John Petrolino 2008-11-04

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

A great cross-section of society, where a middleclass suburban woman's psyche is cleaved into multiple parts and has to deal with more than what the world is outside of her expertise. Written with a Carrollian whit and humor, "Lot" exposes the idiosyncratic. No matter what interpretation one chooses, "Lot" is a hysterical journey, surrounded by the absurd and possibly one of the biggest jokes played on the literary public, where red herrings bound from page to page and reality is weaved by those who are shut out from society.
~John J. Petrolino III: November 5, 2008
Author of Galleria: A collection of poetry and the short story "Three Lonesome Travelers"

Jonathan Byrd 2008-10-31

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

God knows Pynchon isn't for everyone. However, if you are thinking of taking on the adventure his work can be, I highly recomend starting with The Crying of Lot 49. In this novel, you are going to find all of his major themes (some being paranoia, difficult even obscure scientific references, and long twisted digressions). Why start here? This novel is his shortest at just over 200 pages while most of his novels run 700 or more pages. Of his six works to date, this is the most accessible to new comers. This novel allows one to become familiar with his wit, writing style, and. . .well. . .his Pynchon-ness.

Enjoy!

The Czar of Arkansas 2008-10-07

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

The Crying of Lot 49 must have seemed incredibly witty when it first appeared in the mid-60's. This satire, which follows the twists and turns of Oedipa Maas' adventures in being the executor of a dead friend's will is a satire on Southern California culture in the mid-60's.

The back of this book compared it to Joyce's Ulysses; while I won't doom Lot 49 with such unfortunate company, it, like Ulysses, is probably more admired by critics than actually enjoyed by readers. The prose is intentionally dense, and the characters and events, which are set just before the rise of the hippie culture in the late 60s, seem almost quaint in comparison to what the 1960s are remembered for fourty years later.

While the first 30 pages are easily the toughest to get through, the story starts to move along after that following an intereting, if not particularly compelling, conspiracy angle. To Pynchon's credit, I didn't feel that the book was artificially lengthened in order to give the story heft--at 150 pages, Lot 49 is surprisingly brief for a critical darling.

Lot 49 reads like a poor-man's Joseph Heller, and it hasn't aged well. But, underneath it all you can pick up some interesting commentary about California just before flower power.

J. Pruitt 2008-09-08

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

I have this problem that once I commit to reading a book I can't put it down because I think that if I keep reading, maybe, eventually something worth reading will come up in the later pages.

This is why I dislike The Crying of Lot 49. The author goes on and on like a crazy hobo in an unending stream of conscious.

This book could easily be a short story. It's not subtle at all where the author spends pages and pages over using metaphors and similes, going on tangents and generally trying desperately to fill out what never should have been an entire book in the first place.

It took me weeks to finish this short read that should have taken only a few hours because I kept putting it down and eying it like a disenchanted child staring down a plate of vegetables.

D. M. Becker 2008-07-17

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

You know those really-need-to-give-medication-a-try types who constantly scribble in notebooks using tiny, densely packed letters and nodding knowingly at things that barely penetrate your attention? This is the kind of novel they'd write if they had somehow acquired an English degree with a specialization in Elizabethan England.

I found it not that difficult, at times amusing and a useful tool for understanding the last three decades of post-ironic, post-modern, post-clarity "serious" literature. But I was quite glad it was no longer than it was.