About this title: Oedipa Maas is made the executor of the estate of her late boyfriend Pierce Inverarity--including his enormous stamp collection. As she carries out her duties, Oedipa meets some extremely interesting characters and is enmeshed in what appears to be a worldwide conspiracy. Considered to be one of Thomas Pynchon's more "accessible" works, THE CRYING ...
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780060931674ISBN:0060931671
Description: Acceptable. A readable copy. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (the dust cover may be missing). Pages can include considerable notes-in pen or highlighter-but the notes cannot obscure the text. ******PLEASE NOTE****** Orders placed after Dec. 7 cannot be guaranteed delivery before Christmas unless you select EXPEDITED shipping! Thank you & Happy Holidays! read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Binding: PAPERBACK
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ISBN-13:9780060913076ISBN:006091307X
Description: Good. 006091307X Typical used item with moderate shelf-wear to cover, edges, corners, and spine. Book is in stock and ready to ship same or next business day. ELIGIBLE FOR! Buy with confidence! Please leave feedback after your purchase. It helps other buyers know we are a responsible and reliable seller. Thank you! read more
Edition: 28th printing
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Date Published: 11/7/2006
ISBN-13:9780060913076ISBN:006091307X
Description: New. 006091307X Brand New Book With Remainder Mark. May Have Slight Shelf Wear. In-Stock Now For Immediate Secure Packaging & Delivery. read more
Description: Fine. 006091307X Ships next business day. NEW/UNREAD! ! ! Text is Clean and Unmarked! --Be Sure to Compare Seller Feedback and Ratings before Purchasing--Has a small black ink mark on bottom/exterior edge of pages. May have light shelf wear to cover from storage, if any. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Fair; Bantam Books, New York
Date Published: 1982
ISBN-13:9780553236910ISBN:0553236911
Description: Reprint. 16mo 6"-7" tall Tear in top of front cover; underlining in text; small tear in bottom of back cover; light browning around page edges and inside covers; 138 pages. read more
Binding: S Trade Paperback
Publisher: Harpercollins, Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780060913076ISBN:006091307X
Description: As New. A perhaps unread book, square and unlined spine, lovely cover, really sharp--if you dig books like I dig books, you'll dig this book--if not, I will provide a full refund! ! ! read more
Edition: Reprint, 2002
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: HarperPerennial; Perennial Classics Ser., New York
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780060931674ISBN:0060931671
Description: Very Good. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 152 pp.; 21 cm. First published, 1965. Tight, clean copy. Age toning. "The highly original satire about Oedipa Maas, a woman who finds herself enmeshed in a worldwide conspiracy, meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not inconsiderable amount of self knowledge. / Thomas Pynchon was born in 1937. His books include The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, Vineland, and Mason & Dixon. "-Publisher. read more
"I really want to like Thomas Pynchon. I love the whole brilliant but reclusive author act, and all the cool kids at the library seem to think he's the cat's ass. But I'm starting to think that he and I are never going to be friends.
I tried to read Gravity's Rainbow twice and wound up curled up in the fetal position , crying while sucking my thumb. Supposedly, this is his most accessible book. It was easier to read than GR, but easier to understand? Well.......
Oedipa Maas unexpectedly finds herself as the executor to a wealthy former lover's estate. While trying to deal with that, she begins meeting odd people and seeing symbols that lead her to a bizarre conspiracy theory about a centuries old society called the Trystero that is mostly known for running an underground postal system. But the more evidence she finds about the Trystero existing makes Oedipa increasingly paranoid about whether she's the victim of an elaborate hoax or if she's losing her own sanity.
This is one of those books that I enjoyed while reading, but knew that I was missing a whole layer of meaning. I loved the idea of a rogue postal service and how Pynchon played with it as the idea of an urban myth or conspiracy theory. It's probably the kind of book that I'll really only get on a second reading so I'll try it again someday."
"When I first told a co-worker I was enjoying my first foray into Thomas Pynchon, he snidely remarked, "NO ONE enjoys Pynchon...you experience him." That comment was intentionally pretentious, but there's some truth to it -- there is simply no way to digest Pynchon completely upon first read -- the question is whether or not you'll be intrigued enough to go back for another. In the case of THE CRYING OF LOT 49, my personal answer is no. It's certainly a clever book, and it feels quite modern given that it was written over 45 years ago in 1962. But the main conceit of the book, which I won't spoil, has been rendered far less shocking in the years that have since passed. While having cleverly named characters is worth something, the story itself isn't all that compelling - and the allegories and references Pynchon is making often went over my head. In many ways, reading his books is like staring at extreme modern art - it's often pleasant, but just as often makes you wonder if you are getting it at all. While I may try to tackle some of his larger works, the next time I want a confusing, overly clever book to read, I'll stick with David Foster Wallace."
When I finished reading it, I felt like I had been tricked! The novel is very well constructed, and the author leaves us in suspense. It's as if the whole narrative was going somewhere, leading us towards an unavoidable conclusion, but actually we end up not knowing anything. The last few pages break down what had been cleverly put together.
The novel is a bit like a mystery, as you follow Oedipa Maas who discovers an underground postal organisation when she is trying to carry a pretty straightforward task, i.e. the execution of a will. This underground organisation has a very long history, it would date back to the 16th century (when it was apparently mentioned in a play, and in political conflicts, etc.) Although the idea of an underground organisation for mail delivery seems pretty harmless, there is an omnipresent feeling of danger and fear surrounding it.
Of course, all this falls apart towards the very end of the book (for the last 25 pages or so), when Oedipa feels overwhelmed and becomes paranoid. Everything goes haywire: her shrink turns out to be a paranoid Nazi who carried experiments during the war in Germany, and now on his patients in America in the 60s, her husband loses touch with reality and loses his essence - what makes him 'him'. He turns into 'everyone',and then her lover runs off to Mexico with a teenage girl. Then comes the suggestion that all this might be a con - a practical joke played on her by the late Inverarity, a former lover who made her the executor of his will.
In the end, the collection of stamps admittedly used by this Trystero organisation is about to be auctionned, and there is an unknown bidder interested in this particular lot (lot 49 of course!). So you're made to think the mystery will be solved now: was Oedipa tricked, or is the organisation real? And the book ends when the auction opens.
What I thought was really smart in ending the book in this way is that I felt like I was the victim of a practical joke. Pynchon plays overtly with his readers. Now, having finished the book, I found myself completely confused, restless and even paranoid, a bit like Oedipa would feel.
This also made me rethink what the book was about. Had it been about the underground organisation, then I would have had some conclusions to draw. But as it turned out, the book seems to be about something radically different.
I hadn't read anything on or by Pynchon before, but my impression is that this novel is about Oedipa's journey: her name immediately calls to mind Oedipus, and Oedipus spent his whole life trying to decipher a mystery, and he never knows his real role.
It is tempting to just say 'this is an experimental novel, so no wonder everything is so entangled. It doesn't make any sense.' But this novel is not gratuitous experimentation. It is a very cleverly constructed narrative where several discourses are intertwined.
The book was written in the 60s and drugs and their effects are very important throughout the novel. There are references to virulent groups against the government and the established order, the 'underground' movement, and finally, there is a lot of thinking on World War 2, and on the abominations that took place under the Nazi regime.
There is so much more to say about this novel, and so much thinking left to do, but I am running out of puff!"
"With apologies to all of the people I know who love Thomas Pynchon, I have to say he is just not for me. I have browsed though his books on the shelf at Borders several times and none have ever appealed to me. Recently though I decided to try The Crying of Lot 49, which has been described as his most approachable, but have now put it down.
I'll be as generous as I can and say that the book, now quite old, must have been written for a different generation than my own. Perhaps neither the book nor I have aged gracefully, but I found the humor to be adolescent at best, although puerile also comes to mind for some. Drunken college students having reached the stage of giggling at inanities are a possibilty as well.
The protagonist is Oedipa Maas, for an auditory pun, Mizz. Maas, at one point, while her husband calls her Oed for short. Oxford English Dictionary, get it? The supposedly humorous names for characters and places continue with a Dr. Fallopian, Genghis Cohen, Emory Bortz, and Stanley Koteks, to name a few people, as well as the city of San Narcisco in California, which has a North Beach section just as its punned namesake does. Add in a radio station, KCUF, and spell it backwards for real rib-tickling merriment.
Passages which attempt to describe the drab sameness of the smog-covered California urban sprawl are simply limp to my ear, and not trenchant as I suspect the author intended. Any number of hard-boiled detective writers have done it better. I've lived there and seen it, so even as plain description, the author's narrative falls flat and neither captures nor parodies the actual reality. The story develops in essentially linear sequence, and the written style strikes me as undistinguished, despite some long sentences. It has been seen and much better done, and comparisons to Joyce, as on the back cover, are a plain travesty.
The book devolves into Mizz Oedipa's quest to uncover the workings of a supposed underground postal system that is competing with Uncle Sam's mail and using containers labelled W.A.S.T.E. as its letter drops. Finally, Mizz Maas was not an interesting cut of cardboard, nor was her quest of any interest either.
I put the book down about 2/3 of the way through, completely disinterested by then in whatever ending it might have, while fully realizing that many regard it as a work of hypermodern genius. If some say parody, instead, then I say poor parody.
Two stars is exceedingly merciful; one star is more how I feel about it."
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