My first excursion into the Pynchonesque…and it left me disorientated, introspective and utterly confused about how exactly I feel about it. I’m taking the cowards way out and giving it three stars even though that makes me feel like I’m punting the responsibility football and doing my best imitation of an ostrich when trouble walks by. I am going to have to re-read this. My assumption is that I began this book taking Pynchon a little too lightly. I decided to start my exploration of Pynchon here because it's widely considered his most “accessible” work. I figured even as addled as my brain is with wine sediment and Milk Duds, my big boy education would serve as an adequate navigator on this little journey. Well, around page 21, I started getting that “I’m lost, have you seen my momma” feeling and there's not a single character in this story trustworthy enough to ask directions on how to get back to the plot. This much I think I know:Oedipa Mass (get used to monikers like that as every character’s name is a play on words) is a clever, self-motivated middle-aged housewife from California who isn’t above shagging the occasional stranger not her husband (hell it’s the 60’s). Oedipa’s ex-shag partner, Pierce Inverarity, dies uber-rich and leaves her as co-executor of his estate. Inverarity is a practical joker extraordinaire and so the idea that everything may not be as it seems is teed up immediately. However, Oedipa is the kind of woman who loves a mystery and she feels compelled to play the part that Inverarity has created for her. If it was really Pierce's attempt to leave an organized something behind after his own annihilation, then it was part of her duty, wasn't it, to bestow life on what had persisted, to try to be what Driblette was, the dark machine in the centre of the planetarium, to bring the estate into pulsing stelliferous Meaning, all in a soaring dome around her. Those first 20 pages were cake and I was feeling very much in control.Then page 21……..through the rest of the novel (about 180 pages) send Oedipa (and the reader) on a fragmented, surreal, allusion-soaked, reality-bent/warped/twisted sojourn that felt a bit like a David Lynch/David Mamet collaboration where nothing and no one is anywhere close to what they seem. Dense, compact, multi-layered prose and some memorable oddball characters make the confusion plenty entertaining, but grasping the central core of the piece was rather elusive (at least for me). The framing, edgework of the story is as historical mystery centered on an alleged vast conspiracy involving a secret, underground postal carrier network known as Trystero. The calling card/icon of this shadowy organization is: Which is a mockery of the horn symbolizing the real life postal carrier known as Thurn and Taxis. Eventually, I gathered that the major theme being explored by Pynchon is the untrustworthiness of communication and that it’s impossible to verify information because the source is always distorted from the standpoint of the observer. Thus communication, when filtered through the lens of the recipient, often brings more confusion than enlightenment and more questions than answers. “Though she knew even less about radios than about Southern Californians, there were to both outward patterns a hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate.” At least I think that is what Pynchon was getting at in this book. My problem was that I didn’t clue into that until late into the story and by that time I was simply riding the crest of the enjoyable language and mini-scenes into the finish line. Having now read the book, I feel like if I were to go back and read it again knowing what I now know, I will be able to get far more out of it. I guess I might also realize that I am reading too much into it and the emperor really has no clothes. For now, I will give Pynchon the benefit of the doubt. Based on his reputation, he has certainly earned it. Even given my less than perfect understanding of the nuances moving through the narrative, there is much to enjoy. There are some wonderful scenes and character interactions that I loved For example, the The Courier’s Tragedy is a play that Oedipa sees that actually touches on the themes of the wider novel. I thought it was fascinating. There is also some magnificent passages that I could read simply to enjoy the language. Everybody who says the same words is the same person if the spectra are the same only they happen differently in time, you dig? But the time is arbitrary. You pick your zero point anywhere you want, that way you can shuffle each person's time line sideways till they all coincide. Then you'd have this big, God, maybe a couple hundred million chorus saying 'rich, chocolaty goodness' together, and it would all be the same voice. Language like that is always a pleasure to read. However, without the glue of understanding all that Pynchon was attempting to say, my enjoyment was somewhat muted. That’s just me. I enjoyed the experience of reading this and, as I mentioned to a GR friend the other day, I have thought better of this book during the days since I finished this than I did while I was actually reading it. That tells me that the book affected me and seeped into my brain more than I was able to consciously detect. Maybe that’s how Pynchon works, I’m not sure. However, it is a question I plan to investigate by visiting his other works as well as returning to this one. 3.0. Recommended (though a bit confused).
The first and only time that I read Hamlet was in my High School AP english class. The teacher, being by far the best english teacher that I’ve had throughout my oh so illustrious english career, was a wonderfully animated and intelligent fellow. For our reading of the Oresteia, he drew stick figures on the board, highlighting with screaming delight the furious eyebrows of Clytemnestra. Every class was a surefire combination of zaniness and intelligence that I came to love from one day to the next. Although his antics could (and should) be retold in much more depth than here, it is perhaps the subject for another review. But somewhat tangentially relevant to the book in question, his insights into the play were some of the most profound that I’ve heard and most certainly kept me from tossing my copy out the window. One of most intriguing moments of the class came during the famous ‘play within the play’ part of Hamlet, where Hamlet puts on a play to show the king that he knows what had really happened to Hamlet’s father. Although our teacher outlined the importance of the scene and the role it served, when the audiobook got around to the dialogue of that meta-play, our teacher held up a flapping hand, speaking loudly over the recording telling us that there was no need to pay attention to this scene, as it was literal gibberish nonsense, its meaning so obfuscated so as not to even be bothered to be given any thought. This came in the middle of an intense dissection of the play, no verse had been left unanalyzed, no word untouched by the scrutiny of close reading and informed discussion. I found it to be quite funny and especially refreshing to have an entire section of a play written-off by an english teacher as nonsensical. But even more than that, I found it profoundly intriguing. Shakespeare, being as dense and difficult as it is, when descending into a deeper level in the play—the play within the play—becomes that much more difficult to understand, as if the further from reality one gets into its fictional universe, the more tangled and confused it becomes. The meta layers of literature twist meaning and significance the deeper it gets. I have since found this Inception-like increase in difficulty in a few other stories of meta-fictive delight. As were the meta-tales of Goatwriter in Number9dream, I found the play within the book, The Crying of Lot 49 to be completely divorced from comprehension. As evidenced by the fact that I can’t recall a single bit of the play now, I have never felt like such a sloppy reading idiot while navigating the threads of this thing.It is, of course, the point of the book and despite being aware of it from the get go, I can’t bring myself to love the book. I will say that the first chapter is brilliant, among the top all time opening chapters. And I was with the story then, despite it being slightly demanding, I breezed through it with an air of self-gratification, quite pleased with my progress. Perhaps this speaks to Pynchon’s genius, but I felt lulled into a sense of false security by my understanding of the opening pages. That beginning promises a roaring good book, equal parts entertaining and profound but most of all, a book that has meaning. Alas, no book was delivered. I was reading pleasantly, assured of my own understanding, as I said, when a hairspray can begins flying around the room of the Pynchon-verse for an extended period of time, shooting off at improbable angles for much longer than anyone is comfortable reading. The what-the-fuck-is-happening-right-now alarm began to warm up. And as I plunged further through the book, it didn’t get any better at all. My incredulity and my anxiety over missing important details mounted. Among all the loose threads of Tristero and W.A.S.T.E. that the protagonist herself is trying to make sense of, I saw not some profound meaning behind it all, but instead the long, protruding middle finger of the author, accompanied by the condescending chuckle of a man much smarter than myself, scorning my foolish attempts at making sense of it all.IMEANYEAHIGUESSTHAT’SHOWLIFEISBUTCOMEONDUDE,ISITTOOMUCHTOASKFORALITTLEBITOFMEANINGINASTORY??????Thomas Pynchon is no doubt a genius and I completely envy his ability to create masterful sentences but damn, his books sure are frustrating to read.*****Everything else aside, ya'll should check out this lecture on the book. I may have enjoyed it more than the book itself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dtqt0...************
What do You think about The Crying Of Lot 49 (2006)?
so imagine you're browsing through a bookstore on a lazy saturday afternoon. you stop in the pynchon section, and there, out of the corner of your eye, you see this *guy* and he's checking you out. you think, wow! this is one for the movies! does this actually happen? (this is a sexually oriented biased review, sorry)you proceed to chat, laughing at the length of gravity's rainbow. and you go next door with your new books to grab a cup of coffee, which turns into dinner, whuch turns in to crepes at this great little shop, which turns into a long walk, which turns into a bottle of syrah in your living room over twelve hours later.and you're so compelled. the conversation is amazing, he's SO dynamic, he tells good stories even though it has the tendency to be stream of consciousness, he's convoluted and mysterious and you never want this night to end. he makes random allusions that you always pretend to recognize but don't really understand. he draws random doodles on scraps of paper, napkins, bathroom walls, foreheads of strangers, anywhere he can get his point across. you can't get out of your mind how brilliant this guy must be and how lucky you are to have him, in all his overeducated and hypnotic glory, sitting on your couch. and with all the wine in your head, the evening takes a turn for the intimate. it gets a much heavier that you would ever expect for a first encounter like this, especially because you just met this guy (scandalous!!!) but you feel so wrapped up in his world that you just go along with it and enjoy. and trust me, you do enjoy it. and right as your about to come to the full, uh, realization of your enjoyment, he says, "oh god!" and stops and looks at you awkwardly. and you recognize at that moment that the enjoyment is um, bust, and you will never have that full realization. that's what reading this book is like. but trust me, the encounter is well worth it.
—mary
Update: I finished re-reading this, about a week ago. I wanted to let my thoughts percolate before committing to an opinion here. My verdict: Nope, still didn't like it much, but I didn't hate it so much this time. I took it slowly, going back to re-read passages to make sure I had the characters straight. There are a LOT of characters, all with weird names that seem to have significance, but don't. Ha ha. Fun.Okay, fine, Pynchon fans. I'll give you that it's an interesting plot - the idea of a secret, underground mail service, with its symbol hidden in plain sight for those in "the know". Oedipa Maas, our heroine, while executing the will of an old boyfriend, stumbles onto this underground postal service, but can't quite believe in its existence. She goes in search of the truth, and learns that nothing is for sure. She is cut loose from all her old ties, free from the mental tower of self-imprisonment and disconnect she had been in at the beginning of the book.I liked the portrayal of southern California in the 60's, and all the little sub-cultures. I liked the creative mish-mash of history and crazy theories and wordplay, up to a point. I didn't like the oddly structured sentences and the obfuscatory word choices. See, you probably didn't like that I used the word obfuscatory. Or maybe you're contrary, and you did. If so, this is the book for you.I can see this as being a book that grows on you with re-readings. Once you know the characters, and know where the story is going, it's possible that you can appreciate the vignettes, the wordplay, the arcane mysteries of Tristero. I'm not quite there yet. ***Okay, everyone. Hold onto your hats! I'm voluntarily re-reading this frustrating morass of a book. I'm 38 pages in, and so far it seems more penetrable than the first time. I'm crossing my fingers...Old review from my previous reading: I read this my senior year of college, and it was so beyond me I could not forgive it. There were so many obscure references crammed into this book, it reminded me of a fruit cake, dense and filled with unpleasant bits that you weren't sure what they were. Maybe if I'd read it for class, with an English professor helping decrypt it for me? But I just felt like an idiot, and totally lost. Weird names, murky motivations, and who the hell knows what was going on? However, my college roommate loved it, and recommended it to me. He is my dear friend, and we are both big readers, and librarians, but oh boy, our book tastes do not overlap very much!Maybe I read it too soon, but I can't say I'm all that excited about trying it again.
—Jackie "the Librarian"
Glenn wrote: "There are days when you feel you don't have much to say on anything...muteness prevails... --- How true! The gift is, like yourself, to recognize those days and keep your words to a minimum!"Yes, Glenn. Thanks for the thoughtful words.
—Rakhi Dalal
