War consumerism, and general drugged out proto-hippie weirdness are all in equal parts spotlight in "Lot 49". Pynchon isn't holding your hand, like I said, but he's also making sure to provide you with as much oddball entertainment and intrigue as his impressive imagination allows for. And while I'm super down with the occasional hyperserious experimental novel, I'm glad Pynchon's sense of bizarro Dadaist abandon exists among the field to balance the scale.
Basically, if I had to describe the plot in any way, it's this: classy American everywoman Oedipa Maas is unexpectedly made executor to the will of a billionaire ex lover, and through a series of revelations and conspiratorial gestures from various eccentric characters, it's revealed of the possible connections between her now-estate and a centuries-long conspiracy involving a Jacobean revenge play, the depths and intricacies of the United States postal service, and a mysterious order revolving around a suspiciously occult horn symbol and the word "Tristero". What follows is a coked out run-on sentence fever dream down the twisting and contracting corridors of Oedipa's mind and suddenly odd life, full of paranoia, mobius strip plot threads, weirdos of all kinds, bureaucratic jargon, psychedelic slapstick comedy, technological thought experiments, and journeys through a surreal alternate dimension 60s California. It's really difficult to describe the narrative of this book with any coherence, because it completely does away with any conventional method of storytelling. Focus on the plot threads and try to piece them together, but don't be too mad if you can't get it all on the first try; novels are sensory experiences just as much as narrative ones, and in cases like "The Crying of Lot 49", sometimes even more so. It's by design; let go and enjoy the ride.
It's more than just pure visceral excitement that this book nails, though. The approach to conspiracy in "Lot 49" exposes the inherent paranoia beyond the mundane reality of existing in surveillance states such as the United States, one channeled through Oedipa's increasing madness and disconnect from reality (or is it the opposite, fuller clarity? It's never quite clear, lending further it to its status as a mystery without a resolution). Oedipa scratches the surface of a power structure vastly beyond her scope, and as the answers she seeks never fully unfurl, she begins to bend under the weight of the system's perceived all-seeing eye. It could just be paranoia, but isn't it possible that, given what we know about fascist establishments - their tendency towards historical revisionism, the right wing's increasingly open reliance on "alternate facts", the denial and covering up of US-funded tragedies and conspiracies, etc. - could it not be possible Oedipa is onto something no one wants her to know? The answers, while undefined, illuminate a disquieting proposition - that we are always and inevitably beneath the palm of an unfathomably vast system of hegemonic control and surveillance, regardless of one's own "madness" or not (Pynchon is appropriately careful to not make any prescriptive judgements on Oedipa). By leaving us as ultimately in the dark as Oedipa is, we are no closer to coming face to face with the truth than she, though the novel itself and her character both illuminate the fear of knowing what we all on some level understand we are situated beneath yet consciously choose to ignore for most of our waking moments.
If still unconvinced, then I'll just reiterate that this book contains the following: florid literary rambles, philosophy, childish cartoon humor and physics, impeccable comedic delivery and timing, sarcasm, the deceit of capitalism, Lynchian disconnect of reality and communication, Maxwell's Demon, psychological explorations, postage stamp art, nonsensical babblings from LSD addicts, Nazi therapists who put much stock into the funny faces they can make, musical numbers with highly abstract lyrical imagery, plays-within-books, TV-show-episodes-within-books, an implicitly alternate dimension America, Machiavellian medieval warfare, people named Genghis Cohen and Mike Fallopian, all wrapped up in the conceit of an absolutely oddball whodunit that is essentially about mailmen. And all of that in a less than 200 page volume. If any of that sounds appealing to you and you're willing to take a crack at something more cerebral than narrative, this is absolutely what you want to read. One of those novels that remind me why I love literature, and I am very excited that this was not only my introduction to the wide world of Pynchon, but my first read of the year. A fantastic way to kick off both journeys.
"Either way, they'll call it paranoia. They. Either you have stumbled indeed, without the aid of LSD or other indole alkaloids, onto a secret richness and concealed density of dream; onto a network by which X number of Americans are communicating whilst reserving their lies, recitations of routine, arid betrayals of spiritual poverty, for the official government delivery system; maybe even onto a real alternative to the existlessness, to the absence of surprise to life, that harrows the head of everybody American you know, and you too, sweetie."
918
September reread!! This was my first Pynchon back in January [the beginning of what has become the Year of Pynchon for me] and I was curious to see how I would react to it a second time through having read most of his other works since. My original review now kind of reads like slightly embarrassing gawking from a Pynchon first-timer in retrospect, but my enthusiasm wasn't unfounded, and this is still a great little book. With hindsight, it really is a much less complex works than his others; the central narrative device here is a pretty straightforward whodunit sort of mystery, it's just filtered through Pynchon's interest in open-endedness, hallucinatory prose and paranoia - it's such a condensation of his themes while not really fully tackling any of them, so I do kind of understand why the author himself thinks it's a lesser work. But there's still a lot working here nonetheless that he gives central focus here that makes the novel stand out - namely the focus on a personalized paranoia in Oedipa's character that becomes more institutionalized in TP's larger fares, an exploration of how every little bit of our daily life is made up of separate parts of a system we can only grasp fragments of, and maybe his most authentic depiction of mid-60s California counterculture and social tension, seeing as this was written in the middle of that era in real-time. Bizarre and thrilling, comic and amusing, and "The Courier's Tragedy" chapter is such a fucking neat device and setpiece that he's never replicated elsewhere and it alone makes the book worth reading. After all my experience with his work I would definitely still recommend newcomers to start here.
