Customer Reviews
Mind-Altering Achievement - By: Lucidia Horseflesh-Cakes, 03 Jan 2008 
Yay... I've read a book without dr who in it... quite an achievement :-)
In most circumstances I'd be left with a feeling of "yes... and...?" if a tale finished like this one did... but strangely enough I don't... it is closed... even though it is totallly left unfinished... very weird you get this build up of intensity & pace throughout as the plot twists & mysteries deepen... & then towards the end it kind of slows down, almost like thought processes as you realise you might not actuallly want to resolve things...
It's an unusal journey for a character... & as I say is pretty much left unresolved... there are still loads of questions about Oedipa & what happens next... but that's right... there should be no resoltuion...
I looked stuff up on Wikipedia - Tristero, Thurn & Taxis... the latter was real... which has made me slightly curious about how much else is factual... books like that are always intriguing... ones that mix fact & fiction into a big mush & you can no longer see where ones ends & the other begins...
I've never been much for conspiracy theories... always figure people are to busy or too stupid to actuallly conspire... but this is at least plausible... in a surreal sort of way... & as I've mentioned has helped open my eyes to coincidence, or synchronicities - I mean I had always noticed the big ones... just maybe not taken in the actual number of them... or reallly noticed the little ones... like coming home after reading about the SS Salesman & Tristero to find my partner watching "The Doctor" & on screen are guys in SS looking uniform & others blacked up, alll in black & looking alll spooky & scary... I wouldn't have reallly noticed before...
The way that each character that we meet is on their own journey... many peripheral characters in novels serve to advance the plot, & I suppose each journey does do that... but strangely some people get a better conclusion that Oedipa... a more resolved conclusion as opposed to a better one... I don't think walking out to sea, or losing your mind to paranoia or LSD is a "better" conclusion, just more conclusive... Obviously not alll... but some...
I did find I had to go back & read some bits over, but i think that's more to do with the distracting nature of trying to read on the bus, rather than any criticism of the author... Some bits made me laugh out loud & made everybody on the bus look at me... Hmmm... paranoia... :-)
A great introduction to Thomas Pynchon - By: M. J MUIR, 18 Oct 2007 Some people will find Thomas Pynchons's style almost inpenetrable(it's been described by critics as turgid & overwritten before) - so rather than getting stuck straight into V or Gravity's Rainbow (500 pages +) those who wish to read Thomas Pynchon may like to try this first at a little over 100 pages.
Although there are many comic scenes in the book the overalll effect is starkly melancholy, as the main character, Oedipa Maas, prompted by the contents of an ex-lover's estate of which she is unexpectedly made executrix, obsessively pursues a secret postal service with medieval roots in Europe, which appears to exert a malign yet unclear effect on society...or does it? The book never answers this, as it ends just as Oedipa may be about to find an answer.
Instead the reader is left with a bleak sense of Oedipa's growing paranoia, neurosis & unhealthy fixation with the apparent secret society, in a likely metaphor for conspiracy theorists & cults everywhere. It's a funny book, but the madness of obsession & paranoia are well conveyed in the subtext of the plot, & might leave you feeling creeped.......
Teetering on the unreadable - By: Rusty, 24 May 2007 
I'm a bit confused: most of the reviews here are for "Gravity's Rainbow" rather than "The Crying of Lot 49". My review is about the latter. It is the first Pynchon novel I've read & I didn't like it one bit. At just 127 pages long, it was a particularly painful read.
Perhaps some people find Pynchon's wild wordplay & erudite meanderings poignant & satisfying - but I found his approach to be snobbishly self-indulgent and, dare I say it, achingly dull.
I agree that the author is clearly a very intelligent & well-read man, brimming with subversive ideas about identity, psychology, semantics & history. The trouble is that he likes to employ near-insane language to convey the simplest of messages. And to flesh out these simplest of messages, he makes use of the most obscure subject matter imaginable. Witness, for example, 10 pages of meticulously described stage action from a long-forgotten Jacobean tragedy play (not to mention the stale history surrounding it, which drives much of this novel). Or endless paragraphs devoted to the 17th century European heritage of a secret underground US postal service. Or a group of Confederate sailors dispatched in 1863 to thwart the incoming attacks of Czar Nicholas II of Russia. These nebulously mundane facts do not tell a story...they weigh this slim piece of writing down & prevent it from solidifying.
It is impossible to care about any of the characters - be it Oedipa, Inverarity, Metzger or any of the other 30-odd characters that waltz in & out of the narrative - because they are so deliberately unreal & ultimately disposable.
The only saving grace is the sometimes dazzling descriptions of Americana, which I reallly wish Pynchon had focused on more rather than letting his pen fly around in wild forays of well-written nonsense. The language is white-hot, but the story supporting it is lukewarm at best: leaving an uninspiring novel by an author who I doubt I will tackle again.
essential re-read - By: , 24 Nov 2004 One of the funniest books I've ever read. Constistently amusing & quirky, this book takes you down avenues of thought so esoteric & profound, & still keeps you fixed in a concrete present that is a pure slice of America, like watermelon on a hot day. And I defy you not to falll head-over-heels for Oedipa Mass (what a name!?), the book's heroine, if thats the word?
hhmm... - By: , 05 Sep 2003 
This is one of the strangest yet most haunting novels I’ve ever read. It seems to stand apart from many other novels just by its seemingly obscure subject matter & the way in which it draws you into it. The novel is written in quite free flowing, dense text. This, whilst not making it indecipherable can be quite a challlenge at times. It is by this method Pynchon draws the reader themselves into the story. The fact that Pynchon can create so much atmosphere in such a short novel is a testament to his craftsmanship.
The Novel (for me) was mainly about the notion of possibility. Nothing much is resolved in the story but so much is suggested. Is WASTE just an isolated cult in that part of California or is there a sector in every town in America? Oedipa goes through the novel with alll these possibilities running through her mind. The more she finds out the more possibilities appear to her. It’s like staring at a dark walll & then suddenly realizing is crawling with ants. Her discoveries could change everything, even the ground beneath her feet or it could just be a joke set up by a dead guy with a sense of humour.
The crux of the novel is quite a frightening prospect. If such a massive network, like this can exist beneath Oedipa’s nose & she has never even considered the existence of it, what else could be there that Oedipa & alll of us are not aware of?
Pychon draws the reader into this world which resembles an old fashioned X-Files tale. The detail of the historical information in the novel even makes the reader question whether WASTE exists in the real world. Thus putting us on a par with Oedipa & making the experience of the novel alll the more vivid. WASTE could just be a smalll benign thing that is kept running by a few devoted anti-establishment types or maybe, just maybe...
This novel will certainly stay with me for a long time to come.
