Featured Reading Guide
Thomas Pynchon
Suffused with rich satire, chaotic brilliance, verbal turbulence and wild humour, The Crying of Lot 49 opens as Oedipa Maas discovers that she haas been made executrix of a former lover’s estate. The performance of her duties sets her on a strange trail of detection, in which bizarre characters crowd in to help or confuse her. But gradually, death, drugs, madness and marriage combine to leave Oepida in isolation on the threshold of revelation, awaiting The Crying of Lot 49. One of Pynchon’s shortest novels and one of his best.
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Suffused with rich satire, chaotic brilliance, verbal turbulence and wild humour, The Crying of Lot 49 opens as Oedipa Maas discovers that she haas been made executrix of a former lover’s estate. The performance of her duties sets her on a strange trail of detection, in which bizarre characters crowd in to help or confuse her. But gradually, death, drugs, madness and marriage combine to leave Oepida in isolation on the threshold of revelation, awaiting The Crying of Lot 49. One of Pynchon’s shortest novels and one of his best.
topThomas Pynchon interview/review
topStarting Points for Discussion
- Thomas Pynchon deliberately wrote in a way that defied interpretation. How and to what effect is the problem of interpretation focused on in The Crying of Lot 49?
- Why does Pynchon leave Oedipa’s quest unresolved?
- Discuss the importance of historic references in the novel.
- ‘The Crying of Lot 49 does not have any evident plot’. Is this true?
- Consider Pynchon’s use of names in the novel. Do they fit their characters? If not, why not?
- There are many references to communication in the novel. Why do you think communication is so important in The Crying of Lot 49?
- At one point in The Crying of Lot 49, Oedipa begins to wonder if someone is ‘putting her on’, or if she is going mad. Which do you think it is?
- The reader never finds out who is the buyer of Lot 49. Who do you think it could be?
- How does Oedipa change over the course of the novel? How does her social situation change?
- Discuss the ending of the novel. Do you feel that there is any sense of resolution?
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Suggested Further Reading
- The New York Trilogy ~ Paul Auster
- Slaughterhouse 5 ~ Kurt Vonnegut
- Pale Fire ~ Vladimir Nabokov
- The Big Sleep ~ Raymond Chandler