Thomas Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49 PDF

The Crying of Lot 49
Since the early 1960s, critics and scholars have THOMAS PYNCHON
recognized Thomas Pynchon as one of the most
important writers of his generation. The Crying
of Lot 49, published in 1966, is Pynchon’s second
1966
novel. Scarcely longer than a novella, The Crying
of Lot 49 is the story of Mrs. Oedipa Maas, a
young housewife who returns home from a Tup-
perware party one day to find that she has been
made the executrix of the estate of her former
lover, the immensely wealthy real estate mogul
Pierce Inverarity. In her journey to fulfill her
duties, Oedipa discovers not only an ancient
postal service operated by Thurn and Taxis but
also a secret underground organization called
the Tristero, dating from the thirteenth century,
that opposes all official forms of communica-
tion. She begins to see signs of the Tristero every-
where. The novel is thick with clues that lead
Oedipa ever deeper into a wide-scale conspiracy,
or an immense hoax, or her own paranoia. Nei-
ther she nor the reader can be sure.
Tony Tanner, in his book-length study of
Pynchon, writes, ‘‘The Crying of Lot 49 is one
of the most deceptive—as well as one of the most
brilliant [books]—to have appeared since [World
War II].’’ The book has been called a quest story,
a social satire, an exploration of the sacred and
profane, detective fiction, and a conspiracy
theory thriller. Decidedly not realistic, The Cry-
ing of Lot 49 is dense with allusions from history
and popular culture, making it a work that
requires close study. At the same time, it is an
7 5
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T h e C r y i n g o f L o t 4 9
having won the distinction of having the highest

grade in English in his class, according to Ber-
nard Duyfhuizen and John M. Krafft in the Dic-
tionary of Literary Biography.
In 1953, Pynchon began studies at Cornell
University in the field of engineering physics,
though he later changed his major to English.
At the end of his second year of college, he
enlisted in the U.S. Navy, serving for two
years. He returned to Cornell and graduated in
1959. During his final years at Cornell, he
became close friends with classmate Richard
Fariña, the author of Been Down So Long It
Looks Like Up to Me. He also published his
first short story, ‘‘The Small Rain,’’ in the Cor-
nell Writer in March of 1959.
Over the next few years, he published many
other short stories in magazines and literary
journals. Most of these had been composed dur-
ing his final two years at Cornell. ‘‘Entropy,’’
published in 1960 in Kenyon Review, in particu-
lar, has attracted much critical attention, and the
themes of this story echo throughout The Crying
of Lot 49.
In 1960, Pynchon took a job with Boeing
Thomas Pynchon (Ó Bettmann / Corbis) Corporation in Seattle writing about missiles.
During this time, he wrote his first novel, V.,
was published in 1963. The novel won the Wil-
liam Faulkner Foundation Award for the year’s
extraordinarily funny book, often looping out best first novel.
into surreal scenes of chaos. In December 1965, Pynchon published por-
Readers should be aware that there are sex- tions of The Crying of Lot 49 as ‘‘The World (this
ual references and scenes as well as drug and One), the Flesh (Mrs. Oedipa Maas), and the Tes-
alcohol used throughout the book, and the tament of Pierce Inverarity’’ in Esquire. The novel
novel may not be suitable for younger readers appeared shortly afterward, published in 1966.
for a variety of reasons. For adults and more Duyfhuizen and Krafft assert that, although the
mature readers, however, The Crying of Lot 49 novel is quite short, ‘‘Its appearance helped solidify
offers a rich and ultimately rewarding reading [Pynchon’s] reputation as a major American
experience. novelist.’’
Pynchon’s next major work was Gravity’s
Rainbow, published in 1973. This book was crit-
ically acclaimed and made him one of the most
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY important American writers of his generation.
The novel shared a 1974 National Book Award
Pynchon was born on May 8, 1937, the son of with Isaac Bashevis Singer’s short-story collec-
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Sr. and Katherine tion, A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories.
Frances Bennett Pynchon, in Glen Cove, New Although Pynchon accepted the award, he did
York. His father was a surveyor and highway not attend the ceremony. In addition, Gravity’s
engineer, and also a town supervisor for Oyster Rainbow was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize
Bay, New York. Pynchon grew up in the East before being rejected by the Pulitzer advisory
Norwich-Oyster Bay area. He graduated from board. Pynchon dedicated the book to his friend
Oyster Bay High School when he was sixteen, Fariña, who had died in 1966, just two days after
7 6 N o v e l s f o r S t u d e n t s , V o l u m e 3 6

his own novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Up

to Me, was published.
In the following years, Pynchon became
even more reclusive and private; very little infor-
mation is available about his life. However, in
1984, a collection of his early short stories, Slow MEDIA
Learner, was published and he did provide a few ADAPTATIONS
autobiographical notes. In 1988, Pynchon was
awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur An unabridged audio version of The Crying
Fellowship. In 1990, his novel Vineland was pub- of Lot 49, narrated by George Wilson, was
lished to excellent reviews. Pynchon’s later work produced by Recorded Books in 2007.
includes Mason and Dixon (1997), Against the
Day (2006), and Inherent Vice (2009).
Chapter 2
In the second chapter, Oedipa travels from her
PLOT SUMMARY
home in Kinneret-Among-the-Pines to San Nar-
Chapter 1 ciso, a city to the south where Inverarity’s books
The plot of The Crying of Lot 49 has an unlikely and records are located. As she looks down on
start and becomes increasingly chaotic through- the city from a hill, she suddenly thinks that the
out the book. The first two sentences provide an city looks like the circuit board in a transistor
effective plot overview: radio. She feels that the image has a ‘‘hiero-
glyphic sense of concealed meaning, of an intent
One summer afternoon, Mrs. Oedipa Maas
came home from a Tupperware party whose to communicate.’’ Viewing the city, Oedipa expe-
hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in riences a religious moment.
the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been Resuming her drive, she passes the Gala-
named executor, or she supposed executrix, of
tronics Division of Yoyodyne, Inc., an aerospace
the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California
real estate mogul who had once lost two million corporation owned in part by Inverarity. Ulti-
dollars in his spare time but still had assets mately, she arrives at the Echo Courts motel,
numerous and tangled enough to make the where she takes a room. She also meets the man-
job of sorting it all out more than honorary. ager, a teenager named Miles who speaks with
Some years earlier, before her marriage to an English accent and is dressed like one of the
Wendell ‘‘Mucho’’ Maas, Inverarity had been Beatles. He is a member of a music group called
Oedipa’s lover. She had not heard from him except the Paranoids.
for a strange middle-of-the-night telephone call a Later, Metzger, an attorney who is Oedipa’s
year earlier, and she is confounded as to why co-executor, shows up at her room and asks to
Inverarity has named her to sort out his will. come in. They begin drinking the wine he has
Oedipa’s husband, Mucho, formerly a used brought and watching a movie on television that
car salesman and presently a disk jockey, tells stars Metzger as a child who was known as Baby
her that he cannot help her with the task. Oedipa Igor. The reels, however, are all mixed up, and
resorts to a visit with Roseman, their lawyer. She the sequence of the movie is out of order.
is exhausted, having been awakened in the night Metzger reveals information about Inverarity’s
by a phone call from her psychiatrist, Dr. Hilar- business ventures. One of these is a filter process
ius. Roseman is preoccupied with the television for cigarettes that uses bone charcoal.
show Perry Mason, a popular 1960s legal drama. Metzger challenges Oedipa to a game of
The chapter ends with Oedipa recalling a Strip Botticelli. Botticelli is a game in which
trip to Mexico with Pierce where they saw a participants are able to ask yes or no questions
painting by artist Remedios Varo of girls held about a topic or person in order to guess the
prisoner in the top room of a tower, where they identity of the subject or person. In Metzger’s
embroidered tapestry. The image mirrors Oedi- version, Oedipa must take off one piece of cloth-
pa’s image of herself as a Rapunzel-like figure, ing for every answer he gives regarding the
waiting to be released from her own tower. movie. In a comic scene, Oedipa goes into the
N o v e l s f o r S t u d e n t s , V o l u m e 3 6 7 7

bathroom and puts on every article of clothing very similar to a Jacobean revenge tragedy they
and jewelry she has. had seen the previous week called The Courier’s
Tragedy by Richard Wharfinger.
The next day, Oedipa and Metzger go to see
Chapter 3 the play. The plot is both bloody and convoluted.
The chapter opens with a foreshadowing of the One important historical detail of the play is its
curious events to come, including a description representation of the Thurn and Taxis family,
of Inverarity’s stamp collection and the Tristero. who ‘‘at that time held a postal monopoly
The narrative next turns to a letter Oedipa throughout most of the Holy Roman Empire.’’
receives from Mucho. She does not open it but There comes a point in the fourth act, however,
examines the outside, noting that there is a blurb where ‘‘things really get peculiar, and a gentle
stating, ‘‘Report all obscene mail to your Pots- chill, an ambiguity, begins to creep in among the
master.’’ Oedipa finds the misspelling curious. words. . . . Certain things, it is made clear, will not
Later that evening, she and Metzger go to The be spoken aloud; certain events will not be shown
Scope, a bar near the Yoyodyne plant. They meet onstage.’’ Finally, there is a massacre of a group
Mike Fallopian, a member of the Peter Pinguid of armed troops by three figures in black. The
Society, a right-wing organization dedicated to the bones of the troops are thrown into the lake, then
memory of a Confederate navy commander. Their later dug up and made into charcoal.
discussion is interrupted by a mail call by a young Most importantly, in this act, the name
man with a Yoyodyne badge. Trystero (or Tristero) is mentioned as a chilling
Oedipa goes to the restroom and notices a threat. After the play is over, Oedipa goes to
message asking for a reply through the WASTE speak with the director, Randolph Driblette.
system. She does not know what this means, and She asks if she can borrow the script from the
she sees a symbol beneath the message that looks play, and is given, instead of the original, a dit-
like a muted horn. She is consumed by curiosity. toed copy. She asks for the original and Driblette
When she returns to the table, Fallopian tells her to go to Zapf’s Used Book Store and ask
tells her that they were not intended to see the for the anthology Jacobean Revenge Tragedy,
mail delivery. His group is opposed to using the edited by Professor Emory Bortz.
government postal service and is surreptitiously Driblette warns Oedipa that she could spend
using a private mail delivery system. the rest of her life trying to figure out who and
The narrative resumes with Metzger and what the Tristero are, who the assassins were,
Oedipa waiting for letters to help settle Inverarity’s following clues, and trying to make sense of it.
estate. While waiting, they decide to go with the But it would be for naught, since she would
Paranoids, a rock group modeled on the Beatles, ‘‘never touch the truth.’’ He offers to fall in love
and their girlfriends in tow to spend the day at with her and let her know everything he knows.
Fangoso Lagoon, also one of Inverarity’s projects.
The Paranoids decide to steal a boat. Suddenly, Chapter 4
Manny Di Presso, a friend of Metzger’s shows up. Oedipa next goes to the Yoyodyne stockholders
Di Presso is an actor who is also a lawyer, just as meeting, where she hears a speech by the com-
Metzger is a lawyer who was a child actor. Di pany’s president, Clayton ‘‘Bloody’’ Chiklitz. She
Presso is being chased by one of his clients, and then promptly gets lost taking a tour of the plant.
the whole group takes off in the boat. She discovers Stanley Koteks, who is scribbling the
Di Presso tells Metzger that he is going to sue figure of the muted horn on a tablet. Oedipa wants
the Inverarity estate on behalf of a Mafioso who to find out more. Koteks describes for her an
claims that Inverarity never paid him for human invention called the Nefastis Machine, invented
bones he supplied for cigarette charcoal. Di Presso by John Nefastis at Berkeley. Using a thought
relates the story of a group of American troops experiment devised by the Scottish scientist James
stranded on the shores of Lago di Pietà who all Clerk Maxwell, Nefastis invented a box with a
died there. The Germans threw the bodies in the tiny demon in it that would sort fast-moving mol-
lake, where they sank. The Mafioso later exca- ecules from slow ones. The box worked through
vated the bones and sold them to Inverarity. telepathy.
One of the girls with the Paranoids says Oedipa is intrigued and wants to find Nefas-
that the plight of the American soldiers was tis. She takes a chance and uses the word WASTE

to Koteks, who suddenly distrusts her and says Wharfinger. When she examines the book, she
that it is W.A.S.T.E, an acronym. He wants to discovers that the line including the reference to
know where she heard it before. She confesses to Trystero has been changed. She also finds that
having seen it on the wall in the restroom at The there is yet another edition of the book.
Scope.
She locates the inventor Nefastis, who explains
Oedipa leaves and turns next to Mike Fallo- his machine and sets up a test of Oedipa’s sensitiv-
pian for more information. Oedipa is beginning ity. Oedipa tries to move the pistons in the machine
to realize that there has been a pattern to the by communicating silently with the demon while
strange events and that the pattern has to do focusing on a picture of James Clerk Maxwell, but
with mail delivery. She recalls a historical marker meets with no success. She begins to cry. Nefastis
at the Fangoso Lagoon that commemorated the
tells her not to worry, and then tells her they will
murder of a dozen Wells Fargo men, at the side of
have sex while the news is on the television. Oedipa
the lake by black-uniformed assassins.
is horrified, and runs away.
She tries to phone Driblette to ask what he
knows about it, but Driblette does not answer. So Oedipa begins to doubt her own sanity. She
Oedipa decides to visit Zapf’s Used Book Store. decides that she will drift at random around San
She purchases the anthology containing The Cou- Francisco to see if the post horn or other clues
rier’s Tragedy. Across from the line containing show up without her looking for them. Over the
the world ‘‘Tristero,’’ she finds a note that says it course of the night, she ends up in a gay bar,
is a variant from the original. She discovers that where she finds the post horn pin on the lapel of
the original text of the play is available in another a tall man. She asks him what it means. He tells
book, published in Berkeley. her it is the symbol of the Inamorati Anony-
The next day, Oedipa goes to Vesperhaven mous, a self-help group for people in love. The
House, a home for senior citizens that was built post horn has been the group’s symbol since its
by Inverarity. There she meets a Mr. Thoth, who founding by a Yoyodyne executive. The IA uses
has been dreaming of his grandfather, who was a the WASTE system to send their messages to
Pony Express rider. He says that there were men each other.
dressed as Indians all in black who attacked his Oedipa is nearing despair. All of the men in
grandfather. Mr. Thoth has a ring that his grand- her life have deserted or betrayed her. She spends
father cut off the finger of one of the attackers. the rest of the night walking through the streets
On the ring is the muted horn symbol. of San Francisco, seeing the symbol everywhere.
Oedipa goes to find Fallopian again for It is a dark night of the soul. She finds a group of
more information, but he has little to tell her. children in a jump-rope game using words like
She next runs into Genghis Cohen, a philatelist, Thurn and Taxis and Tristero.
or stamp collector. He has been retained by
Oedipa wanders on through the night until,
Metzger to evaluate Inverarity’s stamp collec-
in the morning, she encounters an old sailor with
tion. Cohen has found some irregularities in sev-
the muted post horn symbol tattooed on the
eral stamps including the post horn symbol, but
without the mute, appearing on a Pony Express back of his hand. He asks her to post a letter to
stamp. Cohen relates to her more of the Thurn his wife through the WASTE system. It is clear
and Taxis history and reveals that the post horn the man has delirium tremens, or DTs, a reaction
is the Thurn and Taxis symbol, a part of their to years of alcohol abuse. She searches for the
coat of arms. Oedipa realizes that the black- place where the sailor has told her to mail the
costumed assassins were out to mute Thurn letter and waits until she finds someone who
and Taxis. When Oedipa tells him all that she comes to pick up the letters; then she follows
has discovered, Cohen grows nervous and ends him. He leads her to the home of John Nefastis,
the conversation. the point from which she started twenty-four
hours earlier.
Chapter 5 She returns to her hotel and winds up in a
Oedipa decides to drive to Berkeley to research party of deaf-mutes, each of whom is dancing to
Richard Wharfinger and see inventor John whatever music he or she finds in his or her own
Nefastis. She goes to the Lectern Press to find a mind. The next day, she drives back to Kinneret.
copy of Plays of Ford, Webster, Tourneur and She is frightened that she might be psychotic.

When she arrives at Dr. Hilarius’s clinic, she A few days later, Cohen shows her an enve-
discovers that he is shooting at people. She learns lope he has just received in the U.S. mail. The
that he is a Nazi war criminal who worked on stamp is an old American one, but it has the
experimentally induced insanity at the Buchen- muted post horn. The motto on the stamp reads,
wald death camp. Oedipa talks him down, and ‘‘We Await Silent Tristero’s Empire.’’ Oedipa
the police take him away in a straitjacket. Out- finally knows what WASTE stands for.
side, reporting from a KCUF mobile unit, is Oedipa feels the world closing in on her; she
Mucho Maas, Oedipa’s husband. He has been thinks, ‘‘Every access route to the Tristero could
recruited by Hilarius to participate in a study of be traced also back to the Inverarity estate.’’ She
LSD, a study that Oedipa has steadfastly refused offers herself these explanations: she is in a
to join. Mucho seems to be insane. dream, she has stumbled on a huge conspiracy,
she is hallucinating, Inverarity has planned and
executed the plot against her, or she is a ‘‘nut
Chapter 6 case.’’ She simply does not know.
Oedipa drives back to San Narciso, only to find
Finally, the arrangements are complete to
that Metzger has run off with the girlfriend of
auction off Inverarity’s stamp collection. Cohen
one of the Paranoids. She decides to see Profes-
tells Oedipa, however, that in addition to bid-
sor Bortz to ask him questions about Richard
ders who will be present, there will also be a
Wharfinger. When she drives by Zapf’s Used
book bidder, who will send his bid by mail.
Books on the way, she discovers that it has
Cohen believes the bidder is from Tristero.
been burned down. She finds Bortz drunk with
three of his students. In the final scene, Oedipa is at the auction
house. Cohen tells her that the stamps are lot 49,
She asks him about the lines concerning
and that auctioneers ‘‘cry’’ a sale. Oedipa walks into
Trystero in The Courier’s Tragedy. He looks at
the auction room and sees men dressed in black
her book and says that it is a corrupt text. He
mohair with ‘‘pale, cruel faces.’’ The door is locked,
also tells her that Randy Driblette has commit-
the auctioneer clears his throat, and ‘‘Oedipa set-
ted suicide by walking into the ocean two nights
tle[s] back, to await the crying of lot 49.’’
earlier. Oedipa thinks to herself,
They are stripping from me . . . they are stripping
away, one by one, my men. My shrink, pursued
by Israelis, has gone mad; my husband, on LSD, CHARACTERS
gropes like a child. . . . I was hoping forever, for
love; my one extra-marital fella has eloped with a Emory Bortz
depraved 15-year old; my best guide back to the
Trystero has taken a Brody.
Emory Bortz is a Wharfinger scholar who has
written a preface to a collection of plays, includ-
Oedipa next discovers that the line concerning The Courier’s Tragedy. Oedipa finds him to
ing Trystero that she heard in the play was only try to learn more about the Tristero.
performed the night she was there. Bortz invites
her in to look at pornographic pictures, from a Clayton ‘‘Bloody’’ Chiklitz
pornographic version of The Courier’s Tragedy, Chiklitz is the president of Yoyodyne Corpora-
written by a sect of Puritans known as the Scurv- tion, one of Inverarity’s investments. He first
hamites. He offers her a look at a book detailing appears in Pynchon’s earlier novel, V. His nick-
yet another attack by a lake by black-cloaked name is a pun, derived from a common expres-
assassins, now known as the Trystero. A long sion in the 1950s and 1960s. Chiclets gum comes
history of Thurn and Taxis ensues, along with in a box of small, white, candy-coated rectangles
the rise of the Trystero. By the end of the saga, it resembling teeth. ‘‘Do you want a mouthful of
appears that the group has been behind all sorts bloody Chiclets?’’ would be the equivalent of
of plots, including the entire French Revolution. asking someone if he or she wants a punch in
Over the next days, Oedipa continues her the mouth.
research, speaking with Bortz and Cohen at
length. She also attends Driblette’s funeral. She Genghis Cohen
is devastated by his death, wondering if it has Genghis Cohen is a philatelist, or stamp expert,
anything to do with Trystero. She tries to com- hired by Metzger to evaluate Inverarity’s stamp
municate with him, but cannot. collection. He offers Oedipa information about

the Tristero and the Thurn and Taxis private formerly Oedipa Maas’s lover. He added a codi-
mail system. In addition, he finds irregularities cil to his will shortly before his death naming
in the stamps that suggest that Inverarity was Oedipa the executrix of his estate. He serves the
deeply involved in the Tristero. His name is a role of trickster in the novel, and it is not certain
pun on the name of the ancient Mogul warrior if he is behind all of the conspiracy and the
Genghis Khan. complicated plotting that Oedipa uncovers. His
name is also of interest to scholars who associate
Demon it with such concepts as variety, rarity, and
A tiny artificial intelligence, the Demon sorts air veracity.
molecules in James Clerk Maxwell’s box.
Stanley Koteks
Manny Di Presso Stanley Koteks is an engineer at Yoyodyne.
Manny Di Presso is a friend of Metzger’s. Manny When Oedipa attends the stockholders’ meeting,
is both an actor and a lawyer. His name is an she gets lost and runs into Koteks. She notices
obvious pun on manic-depressive, the term used that he is scribbling the muted post horn symbol,
for bipolar disease in the 1960s. so she tries to get information from him. He
describes for her John Nefastis and his Nefastis
Randolph Driblette machine. Koteks’s name is a pun on the brand
Randolph Driblette is the director and producer of name of a feminine hygiene product.
the play The Courier’s Tragedy. He has inserted a
line about the Trystero into the text of the play, Mucho Maas
attracting Oedipa’s interest. When Oedipa visits Mucho Maas is a radio disk jockey for station
him to try to find answers, he tells her the she can KCUF. He was a used car salesman until he lost
fall in love with him, record his dreams, ask ques- all faith in car lots. He hates his job except for the
tions, and look for clues, but never find the truth. fact that he is able come in contact with and
He commits suicide when the play closes. seduce young girls. He is married to Oedipa
Maas. In Spanish, his name means literally ‘‘Too
Mike Fallopian Much,’’ though it also carries with it the connota-
Mike Fallopian is a leader in the Peter Pinguid tion of machismo, or macho, meaning aggressively
society who hangs out at The Scope nightclub. masculine. Given his penchant for young girls, the
Oedipa meets him there, and finds out about the name seems to fit.
medieval Thurn and Taxis private mail system from
him. Fallopian’s politics are ultra-conservative. His Oedipa Maas
last name is a pun on the small tubes in a woman’s Oedipa Maas is a housewife who discovers one
body through which eggs descend. afternoon that she has been named executrix of
the very complicated and large estate of her former
Baby Igor lover, Pierce Inverarity. Oedipa is twenty-eight
See Metzger years old and is married to Mucho Maas, a radio
disk jockey. Her life seems to be mundane and
Dr. Hilarius perhaps even boring; in the opening sentence, she
Dr. Hilarius is Oedipa’s psychiatrist. He experi- has just come home from a Tupperware party.
ments with LSD and continually tries to talk However, once she decides to act as the executrix
Oedipa into joining his study of the drug. Later of the estate, her life becomes increasingly com-
in the novel, it is revealed that he was a Nazi and plex. The novel is in many ways a story of Oedi-
that he experimented on prisoners in the Buchen- pa’s growth and coming of age as she stumbles
wald concentration camp. By the end of the book, into the mystery of the Tristero and a huge plot
he is quite mad. His name can be interpreted as involving mail delivery.
a pun on the word hilarious, since he is loud Critics have made much of Oedipa’s name.
and funny. In the first place, it recalls the Freudian Oedipus
complex, in which a young man falls in love with
Pierce Inverarity his mother and wants to kill his father. Since
Pierce Inverarity is an immensely wealthy Cali- Oedipa is a woman, it is a little difficult to
fornia real estate mogul who owns part or all of make the leap to thinking of her in a Freudian
nearly every business in San Narciso. He was sense. The other possible interpretation of her

name is rooted in the original Oedipus from name can be linked to the English word ‘‘nefar-
Greek mythology. Before Oedipus was born, ious,’’ meaning evil.
the oracle at Delphi predicted that he would
marry his mother and kill his father. Horror- The Paranoids
struck by the prediction, his father gives him to The Paranoids are a rock group modeled on the
a servant to take him out and abandon him on Beatles. Led by Miles, the other members of the
the mountain. The servant is unable to do so, group are Serge, Dean, and Leonard. The mem-
and instead, Oedipus is adopted by a childless bers are interchangeable; their biggest contribu-
couple. One day, he discovers that he has been tion to the book is their singing at opportune
adopted, and so goes out in quest of his true moments. Pynchon includes the lyrics to their
parentage. Through an odd set of circumstances, songs in the text. They are usually accompanied
he ends up killing a man he meets along the by four young women, and they are usually
road, who, unbeknownst to Oedipus, is his real stoned on marijuana.
father. Then he journeys on to Thebes, where he
encounters the Sphinx, who challenges everyone Roseman
traveling to the city to solve a riddle. If the Roseman is Oedipa’s lawyer in Kinneret. He
traveler cannot provide the correct answer, he watches the television show Perry Mason obses-
is killed by the Sphinx. Oedipus solves the riddle sively and is writing a book about the show. He
successfully, the Sphinx kills itself, and the peo- advises Oedipa to take on the rule of executrix of
ple of Thebes are set free. Gratefully, they make Inverarity’s estate.
Oedipus the king and offer him the queen in
marriage. Little does Oedipus know that his Richard Wharfinger
queen, Jocasta, is his mother. Wharfinger is not technically a character in the
Like Oedipus, Oedipa Maas seeks to find the book, although he figures prominently. He is the
truth, but always finds it hidden. It is her quest to seventeenth-century author of the play The Cou-
solve the riddle of the Tristero. rier’s Tragedy, which mirrors many of the other
events in the book. In addition, the textual corrup-
Wendell Maas tions to his play are important clues for Oedipa.
See Mucho Maas
Metzger
Metzger is a lawyer who handles Inverarity’s THEMES
estate. He is a co-executor with Oedipa. Very
handsome, he succeeds in seducing Oedipa on Entropy
their first meeting. As a child, he was an actor Pynchon began his undergraduate studies in
known as Baby Igor. The name Metzger means physics before switching to an English major;
‘‘butcher’’ in German. however, his love of science and the challenging
ideas he found in the study of science remained
Miles with him, as is obvious from the thematic con-
Miles is the manager of the Echo Courts motel. cerns of his short stories and The Crying of Lot
A sixteen-year-old dropout, he is also a member 49. An understanding of entropy, in particular,
of a band called the Paranoids. He and his mates is important in reading the novel. Entropy can be
copy the Beatles in nearly every way, including defined as the measure of disorder or random-
adopting English accents and phrases. ness in any closed system. It has applications in
both thermodynamics (the branch of science
John Nefastis that studies the relationship between heat and
John Nefastis is a scientist who has devised a other forms of energy) and information systems.
machine that takes literally James Clerk Max- The first law of thermodynamics states that
well’s thought experiment involving a Demon the energy of the universe is constant. That is,
who can sort fast-moving molecules from slower energy cannot be lost nor created, although it
ones. He welcomes Oedipa to his office and can be converted from one form to another. The
invites her to test her sensitivity by trying to total amount of energy in the universe is there-
communicate with the Demon. She is unsuccess- fore constant. Thus, the energy in sunlight can be
ful, and Nefastis tries to seduce her. Nefastis’s converted through photosynthesis to chemical

TOPICS FOR
FURTHER
STUDY
Read Frank Portman’s young-adult novel Compose music, using Garageband or other
King Dork, the story of fourteen-year old computer software, with three classmates to
Tom Henderson, a boy whose detective father go along with the Paranoids’ lyrics. Present
has died under mysterious circumstances. He a concert in which you perform the Para-
looks for clues in a box of books he finds in noids’ songs.
the basement. Write an essay comparing and
contrasting Tom’s search with that of Oedipa. In The Crying of Lot 49, Pynchon uses the
concept of entropy as one of his most impor-
Read either ‘‘The Garden of Forking Paths’’
tant themes. Take an idea from mathematics
or ‘‘Death and the Compass,’’ two short
or physics, such as Heisenberg’s Uncertainty
stories by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis
Principle, or the Pythagorean theorem and use
Borges. Prepare a large poster board or dig-
ital poster detailing the clues the main char- it as a starting point for a creative short story.
acter finds and showing how he responds to Present your short story to your class, and
the clues. Illustrate the poster board with explain how you incorporated your scientific
pictures, maps, drawings, and text. Present or mathematical idea.
it to your class or post it on your Web site. Many of the historical events in The Crying
Choose one of Pynchon’s references in The of Lot 49 have a basis in reality. Others do
Crying of Lot 49 and create a hypertext essay not. Sort through the events mentioned in
using software such as Storyspace and link- the text, such as the Pony Express and the
ing ideas, illustrations, artwork, or music. Thurn and Taxis postal systems and identify
For example, James Clerk Maxwell, the which are real and which are not. Write an
nineteenth-century Scottish scientist, plays essay exploring the uses of historical and
an important role in the book and could be fictional elements in the same story.
the basis of your hypertext. Other possibil-
ities include entropy, Remedios Varo, the Research the work of Mexican artist Remedios
Beatles, and Greek mythology. When your Varo, finding examples of her paintings and
hypertext is completed, compare yours with learning something about her background. In
those of other members of your class to see if addition, read the fairy tale ‘‘Rapunzel.’’ Why
there are places where you could link your do you think Pynchon connected Varo and
essay to theirs. Post your essays online as a Rapunzel in The Crying of Lot 49? Write an
Web site. essay explaining your answer.
energy, providing food. The energy in plant Initially, the ice cube and the hot water are two
foods is converted to kinetic energy in walking distinct, organized entities. However, with the
and movement when people eat plants. Scientists passage of time, the ice cube will melt, and the
describe this as the conservation of energy. cold molecules will disperse among the hot mol-
The second law of thermodynamics states ecules in a random fashion. The ice cube will
that in any closed system not in equilibrium, become warmer and disappear, while the hot
entropy will increase until equilibrium is reached. liquid will become cooler as a result of the dis-
That is, an ordered system will become increas- persal of the cold molecules. At equilibrium,
ingly disordered until it cannot be more disor- maximum entropy is reached. It is no longer
dered. One way to illustrate this is through the possible to organize and separate the hot mole-
example of an ice cube in a mug of hot water. cules from the cold ones, since the entire liquid is

The bar had only electronic music. (afaizal / Shutterstock.com)
all the same temperature. Another important fea- revealed at the end of the game. Rather, the
ture of entropy illustrated by this example is that message has been distorted and garbled. Thus,
entropy always increases and cannot go back- although the information, that is, the sounds
wards. That is, the cold molecules cannot reform and letters of a message, remains, entropy has
themselves into an ice cube once the cube has destroyed the coherence and logic of the original
melted. message. The resulting message is random and
chaotic and does not convey the intended mean-
By metaphor, entropy functions as a part of
ing. Again, entropy works in one direction:
information theory. Information entropy is the
information will become increasingly disordered
measure of randomness in a communication. A
until it is little more than static rather than a
simple example is the childhood game of Tele-
conveyance of meaning.
phone. In this game, a person will quickly whis-
per a message to the person next to him or her, Oedipa’s world is a closed system. The novel
who will then pass it along to the next person, begins with Oedipa in a seemingly well-ordered
and so on until the last person hears the message. life. She is married, attends Tupperware parties,
This person reveals what the message is that he and sees her psychiatrist regularly. The insertion
or she heard. Generally, there is little relation- of Pierce Inverarity’s codicil to his will, naming her
ship between the original message and the one executrix, into her otherwise ordered existence puts

in motion a series of events and begins a flow of has been discussed in literally hundreds of
information that Oedipa struggles to make sense articles, and his writing is generally considered
of. It is ultimately impossible for her to find any to be a prime example of literary postmodern-
meaning at all in the growing randomness and ism. She argues that
incoherence of the information streaming toward the formal and thematic concerns expressed by
her. Entropy increases as she finds herself unable his work—a preoccupation with paranoia and
to sort meaningful communication from noise. conspiracy, radical skepticism about founda-
tional truth and authority of all kinds, deft
Paranoia mixing of genres, distrust of received historical
Paranoia is an important theme for Pynchon. knowledge, and confrontations with the sub-
lime and apocalyptic—have come to define the
Throughout The Crying of Lot 49, Pynchon study and teaching of postmodern fiction.
does not hide this thematic concern, going so
far as to name the young rock group ‘‘The Para- Adams’s articulation of postmodern fiction
noids.’’ In addition, Oedipa frequently questions provides a useful lens through which to view The
her own sanity, wondering if she is the victim of Crying of Lot 49. In the first place, conspiracy
paranoia. and paranoia echo throughout the novel. The
Tristero is a large secret society. Once Oedipa
The word ‘‘paranoia’’ comes from ancient
starts noticing clues concerning the Tristero,
Greek, and for the Greeks, it meant roughly the
however, she sees an ever greater number of
equivalent of insanity. According to the Encyclope-
signs of their existence. The ordering of random
dia Britannica, ‘‘Toward the end of the 19th century,
clues into a pattern is a common theme in both
[paranoia] came to mean a delusional psychosis, in
conspiracy theory and paranoia.
which delusions develop slowly into a complex,
intricate, and logically elaborated system.’’ Pynchon also calls into question the notion
of foundational truth. As much as Oedipa wants
As Oedipa tries to make sense of her increas-
to have a revelatory experience that will some-
ingly chaotic world, she must decide whether all
how connect all the disparate pieces of informa-
of the signs and coincidences she experiences
tion, the word is never spoken. When Pynchon
concerning the Tristero are markers of real con-
uses ‘‘Word’’ with the initial capital letter, he is
spiracy, or if her own paranoia is imposing a
referring to the creator God, as in John 1:1 in the
pattern on random events. As she reflects that
Christian Bible: ‘‘In the beginning was the Word,
‘‘every access route to the Tristero could be
and the Word was with God and the Word was
traced also back to the Inverarity estate,’’ she is
God.’’ Through words, the organizing force of
forced to conclude that she is either dreaming the
the universe calls all into being. This, however, is
whole thing, or that she has stumbled into a vast
the code that Pynchon rejects in the novel. Even
conspiracy, or that she is hallucinating, or that
at the end of the book, the words have not coa-
Inverarity is playing a joke on her, or, finally,
lesced into a coherent message, though Oedipa
that she is mentally ill with paranoia. Indeed, she
continues to hope, as evidenced by her attend-
hopes that she is only suffering from paranoia
ance at the crying of lot 49.
rather than any of the alternatives.
Third, Pynchon mixes a wide variety of gen-
Perhaps the most frightening alternative of
res in the novel. On the one hand, he uses the
all, however, is that the events are entirely ran-
conventions of the detective story; on the other,
dom, pointing to an absurd and meaningless
the novel is a coming-of-age story about a young
universe that is ‘‘exitless.’’ Pynchon’s use of this
woman. Indeed, a reader needs more than two
term calls to mind the existential philosopher
hands on which to count the various genres. The
Jean Paul Sartre, who denied any ultimate mean-
book is a parody of conspiracy theory thrillers as
ing to life. For Oedipa, paranoid delusions are
well as a statement of the religious sublime—and
preferable to the abyss of such a world.
an undercutting of that sublime. A quest story, a
historical novel, a cultural critique of the 1960s,
a pastiche of popular culture—each of these
generic forms flash through the pages.
STYLE
Fourth, Pynchon plays games with history
Postmodernism throughout the text. Some of his historical details
According to Rachel Adams, in ‘‘The Ends of have reality outside the pages of the novel. Others
America, the Ends of Postmodernism,’’ Pynchon are pure fiction, existing nowhere but on the

pages of the novel itself. In this characteristic, HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Pynchon’s writing is reminiscent of that of Jorge
Luis Borges in short stories such as ‘‘Tlön, The Cold War
Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’’ and ‘‘The Garden of Fork- During World War II, the United States and Great
ing Paths.’’ In both Borges and Pynchon, the Britain allied themselves with the Soviet Union in
introduction of historical facts decenters and order to defeat the Germans. However, after the
destabilizes the reader and the text. What is war, the alliance grew increasingly problematic.
true? What can be traced back to reality? And The Americans held sway in the countries of West-
what is fiction? The resulting uncertainty prob- ern Europe, chiefly through the large amount of
lematizes the whole historical narrative and leads aid provided through the Marshall Plan and the
the reader to consider how history itself is a kind Truman Doctrine. In Eastern Europe, however,
of fiction. the Soviets quickly established dominance and
Finally, Pynchon provides numerous exam- began installing Soviet-style communist govern-
ples of Oedipa’s confrontation with the sublime, a ments in the countries they had liberated from
concept that had its roots in the eighteenth-century the Germans.
writings of Edmund Burke, who associated the
The cold war lasted from 1947 until 1991,
sublime with awe-inspiring beauty. When Oedipa
with periods of rapprochement followed by long
first looks down on San Narciso from the hill
periods of heightened tension between the United
above the city, she is overcome with a feeling of
States and the Soviet Union. One particular trou-
vastness, of a plan and organization she cannot
bling period occurred around the time that Pyn-
comprehend because it is so overwhelming. Pyn-
chon was in college, served in the navy, and began
chon uses religious language throughout the book
writing.
to convey feelings of the sublime.
Until 1949, the Americans had been the only
atomic power on Earth; however, in that year the
Allusions Soviets exploded their first atomic warhead. This
A literary allusion is a reference to a person, place, marked the start of an arms race. By 1958, both the
or thing from history, popular culture, or fiction. United States and the Soviet Union had begun a
When a writer inserts an allusion into a text, he or large buildup of nuclear weapons and developed
she also inserts all of the corollary meanings of the intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver nuclear
allusion from its original source. For example, if a warheads to each other’s major cities.
young woman in a modern romance novel snug-
gles her little dog and whispers in its ear, ‘‘There’s Thus, the early 1960s were a time of high
no place like home,’’ readers immediately identify anxiety in the United States. In elementary schools,
the woman with Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, children hid under their desks in air raid drills, and
who travels on a fantastic adventure to fully real- citizens built fallout shelters in their basements. In
ize how much she appreciates and loves her family. 1962, in a show of military and political brinks-
Thus, the author of the modern romance does not manship, the Soviets secretly began constructing
have to explain any of this; the reader intuitively missiles in Cuba that could mount a nuclear attack
knows it, through his or her appreciation of the on the United States. When the United States dis-
allusion. covered the missiles through spy plane photogra-
phy, they demanded that the missiles be removed
In The Crying of Lot 49, Pynchon alludes to
and prepared to engage in military conflict. For
many people, places, objects, and literary works.
several very tense days, it appeared that the world
For example, he calls his play within a play a
could be thrown into a nuclear holocaust; each of
Jacobean revenge tragedy. Readers familiar
the nations had more than enough nuclear weap-
with the genre will know immediately that The
ons to annihilate the planet. However, an agree-
Courier’s Revenge will be a tale of intrigue, con-
ment was reached, leading eventually to the
spiracy, lies, Machiavellian maneuvering, horri-
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.
ble torture, and gruesome death scenes. As a
result, Pynchon is able to parody the genre effec- Nevertheless, both sides continued to distrust
tively. Because he can assume that his audience each other and to build up huge arsenals of weap-
will know the conventions of the revenge tragedy, ons. The fear of infiltration by Soviet agents circu-
he can hyperbolize them, rendering the play lated through the country, and covert operations
comic at the same time it is tragic. around the world were stepped up.

COMPARE
&
CONTRAST
1960s: British bands such as the Beatles, hidden messages and identify cell groups
Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Troggs, such as those of Al Qaeda.
Freddy and the Dreamers, Manfred Mann, 1960s: The theories of Sigmund Freud
and the Dave Clark Five take the United underpin virtually all psychiatric care and
States by storm in the so-called British psychotherapy.
Invasion.
Today: Although Freud remains an interest-
Today: Bands included in the British Inva- ing philosophical and literary figure, his the-
sion are largely forgotten by the younger ories are no longer considered vital to
generations, except for the Beatles, whose psychotherapy.
music continues to enjoy great popularity.
1960s: Fictional detectives such as Joe Man-
1960s: The cold war is a time of fear and nix and Peter Gunn track down clues in
anxiety for Americans, who worry that the weekly television dramas.
world will end in a nuclear explosion. Today: Investigators such as the C.S.I. teams
Today: Terrorist plots concern government use computers, science, and laboratory skills
officials and citizens who attempt to decode to solve crimes on weekly television shows.
The Vietnam War United States. As Paul Maltby argues in Dissident

The American involvement in the war in Viet- Postmodernists: Barthelme, Coover, Pynchon,
nam began with small-scale backing of the While the term ‘‘Tristero’’ denotes groups which
French colonial forces after the end of World cannot simply be identified with . . . countercul-
War II. However, by the time the French were tural radicals, one can see how, for a politically
defeated at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, conscious author of the mid-1960s, the alterna-
tive communications network might also serve
the United States was shouldering some 80 per-
as a symbol of mass alienation from the official
cent of the French military budget for the con- culture.
flict, according to Howard Zinn in A People’s
History of the United States. After the French
pulled out, the United States began sending mili-
tary advisors and finally troops to enter the fray
on the side of the South Vietnamese against the CRITICAL OVERVIEW
communist (or nationalist, depending on one’s
perspective) North Vietnamese and Viet Cong Although The Crying of Lot 49 won the Richard
troops under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh. and Hilda Rosenthal Award of the National Insti-
tute of Arts and Letters upon its publication, initial
By 1966, the year The Crying of Lot 49 was reviews were mixed. The novel was much shorter
published, the war was a decidedly American war, than its predecessor V., and many reviewers in
according to Marilyn B. Young in her book The 1966 found it lacking in depth and characteriza-
Vietnam Wars: 1945–1990. As more and more tion. In an otherwise favorable review, Richard
American troops were drafted and deployed to Poirer, in the New York Times, takes issue with
Vietnam, resentment against the war, particularly the strength of Oedipa’s character, for example,
among young people, grew. Indeed, opposition to preferring the assemblage of characters found in
the Vietnam War became a key characteristic of V. He writes, ‘‘In The Crying of Lot 49 . . . the role
the 1960s counterculture. Pynchon’s novel carries given to Oedipa makes it impossible to divorce
with it traces of the divisive atmosphere in the from her limitations the large rhetoric about

She was named executor of her former boyfriend’s estate. (Lane V. Erickson / Shutterstock.com)
America at the end of the novel. This is unfortu- and The Crying of Lot 49’’ argues that all char-
nate simply because Oedipa has not been given acters and events in the novel can be sorted into
character enough to bear the weight of this two categories: the sacred and the profane. He
rhetoric.’’ writes, ‘‘The manifestations of the Trystero . . .
and all that accompanies it, are always associ-
A 1966 contributor to Time calls the novel
ated in the book with the language of the sacred
‘‘a metaphysical thriller in the form of a porno-
and the patterns of religious experience; the foils
graphic comic strip’’ and concludes, ‘‘Why was it
to the Trystero are always associated with sacral-
written? What is the meaning of the gibberish
ity gone wrong.’’
literature that is currently being published as fast
as it can be gibbered?’’ Ironically, in 2005, Time Another writer interested in religious themes
included The Crying of Lot 49 in its list of the 100 in the novel is Robert E. Kohn, who, in his essay
best English-language novels from 1923 to the ‘‘Seven Buddhist Themes in Pynchon’s The Crying
present. Richard Lacayo, one of Time’s literary of Lot 40,’’ argues that the novel ‘‘can be better
critics, cites its ‘‘slapstick paranoia and heart- understood (or at least some of its ambiguity
breaking metaphysical soliloquies.’’ resolved) in the context of Tibetan Buddhism.’’
Kohn asserts further, ‘‘When The Crying of Lot
In spite of the early mixed reviews, critical
49 is contrasted with the writing of many of Pyn-
acclaim for The Crying of Lot 49, along with
chon’s postmodern contemporaries, his spiritual-
Pynchon’s reputation as a major American
ity stands out. He is an author who can infuse the
writer, has grown steadily. There are a plethora
ordinary with the sacred.’’
of critical articles studying the novel from a wide
variety of perspectives. Edward Mendelson, for In a radically different reading, Mark D.
example, in his article ‘‘The Sacred, the Profane Hawthorne addresses questions of gender and

homosexuality in his essay, ‘‘‘Hi! My Name Is

Arnold Snaub!’: Homosexuality in The Crying of
Lot 49.’’ Hawthorne observes,
On the one hand, Pynchon treats the hidden gay-
world as an undesirable, almost unthinkable,
WHAT
underside of San Francisco, carrying the mark DO I READ
of the pariah; on the other hand, he makes it a
necessary component of a distorted and distort- NEXT?
ing heterosexuality. Through her encounter with
this homosexual underworld and its symbolic The Giver (1993), by Lois Lowry, is a young-
value system, Oedipa learns what it means to adult novel about a young man in the near
be a heterosexual woman capable of standing future who must figure out what is really
on her own in a world dominated by (suppos- going on in the society in which he lives.
edly) straight men.
‘‘Entropy’’ is a short story by Pynchon, writ-
A number of critics focus on Oedipa’s journey ten in 1960 and first published in the Kenyon
as a kind of parody of a mythological quest. David Review, that has some themes in common
Cowart, for example, in his book Thomas Pyn- with The Crying of Lot 49. The story was
chon: The Art of Allusion, likens Pynchon to Cer- later collected in the volume Slow Learner
vantes, who also undertook such a parody in Don and Other Stories, published in 1984.
Quixote. He argues that the theme of the quest is
Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writ-
central to Pynchon’s work, stating, ‘‘The quest,
ings, originally published in English in 1962,
however circular, would seem to be the single
with a new edition published in 2007, is a
indispensable ingredient in Pynchon’s book.’’
collection by Argentine writer Jorge Luis
Indeed, at times, it seems as if there are as Borges that includes many uncanny and
many different critical approaches as there are interesting stories, including several exam-
readers of Pynchon’s text. Some scholars look at ples of detective fiction.
the connection between science and literature in
J. Kerry Grant’s A Companion to The Crying
Pynchon’s work and focus their attention on his
of Lot 49, 2nd edition, published in 2008,
treatment of Maxwell’s Demon in The Crying of
offers an excellent introduction and a com-
Lot 49. Others read the book as a detective story.
plete commentary on each section of the
Still others see it as a novel about politics or
novel. It is an essential resource for anyone
communication. Finally, many critics read in
studying the book.
the pages of The Crying of Lot 49 a statement
on the culture and milieu of 1960s America. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (2008), by Laurie
R. King, is a young-adult novel featuring an
That the book has elicited so many critical
aging Sherlock Holmes teaching a young
responses, and so many critical approaches, is evi-
woman everything she needs to know about
dence of the depth and allusiveness of the novel.
detection. A good coming-of-age story, it also
Just as Oedipa searches for meaning among the
demonstrates the major features of the detec-
many clues Pynchon strews in her path, readers
tive novel.
and critics, too, find signs leading to more signs in
their quest to better understand this rich and com- Borges and the Eternal Orangutans (2005), by
pelling work. Luı́s Fernando Verı́ssimo and translated from
the Portuguese by Margaret Jill Costa, is a
delightful exploration of the detective novel
featuring conspiracies, paranoia, and Jorge
CRITICISM Luis Borges. Verı́ssimo is a well-known Bra-
zilian writer who spent much of his young life
Diane Andrews Henningfeld in the United States.
Henningfeld is a professor emerita at Adrian Col-
lege. She writes widely for educational publishers
on literature. In the following essay, she traces the
development of the detective story, beginning with Question: what do Auguste Dupin, Sherlock
Poe and concluding with an examination of The Holmes, Oedipa Maas, and Fox Mulder have in
Crying of Lot 49 and The X-Files as examples of common? Answer: all are detectives of a sort,
postmodern detective stories. caught in a puzzle not of their own making, looking

made appearances in many other novels, such

Laurie R. King’s The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
(1994); television shows such as Star Trek:
IN SUM, THOUGH THE TRUTH MAY BE The Next Generation (played by Data, the
OUT THERE, MULDER AND OEDIPA FIND, AT THE END
android); and movies such as Sherlock Holmes
(2009). Indeed, it is possible to see traces of
OF THE DAY, NOT TRUTH BUT A SURPLUS OF Holmes in other fictional characters, such as
INFORMATIONAL BITS.’’
forensic scientist Gil Grissom in the television
show C.S.I. Through encyclopedic knowledge,
careful observation, scientific gathering of evi-
dence, and brilliant deduction, detectives are
able to identify the perpetrators of crimes and
for answers. They all believe that, with enough solve mysteries. Not only is the truth out there
clues and enough inductive observation and deduc- for these detectives, they have the ability to
tive reasoning, they will find the truth. However, as access it.
the traditions of detective fiction travel across time, By the twentieth century, the conventions of
there are subtle and not-so-subtle variations and the detective genre were well established and easily
subversions. Whereas Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin recognized by readers. These include conventional
and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes characters such as a seeker of truth, usually the
could always be depended on to offer the one, detective; a series of witnesses or informants, who
and only one, true explanation for a crime, Thomas have information to pass on to the detective; allies,
Pynchon’s Oedipa and Chris Carter’s Mulder are who help the detective solve the mystery; and
postmodern detectives: they uncover clues that antagonists, who attempt to thwart the detective.
always and only lead not to the truth but to ever In addition, the plot of detective fiction usually
more clues. The truth may be out there, but what follows a conventional, recognizable structure.
does it mean if no one finds it? A mysterious crime is committed. A detective is
In his famous 1841 short story ‘‘Murders in called in to examine the scene. He or she gathers
the Rue Morgue,’’ Poe introduced his amateur clues and then begins to locate witnesses and
private investigator, C. Auguste Dupin. Dupin is experts who can fill in gaps in his or knowledge.
a reclusive philosopher and logician, someone Often there is a revelation when the detective sud-
who is both perceptive and able to read the clues. denly discovers something that helps establish a
In later stories such as ‘‘The Mystery of Marie pattern. The detective formulates a series of hypo-
Rogêt’’ and ‘‘The Purloined Letter,’’ Dupin returns thetical solutions to the mystery, based on the
to help the police solve crimes through his own evidence at hand. Generally, these hypotheses
amazing powers of deduction. In these stories, Poe turn out to be disproved as the detective gathers
stresses the importance of reading: Dupin uses more information. Often, the detective is in danger
newspapers, books, and other texts as the basis from criminals or others who do not want the
for his encyclopedic knowledge. This knowledge, crime solved. The detective faces obstacles and
in turn, allows him to accurately ‘‘read’’ clues. In problems as he or she moves closer to the truth.
detective fiction as created by Poe, the emphasis is Ultimately, all of the facts of the crime are known,
on analysis, not just on the mystery. Thus, the and the detective is able to connect all the dots,
leading to the true solution to the mystery.
reader is invited to analyze the clues along with
the detective. Poe is generally regarded by literary Indeed, these conventions were so well
scholars as the father of detective fiction, and established by the twentieth century that Argen-
Dupin serves as a prototype for many later fic- tine writer Jorge Luis Borges could adopt and
tional detectives. adapt the conventions in strange, new ways. A
great fan of Poe, Conan Doyle, and English
In 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created
mystery writer G. K. Chesterton, Borges wrote
Sherlock Holmes in the short novel A Study in
a series of stories, notably ‘‘Death and the Com-
Scarlet. Holmes is, like Dupin, an eccentric,
pass,’’ that turned the genre on its head.
brilliant man. He uses scientific reasoning to
solve crimes, and is able to deduce facts from For readers of ‘‘Death and the Compass,’’ the
minute details. One of the most enduring fic- story violates many expectations. Generations of
tional characters in all literature, Holmes has detective stories have led readers to believe that the

detective will find out the truth and prevail over the ‘‘It should be evident that the genre which preemi-
villain. In this case, the detective ultimately learns nently exploits the hermeneutic code is the detec-
the truth, but it is far too late for him to do any- tive novel in which an enigma is, after tantalizing
thing about it. Although the detective has pieced deferrals, resolved.’’ As an example of detective
together convincing clues into a strong, coherent fiction, readers might expect The Crying of Lot 49
hypothesis, he is simply wrong. Though the to follow this pattern.
hypothesis is brilliant and elegant, the detective Such is not the case. Tanner, early in his
loses his life because he has misread the motive analysis of The Crying of Lot 49, recognizes the
for the crime. Borges succeeds in turning the con- fundamental difference between this novel and
ventions of the detective story on their heads and the earlier articulations of detective fiction. He
giving birth to a new framework for the genre. writes that, although the novel appears on the
Frank Palmieri, in an article for English Lan- surface to be in the tradition of the Californian
guage History, argues that ‘‘the scientist working detective story, ‘‘in fact it works in a reverse
within the framework of a new model actually direction. With a detective story you start with
sees a different world, for observed data are a mystery and move towards a final clarification,
shaped by the questions the paradigm formulates all the apparently disparate, suggestive bits of
and the criteria it sets for acceptable answers.’’ evidence finally being bound together in one
While Palmieri is writing about scientists, he illuminating pattern.’’ In The Crying of Lot 49,
could just as easily be writing about the postmod- however, according to Tanner, ‘‘the more we
ern detective, who finds herself or himself in a think we know, the less we know we know.’’
different world, one that may or may not yield Oedipa’s ability to gather information is
ultimate truth. Thus, Pynchon’s departure from keen; she follows the detective’s instincts in gath-
the established conventions of detective fiction is ering clues and by talking to various witnesses
mediated by the strange new world of the 1960s, a and experts. She finds both allies and antago-
world of paranoia, distrust of authority, a world nists. She appears to be growing in knowledge.
of new media and new technologies. Oedipa’s Nonetheless, although she finds pieces of infor-
journey is one that takes her from the old para- mation that relate to other pieces of information,
digm of Dupin and Holmes and thrusts her into and although the web she constructs seem to
the postmodern world of Borges and Pynchon. point to some larger truth, she is never able to
As she attempts to gather information under the resolve the enigma. In the final scene, she waits
old paradigm, meaning continually slips away for the representative of the Tristero to arrive for
from her. The Crying of Lot 49, but the book closes before
As soon as the reader opens the book and the auction begins.
sees the name ‘‘Oedipa,’’ he or she knows that It is no surprise, therefore, to find some
this is not business as usual. At first glance, the critics connecting Pynchon’s work with a popu-
reader might think that Pynchon is alluding to lar 1990s–2000s television program, The X-Files.
the Freudian concept of the Oedipus complex Like Oedipa, the two FBI agents assigned to
and that Pierce Inverarity could stand in for investigate the enigmatic cases that make up
Oedipa’s absent father. However, it becomes The X-Files, Scully and Mulder, only and always
clear (and there are few clear things in this accumulate more information that seems to
novel) that Oedipa is a latter-day detective, and point to the truth but never arrives at it.
her name, according to Edward Mendelson in
Palmieri, in a fascinating article titled ‘‘Other
his chapter ‘‘The Sacred, the Profane and The
than Postmodern?—Foucault, Pynchon, Hybrid-
Crying of Lot 49,’’ ‘‘refers back to the Sopho-
ity, Ethics,’’ attempts to argue that, while The Cry-
clean Oedipus who begins his search for the
ing of Lot 49 is an example of ‘‘high postmodernism
solution of a problem (a problem, like Oedipa’s,
dominant in the sixties, seventies, and eighties,’’
involving a dead man.)’’
The X-Files is something different, a product of
Philosopher Roland Barthes, in S/Z, formu- ‘‘late postmodernism.’’ He contends that ‘‘The X-
lates what he calls a hermeneutic code. A herme- Files . . . insists on the accessibility of a single,
neutic code functions as plot elements that raise unqualified truth. The prospect of learning the
questions in the reader’s mind. The push to find hidden truth motivates first Mulder and later
the answers to the plot-related questions is what Scully in their efforts to uncover the government
moves the narrative forward. As Maltby contends, conspiracy.’’ What Palmieri fails to acknowledge is

In sum, though the truth may be out there,

Mulder and Oedipa find, at the end of the day, not
truth but a surplus of informational bits. Like
Maxwell’s Demon, they try to sort the meaningful
bits from the nonsense bits, to establish an ordered
system. Try as they may, however, entropy pre-
vails. The increase in information leads to an
increase in disorganization, not to an increase of
knowledge. Their situation as postmodern detec-
tives in a skewed, self-referential, fictional world
prevents them from ever reading anything but
scraps of text, and leads them finally, to paranoia,
not truth.
Source: Diane Andrews Henningfeld, Critical Essay on
The Crying of Lot 49, in Novels for Students, Gale, Cen-
gage Learning, 2011.
Matthew Eklund
In the following essay, Eklund considers the
importance of musical signifiers in The Crying
of Lot 49.
For Oedipa Maas in Thomas Pynchon’s
novel The Crying of Lot 49, the world of the
Pierce had been an avid stamp collector. (Flavia sign is one that she would transcend to know
Morlachetti / Shutterstock.com) the meaning behind the post horn and the reality
of the Tristero. Such knowledge, though, must
remain uncertain because she can only ‘‘recognize
that, while Mulder and Scully may insist on the signals like that, as the epileptic is said to—an
possibility of finding the truth, viewers never find odor, color, pure piercing grace note announcing
it. Like Oedipa sitting in the auction room, believ- his seizure.’’ Indeed, Pynchon’s metaphor of the
ing that soon all of the clues she has gathered will epileptic attack is appropriate for a world where
only signals or signifiers remain ‘‘but never the
finally make sense, viewers are left sitting in their
central truth itself,’’ no remnant of the signified
family rooms at the last episode, waiting for a
that may have existed before the onset of the
conclusion that never comes. More than one
seizure. It is within the context of this epileptic
viewer must have asked, ‘‘Where is Miss Marple
world where Oedipa must search for the meaning
when we need her?’’
behind the ‘‘clues, announcements, imitations’’
Palmieri further argues that, in The X-Files, that define her reality. The post horn and the
unlike in The Crying of Lot 49, ‘‘paranoid visions organizations associated with it are the dominant
are unrelieved by black humor, and hybrids signifiers in the novel, but another that is often in
invariably constitute threats.’’ While it is true the background but important nevertheless is the
that there are moments of high drama and sus- representation of music. Music in The Crying of
pense in The X-Files, it is also true that in epi- Lot 49 is always in some way artificial, with the
sodes such as ‘‘The Post-Modern Prometheus,’’ effect that real music—natural sounds produced
originator Chris Carter is winking at the audi- by true musicians—has been replaced by musical
ence, with the same kind of satiric, parodic ges- signifiers that exist outside the original music that
ture Pynchon embeds in The Crying of Lot 49. they signify. The musical signifiers include the
Just because Mulder and Scully are often Paranoids, Baby Igor’s song, the Scope’s ‘‘music
humorless does not mean that the program is policy,’’ the Yoyodyne songfest, and finally,
without humor; likewise, though Oedipa may Muzak.
be caught in existential angst and a serious The first example of how musical signifiers
attempt to find the truth, her situation is ulti- have replaced their original is the teenage band
mately absurd. that Oedipa meets early in the novel. This band is

obviously an imitation of another—the lead butchered into a corporate hymn that contains
singer, Miles, has a ‘‘Beatle haircut,’’ and Oedipa none of the music’s original meaning. The same
asks, ‘‘Why do you sing with an English accent?’’ goes for ‘‘the tune of ‘Aura Lee,’’’ which in its
Of course, the band’s manager says they ‘‘should original form would have had sentimental mean-
sing like that,’’ so they ‘‘watch English movies a ing, but in the world of mixed musical signifiers
lot, for the accent.’’ The Paranoids, then, are sim- it can also be associated with a lifeless corporate
ply an image; their music is a representation of entity.
another band’s music, perhaps the Beatles or pos- The final but perhaps most telling of the
sibly ‘‘Sick Dick and the Volkswagens,’’ another musical signifiers is Muzak, which is music
English group whose song Oedipa hears Mucho, designed to imitate other well-known tunes. At
her husband, whistling. The fact is that nobody the beginning of the novel, when Oedipa is at the
can tell what band the Paranoids stand for, only market in Kinneret-Among-The-Pines, she hears
that they and their music are an image. ‘‘the Fort Wayne Settecento Ensemble’s variorum
The meaning of musical signifiers sinks recording of the Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto, Boyd
deeper into uncertainty when in Oedipa’s motel Beaver, soloist.’’ The Muzak is supposed to be a
room, Metzger hears Baby Igor’s song on tele- representation of a Vivaldi concerto, and the link
vision. The song is part of Metzger’s childhood between the signifier and the signified seems clear
movie, Cashiered, and the song itself is attached enough. But also at the end of the novel, when
to an image on television, so it is not surprising Oedipa confronts Mucho at his radio station,
that the narcissistic Metzger sings along. If Mucho suddenly begins talking about a passage
Metzger’s youthful image is what prompts him of violin music, and ‘‘it dawned on her that he was
to sing, then the signifier, Baby Igor’s song, is talking about the Muzak.’’ She does not notice it
dictating the meaning of the signified, the real at first because it had ‘‘been seeping in, in its
musical sounds coming from Metzger’s vocal subliminal, unidentifiable way.’’ The sad truth
chords. And because Metzger does not exist out- behind this statement is that Muzak, even if it is
side his own youthful image on television, the designed to have sounds corresponding to a pop-
musical signifier must lose any certain meaning. ular tune, has nothing to do with its original
because the reality of Muzak is that it is not
Later Oedipa encounters the music scene in meant to be consciously heard or identified.
the Scope bar. ‘‘A sudden chorus of whoops and Therefore, the signified original is inconsequential
yibbles burst from a kind of jukebox,’’ and to the existence and pervasiveness of the signifier.
Oedipa finds out that the Scope is ‘‘the only bar Furthermore, if real music is meant to be heard
in the area [ . . . with] a strictly electronic music and is meant to make us feel, then Muzak can
policy.’’ Whether ‘‘whoops and yibbles’’ can be only have the effect of making us feel nothing by
considered music is anyone’s guess, but in this taking the original’s place. Indeed, the excess of
case it is how the music is produced that suggests musical signifiers in The Crying of Lot 49 can only
that electronic or artificial sounds render the further distance Oedipa from the ‘‘epileptic
existence of real musicians uncertain. The bar- Word.’’
tender informs Oedipa and Metzger that in the
live jam sessions held in the Scope ‘‘they put it on Source: Matthew Eklund, ‘‘Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot
the tape live.’’ If electronic music was ever meant 49,’’ in Explicator, Vol. 59, No. 4, Summer 2001, pp. 216–18.
to signify the natural sounds of real music, then
that possibility is blurred even more when musi- Mark D. Hawthorne
cians only appear live in order to encapsulate In the following excerpt, Hawthorne analyzes the
their music in yet another imitation, the tape. symbolic significance of the labyrinth in the novel,
Therefore, the sound is removed from its source, using sources from ancient mythology and modern
and the original shrinks only further into the psychology.
background.
From the maze of Minos to the knots that
Even traditional or sentimental music does fascinated the Renaissance to Borges’s metaphors
not retain the meaning of its original sound, as in for the interaction of text and reader, the labyrinth
the Yoyodyne stockholders’ meeting, where they has captured the Western imagination. Its archi-
hold a company songfest. A song that would in tecture may be so complex that it defies analysis
another setting have great emotional impor- and thus appears aimless, but to the insider, the
tance, ‘‘the tune of Cornell’s alma mater,’’ is architect or whoever knows the plan, a labyrinth is

determined by the maze-maker. However, Stencil’s

search for V. and later Oedipa’s search for the
Tristero are more like the multicursal labyrinth in
WHILE FIRST USING IT TO DESCRIBE ESCAPE that the maze-wanderer takes on responsibility for
FROM A CONFINING MIDDLE-CLASS MARRIAGE,
repeated choices (see Doob 1990, 56–57). One
problem with the verbal multicursal labyrinth is
PYNCHON SLOWLY TURNED THE LABYRINTH INTO that, while the outcome depends on the moral or
A METAPHOR FOR THE QUEST FOR EVASIVE
psychological nature of the wanderer, the reader
follows the wanderer’s pathway as a linear pro-
SELF-AWARENESS.’’ gression; the reader, unlike the wanderer, cannot
determine progress or make choices to alter the
outcome. Nonetheless, as in the ‘‘Wandering
Rocks’’ episode of Joyce’s Ulysses, where individ-
ual episodes are read chronologically but perceived
never formless. To the outsider or the person spatially by means of the heterotropic interpola-
trapped in it, it may seem as formless as a garbage tions (Schwarz 1987, 62–63), the reader follows
dump, the canals of Venice, or the crisscrossing of Stencil in chronologically determined patterns
forest paths; escape from it may seem impossible while understanding that he freely chooses his
or, if finally possible, very difficult, achieved only path as a result of accidental discoveries and his
by a few initiates. To traverse it may require either obsession to fit all the clues into a pattern that may
the most astute intellect, actively noting each turn finally merely reflect his own obsessive desire to
and remembering each passage, or it may require find meaning and/or purpose.
complete unthinking acquiescence, a Zen-like
blending of the self into the maze until it is fully By focusing on Thomas Pynchon’s referen-
internalized within the wanderer. The labyrinth ces to and uses of labyrinths, we can isolate a
major, often neglected, problem with his early
may contain a center or secret room, the discovery
writing: in our critical attempts to valorize Pyn-
of which brings joy, or it may conceal a hidden
chon’s writings, we frequently read early works
chamber inhabited by evil so devastating that the
through the filters of later achievements. But this
world is saved only because the evil cannot escape.
problematizing of the early works creates a view
Mythically, it may be the chapel that hides the
of Pynchon quite unlike that which he presents
Holy Grail from profane or unworthy eyes; psy-
of himself in his introduction to Slow Learner
chologically, it may be a buried secret that haunts
(1984) and consequently fails to read the early
consciousness but is hidden by layers of sublima-
works in their own light. In that introduction,
tion, distortion, or self-deception. The encounter
Pynchon, who may well write disingenuously,
in the center of the labyrinth is either an encounter
constructs a portrait of himself as an apprentice,
with ‘‘evil,’’ or, at least, a desired, secret ‘‘self,’’ a
literally the ‘‘slow learner,’’ who has ‘‘stolen’’
Minos’s, a family’s, a culture’s shadow that it
from other writers (we may say, following Kris-
would deny or forget or a revelation of divinity
teva and Bloom, that he ‘‘parodied’’ others,
so awesome that the wanderer, like Parsifal, can
building his works on misreadings), and that he
never return to ordinary life.
sometimes tended to focus too much on theme
Hermann Kern (1982) and Penelope Doob rather than on character. We have read some of
(1990) distinguish between unicursal and multicur- these works—especially ‘‘Entropy’’ and ‘‘Under
sal labyrinths: in the former, the wanderer is con- the Rose’’—as if he already had the postmodern-
fused by an ‘‘inherent disorientation’’ caused, and ism of V. and Gravity’s Rainbow under his belt.
fully controlled, by the maze architect who knows Thus we have given them more weight than they
the single pathway to the center; in the latter, the probably deserve. In contrast, when we read the
wanderer repeatedly chooses which path to take early stories as Pynchon’s apprenticeship, what
and by choosing correctly transcends his confu- we find is a writer facing the complexities of the
sion. We can apply this distinction to the different 1960s and trying to discover his own voice with-
labyrinths we find in Pynchon. The labyrinths out being absorbed either in the ‘‘postures and
crossed by Dennis in ‘‘Low-Lands,’’ the boys in props’’ of the Beats (1984, 9) or the high culture
‘‘The Secret Integration,’’ and Profane in V. are intertextuality of T. S. Eliot (1984, 15), a writer
unicursal: if they merely survive through their con- trying out the forms and techniques of modern-
fusion, they will find the pre-ordained center ism but finding them inadequate. Looking at his

use of the labyrinth metaphor can help us eval- persuasion, in those days having achieved a
uate these early stories more accurately as certain ascendancy over the rich cretini from
remarkable achievements of a young writer across the sea, would somehow refocus atten-
tion on the fallen of WW II, especially ones
who is still trying to find his unique voice.
whose corpses had never been found; out of
. . . In both stories, labyrinths describe exter- some such labyrinth of assumed motives,
nalized physicality, spatial arrangements that Tony Jaguar decided he could surely unload
remain separate from the characters’ inner his harvest of bones on some American some-
modality, although they provocatively suggest place, through his contacts in the ‘‘family,’’
known in these days as Cosa Nostra.
a concretion in or against which the characters
act. This objectification of the metaphor limits it (Pynchon 1984)
insofar as the textual object insists on being sim-
ply a textual object. Functioning as structural As the modifiers of the object of the preposi-
devices, these labyrinths are spatial constructs tion ‘‘out of’’ cause the sentence to meander
like the modernistic and decipherable maze of through a complexity of interrelated ideas, the
Joyce’s ‘‘Wandering Rocks.’’ Although we may grammatical apposition of ‘‘train of reasoning’’
read the labyrinth as possessing meaning outside and ‘‘labyrinth’’ may also describe the novel as a
itself, Pynchon, like Joyce, does not problem- whole; that is, by meandering through a ‘‘murky’’
atize its spatiality. chain of associations, Oedipa may slowly discover
a truth about herself, not necessarily about the
. . . While Profane seems to reach the center of outside world.
unicursal labyrinths, Stencil wanders through a
multicursal labyrinth without finding a hidden A related use of the word ‘‘labyrinth’’ further
room that gives him an answer either benevolent suggests that the text itself may be a labyrinth that
or malicious. If the unicursal labyrinth suggests an will thwart our expectations. Almost at the end of
architect, a designer who built the maze itself and her quest when she sits on Driblette’s grave,
thus determines the character’s movements, Sten- Oedipa tries to figure why he had inserted the
cil’s and Oedipa’s multicursal labyrinths suggest two mysterious lines into The Courier’s Tragedy:
that there is no plan and offer no rest from wan- Changing the script had no clearer motive than
dering. Instead, as Werner Senn points out about his suicide. There was the same whimsy to
other modern verbal labyrinths, they draw atten- both. Perhaps—she felt briefly penetrated, as
tion to the text itself, alerting the reader to its if the bright winged thing had actually made it
discontinuity (1987, 229). As theme, the labyrinth to the sanctuary of her heart—perhaps, spring-
ing from the same slick labyrinth, adding those
underlies ‘‘the finely wrought ambiguity’’ of Pyn-
two lines had even, in a way never to be
chon’s account of Oedipa’s education, her move- explained, served him as a rehearsal for his
ment toward awareness and a sense of inner night’s walk away into that vast sink of the
fulfillment. In other words, the labyrinth functions primal blood the Pacific. She waited for the
subtextually in The Crying of Lot 49. It shapes the winged brightness to announce its safe arrival.
paper chase both through Pierce’s estate and But there was silence.
through the gathering of tidbits to discover the
(Pynchon 1984)
identity of the Tristero, and, at the same time,
the text itself is a multicursal labyrinth that Here ‘‘labyrinth’’ signifies a sexual passage
thwarts our readerly desire to find a hidden that can bring life, understanding, and hope while
room that contains traditional certitude. simultaneously moving toward death. The associ-
One revealing sentence acts as a syntactic com- ation of sex and death suggests the distance that
plement of the novel as a textual multicursal laby- Oedipa has matured since her ‘‘Barbie doll’’ affair
rinth; in this sentence Pynchon makes the word with Metzger. This labyrinth seems to lead to its
‘‘labyrinth’’ a description of confused, uncentered hidden room—‘‘the sanctuary of her heart’’—a
reasoning: place that she has dared neither to expose to others
nor to confront for herself. Only after ‘‘the winged
Out of some murky train of reasoning, which brightness’’ does not enter safely, does she begin to
may have included the observed fact that
confront the possibility of total aloneness. To
American tourists, beginning then to be plenti-
ful, would pay good dollars for almost any-
Oedipa, who is the Reader in a text, and to us, as
thing; and stories about Forest Lawn and the readers of the text, the possibility that the text lacks
American cult of the dead; possibly some dim signification outside itself turns the text inside out,
hope that Senator McCarthy, and others of his the absolute alienation that paradoxically renders

usual speech (such as surrounded Profane) silent quester’s usual gender and thus leaves the tradi-
and gives silence (such as haunted Stencil) a voice. tional reward of the maiden’s hand out of the story.
Unlike earlier uses of the labyrinth, Pynchon As Stencil’s quest cannot end with certainty,
here joins the description of outer physicality and Oedipa’s quest abruptly ends when she enters the
an account of Oedipa’s inner thoughts. Oedipa’s auction room, apparently the hidden room of
entrance into a spatial, physical labyrinth occurred her search. While the quester remains serious,
in San Narciso, a locale that seems, at the same having little or no sense of the ridiculous, the
time, to be a pun on the words ‘‘San Francisco’’ reader increasingly suspects that Pynchon has
and ‘‘narcissism,’’ in the motel called Echo Courts, created a maze to befuddle, confuse, and finally
where the face of the billboard nymph seems to poke fun at the reader him/herself, a maze that
resemble her own (1984). As she drove into the we traverse hoping to find a solution, only to
town, she saw the labyrinth from the outside: ‘‘She discover in the end that all we can do is traverse
looked down a slope . . . onto a vast sprawl of the maze again and again. Thus the last words of
houses which had grown up together, like a well- the novel, rather than solving the mystery, force
tended crop, from the dull brown earth; and she us back to the title page as if the reader, not
thought of the time she’d opened a transistor radio Oedipa, were somehow the butt of a joke and
to replace a battery and seen her first printed needed to traverse the maze again, perhaps with
circuit’’ (1984). If in and out are conflated, her greater attention or perception, perhaps finding
inability to break the semiotic code of the circuit some overlooked clue. In this respect, the novel
becomes its own hidden room, giving voice to
integrates the two different types of labyrinths.
the silence that it itself creates, a silence that we
Thus she plunges into the maze as Profane had
cannot translate past the context in which we
entered into the sewers and, at the same time, as
hear the voice of the silence.
Stencil had ‘‘stepped’’ into his maze in 1945 when
he read the Florentine entry in his father’s journals Pynchon seems to indicate Oedipa’s plunge
(1984). Her Stencil-like search for signification into voiced silence—‘‘a paranoia more protective
begins, not in the tower of romance or on the than psychotic’’ (Schaub 1981a)—by her name.
couch of seduction, but in the privacy of the wom- Easily an allusion to the Freudian Oedipa (1) Com-
en’s toilet at The Scope: unlike the other graffiti, plex, a reading supported during the madness of
the muted horn symbol so fascinates her that she Dr. Hilarius, the lack of any references to parents,
copies it into her memo book and asks Mike Fal- as Edward Mendelson has pointed out (1978b),
lopian what it means, only to be told ‘‘You weren’t seems to make this reading untenable. Like her
supposed to see that,’’ a dismissal that increases her namesake, Oedipa tries to use reason and logic to
curiosity (1984) and awakens her desire to find sift through evidence to find hidden truth. As a
answers. female quester (see Cowart 1980), she searches for
evasive truth in a world of confused and mislead-
Perhaps stemming from his enjoyment of spy ing signs. In this sense, the name can allude to her
novels and the novels of intrigue (1984), the conun- ‘‘bound feet,’’ her ‘‘rational’’ unwillingness to leave
drum evolves into Pynchon’s most sophisticated the relative safety of her tedious marriage, and the
metafictional use of the labyrinth. Through solv- relative comfort of reacting to responsibility within
ing, or at least attempting to solve, the conundrum, socially ‘‘accepted’’ modes. Unwilling to experi-
the character, like Stencil, solemnly undertakes a ment with mind-altering drugs, she dislikes not
quest toward fulfillment and, in undertaking the being able to control events around her. Later,
quest, moves further and further from the ordinary she relies entirely on intuition; finally, she moves
world. In classical form, the knight overcomes each from ‘‘noisy’’ rationality that poses more questions
trial to earn a vision of the Holy Grail or traverses and few answers to a Zen-like silence that accepts
the Labyrinth to kill the Minotaur and thus free the without asking questions or seeking answers; she
maiden. This form Pynchon fully internalizes. If his internalizes the reason Dennis Flange refused to
character were to be successful—and the maze tell sea stories:
were a road of trials—that character’s reward
. . . as long as you are passive you can remain
would be to enter a hidden chamber that would
aware of the truth’s extent but the minute you
contain a truth closed to others who continue become active you are somehow, if not violat-
within the normative world. But in Lot 49 Pynchon ing a convention outright, at least screwing up
parodies this classical form: he changes the the perspective of things, much as anyone

observing subatomic particles changes the the same voice repeating the same words each time
works, data and odds, by the act of observing. we read her text and turn to the beginning to
complete the ending.
(Pynchon 1984)
Though Pynchon himself may act as the para-
For Oedipa, the multicursal labyrinth is this
noiac in creating plots where there are none (Sand-
passive silence that spurs her to action and thus
ers 1976). Oedipa realizes the artistic horror of the
infolds upon itself so that inner mental state and
reader who might lose identity trying to make the
external physicality flow endlessly and impercept-
plots rational. Joseph W. Slade has suggested that
ibly into each other. Until silent, she relied on the
Lot 49 may take its shape from the critical reaction
power of words, as if to name were to understand.
to the shapelessness of V. (1974). If so, we can,
She refused to face the possibility that the entire
perhaps, read Oedipa’s search for the Tristero as a
Tristero plot might be ‘‘all a hoax, maybe some-
comment on the reader’s struggle with V., both
thing Inverarity set up before he died,’’ discounting
involving a distance between the rational mind
this possibility ‘‘like the thought that someday she
that attempts to structure confusion and the
would have to die’’ (Pynchon 1984). At the begin-
mind of the artist who has created a self-reflexive
ning both she and the reader limit identity to tradi-
text out of nothing.
tional, seemingly concrete, sureties, but outside a
gay bar, she dons an ID badge, announcing to her As she advances through this maze of (mis)-
and others that she is Arnold Snarb, who is ‘‘look- information, Oedipa increasingly relies upon
ing for a good time’’ (1984). Concealed under intuition. On the one hand, the reader who con-
another’s name and appearing to be in drag centrates on the impenetrability of the maze will
(1984), she confesses, ‘‘I really think I am going find with Robert Merrill that Pynchon’s vision
out of my head’’ (1984). The next day, she goes to in Lot 49 ‘‘is darker than we have yet acknowl-
Dr. Hilarius because she wants him to tell her that edged’’ (1977); on the other, a reader who con-
she is ‘‘some kind of nut’’ (1984), but Hilarius, who centrates on Oedipa may well agree with Carole
has built his practice by perverting words, has Holdsworth that the novel is ‘‘Pynchon’s most
reverted to the identity he had tried to conceal. positive novel’’ (1983). One by one, Oedipa loses
Immediately afterwards, Mucho again confuses each of the men whom she had used to protect
her identity by calling her Mrs. Edna Mosh in his herself—lover, husband, analyst, and the men
news cut for KCUF (1984). who might help her resolve her search; in each
case, the removal comes with a revelation of
With each alias, she moves further from the
the man’s identity. Her childish husband has
reliability of tags and from the logically verifiable.
become addicted to LSD, moving hopelessly
Professor Bortz, who cannot talk of history, knows
through infantile fantasies; her lover has run
only words: he orders her, ‘‘Pick some words’’
off with a girl young enough to be his child; her
(Pynchon 1984), and later argues that the artist
Freudian analyst has been captured as a war
either does not exist or is anonymous because
criminal by the Israelis; the egoistic director of
only the play has a clear identity (1984). But he
the play has committed suicide, thus revealing
cannot talk about the play without talking about
that he has no clear grasp of his own self. She
the history of the text, the circumstances under
may have escaped the confines that imprisoned
which it evolved through different editions, and
her and have learned that Pierce’s ‘‘legacy was
its references to historical events. Bortz, like Hilar-
America’’ (1984). If Pynchon denies the reader a
ius though not sinister, cannot help Oedipa
definite answer by excluding the reader from
because he is as hopelessly enmeshed in delusion
the inner room, just as Angel had excluded Pro-
as Mucho is in LSD fantasies. Oedipa’s attempt to
fane from the hidden room that held the raped
find articulated answers through ‘‘established’’ or
Fina, he also gives the reader a definite answer
normative authorities causes silence—greater con-
by forcing us to retrace the very words that will
fusion and disorder—blurring the lines between
finally deny themselves and make us again
reality and fantasy and seeming to muddle all
repeat our efforts.
experience (Mangel 1976). Oedipa’s final silent
passivity enables her to transfigure mere words, In ‘‘Low-Lands’’ and ‘‘The Secret Integra-
just as earlier she had been moved to tears when tion,’’ Pynchon simplistically described labyrinths
looking at Remedios Varo’s ‘‘Bordando el Manto as either architectural or natural constructs, places
Terrestre’’ in Mexico City (1984). She becomes the of twisting, winding passages through which char-
voice of silence by infolding words so that we hear acters move from one location to another. In V. he

contrasted this sort of architectural maze (for it in the 1960s from a description of characters’
example, the New York sewer system) with a physical settings to an image describing the novel
controlling image of the labyrinth as process itself.
(Stencil’s search for V.). Here the image suggested
Source: Mark D. Hawthorne, ‘‘Pynchon’s Early Laby-
narrative discourse itself, wherein the text may rinths,’’ in College Literature, Vol. 25, No. 2, Spring 1998,
explore the character’s thinking while it metafic- pp. 78–93.
tionally describes the making of that character,
but Pynchon inscribed the image in a text that
posits differing images of the labyrinth and thus D. Quentin Miller
conflates the maze wanderer in the text and the In the following essay, Miller contends that all of
reader of the text in such a manner that the possi- Pynchon’s novels are governed by paranoia and
bility of finding hidden rooms—if they, indeed, the law of entropy.
exist—confuses us. Thus while the text, like a Like a Cheshire Cat, Thomas Pynchon has
Moebius strip, turns endlessly in on itself, we are somehow managed to maintain invisibility in the
left with the uncertainty of trying to locate reso- contemporary literary scene, leaving his substan-
lutions or clarity where such resolutions them- tial body of fans only a mocking grin and four
selves become deceptive, leaving us, like Benny in exquisitely wrought novels. In the literary world,
Malta, ‘‘run[ning] through the absolute night’’ where invasive interviewers and book-length
because we ‘‘haven’t learned a goddamn thing’’ biographers lurk in every shadow, Pynchon has
from our experience. Finally in The Crying of raised privacy to an art form, allowing nothing
Lot 49 Pynchon fully transforms the labyrinth of himself to be scrutinized except a grainy high-
into a metaphorical process that describes the school yearbook photo and his fiction.
fragile human condition and the forces of disrup- The details of Pynchon’s life might not matter
tion, evil, irrationality, or disorder that threaten to as much if readers did not cry out for some sort of
upset it. By ironically contrasting Oedipa’s desire clue to understanding the mysteries and secrets of
to find the truth about Tristero, her version of the extraordinary mind behind his fiction. His
Stencil’s search for V., and the possibility that massive masterpiece, Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), is
there is no answer, he built what Werner Senn considered by many to be the most arresting and
described as a ‘‘confusing, discontinuous and mul- mystifying novel written in the latter half of the
ticursal maze . . . where . . . the way itself, not the 20th century. Rich and complex in texture and
goal (centre, exit) to be reached, provides the style, Gravity’s Rainbow explores the psychology
focus of interest’’ (1987). of a world gone mad with information. From
Thus the metaphor of the labyrinth, used the famous first sentence—‘‘A screaming comes
rather simply as a physical description in ‘‘Low- across the sky’’—the reader is taken on a chaotic
Lands,’’ becomes fully sophisticated only in The journey beginning in London besieged by German
Crying of Lot 49. From a unicursal architectural V-2 rockets, then into ‘‘the zone,’’ an unreal post-
setting, in which characters move in clearly manip- war landscape in which everything, including the
ulated directions, to the multicursal verbal icon character we had thought was the protagonist,
that metafictionally calls attention to itself, the literally and irrevocably falls apart. The intellec-
labyrinth in Pynchon’s fiction of the 1960s moves tual layers of the novel run deep, but something
from the externality of a complex physical world prevents us from penetrating the ever-expanding
to the internality of a discontinuous, confused, surface, informed as it is by cinematic flourishes
and confusing creating mind. While first using it and surreal fantasies. We come away from the
to describe escape from a confining middle-class book unsure of what we just experienced, but
marriage, Pynchon slowly turned the labyrinth certain enough that paranoia is the pervasive con-
into a metaphor for the quest for evasive self- dition of the contemporary world, and that we
awareness. Though the unicursal labyrinth and are all at the mercy of some manipulative System.
its hidden room later appear in Gravity’s Rainbow The anti-establishment overtones of this most
in such striking paragraphs as the description of cryptic of novels might explain why it has captured
Pointsman and the first Forty-One Lectures, Grav- the imagination of the baby-boomer generation
ity’s Rainbow, like Lot 49, uses the multicursal despite its complexity.
labyrinth as structure (Seed 1988). While Pynchon Less dedicated readers can find the same
used the labyrinth with more control and greater theme of paranoia in V. (1963) and The Crying of
subtlety in this later novel, he had already shaped Lot 49 (1966), novels which showcase Pynchon’s

celebrated style to considerably shorter and easier future? Perhaps he’s waiting to fire another dev-
degrees than does Gravity’s Rainbow. Pynchon’s astating masterpiece in our direction. The chief
playfulness is evident from even a quick glimpse delight in anticipating such an event is like read-
at these novels; readers delight in his tendency to ing Pynchon in general; we finally have no defi-
move his self-consciously fictional characters with nite idea what he is up to.
names like Oedipa Maas and Benny Profane
Source: D. Quentin Miller, ‘‘Thomas Pynchon: Overview,’’
through absurd scenarios, such as shooting alliga- in Contemporary Popular Writers, edited by Dave Mote,
tors in the New York sewer system. These hapless St. James Press, 1997.
ciphers bumble across their changing landscapes
on a perpetual quest for something that will inevi-
tably mutate before it can be discovered. Pyn-
chon’s narrators break gleefully into hilarious
song lyrics and limericks, or they address the SOURCES
reader directly just as things have begun to become
somewhat understandable. ‘‘You want cause-and- Adams, Rachel, ‘‘The Ends of America, the Ends of Post-
effect?’’ the narrator of Gravity’s Rainbow asks us, modernism,’’ in Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 53,
No. 3, Fall 2007, pp. 248–72.
and we know full well that he’s not going to give it
to us. There is nothing conventionally logical Barthes, Roland, S/Z, Hill and Wang, 1974, pp. 17–19.
about these works. We must give in to the whims Cowart, David, Thomas Pynchon: The Art of Illusion,
and humorous caprices of a storyteller whose Southern Illinois University Press, 1980, p.127.
imagination is more entertaining than realism Duyfhuizen, Bernard, and John M. Krafft, ‘‘Thomas Pyn-
could ever hope to be. chon,’’ in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 173, Amer-
ican Novelists Since World War II, Fifth Series, edited by
These three novels set up high expectations James R. Giles and Wanda H. Giles, Gale Research, 1996,
for Pynchon’s reading public, who waited pp. 177–201.
breathlessly for 17 years for Vineland (1990). In Hawthorne, Mark D., ‘‘‘Hi! My Name Is Arnold Snaub!’:
the meantime, Pynchon released Slow Learner Homosexuality in The Crying of Lot 49,’’ in Pynchon
(1984), a collection of his early stories published Notes, Vol. 44–45, Spring/Fall 1999, p. 65.
in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The significant John 1:1, The Oxford Annotated Bible, Revised Standard
contribution in this collection is the title essay in Edition, 1962, p. 1284.
which Pynchon talks about himself as a young
Kohn, Robert E., ‘‘Seven Buddhist Themes in Pynchon’s
writer. Acknowledging such influences as Jack The Crying of Lot 49, in Religion and Literature, Vol. 35,
Kerouac, Saul Bellow, and the surrealist art No.1, Spring 2003, pp. 73, 91.
movement, Pynchon comes closest to revealing Lacayo, Richard, ‘‘All TIME 100 Novels: The Crying of Lot
an official statement about his work. He also 49 (1966),’’ in Time, October 16, 2005, http://www.time.com/
seems to communicate the weariness he feels time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1951793_1951939_
after completing Gravity’s Rainbow, leaving the 1952272,00.html (accessed July 1, 2010).
public to speculate whether he would ever write Maltby, Paul, Dissident Postmodernists: Barthelme,
anything again. Despite the excessive wait, Vine- Coover, Pynchon, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991,
land does not hold a candle to Gravity’s Rainbow pp. 138, 147.
in terms of scope or sheer virtuosity, and reviews Mendelson, Edward, ‘‘The Sacred, the Profane and The
of it communicate disappointment. Still, it is an Crying of Lot 49,‘‘ in Individual and Community: Varia-
entertaining romp through disillusioned post- tions on a Theme in American Fiction, edited by Kenneth
1960s America in classic Pynchon style, focusing H. Baldwin and David K. Kirby, Duke University Press,
on a logging community in California rather 1975, p. 182.
than war-torn Europe. Palmieri, Frank, ‘‘Neither Literally Nor As Metaphor:
Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and the Structure of
Besides paranoia, Pynchon’s novels are all Scientific Revolutions,’’ in English Language History,
governed by the law of entropy (the idea that all Vol. 54, No. 4, Winter 1987, p. 979.
systems eventually lose their energy). This con- ———, ‘‘Other than Postmodern?—Foucault, Pynchon,
dition is an apt metaphor for his own writing Hybridity, Ethics,’’ in Postmodern Culture, Vol. 12, No. 1,
career, which is evidently ending with a whimper September 2001.
rather than a bang. Rumor has it that Pynchon is ‘‘Paranoia,’’ in Encyclopedia Britannica, 2010, http://
now done with writing for good, but with such www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/443095/paranoia
an erratic past, who could hope to predict his (accessed July 1, 2010).

Poirer, Richard, Review of The Crying of Lot 49, in New A collection of essays by scholars on The Crying
York Times, May 1, 1966, p. 42. of Lot 49, the book features a particularly useful
essay by Debra A. Castillo on Pynchon and
Pynchon, Thomas, The Crying of Lot 49, Harper Peren-
Borges, as well as an excellent introduction.
nial, 1965.
Wilson, David L., and Zack Bowen, Science and Litera-
Review of The Crying of Lot 49, in Time, May 6, 1966,
ture: Bridging the Two Cultures, University Press of Flor-
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901889-2,00.
ida, 2001.
html (accessed July 1, 2010).
This book offers an easily understood and well-
Tanner, Tony, Thomas Pynchon, Contemporary Writers expressed chapter, ‘‘Preparing for Pynchon:
Series, Methuen, 1982, pp. 56–73. Thermodynamics, Maxwell’s Demon, Informa-
Young, Marilyn B., The Vietnam Wars: 1945–1990, tion, and Meaning,’’ that explores the scientific
Harper Collins, 1991, pp. 172–92. background of the novel and another chapter,
‘‘Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49,’’ that
Zinn, Howard, A People’s History of the United States, interprets the novel in light of the scientific
Harper Collins, 2003, p. 471. background.
FURTHER READING
SUGGESTED SEARCH TERMS
Bertens, Johannes Willem, and Joseph Natoli, Postmod-
Thomas Pynchon
ernism: The Key Figures, Blackwell Publishers, 2002.
This book is an excellent reference on all the The Crying of Lot 49
major figures of postmodernism, situating
paranoia
Thomas Pynchon among Roland Barthes,
Jorge Luis Borges, John Fowles, and other entropy
important writers. detective fiction AND The Crying of Lot 49
Hilfer, Anthony Channell, American Fiction since 1940, postmodernism
Longman, 1992.
This book offers readings of many important science AND literature
writers of the twentieth century, including Pyn- metafiction
chon, and focuses attention on the metafic-
20th-century American literature
tional qualities of Pynchon’s writing.
Thomas Pynchon AND Maxwell’s Demon
O’Donnell, Patrick, ed., New Essays on The Crying of Lot
49, Cambridge University Press, 1991. Thomas Pynchon AND Jorge Luis Borges
1 0 0 N o v e l s f o r S t u d e n t s , V o l u m e 3 6

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The Crying of Lot 49

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having won the distinction of having the highest

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his own novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Up

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The bar had only electronic music. (afaizal / Shutterstock.com)

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pages of the novel itself. In this characteristic, HISTORICAL CONTEXT

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The Vietnam War United States. As Paul Maltby argues in Dissident

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homosexuality in his essay, ‘‘‘Hi! My Name Is

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made appearances in many other novels, such

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In sum, though the truth may be out there,

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determined by the maze-maker. However, Stencil’s

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