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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.
For what it's worth, the story is as follows. Oedipa Maas, a married lady living in 1960s California, is unexpectedly made executrix of her dead ex-boyfriend's estate. While carrying out her duties, she comes across strange goings-on which may or may not point to the existence of a secret postal service. The clues keep piling up. Are they mere coincidences or is there a sinister conspiracy afoot? And if even something as basic as post delivery is subject to a conspiracy, what else may be going on in society? Keen to find answers, Oedipa digs into the clues, only to get sucked into what is best described as a wild and obsessive brainstorm.
As I said, there are some interesting ideas going on here. Pynchon has a definite knack for mixing fact and fiction, to the point where you find yourself Googling things to see what is truth and what is fiction. He also quite successfully makes you buy into the conspiracy theory. Sadly, though, he's rather self-indulgent, blending good stuff with lengthy passages of dense, impenetrable prose that don't really seem to go anywhere. These passages do serve a purpose in that they make the reader as confused as Oedipa herself (a confusion further strengthened by the maddening open ending), but for all their paranoia-inducing quality, I wish Pynchon had taken more time to flesh out his story, to turn it into an actual novel with flesh-and-blood characters and emotions rather than an exercise in cleverness. In short, I wish the book had more pages. I didn't think I'd ever say that about a Pynchon novel, but here it's true: less is not always more. Alas.
For what it's worth, the story is as follows. Oedipa Maas, a married lady living in 1960s California, is unexpectedly made executrix of her dead ex-boyfriend's estate. While carrying out her duties, she comes across strange goings-on which may or may not point to the existence of a secret postal service. The clues keep piling up. Are they mere coincidences or is there a sinister conspiracy afoot? And if even something as basic as post delivery is subject to a conspiracy, what else may be going on in society? Keen to find answers, Oedipa digs into the clues, only to get sucked into what is best described as a wild and obsessive brainstorm.
As I said, there are some interesting ideas going on here. Pynchon has a definite knack for mixing fact and fiction, to the point where you find yourself Googling things to see what is truth and what is fiction. He also quite successfully makes you buy into the conspiracy theory. Sadly, though, he's rather self-indulgent, blending good stuff with lengthy passages of dense, impenetrable prose that don't really seem to go anywhere. These passages do serve a purpose in that they make the reader as confused as Oedipa herself (a confusion further strengthened by the maddening open ending), but for all their paranoia-inducing quality, I wish Pynchon had taken more time to flesh out his story, to turn it into an actual novel with flesh-and-blood characters and emotions rather than an exercise in cleverness. In short, I wish the book had more pages. I didn't think I'd ever say that about a Pynchon novel, but here it's true: less is not always more. Alas.
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That's what would come to haunt her most, perhaps: the way it fitted, logically, together.The Crying of Lot 49 follows Oedipa Maas, a married woman who learns one day that she has been named as the executrix of the estate of a wealthy former lover, Pierce Inverarity. Her duties take her to places she’s never been, and introduce her to several new and very strange people. But most of all, Oedipa begins finding clues about the possible existence of a shadowy, underground postal organization called the Tristero that people thought had been believed defeated by Thurn und Taxis in some kind of postal battle in the 1700s. And I say “possible existence” because Oedipa is never sure if the clues she’s following about the Tristero are an elaborate prank by the recently departed Pierce, or if she’s falling for conspiracy theories and slowly going mad ….
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Oedipa wondered whether, at the end of this (if it were supposed to end), she too might not be left with only compiled memories of clues, announcements, intimations, but never the central truth itself, which must somehow each time be too bright for her memory to hold; which must always blaze out, destroying its own message irreversibly, leaving an overexposed blank when the ordinary world came back.
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“I came,” she said, “hoping you could talk me out of a fantasy.”
“Cherish it!” cried Hilarius, fiercely. “What else do any of you have? Hold it tightly by it’s little tentacle, don’t let the Freudians coax it away or the pharmacists poison it out of you. Whatever it is, hold it dear, for when you lose it you go over by that much to the others. You begin to cease to be.”
Every time I see the description for Mr. Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, I think ‘that sounds cool, I should read it sometime.’ But The Crying of Lot 49 is considered Mr. Pynchon’s most accessible novel, which does not bode well for me because I’m still not really sure what this book is supposed to be about. Maybe drug use and alienation, and/or the difficulties people have communicating with each other? It’s definitely a satire, funny in places, and there’s some interesting stuff in here—an elaborate revenge play within the novel, and an exploration of a philosophical thought experiment about entropy called Maxwell’s Demon—but I know I didn’t get everything out of it that was there (why all the odd character names like “Genghis Cohen”?). Then again, later in his career Mr. Pynchon himself criticized this book “in which I seem to have forgotten most of what I thought I'd learned up until then.” So maybe my struggles with the novel are more forgivable.
The Crying of Lot 49 didn’t really work for me. But If it sounds remotely interesting to you (or if, like me, it’s on a list of the top 100 novels of all time that you’re working your way through), give it a go. It’s short, and you’ll know within 20 pages whether you want to keep reading or not. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.
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Brief thoughts after a 2nd reading:
Even better than I remembered. Having a thematic understanding already allowed me to focus on the literal plot of Oedipa's wild travels among crazy characters - often laugh out loud funny - then return to consider how these settings and contrivances serve a symbolic purpose. Absolutely amazing just how well-built Pynchon's prose truly is, to serve these dual purposes. He seems to be making the point that what we perceive and how we perceive it is influenced by the channel we entertain, i.e. the official US Postal Service vs the shadowy secret Tristero WASTE system, or the difference between communal mass media signals vs sublimated firsthand personal experience. And the extrapolation of these issues of communication into issues of society— and the multiplication of layers of doubt, questionable premises, paranoia— it grows staggering, magnificent, mindblowing. I really dig this stuff, and this might become a regular re-read for me.
~
Pynchon, here in his exuberant "put-me-on-the-mapper," is an antic clown who cartwheeled into my life juggling with words in a way that astounds as it entertains. No one can talk this way but somehow I feel I think this way, a whirly-burly hurdy-gurdy of words and ideas fragmenting and recombining and popping and fizzing inside my skull until it might just crack. Reading this whirlwind of a book is like some bizarre accupressure along those mental fault lines, with Pynchon knuckle-rapping and pressing at various weak spots to see what reaction he can get.
Mr. Enigma through and through, Pynchon cries out to be read symbolically (among the cast names: Oedipa, Fallopian, Driblette) but obscures his leads so thoroughly that everything becomes a game to play, a puzzle to solve, a code to decipher. That's fun! That's maddening! That's expert craftsmanship.
5 stars. Inimitable and admirable, Pynchon writes circles around the competition. And this is far and away his most inviting novel (though the fun and games take on a dreadful sense of foreboding in time). There is a first-order plot and a second-order plot, and it's a wild ride bouncing between the two.
Even better than I remembered. Having a thematic understanding already allowed me to focus on the literal plot of Oedipa's wild travels among crazy characters - often laugh out loud funny - then return to consider how these settings and contrivances serve a symbolic purpose. Absolutely amazing just how well-built Pynchon's prose truly is, to serve these dual purposes. He seems to be making the point that what we perceive and how we perceive it is influenced by the channel we entertain, i.e. the official US Postal Service vs the shadowy secret Tristero WASTE system, or the difference between communal mass media signals vs sublimated firsthand personal experience. And the extrapolation of these issues of communication into issues of society— and the multiplication of layers of doubt, questionable premises, paranoia— it grows staggering, magnificent, mindblowing. I really dig this stuff, and this might become a regular re-read for me.
~
Pynchon, here in his exuberant "put-me-on-the-mapper," is an antic clown who cartwheeled into my life juggling with words in a way that astounds as it entertains. No one can talk this way but somehow I feel I think this way, a whirly-burly hurdy-gurdy of words and ideas fragmenting and recombining and popping and fizzing inside my skull until it might just crack. Reading this whirlwind of a book is like some bizarre accupressure along those mental fault lines, with Pynchon knuckle-rapping and pressing at various weak spots to see what reaction he can get.
Mr. Enigma through and through, Pynchon cries out to be read symbolically (among the cast names: Oedipa, Fallopian, Driblette) but obscures his leads so thoroughly that everything becomes a game to play, a puzzle to solve, a code to decipher. That's fun! That's maddening! That's expert craftsmanship.
5 stars. Inimitable and admirable, Pynchon writes circles around the competition. And this is far and away his most inviting novel (though the fun and games take on a dreadful sense of foreboding in time). There is a first-order plot and a second-order plot, and it's a wild ride bouncing between the two.
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Og think nasty writer-man laughing at Og.
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“This is America, you live in it, you let it happen. Let it unfurl.”
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 do, however, get a lot of comments on my W.A.S.T.E. t-shirt. 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 of time to talk about whether or not there’s a real plot. And it’s so funny!
V is another one of Pynchon’s masterpieces that I really love, but The Crying of Lot 49 (written decades before its time in 1966) is both much shorter and more accessible.
I’ll end with a favorite passage from this book which speaks to whether you should believe in other version(s) of reality: “I came," she said, "hoping you could talk me out of a fantasy." Cherish it!" cried Hilarious, fiercely. "What else do any of you have? Hold it tightly by its little tentacle, don't let the Freudians coax it away or the pharmacists poison it out of you. Whatever it is, hold it dear, for when you lose it you go over by that much to the others. You begin to cease to be.”
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 do, however, get a lot of comments on my W.A.S.T.E. t-shirt. 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 of time to talk about whether or not there’s a real plot. And it’s so funny!
V is another one of Pynchon’s masterpieces that I really love, but The Crying of Lot 49 (written decades before its time in 1966) is both much shorter and more accessible.
I’ll end with a favorite passage from this book which speaks to whether you should believe in other version(s) of reality: “I came," she said, "hoping you could talk me out of a fantasy." Cherish it!" cried Hilarious, fiercely. "What else do any of you have? Hold it tightly by its little tentacle, don't let the Freudians coax it away or the pharmacists poison it out of you. Whatever it is, hold it dear, for when you lose it you go over by that much to the others. You begin to cease to be.”
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La miracolosa morte di Pierce Inverarity
“Che né burrasca né conflitti, né belve feroci né la solitudine del deserto, e nemmanco i felloni usurpatori della terra che di diritto ci appartiene intimidiranno i nostri corrieri -. E i banditi, lasciando incolumi loro e le loro borse, disparvero di nuovo fra i loro monti crepuscolari in un crepitio di mantelli simili a vele nere”.
Non so come esprimere con esattezza cosa si nasconda nell'esperienza di leggere questo straordinario e fantastico romanzo; la prospettiva piena di stupore e sorpresa nell'incontro con un'invenzione così originale, divertente e coinvolgente. Mi sono addentrato con curiosità in un delirio gotico e demenziale, in un entusiasmante disegno apocalittico e comico; seguendo l'esilarante investigazione di Oedipa dentro l'ignoto e l'oblio, ho affrontato l'emergere di una logica altra, immaginaria, nel segno di una ridicola follia: il regno ombra di Tristero. La fantascienza e la storia vengono riscoperte tramite la forza surreale degli eventi, la geometrica moltiplicazione della trama in episodi laterali, personaggi grotteschi e epifanie romantiche. Pynchon è perfetto nel ribaltare le micronarrazioni richiamando a sé l'essenza carnevalesca dello scherzo. Dietro le quinte del teatro, la natura prepotente della cospirazione, la precisione architettonica del complotto e la crudele verità della paranoia ripetono le battute e si impongono come le sole forme di conoscenza e di rappresentazione possibile.
“Si ribattezzò El Desheredado, Il Diseredato, e impose ai suoi seguaci una livrea nera simbolo dell'unica cosa che nell'esilio appartenesse loro veramente: la notte”.
“Che né burrasca né conflitti, né belve feroci né la solitudine del deserto, e nemmanco i felloni usurpatori della terra che di diritto ci appartiene intimidiranno i nostri corrieri -. E i banditi, lasciando incolumi loro e le loro borse, disparvero di nuovo fra i loro monti crepuscolari in un crepitio di mantelli simili a vele nere”.
Non so come esprimere con esattezza cosa si nasconda nell'esperienza di leggere questo straordinario e fantastico romanzo; la prospettiva piena di stupore e sorpresa nell'incontro con un'invenzione così originale, divertente e coinvolgente. Mi sono addentrato con curiosità in un delirio gotico e demenziale, in un entusiasmante disegno apocalittico e comico; seguendo l'esilarante investigazione di Oedipa dentro l'ignoto e l'oblio, ho affrontato l'emergere di una logica altra, immaginaria, nel segno di una ridicola follia: il regno ombra di Tristero. La fantascienza e la storia vengono riscoperte tramite la forza surreale degli eventi, la geometrica moltiplicazione della trama in episodi laterali, personaggi grotteschi e epifanie romantiche. Pynchon è perfetto nel ribaltare le micronarrazioni richiamando a sé l'essenza carnevalesca dello scherzo. Dietro le quinte del teatro, la natura prepotente della cospirazione, la precisione architettonica del complotto e la crudele verità della paranoia ripetono le battute e si impongono come le sole forme di conoscenza e di rappresentazione possibile.
“Si ribattezzò El Desheredado, Il Diseredato, e impose ai suoi seguaci una livrea nera simbolo dell'unica cosa che nell'esilio appartenesse loro veramente: la notte”.
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This book made me laugh a lot, which I wasn't really expecting. It's so brief but I marked at least 20 spots. This is the book Pynchon wrote before his great masterpiece, Gravity's Rainbow, and there are some hints of elements that end up in that book in here.
Let's see, maybe I'll start with what made me laugh. Oedipa Maas, the main character, has a lot to giggle about. Her strategy for strip movie watching and the hairspray disaster was only the first time. Her husband, Mucho Maas, no matter how many times he was mentioned, I laughed every time. Pynchon had a lot of fun with names in this book.
I also loved his ongoing depiction of the California of the 1960s, drugs and all, but also the urban landscape.
My only frustration, and I should have known, is that the book ends with a cliff-hanger. Or does he tell us along the way? If so, I missed it. I guess we also never know if the story about the underground mail delivery service is an elaborate hoax or something that actually still exists. We do know that Oedipa was meant to remember.
And why do people take drugs, particularly LSD? Oedipa's husband has been, and by the end of the novel, she can only seem him as a stranger.
"This is America, you live in it, you let it happen. Let it unfurl."
Let's see, maybe I'll start with what made me laugh. Oedipa Maas, the main character, has a lot to giggle about. Her strategy for strip movie watching and the hairspray disaster was only the first time. Her husband, Mucho Maas, no matter how many times he was mentioned, I laughed every time. Pynchon had a lot of fun with names in this book.
I also loved his ongoing depiction of the California of the 1960s, drugs and all, but also the urban landscape.
n "Barbed wire again gave way to the familiar parade of more beige, prefab, cinderblock office machine distributors, sealant makers, bottled gas works, fastener factories, warehouses, and whatever. ... What the road really was, she fancied, was this hypodermic needle, inserted somewhere ahead into the vein of a freeway, a vein nourishing the mainliner L.A., keeping it happy, coherent, protected from pain, or whatever passes, with a city, for pain."I also loved the endless music references, from made up lyrics to the bar playing Stockhausen. Well that's probably only funny if you know music from that era, but here's a taste. Yeah. It also has a Saturday night midnight Sinewave session, haHA!
(later)"Somewhere beyond the battening, urged sweep of three-bedroom houses rushing by their thousands across all the dark beige hills, somehow implicit in an arrogance or bite to the smog the more inland somnolence of San Narciso did lack, lurked the sea, the unimaginable Pacific, the one to which all surfers, beach pads, sewage disposal schemes, tourist incursions, sunned homosexuality, chartered fishing are irrelevant..."
(later)"...some unvoiced idea that no matter what you did to its edges the true Pacific stayed inviolate and integrated or assumed the ugliness at any edge into some more general truth."n
My only frustration, and I should have known, is that the book ends with a cliff-hanger. Or does he tell us along the way? If so, I missed it. I guess we also never know if the story about the underground mail delivery service is an elaborate hoax or something that actually still exists. We do know that Oedipa was meant to remember.
And why do people take drugs, particularly LSD? Oedipa's husband has been, and by the end of the novel, she can only seem him as a stranger.
n "...You take it because it's good. Because you hear and see things, even smell them, taste like you never could. Because the world is so abundant. No end to it, baby. You're an antenna, sending your pattern across a million lives a night, and they're your lives too."nI listened to Stockhausen the entire time I wrote this review and now I'm laughing... this really is my kind of book.
"This is America, you live in it, you let it happen. Let it unfurl."
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Hubs and I have a tradition of getting inked to celebrate the major milestones of our marriage. We are tragically overdue for our done-bought-a-house tats, which have less to do with buying our first home and are, instead, tributes to our literary heroes: HST for him, a whole mess of influential wordslingers for me, including the venerable Richard Python because, in a year that has been overflowing with some really great books and has (re)introduced me to some brilliant writers, it's my ever-growing affinity for T. Ruggs that stands out as 2012's most enjoyable development. My intended fleshy nod to Pynchon was lifted directly from this novella (I figured an otherwise unmarked book with a muted-horn bookmark would be an appropriately obscure enough tip of the hat) -- more than reason enough to revisit the book that started it all so many years ago, right?
I loved this when I first read it, though I realize that I didn't fully appreciate its myriad little treasures until now. What dazzled me on the brink of post-college life -- the word play, the deft navigation of a tricky plot, the delightfully symbolic and outright goofy names -- were just superficial (but still mighty rad) delights. Having a better understanding of the wonderful things that happen when Pynchon's at the helm made this nothing short of a densely packed little gift that just keeps on giving.
It's not a Pynchon novel without it also being an engineering lesson, a history class, a science experiment, a physics overview and a crash course in pop culture, all told in ten-dollar words. It had me researching the histories of both the U.S. postal service and philately (which I didn't even know was a word until this book forced me to look it up -- it's the study of stamp collecting), additional resources regarding Maxwell's Demon (though Pynchon laid it out pretty well), WWII tragedies masked as collateral damage, the effectiveness of LSD as therapy (thanks for laying that groundwork, Mister Huxley!) and God knows what else, which all prove my next point: It's also not a Pynchon novel without necessitating the consultation of at least three secondary sources and the whole damn internet. I learn more about a scattershot sampling of specialized subjects reading Pynchon than I do from any other life experience because the man crams three times as much story into his books than the page count suggests. I am just batshit over how even his meatiest tomes are deceptively short compared to the wealth of information they contain.
"The Courier's Tragedy" stood out so much more this time. Masterful imabic pentameter and a story-within-a-story that hasn't been this well executed since Shakespeare set the bar for such things at dizzying and humbling heights? Yeah, this book is proof that Pynchon rushes in where only The Bard dares to tread.
I loved this when I first read it, though I realize that I didn't fully appreciate its myriad little treasures until now. What dazzled me on the brink of post-college life -- the word play, the deft navigation of a tricky plot, the delightfully symbolic and outright goofy names -- were just superficial (but still mighty rad) delights. Having a better understanding of the wonderful things that happen when Pynchon's at the helm made this nothing short of a densely packed little gift that just keeps on giving.
It's not a Pynchon novel without it also being an engineering lesson, a history class, a science experiment, a physics overview and a crash course in pop culture, all told in ten-dollar words. It had me researching the histories of both the U.S. postal service and philately (which I didn't even know was a word until this book forced me to look it up -- it's the study of stamp collecting), additional resources regarding Maxwell's Demon (though Pynchon laid it out pretty well), WWII tragedies masked as collateral damage, the effectiveness of LSD as therapy (thanks for laying that groundwork, Mister Huxley!) and God knows what else, which all prove my next point: It's also not a Pynchon novel without necessitating the consultation of at least three secondary sources and the whole damn internet. I learn more about a scattershot sampling of specialized subjects reading Pynchon than I do from any other life experience because the man crams three times as much story into his books than the page count suggests. I am just batshit over how even his meatiest tomes are deceptively short compared to the wealth of information they contain.
"The Courier's Tragedy" stood out so much more this time. Masterful imabic pentameter and a story-within-a-story that hasn't been this well executed since Shakespeare set the bar for such things at dizzying and humbling heights? Yeah, this book is proof that Pynchon rushes in where only The Bard dares to tread.
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1.5 stars
It's been some time since I've hated a book with a passion like I did The Crying of Lot 49. Warning: some ramblings ahead.
It was a book club read and I wanted to start this about two weeks before the book club, because I wanted the book to be still fresh in my mind and it was only 150 pages or so. It went wrong immediately at the first pages. A sentence should not be half a page! (I immediately felt bad for complaining about the lack of full stops in Call Me By Your Name, because it was much worse here) I felt it was pretentious and a lot of words without actually saying something. Even just looking at the style, I disliked it because it was repeating words frequently so you got because, because, because, etc. This was clearly not something to read just before sleep, because I was dozing of after the first page.
The next evening I pick it up at an earlier time and I am "treated" to a misogynistic, ridiculous sex-scene. This put me off the book for another week.
And then it is the evening before book club and I am only 20% in and I don't want to read it, but I do want to read it as well so that I can at least base my opinion on the entire book. I had to watch a kid's movie before I felt like reading it again. And I finished about 2h before the book club - so mission accomplished, but sadly my opinions of the book didn't improve a lot.
I recognize it was written in the 1960s, but I thought it had aged very badly like a wine that has gone off. Thomas Pynchon writes a female character, Oedipa, but to me it is unclear if he ever met one in real life. She has no personality whatsoever, exists only in her relationship with the male characters in the novel and at some point exclaims (when said male characters have left her) that she doesn't know what to do now. She's on this sort of quest with which she is obsessed, but why she doesn't just walk away from it is anyone's guess. At this point, you might have guessed it doesn't pass the Bechdel test.
The mystery of the secret underground mail is mildly interesting, as was the ending which might break everything down, but there was just not enough substance and character to keep it all together. The best things about it - it was only 150 pages and I now know I never need to touch anything by Pynchon again in my life.
The main critique on the previous book in book club was that Recursion was too plot-focused and had too little character development. Unfortunately, there was zero character (development) here and the plot was also lacking, so it was indefinitely worse.
Surprise: would not recommend.
Find this and other reviews on my blog https://www.urlphantomhive.com
It's been some time since I've hated a book with a passion like I did The Crying of Lot 49. Warning: some ramblings ahead.
It was a book club read and I wanted to start this about two weeks before the book club, because I wanted the book to be still fresh in my mind and it was only 150 pages or so. It went wrong immediately at the first pages. A sentence should not be half a page! (I immediately felt bad for complaining about the lack of full stops in Call Me By Your Name, because it was much worse here) I felt it was pretentious and a lot of words without actually saying something. Even just looking at the style, I disliked it because it was repeating words frequently so you got because, because, because, etc. This was clearly not something to read just before sleep, because I was dozing of after the first page.
The next evening I pick it up at an earlier time and I am "treated" to a misogynistic, ridiculous sex-scene. This put me off the book for another week.
And then it is the evening before book club and I am only 20% in and I don't want to read it, but I do want to read it as well so that I can at least base my opinion on the entire book. I had to watch a kid's movie before I felt like reading it again. And I finished about 2h before the book club - so mission accomplished, but sadly my opinions of the book didn't improve a lot.
I recognize it was written in the 1960s, but I thought it had aged very badly like a wine that has gone off. Thomas Pynchon writes a female character, Oedipa, but to me it is unclear if he ever met one in real life. She has no personality whatsoever, exists only in her relationship with the male characters in the novel and at some point exclaims (when said male characters have left her) that she doesn't know what to do now. She's on this sort of quest with which she is obsessed, but why she doesn't just walk away from it is anyone's guess. At this point, you might have guessed it doesn't pass the Bechdel test.
The mystery of the secret underground mail is mildly interesting, as was the ending which might break everything down, but there was just not enough substance and character to keep it all together. The best things about it - it was only 150 pages and I now know I never need to touch anything by Pynchon again in my life.
The main critique on the previous book in book club was that Recursion was too plot-focused and had too little character development. Unfortunately, there was zero character (development) here and the plot was also lacking, so it was indefinitely worse.
Surprise: would not recommend.
Find this and other reviews on my blog https://www.urlphantomhive.com
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Napornost ovog čitanja mogu da uporedim samo sa drugim Pinčonovim romanom (V.) i ni sa čim drugim, računajući kojekakve eseje, epistolografiju, sociološka teoretisanja i dosadnologije tog tipa. I nije preterano bitno u kom svom romanu je Pinčon naporniji.
Ne zanima me da li je on unesrećen nekim ozbiljnim mentalnim poremećajem ili su mu mozak spržile hard core hipi drogudže, no, iza tog... nečeg, izbija izuzetna obrazovanost i još izuzetnija inteligencija, sa pripadajućom količinom nadmenosti za obe kategorije.
Osnovni preduslov da se nekome dopadne ova knjiga je jak želudac za paranoično kukumavčenje nad ugnjetavajućim sistemom – šizofreno, na američki način – i ložački detektivski drajv da se tom zlikovačkom ustrojstvu zabode kolac pravo u srce, uz prigodno buntovničko Uraaaaaaa! ako je po volji.
A mene je blagodatni Kosmos toga poštedeo.
Da ovo ne bi zvučalo kao žešći rant, neću da kažem da je Pinčon jedan modernistički seronja (ne baš obični, ne ni totalni, ali seronja) koji iz ćoška sopstvenog apsura tripoznim tonom propoveda: „Hej, da li je to zaista tako, ili je to još jedan Njihov zaverenički napad na Nas, kao što je gotovo sve do sada bilo, zapravo, zamka, pa si i Ti možda trik? Ali, ako si Ti Mi, to jest, ako si Ti ti, to jest, ako je ova veza koju sada osećam kao vapaj demona Tvog identiteta ono što i Ti osećaš, neka nam se tela spoje u Jedno (nemoj zameriti, ovaj vonj, to je od mačije kake, nas dvoje delimo ovaj madrac u ovoj kartonskoj kutiji, najzad, nije li sve to Naše), hajde, pređi na Našu stranu, gde smo svi štrokavi, klošari, sami i nesrećni, ovde makar sigurno znaš da ništa nije onako kako misliš da jeste, da stvarnost nije stvarna (osećaš, više i ne smrdi!), ni mi nismo Mi, ni ti nisi Ti, ali ako pratiš prave znake, a ne lažnjake, i ako ih tumačiš na neki cool način, saznaćeš, ako se išta saznati može. Avaj.“
E, fakju!
Kad se izuzme taj deo (tema i poenta), ostaje nekoliko maestralnih slika, vraški moćnih aluzija, sjajna atmosfera histerije i ludila i dobri temelji za ono što će Oster, DeLilo i potonji „najvažniji pisci moderne američke književnosti“ prekrajati i prepisivati.
To što je Pinčon hteo da uradi treba baš ovako da se uradi i nikako drugačije, te u tom smislu jeste bitan i jeste majstor. Za tu uverljivost i doslednost ideji koju propagira (iako ona stoji sasvim nasuprot svemu onome što volim u književnosti) – korektna trojka.
David Albahari se, neosporno, potrudio oko prevoda koji nije loš, ali se iz aviona vidi da ga je radio – David Albahari.
Ne zanima me da li je on unesrećen nekim ozbiljnim mentalnim poremećajem ili su mu mozak spržile hard core hipi drogudže, no, iza tog... nečeg, izbija izuzetna obrazovanost i još izuzetnija inteligencija, sa pripadajućom količinom nadmenosti za obe kategorije.
Osnovni preduslov da se nekome dopadne ova knjiga je jak želudac za paranoično kukumavčenje nad ugnjetavajućim sistemom – šizofreno, na američki način – i ložački detektivski drajv da se tom zlikovačkom ustrojstvu zabode kolac pravo u srce, uz prigodno buntovničko Uraaaaaaa! ako je po volji.
A mene je blagodatni Kosmos toga poštedeo.
Da ovo ne bi zvučalo kao žešći rant, neću da kažem da je Pinčon jedan modernistički seronja (ne baš obični, ne ni totalni, ali seronja) koji iz ćoška sopstvenog apsura tripoznim tonom propoveda: „Hej, da li je to zaista tako, ili je to još jedan Njihov zaverenički napad na Nas, kao što je gotovo sve do sada bilo, zapravo, zamka, pa si i Ti možda trik? Ali, ako si Ti Mi, to jest, ako si Ti ti, to jest, ako je ova veza koju sada osećam kao vapaj demona Tvog identiteta ono što i Ti osećaš, neka nam se tela spoje u Jedno (nemoj zameriti, ovaj vonj, to je od mačije kake, nas dvoje delimo ovaj madrac u ovoj kartonskoj kutiji, najzad, nije li sve to Naše), hajde, pređi na Našu stranu, gde smo svi štrokavi, klošari, sami i nesrećni, ovde makar sigurno znaš da ništa nije onako kako misliš da jeste, da stvarnost nije stvarna (osećaš, više i ne smrdi!), ni mi nismo Mi, ni ti nisi Ti, ali ako pratiš prave znake, a ne lažnjake, i ako ih tumačiš na neki cool način, saznaćeš, ako se išta saznati može. Avaj.“
E, fakju!
Kad se izuzme taj deo (tema i poenta), ostaje nekoliko maestralnih slika, vraški moćnih aluzija, sjajna atmosfera histerije i ludila i dobri temelji za ono što će Oster, DeLilo i potonji „najvažniji pisci moderne američke književnosti“ prekrajati i prepisivati.
To što je Pinčon hteo da uradi treba baš ovako da se uradi i nikako drugačije, te u tom smislu jeste bitan i jeste majstor. Za tu uverljivost i doslednost ideji koju propagira (iako ona stoji sasvim nasuprot svemu onome što volim u književnosti) – korektna trojka.
David Albahari se, neosporno, potrudio oko prevoda koji nije loš, ali se iz aviona vidi da ga je radio – David Albahari.
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The book version of the 1997 movie The Game by Michael Douglas
Imagine spending a quiet evening at home with your significant other when the phone rings informing you that your former love, Pierce Inverarity, has died. He has appointed Y-O-U to gather his assets under the terms of his will. Except (small detail) he was one of the wealthiest people on the planet!
Oedipa Maas obviously doesn’t stay with Inverarity. So is he trying to reward her internal goodness, rubbing it in that she could have had her hands on all of his delicious assets, or something else?
This is a clever, little novel adorned with humor and social justice commentary. While Oedipa is trying to solve the mystery of Trystero, she seemingly flits from one bizarre phenomenon to another.
Although this book is creatively refreshing, it is a bit overly ambitious and devolves into confusion at times.
This book is like Tom Buchanan forcefully grabbing you by your arm, turning you about while having a roaring good time (albeit things do go off the rails at times).
When was the last time you inventoried your life?
The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Softcover Text - $7.69 from Amazon
Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Facebook Insta
Imagine spending a quiet evening at home with your significant other when the phone rings informing you that your former love, Pierce Inverarity, has died. He has appointed Y-O-U to gather his assets under the terms of his will. Except (small detail) he was one of the wealthiest people on the planet!
Oedipa Maas obviously doesn’t stay with Inverarity. So is he trying to reward her internal goodness, rubbing it in that she could have had her hands on all of his delicious assets, or something else?
This is a clever, little novel adorned with humor and social justice commentary. While Oedipa is trying to solve the mystery of Trystero, she seemingly flits from one bizarre phenomenon to another.
Although this book is creatively refreshing, it is a bit overly ambitious and devolves into confusion at times.
This book is like Tom Buchanan forcefully grabbing you by your arm, turning you about while having a roaring good time (albeit things do go off the rails at times).
When was the last time you inventoried your life?
The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Softcover Text - $7.69 from Amazon
Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Facebook Insta
Leave a Review