The Crying of Lot 49

i picked up gravity's rainbow again yesterday and i've gotten about 40 pages in. better than i've ever managed before.

i could almost say open to an arbitrary page and you've found my favorite part, it's so consistent. i'm especially partial to scenes with the Paranoids, like when they steal the boat and try to explain the play but get confused like the marijuana smoke. Dr Hilarius' breakdown is super, too. and "Mucho, baby"

i am fond of lot 49 but i wonder if i'm not a little less pleased by it than i might otherwise be because of the way its compactness makes its inventiveness, imaginativeness, seem more contrived, more rigged. too many wonderful or astounding or etc. things too close together, not as grounded in ahem i can't believe i'm writing this 'a realistic situation' as the comparable details in gr. but, on the other hand, that could just be part of its being more like a parable, a fable, or some such.

"in contrast"? simply not true.

cl49 is too dense for me, honestly.

An importantlooking element that I don't really understand, or haven't yet, but is perhaps relevant, is the business about being a princess in a tower, with reference to paintings by one Remedios Varo (p.13) - whose existence or otherwise I have yet to verify. I think this section has always come too early in the book for me, before what I thought was the meat of it showed up; and perhaps it has always been too enigmatic for me. But perhaps it is central after all.

I also have a problem with the compactness of CoL49, though not so much that it feels rigged either. GR seems just as rigged to me. I think the problem is that the book feels too insubstantial to support the weight of mystery that it is being asked to bear. The prodigious length of GR adds to the sense of depth, multiple layers, occult meaning, misdirection, mystery and esoteric knowledge. Pretty much any mystical text worth its salt is going to be enormously long (think of the Kabbalah, or Beelzebub's Tales). The length is part of the experience - for the very reason that it places extraordinary demands on its would-be readers. It should take stamina for the initiate to penetrate the mysteries. A novella version just doesn't take up enough weight on the shelf.

http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/ciberletras/v08/images/Bordando.jpg.

I'm also a fan of this picture: 'Woman leaving the psychoanalyst':

http://harve9.tripod.com/3df2adf0.jpg

I remember being prepared to find it shallow when I read it and finding it shallow, then rereading it and finding it not-shallow and being thus understandably wary of previous reactions.

this is not to say you would profit from checking this out, the pinefox. i have not yet found the book to be especially understandable or illuminating.

(i thought to note this because until coming across the discussion of varo there, pynchon's mention of varo was one of those which i had apparently always passed over with no recognition; i found that especially interesting since i usually have the sense of at the very least recognizing most of pynchon's overt references.)

Check out e.g. Chapter Three, end of paragraph two:

"...if she hand't been set up or sensitized, first by her peculiar seduction, then by the other, almost offhand things, what after all could the mute stamps have told her...?"

At this point "mute" can only mean "silent," but on a second read...

http://www.banderasnews.com/0509/art-varo.htm

JtN's post is amazing!

I wonder whether Woody Guthrie (Bound For Glory? which I have, of course, not yet read) is a source or inspiration for the late vision of hobos and disinherited dwellers in disused railway cars. In fact, I wonder if he is to that as Kerouac is to the San Francisco night scene.

Maybe not.

'math'!

"it takes some larnin to rilly appreciate the jacobin revenge drama"

i'd like to know what you mean by this!

pynchon said he hated lot 49 nyah!? i don't know jack shit about entropy but some of the ideas & passages within are really beautiful, fully realized & mathematically sound or not. totally abstract characters can be a pain, tho.

You say this as though it's a bad thing. I'm not so sure, esp. wrt the novella.

vineland is desparately underrated, but I'm stumped by your impression that it's "almost pure character." I suspect I'm tripping on a terminology issue here.

CL49 is probably the book I have recommended to most people. I can't see how anyone could find nothing or little there, anyone.

i don't see how vineland is pure shtick at all. there are lots of set pieces, sure, but it is totally sentimental at heart. like truly adorable. the shticks are all so loveable too.

I don't know what 'Tweedy man's Dick' means.

I don't think TP is like Less Than Zero. I think he is very different!

I don't think that one needs to have read a load of C17 drama to be delighted by The Courier's Tragedy. I think that in such instances , one somewhat constructs the context from the text - a process which is probably fundamental and pervasive but little remarked upon (but which should not be an excuse for bad and obscure writing; it just strikes me that in this case you create your sense of C17 drama on the basis of TP's parody, as much as the reverse; and I think the result is terrific).

"tweedy man's Dick" = I like imaginative fiction but Pynchon baffles and intimidates me

Far from schtick gone wild, Vineland is an angry, mordant, and prescient assessment of the Love Generation's death drive. If often hilarious.

Mason and Dixon is a virtuoso piece, but also plotless and the last thing I would choose to change anyone's mind about Pynchon.

Should we revive a Pynchon thread for this side stuff and return to Lot 49?

We should really get to 49 posts.

my professor was making a big deal of talking about signifiers & such during the class, and i kept rolling my eyes. weirdly lots in 49 seems like pomo-critic-bait: driblette's whine "why is everyone so interested in texts?" makes me stop and larf, altho i'm kinda fuzzy as to whether 'texts' had its sense of academic double-meaning in '64, for '49. the book josh mentions - 'lines of flight' - make a lot of the breaking of the frame in the varo triptich, which is kinda interesting. i dunno what the hell to do with this book: reading it as 'exemplary postmodernism' or whatever is a boring dead end, but reading it as a secret-depths-behind-apple-pie-america is just sad. both of these make one hell of a period piece out of it.

(the only way to break the frame of the novel i can see is with its links on either side, to V. and to GR, and maybe from there to something of actual real-world use)

(of course actually reading it, rather than trying to, i guess, take something from it, it somewhat great.)

the ending of chapter two is the section i am most curious about, for some reason.

enjoyment is a benefit, isn't it? i don't mean that in the trivial sense either.

you may be right. (i'm not sure my distrust of this book isn't a dislike of a couple general things external to this book, which conflicts with my ability to enjoy the book qua book) (not that this isn't the kind of process involved in interfacing with any kinda entertainartment ever, obviously)

i do like that lines of flight book, despite not being able to follow any of the delueze/guattari* stuff: particularly the fact that it tries to follow "counterculture politics" as a theme through GR is something i am glad of. however i have had to return it to the library after little more than a couple glances at it. oh, hey, d'you have the pynchon notes back issues link to hand?

*how do you pronounce these people, by the way? i have been wondering since more or less forever

i have a search function, you know

the prof in my last English class brought up "Oedipa my ass," for what that's worth.

who would NOT notice?

or is it wrong of me to assume that everyone was once an adolescent?

How can I learn to appreciate "The Crying of Lot 49"?

get a copy and read it?

I've read it once, it went over my head.

Wait awhile, then read it again. Read it slowly, read it quickly, read it while waiting in a lawyer's lobby, read it only at stoplights when you are stopped. Wait awhile between each read. Read about it, the opinions of people you admire and people you despise. Tear out an obscure page and saute it in butter. Tear it into pieces with forks, then chew each piece carefully, savoring. Read it without thinking; read it aloud where you can't be heard. Read it while falling asleep and tell yourself to dream its significance. Wake in the night and feel the print on the pages, make out the letters, spell out the words. Copy it out in longhand while listening to the haunting call of the muted posthorn.

and then start finding "W.A.S.T.E." stamped in weird places.

"I've read it once, it went over my head."

you are not alone.

i think i would have read it once and been like "i don't get it", but i had to write an essay on it, which made me read it several times. it definitely gets better on multiple readings. also, reading it as a kind of analagy:

The USPS would appear to represent one particular and dominant construction or idea of America, while the W.A.S.T.E. system represents an alternative and subversive representation - a representation of the “excluded middles”. In this story, we can characterise the USPS as a centralised agency, with a streamlined and efficient system of collection and dissemination of information. In opposition, the W.A.S.T.E. service is chaotic, disordered, mysterious, largely unknowable, decentred and without an obvious agency in control. But what the reader comes to realise is that the two systems are in co-existence; neither one of them offers a singular truth, or an overriding master narrative, to describe America. In fact, the two systems represent just how the internet functions: the USPS can be seen as a metaphor for the speed and ease in which global telecommunications technology organises and transmits information, while W.A.S.T.E. symbolises the way in which the reception of that information can be subverted by the receiver. The USPS represents public life, while private life can be seen in the symbol of W.A.S.T.E. The participants of the W.A.S.T.E. system are the “excluded middles” that Decker refers to, and by subverting the USPS system they keep it in check.

One good way to appreciate it is to read some of his other books- then you will appreciate how short it is.

the book crying of lot 49

Funnily enough I don't agree that KVUF is an obvious, um, whatever, rearrangement, of, that other word. I was not really an adolescent as Josh was.

Eddie Mars, I should start writing under that name.

I meant, KCUF, but then, potsmaster, and there is a moment in the text where Oedipa is spelled Oepida.

My port of entry was through the story of Lot's wife in Genesis - Oedipa is literally "Mucho" (Lot)'s wife. (He describes himself somewhere as parental to his girl listeners.) And P didn't stop there, he deliberately forced in every meaning of the word "lot": auction lot, car lot, lot meaning fate.

Maybe because I grew up in California, the social and landscape descriptions didn't give me much.

the entire sequence with Oedipa wandering around Berkeley is one of my favorite things ever written. especially when read at night, in solitude, in cities. it's like a 21st-century walpurgisnacht.

Bless you. Here, I think I have a tissue somewhere.

You mean San Francisco, right? The Berkeley sequence is somewhat different, though also excellent.

On SF, though, I entirely agree - those 6pp or so are magically lyrical and I think they offer a rare kind of insight into ... culture.

er, I forget. doesn't she start out in Berkeley? or take the bus there at some point? maybe that's Oakland. I can't remember. I don't know California. I've been to San Francisco once. it wasn't as good as Oedipa's trip there.

Fab wide-eyed past-tense plot summary:
http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/crying/section6.html

Driving without purpose, Oedipa realized that she was heading toward San Francisco in rush hour. Strangely, the hectic rush calmed her. She told herself that she would go with the flow in San Francisco, looking for nothing, and hopefully escape from the maze in which she was entangled.

However, within an hour, Oedipa saw a muted post horn. Walking along the streets, Arnold Snarb, a tourist, had pinned his ID badge on Oedipa. She was suddenly among a group of tourists who moved into a gay bar, The Greek Way. Oedipa was pushed in and given a drink. The man she stood next to had on a different badge, one with the muted post horn symbol. Oedipa tried mentioning that she was from Thurn and Taxis but the man did not understand. She directly asked about his pin but he told her nothing until Oedipa admitted that she needed help. She told him everything she knew. He had heard only of Kirby, the code name from the Scope's bathroom wall. He told Oedipa that his pin meant he was a member of Inamorati Anonymous, an organization for isolated individuals against love. The symbol originated with a fired member of Yoyodyne who had wanted to kill himself but could not decide to do it for weeks. He received a stack of letters from others who wanted to commit suicide but never did in response to an ad he placed. All contained the muted horn on the stamp. The man realized this in an attempt to douse himself with gas and burn to death. At that time, he recognized that love was his weakness and that he would start an organization for others who wished to isolate themselves from it. The horn became the sign.

After the helpful man left, Oedipa felt drunk and alone. The rest of the night, she wandered the streets of San Francisco, locating the Tristero symbol everywhere. She saw it in chalk on the street, like part of a children's game, and on a Chinese herbalist's window. She felt that she was meant to see and remember every sign. She was safe. In Golden Gate Park, she saw a circle of children who knew of the chalk game. Oedipa wandered into a Mexican diner and found Jesús Arrabal, an anarchist she and Pierce had met in Mazatlán. Jesús had been amazed by Pierce's total oligarchism. Lying near him was an old anarchist paper with an handstruck image of the post horn. Jesús could tell her nothing about it. On a bus, Oedipa noticed a scratched image of the post horn on the back of a seat with "DEATH" penciled near it, standing for "Don't ever antagonize the horn." She found the symbol in a laundromat and she heard a mother at the airport asking her son to write by WASTE. Each sign beat her up more than the last. She would later wonder how many times she had dreamt the horn. It seemed that every underground used WASTE to subvert the government.

just finished it. decent warm-up lap for what was to come. has several inspired passages (the suicide-gasoline-inamorati story, the movie/seduction/stripping-game scene and of course The Courier's Tragedy are stunning set-pieces, among others) and reads very smoothly. held my interest.

whoever says it's his best book is either a certified nutjob or intensely lazy, or at least needs to give me a seriously goddamn impressive explanation

its his best book that i've finished, tho ive read the first six pages of gravity's rainbow about 40 times

gravity's rainbow is the guru granth sahib of my own personal religion and yes it's hard to get beyond the first 10 pages, took me about 5 years - this is the challenge of it

against the day is also much better than TCOL49 (hell, just the chapter where cyprian becomes a bride of the night is better than TCOL49), as is what I've read of mason & dixon

pynchon is still obviously the greatest

no tolkien, wash out your mouth

anyway im more than happy that i've read the two big flann o'brien novels so far this summer after years on the shelf

i might reread this

fuck me, i don't have a copy of this. how is that even possible

set undergrad text, they're cheap to re-get

i think i got rid of my first copy because i decided i liked the new cover but then i got rid of my new copy because i decided i didn't after all

thats the way to judge a book eh

hardcore pynchonites' contempt for this book is kinda hilarious

i like it because of the swinging '60s vibe and because i kinda relate to oedipa. surely everyone will at least concede it's better than 'v' (which i find completely unreadable), right?

No arguments from me, although the truth be told I didn't like crying that much either but it was at least shorter. There was a thread recently about not liking or not finishing books and I resisted the temptation to post about how I stopped reading V with about about five pages left. Reason I stopped was because I figured he wasn't going to explain anything anyway- please don't tell me otherwise-reason I didn't post was because it sort of felt like humblebragging, but I have no such scruple today. Still like that other crying thread.

V has its moments and is obviously a harbinger of greater things to come but I don't think back on reading it with much fondness.

Lot 49 is a great novel and I get the feeling people underrate it because its short and relatively zippy, but there's a hell lot going on in there and it feels particularly relevant right now. I would rate it above AtD and on a par with GR (which is unstoppable for its first half but sags in the second half).

Think ppl underrate Crying in part because Pynchon himself dismisses it in the introduction to Slow Learner

i've only laid out a lazy position above in response to lj, so i should state that reading crying in one feverish night sitting was one of the most intense and visceral trips of my life, it is imo a great work regardless of before, after or comparisons

I *do* think that TCOL49 would make a HELL of a movie, possibly by Linklater in his rotoscoped A Scanner Darkly mould

also, Gravity's Rainbow sags in its second half? dios mio

FWIW I think all the big Pynchons have a bit of a dip around 3/4 of the way in and then recover at the end, although none as pronounced as AtD. The section with all the rich kids shagging their way round the Balkans is eminently forgettable.

that's...the best bit*

*the best bit not involving the Chums obv, or the murder of the Italian anarchist, which is one of the best bits in Pynchon (of the 3 1/2 I've read)

AtD only loses me at all with the weird detective potboiler near the end, and even that's kinda fitting as way of uh disappearing Deuce. The Frank Traverse plotline kept threatening to lose me and then kept winning me around, especially him seeing that statue through the window (again, one of the best bits in Pynchon)

lol that post 'it's the best bit except this and this and this'

their climactic journey into the East is really amazing IMO

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/world/europe/princess-gloria-von-thurn-und-taxis-francis.html

Princess Gloria — once christened “Princess TNT” for her explosive years as a hard partying, art-collecting, punk-haired aristocrat — has grown into the sun queen around which many traditionalist Roman Catholics opposed to Pope Francis orbit. Her Regensburg castle is a potential “Gladiator School” for conservative Catholics on a crusade to preserve church traditions.

Her Roman palace overlooking the ancient forum is a preferred salon for opposition cardinals, bitter bishops and populists like Stephen K. Bannon. Many of them are hoping to use the sex abuse crisis that amounts to the greatest existential threat to the church in centuries to topple the 81-year-old pontiff, who they are convinced is destroying the faith.