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''The Crying of Lot 49'' is a 1966 novel by American author
Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...
. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a
conspiracy theory A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...
as she possibly unearths a centuries-old feud between two mail distribution companies; one of these companies,
Thurn and Taxis The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis (german: link=no, Fürstenhaus Thurn und Taxis ) is a family of German nobility that is part of the ''Briefadel''. It was a key player in the postal services in Europe during the 16th century, until the e ...
, actually existed (1806–1867) and was the first private firm to distribute postal mail. Like most of Pynchon's output, ''Lot 49'' is often described as
postmodernist literature Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This style of experimental ...
. '' Time'' included the novel in its " TIME 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005".


Plot

In the mid-1960s, Oedipa Maas lives a fairly comfortable life in the (fictional) northern Californian village of Kinneret, despite her lackluster marriage with Mucho Maas, a rudderless
radio jockey A radio personality (American English) or radio presenter (British English) is a person who has an on-air position in radio broadcasting. A radio personality who hosts a radio show is also known as a radio host, and in India and Pakistan as a radi ...
, and her sessions with Dr. Hilarius, an unhinged German psychotherapist who tries to medicate his patients with LSD. One day, Oedipa learns of the death of an ex-lover, Pierce Inverarity, an incredibly wealthy real-estate mogul, who has left her as the executor of his massive estate. Inverarity appears to have owned or financed nearly all the goings-on in San Narciso, a (fictional) southern Californian city near Los Angeles. Oedipa goes to San Narciso to meet Inverarity's lawyer, a former
child actor The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting on stage or in movies or television. An adult who began their acting career as a child may also be called a child actor, or a "former child actor". Closely associated t ...
named Metzger, and they begin an affair, which fascinates a local teenaged rock band, The Paranoids, who begin following them
voyeuristically Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of watching other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions of a private nature. The term comes from the French ''voir'' which means "to see". ...
. At a bar, Oedipa notices the graffitied symbol of a
muted Protein Muted homolog is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''MUTED'' gene. Function This gene encodes a component of BLOC-1 (biogenesis of lysosome-related organelles complex 1). Components of this complex are involved in the biogene ...
post horn with the label "W.A.S.T.E.", and she chats with Mike Fallopian, a right-wing historian and critic of the postal system, who claims to use a secret postal service. It surfaces that Inverarity had Mafia connections, illicitly attempting to sell the bones of forgotten U.S. World War II soldiers for use as charcoal to a cigarette company. One of The Paranoids mentions that this strongly reminds him of a Jacobean revenge play he recently saw called ''The Courier's Tragedy''. Intrigued by the coincidence, Oedipa and Metzger attend a performance of the play, which briefly mentions the name "Tristero". After the show, Oedipa approaches the play's director, Randolph Driblette, but he deflects her questions about the mention of the unusual name. After seeing a man scribbling the post horn symbol, Oedipa seeks out Mike Fallopian, who tells her he suspects a conspiracy. This is supported when watermarks of the muted horn symbol are discovered hidden on Inverarity's private stamp collection. The symbol appears to be a muted variant of the coat of arms of
Thurn and Taxis The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis (german: link=no, Fürstenhaus Thurn und Taxis ) is a family of German nobility that is part of the ''Briefadel''. It was a key player in the postal services in Europe during the 16th century, until the e ...
: an 18th-century European postal monopoly that suppressed all opposition, including Trystero (or Tristero), a competing postal service that was defeated but possibly driven underground. Based on the symbolism of the mute, Oedipa theorizes that Trystero continues to exist as a countercultural secret society with unknown goals. She researches an older censored edition of ''The Courier's Tragedy'', which confirms that Driblette indeed made a conscious choice to include the "Tristero" line. She seeks answers through a machine claimed to have psychic abilities, but the experience is awkward and unsuccessful. As she feverishly wanders the
Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gove ...
, the muted post horn symbol appears among an engineer's doodles, as part of children's sidewalk drawings, amidst
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...
ideograms in a shop window, and in many other places. Finally, a nameless man at a gay bar tells her that the muted horn symbol simply represents an anonymous
support group In a support group, members provide each other with various types of help, usually nonprofessional and nonmaterial, for a particular shared, usually burdensome, characteristic. Members with the same issues can come together for sharing coping str ...
for people with
broken heart Broken heart (also known as a heartbreak or heartache) is a metaphor for the intense emotional stress or pain one feels at experiencing great and deep longing. The concept is cross-cultural, often cited with reference to unreciprocated or lost ...
s: Inamorati Anonymous. She directly witnesses people referring to and using mailboxes disguised as regular waste bins marked with "W.A.S.T.E." (later suggested to be an
acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
for "We Await Silent Tristero's Empire"). Even so, Oedipa sinks into paranoia, wondering if Trystero actually exists or if she is merely overthinking a series of false clues with no definite connections. Fearing for her sanity, Oedipa makes an impromptu visit to Dr. Hilarius, only to find him having lost his own mind, firing a gun randomly and raving madly about his days as a Nazi
medical intern A medical intern is a physician in training who has completed medical school and has a medical degree but does not yet have a license to practice medicine unsupervised. Medical education generally ends with a period of practical training similar t ...
at
Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally ' beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or s ...
. She helps the police subdue him, only to return home to find that her husband Mucho has lost his mind in his own way, having become addicted to LSD. Oedipa consults an English professor about ''The Courier's Tragedy'', learns that Randolph Driblette has mysteriously committed suicide, and is left pondering whether Trystero is simply a prolonged hallucination, an actual historical plot, or some elaborate practical joke that Inverarity arranged for her before his death. Oedipa goes to an auction of Inverarity's possessions and waits on the bidding of lot 49, which contains his stamp collection. Having learned that a particular bidder is interested in the stamps, she hopes to discover if this person is a representative of the Trystero secret society.


Characters

* Oedipa Maas – The protagonist. After the death of her ex-boyfriend, the real estate mogul Pierce Inverarity, she is appointed co- executor of his estate, and discovers and begins to unravel what may or may not be a world conspiracy. * Wendell "Mucho" Maas – Oedipa's husband, Mucho once worked in a used-car lot but recently became a disc jockey for KCUF radio in Kinneret, California. * Metzger – A lawyer who works for Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitschek and McMingus. He has been assigned to help Oedipa execute Pierce's estate. He and Oedipa have an affair. * Miles, Dean, Serge and Leonard – The four members of the band The Paranoids, a small-time rock band consisting of marijuana-smoking American teenagers who sing with British accents and have haircuts inspired by The Beatles. * Dr. Hilarius – Oedipa's psychiatrist, who tries to prescribe LSD to Oedipa as well as to other housewives. Toward the end of the book, he goes crazy and admits to being a former Nazi medical intern at
Buchenwald concentration camp Buchenwald (; literally ' beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...
, where he worked in a program on experimentally-induced insanity, which he supposed was a more "humane" way of dealing with Jewish prisoners than outright execution. * Stanley Koteks – An employee of Yoyodyne Corporation who knows something about the Trystero. Oedipa meets him when she wanders into his office while touring the plant. * John Nefastis – A scientist obsessed with perpetual motion. He has tried to invent a type of Maxwell's demon to create a
perpetual motion machine Perpetual motion is the motion of bodies that continues forever in an unperturbed system. A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work infinitely without an external energy source. This kind of machine is impossible, a ...
. Oedipa visits him to see the machine after learning about him from Stanley Koteks; however, the visit is unproductive and she runs out the door after he propositions her. * Randolph "Randy" Driblette – Director of ''The Courier's Tragedy'' by Jacobean playwright Richard Wharfinger and a leading Wharfinger scholar; he deflects Oedipa's questions and dismisses her theories when she approaches him taking a shower after the show; later, he commits suicide by walking into the Pacific before Oedipa can follow up with him, but the initial meeting with him spurs her to go on a quest to find the meaning behind Trystero. * Mike Fallopian – Oedipa and Metzger meet Fallopian in The Scope, a bar frequented by Yoyodyne employees. He tells them about The Peter Pinguid Society, a right-wing, anti-government organization that he belongs to. * Genghis Cohen – The most eminent
philatelist Philately (; ) is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. Philately involves more than just stamp collecting or the study of postage; it is possi ...
in the Los Angeles area, Cohen was hired to inventory and appraise the deceased's stamp collection. Oedipa and he discuss stamps and forgeries, and he discovers the horn symbol watermark on Inverarity's stamps. * Professor Emory Bortz – Formerly of UC Berkeley, now teaching at San Narciso, Bortz wrote the editor's preface in a version of Wharfinger's works. Oedipa tracks him down to learn more about Trystero.


Critical reception

Critics have read the book as both an "exemplary postmodern text" and an outright parody of postmodernism.Castillo, Debra A. "
Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known b ...
and Pynchon: The Tenuous Symmetries of Art", in ''New Essays'', ed. Patrick O'Donnell, pp. 21–46 (Cambridge University Press: 1992). .
Bennett, David. "Parody, Postmodernism and the Politics of Reading", ''Critical Quarterly'' 27, No. 4 (Winter 1985): pp. 27–43. Contemporary reviews were mixed, with many critics comparing it unfavourably to Pynchon's first novel '' V.'' One reviewer in ''Time'' described the novel as "a metaphysical thriller in the form of a pornographic comic strip". In a positive '' The New York Times'' review Richard Poirier wrote: "Pynchon's technical virtuosity, his adaptations of the apocalyptic-satiric modes of Melville, Conrad, and Joyce, of Faulkner, Nathanael West, and Nabokov, the saturnalian inventiveness he shares with contemporaries like John Barth and Joseph Heller, his security with philosophical and psychological concepts, his anthropological intimacy with the off-beat--these evidences of extraordinary talent in the first novel continue to display themselves in the second."


Self-reception

Pynchon described in the prologue to his 1984 collection '' Slow Learner'' an "up-and-down shape of my learning curve" as a writer, and specifically does not believe he maintained a "positive or professional direction" in the writing of ''The Crying of Lot 49'', "which was marketed as a 'novel', and in which I seem to have forgotten most of what I thought I'd learned up until then."Pynchon, Thomas R. Introduction to ''Slow Learner'' (Boston: Little, Brown: 1984). .


Allusions in the book

As ever with Pynchon's writing, the labyrinthine plots offer myriad linked cultural references. Knowing these references allows for a much richer reading of the work. J. Kerry Grant wrote ''A Companion to the Crying of Lot 49'' in an attempt to catalogue these references but it is neither definitive nor complete.Grant, J. Kerry. ''A Companion to The Crying of Lot 49'' (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994). .


The Beatles

''The Crying of Lot 49'' was published shortly after
Beatlemania Beatlemania was the fanaticism surrounding the English rock band the Beatles in the 1960s. The group's popularity grew in the United Kingdom throughout 1963, propelled by the singles "Please Please Me", "From Me to You" and "She Loves You". By ...
and the "
British invasion The British Invasion was a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1960s, when rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom and other aspects of British culture became popular in the United States and significant to the rising "counterculture" on b ...
" that took place in the United States and other Western countries. Internal context clues indicate that the novel is set in the summer of 1964, the year in which '' A Hard Day's Night'' was released. Pynchon makes a wide variety of Beatles allusions. Most prominent are The Paranoids, a band composed of cheerful marijuana smokers whose lead singer, Miles, is a high-school dropout described as having a "Beatle haircut." The Paranoids all speak with American accents but sing in English ones; at one point, a guitar player is forced to relinquish control of a car to his girlfriend because he cannot see through his hair. It is not clear whether Pynchon was aware of the Beatles' own nickname for themselves, "Los Para Noias"; since the novel is replete with other references to paranoia, Pynchon may have chosen the band's name for other reasons. Harrison, George MBE ''et al.'' ''The Beatles Anthology'' (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000). . Pynchon refers to a rock song, "I Want to Kiss Your Feet", an adulteration of " I Want to Hold Your Hand". The song's artist, Sick Dick and the Volkswagens, evokes the names of such historical rock groups as
the El Dorados The El Dorados were an American doo-wop group, who achieved their greatest success with the song " At My Front Door", a no. 1 hit on the US ''Billboard'' R&B chart in 1955. History The group formed in Chicago, Illinois, United States, in 1952, ...
,
the Edsels ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
,
the Cadillacs The Cadillacs were an American rock and roll and doo-wop group from Harlem, New York, active from 1953 to 1962. The group was noted for their 1955 hit "Speedo", written by Esther Navarro, which was instrumental in attracting white audiences to ...
and the Jaguars (as well as an early name the Beatles themselves used, "Long John and the Silver Beetles"). "Sick Dick" may also refer to Richard Wharfinger, author of "that ill, ill Jacobean revenge play" known as ''The Courier's Tragedy''. The song's title also keeps up a recurring sequence of allusions to Saint Narcissus, a 3rd-century bishop of Jerusalem. Late in the novel, Oedipa's husband, Mucho Maas, a disc jockey at Kinneret radio station KCUF, describes his experience of discovering the Beatles. Mucho refers to their early song " She Loves You", as well as hinting at the areas the Beatles were later to explore. Pynchon writes,
Whenever I put the headset on now," he'd continued, "I really do understand what I find there. When those kids sing about 'She loves you,' yeah well, you know, she does, she's any number of people, all over the world, back through time, different colors, sizes, ages, shapes, distances from death, but she loves. And the 'you' is everybody. And herself. Oedipa, the human voice, you know, it's a flipping miracle." His eyes brimming, reflecting the color of beer. "Baby," she said, helpless, knowing of nothing she could do for this, and afraid for him. He put a little clear plastic bottle on the table between them. She stared at the pills in it, and then understood. "That's LSD?" she said.


Vladimir Nabokov

Pynchon, like Kurt Vonnegut, was a student at
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teac ...
, where he probably at least audited Vladimir Nabokov's Literature 312 class. (Nabokov had no recollection of him, but Nabokov's wife Véra recalls grading Pynchon's examination papers, thanks only to his handwriting, "half printing, half script".)Appel, Alfred Jr. Interview, published in ''Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature'' 8, No. 2 (spring 1967). Reprinted in ''Strong Opinions'' (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973). The year before Pynchon graduated, Nabokov's novel '' Lolita'' was published in the United States. ''Lolita'' introduced the word "nymphet" to describe a girl between the ages of nine and fourteen, sexually attractive to the hebephilic main character, Humbert Humbert and it was also used in the novel's adaptation to cinema in 1962 by
Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...
. In the following years, mainstream usage altered the word's meaning to apply to older girls. Perhaps appropriately, Pynchon provides an early example of the modern "nymphet" usage entering the literary canon. Serge, The Paranoids' teenage counter-tenor, loses his girlfriend to a middle-aged lawyer. At one point he expresses his
angst Angst is fear or anxiety (''anguish'' is its Latinate equivalent, and the words ''anxious'' and ''anxiety'' are of similar origin). The dictionary definition for angst is a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity. Etymology The word ...
in song: :What chance has a lonely surfer boy :For the love of a surfer chick, :With all these Humbert Humbert cats :Coming on so big and sick? :For me, my baby was a woman, :For him she's just another nymphet.


Remedios Varo

Near the beginning of ''The Crying of Lot 49'', Oedipa recalls a trip to an art museum in Mexico with Inverarity, during which she encountered a painting, ''Bordando el Manto Terrestre'' ("Embroidering the Earth’s Mantle") by
Remedios Varo María de los Remedios Alicia Rodriga Varo y Uranga (16 December 1908 – 8 October 1963) was a Spanish-born Mexican surrealist artist working in Spain, France, and Mexico. Early life Remedios Varo Uranga was born in Anglès, is a small town ...
. The 1961 painting shows eight women inside a tower, where they are presumably held captive. Six maidens are weaving a tapestry that flows out of the windows and seems to constitute the world outside of the tower. Oedipa's reaction to the tapestry gives us some insight into her difficulty in determining what is real and what is a fiction created by Inverarity for her benefit:
She had looked down at her feet and known, then, because of a painting, that what she stood on had only been woven together a couple thousand miles away in her own tower, was only by accident known as Mexico, and so Pierce had taken her away from nothing, there'd been no escape.


''The Courier's Tragedy''

Pynchon devotes a significant part of the book to a play-within-a-book, a detailed description of a performance of an imaginary Jacobean revenge play, involving intrigues between Thurn und Taxis and Trystero. Like "The Mousetrap", based on "The Murder of Gonzago" that William Shakespeare placed within '' Hamlet,'' the events and atmosphere of ''The Courier's Tragedy'' (by the fictional Richard Wharfinger) mirror those transpiring around them. In many aspects it resembles a typical revenge play, such as '' The Spanish Tragedy'' by
Thomas Kyd Thomas Kyd (baptised 6 November 1558; buried 15 August 1594) was an English playwright, the author of '' The Spanish Tragedy'', and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama. Although well known in his own time, ...
, '' Hamlet'' by Shakespeare and plays by
John Webster John Webster (c. 1580 – c. 1632) was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies ''The White Devil'' and ''The Duchess of Malfi'', which are often seen as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. His life and care ...
and
Cyril Tourneur Cyril Tourneur (; died 28 February 1626) was an English soldier, diplomat and dramatist who wrote ''The Atheist's Tragedy'' (published 1611); another (and better-known) play, ''The Revenger's Tragedy'' (1607), formerly ascribed to him, is now mor ...
.


In popular culture

* The song "Looking for Lot 49" by
The Jazz Butcher The Jazz Butcher was the alias of British singer/songwriter Pat Fish (Patrick Huntrods). It also served as the name of the band, though adjuncts were frequently used to distinguish between Fish’s persona and band itself (The Jazz Butcher Cons ...
alludes to the novel in its title and theme of postal services. * Radiohead alludes to the novel in the name of their online merchandise shop and mailing list, W.A.S.T.E. * The song "The Crying of Lot G" by
Yo La Tengo Yo La Tengo (YLT; Spanish for "I have her") is an American indie rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1984. Since 1992, the lineup has consisted of Ira Kaplan (guitars, piano, vocals), Georgia Hubley (drums, piano, vocals), and James Mc ...
is an allusion to the novel. *The song "Radio Zero" by The Poster Children mentions "Radio KCUF" in the lyrics. They also used W.A.S.T.E. and the post-horn on their first cassette. * In the William Gibson novel ''
Count Zero ''Count Zero'' is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, originally published in 1986. It is the second volume of the Sprawl trilogy, which begins with ''Neuromancer'' and concludes with ''Mona Lisa Overdrive'', and i ...
'' (1986), the multinational corporation Maas Neotek is named in honor of Oedipa Maas. * The sample configuration file for
GNU GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...
's Wget uses proxy.yoyodyne.com as a placeholder for the proxy setting. * ''The Phone Company'' (tpc.int), established by Carl Malamud and Marshall Rose in 1991, used the post horn of the Trystero guild as its logo. * A Google
smartphone app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on des ...
for the third annual
Treefort Music Fest The Treefort Music Fest is a five-day, indie rock festival which is held at numerous venues throughout downtown Boise, Idaho in late March. The inaugural 2012 festival took place March 20–23 with the featured acts Built to Spill, The Joy ...
(a QR Code scanner in the guise of a nominal
secret decoder ring A secret decoder ring (or secret decoder) is a device that allows one to decode a simple substitution cipher—or to encrypt a message by working in the opposite direction. As inexpensive toys, secret decoders have often been used as promotional ...
) prominently features the Trystero muted horn. *The title of the 2018 AMC-TV series ''
Lodge 49 ''Lodge 49'' is an American comedy-drama television series created by Jim Gavin. It aired on the cable television network AMC in the United States from August 6, 2018, to October 14, 2019, spanning two seasons and 20 episodes. The title alludes ...
'' alludes to the novel. *The installation called the San Jose Semaphore, on top of the
Adobe World Headquarters The Adobe World Headquarters is the corporate headquarters of Adobe Systems, located in San Jose, California. Towers The complex consists of three towers: West, East and Almaden. The 18-story, West Tower, first built in 1996, was the sixth tall ...
in San Jose, contained a riddle between 2006 and 2007 which, when solved, resulted in the text of the novel. * The anime film '' Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space'' (2002) bases part of its plot about a religious cult becoming a mail-order monopoly and intergalactic power on the novel's Tristero. * In the movie '' The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension'' (1984), Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems is the name of a supposed defense contractor that is, in reality, a front for a group of red Lectroid aliens, all of whom are named John. * In
The O.C. ''The O.C. '' is an American teen drama television series created by Josh Schwartz that originally aired on the Fox network in the United States from August 5, 2003, to February 22, 2007, running a total of four seasons. "O.C." is an initialis ...
episode "The L.A.", Paris Hilton reveals she's working on a thesis on Pynchon. Another character responds saying he's only read "The Crying of Lot 49." * In sixth book 'The Ersatz Elevator' of ''The Series of Unfortunate Events,'' Lot 49 of the auction featured a collection of rare stamps, referencing Pynchon's novel.


Publication history

* (excerpt) * Pynchon, Thomas R. ''The Crying of Lot 49''. J. B. Lippincott. Philadelphia. 1966. 1st edition. OCLC 916132946 * Pynchon, Thomas R. ''The Crying of Lot 49''. Harper and Row, 1986, reissued 2006. : Perennial Fiction Library edition.


References


External links


''Crying of Lot 49'' Wiki @ PynchonWiki.com

''Crying of Lot 49'' episodes at the Pynchon in Public Podcast

Cover Art for All Editions of ''The Crying of Lot 49'' @ ThomasPynchon.com


* Pynchon's article about the 1965 Watts riots.
''The Crying of Lot 49'' Pynchon Wiki


{{DEFAULTSORT:Crying Of Lot 49, The 1966 American novels American science fiction novels Novels about consumerism Novels by Thomas Pynchon Secret histories Metafictional novels American novellas J. B. Lippincott & Co. books Novels about secret societies Postmodern novels Thurn und Taxis