Sean

The Idle Book Club 6: The Crying of Lot 49

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Great cast guys. I think it bears repeating that Illuminatus is the closest parallel to this book that I've read, although it has probably less meaningful aspirations. It's from pretty much the same period and handles a lot of the same subject matter.

Also potentially interesting: there's a pretty good boardgame based on Thurn & Taxis

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Just listened to the podcast. Briefly, re: the treatment of conspiracy in literary (and more often, "postmodern") fiction is that it is often something of a "meta" move. If one thinks of a conspiracy, one typically thinks of a conspiracy plot. In the converse to the way that things in the real world frequently do happen just by coincidence or for no particular reason at all, all the events that are described in a novel typically (exceptions, of course, for experimental things written by partially aleatoric processes etc.) are arranged and are only there by design.

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Just shamelessly coping and pasting from my Goodreads review to save coming up with another clumsy simile.

Reading Thomas Pynchon, it turns out, is like trying to listen to a very quick-witted, attention-demanding story narrated out of the window of a speeding car. You, the reader, have the exhausting job of keeping pace. Read too slowly, and vital words will be lost to the wind. Too quickly, and you'll find yourself overtaking the text without absorbing any of it. At which point you'll have to politely ask the Pynchonmobile to stop, reverse back, and wait as you take another running start.

This can be frustrating, at times even a chore, but the further in you get, the more it comes across as wholly and playfully intentional. The main character of Oedipa Maas is in over her head, alienated, exiled from the world, reading too much into some clues and skimming over others. You're not sure if a passage is real, a figure of speech or a figment of insanity. This is fine. Neither is she.

Somewhere in the back end, as all the bewildering tangents and non-sequiturs take something resembling a vague shape, Pynchon finally reaches out of that car, violently grabs your arm and refuses to let go. Finally, the reader, author and protagonist are in perfect, beautiful synchronisation, hurtling irrevocably towards what appears to be the edge of a very large cliff. And then, just as you, Pynchon and Oedipa take that penultimate step, about to reach a climax that cannot possibly end well, it's over. 149 pages in, and not a moment too soon. You've been jolted out of a fever dream, and the rest is up to your imagination.

Sometimes funny, sometimes gutting, sometimes outright infuriating, but ultimately worth it. Mr. Pynchon, it's nice to finally meet you.

I particularly loved this episode of the 'cast (which, it bears repeating, is honestly my favourite part of the Thumbs revival). It was a bit of a relief to find so many of my own weird thoughts, struggles and favourite passages turn out to be the norm. And, as Sean "Bestseller" Vanaman said, this show can make you retroactively enjoy a book that little bit more.

Alongside Foucault's Pendulum, I got a weird (probably less justified) Catch-22 vibe from a lot of the character interactions. The broader conspiracy felt like the "game" from Foucalt's Pendulum viewed from the other side, with no insight into its creation. The characters, likewise, feel like products of Joseph Heller's world, stripped of that satirical context you need to make sense of it all.

More tangibly, Oedipa's walk through San Francisco left me with almost exactly the same feeling as Yossarian's walk through Rome. Relentlessly bleak, but so well written you can't help but be uplifted by the delivery and payoff.

If Pynchon's shortest, most accessible book is this much of a struggle, I can't say I'm all-caps PSYCHED just yet to take on Gravity's Rainbow. However - to steal a very important, eye-opening word from the podcast - Pynchon has won my trust. I feel like a major mental block has been removed, now I've seen for myself he knows exactly what he's doing.

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Gravity's Rainbow is incredible. It is more difficult than '49, but the imagery and wit throughout the book is undeniable fantastic. '49 helps you understand Pynchon- follow his rhythms, understand his inferences - so it is helpful to read that first.

 

Also, big parts of the book are about boners and that's the kind of literature I want to associate with.

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If Pynchon's shortest, most accessible book is this much of a struggle, I can't say I'm all-caps PSYCHED just yet to take on Gravity's Rainbow. However - to steal a very important, eye-opening word from the podcast - Pynchon has won my trust. I feel like a major mental block has been removed, now I've seen for myself he knows exactly what he's doing.

 

I'd say Inherent Vice is more accessible than The Crying of Lot 49. On the basic level, the plot is quite traditional and easy to follow. Pynchon's strange, masterful writing is definitely still there, though. It might be "Pynchon Lite" but I still enjoyed it immensely.

 

Oh, and Paul Thomas Anderson is directing the movie adaptation of Inherent Vice, with Joaquin Phoenix (and, thankfully, not Robert Downey Jr.)  in the lead.

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It's a great relief to hear there's more on this, ah ha ha, "easy" level. Thank you.

This experience - as well as reading Greg Brown's review of Gravity's Rainbow - has had an interesting and happy side effect: Infinite Jest is suddenly a much less daunting prospect. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted, actually.

I have to admit I knew nothing about Pynchon before this book club episode, and in fact assumed he was a long-dead writer. Learning Lot 49 was the product of a young man somehow made this book less elusive, and I can't quite put my finger on why.

It's been fun to read up on the man's history (or lack thereof) and his endearing aversion to being photographed (which at times feels less like a neurosis and more like a running gag he's willing to push as far as the press will let it slide). And I love that, of all places, he chose to reveal his voice to the public in latter-day Simpsons,

Hearing the man speak, I can now imagine his characters as even more frantic and energetic than they come across on the page.

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Thanks for linking that review, it reminded me to add Greg as a friend. I find it very funny that you are also now feeling "up to" Infinite Jest - I've also just started it, after loving Lot 49 and quitting halfway through Gravity's Rainbow.

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I had trouble reading this, it just never gripped me. I think part of it was I was preoccupied with other things, and then part because I was already familiar with so many of the themes in the book (it's referenced so much in real life) that I wasn't surprised by any of the developments.

Another thing is that I had already read (most of) the Illuminatus! trilogy, which isn't entirely similar (and Robert Anton Wilson is deservedly not as renowned an author as Pynchon), but it deals with so many of the themes of conspiracy, uncertain information, and general lunacy, and it's so much denser and more fun, so Lot 49 just felt short and dull in comparison. I'm a terrible person probably for enjoying Illluminatus! Over Lot 49, but that's how it was.

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I'm a counterexample to the theory that loving Illuminatus! (and conspiracy theory stuff in general) makes you not enjoy Lot 49.

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I dunno if Illuminatus! made me not like Crying of Lot 49, but I couldn't help comparing my experience between the two. I think the comparison just exacerbated it because for whatever reason I just didn't enjoy reading lot 49.

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I really enjoyed this book, even though like others I found it a bit of a hard read. I had to force myself several times to go through a description or sentence multiple times, to make sure that I understood it, and especially early on I would be puzzling over a sentence for a minute or two before realising where the threads joined up.

But all the way through, the tone, quality of writing and storytelling held me tightly. A few dozen pages in I was curious as to when it was written, and it actually blew my mind to find out that it was written in the mid sixties - I'd thought that it was far more contemporary than that. I'd just read The Great Gatsby, which very much feels, from a thematic and moral sense, a product of its time, whereas Oedipas' story felt intensely modern, and it's crazy to me that Gatsby is only two Cryings worth of years away.

There are clues to the fact that it isn't, of course, but a lot of these probably flew over my head due to how little I know about the zeitgeist of the sixties (and the locations the novel is set in). Is San Narciso a real place?

Speaking of which, I love how you guys were talking about conspiracy, and how the fundamental flaw of conspiracy is that it requires all of these external forces to be incredibly focused on the information that you are receiving - in essence, the conspiracy must orbit around you. You could say that believing in conspiracies is then fundamentally, shall we say, narcissistic? Ha ha!

I also knew very little about Thurn and Taxis, and this really helped make the false history that he mixed in with the real all feel congruous. I'd never even thought about what happened before governmental postal services existed, and it's a completely fascinating area of interest - definitely something that I'm going to be researching further into.

Also potentially interesting: there's a pretty good boardgame based on Thurn & Taxis

Finally, I think it's indicative of how much I got into this book that the first thing I did when seeing the link to this board game was click through, open up the largest resolution image of the cover that they had, and searched it for signs of a WASTE symbol or the Tristero.

Damn you Pynchon.

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Wow, I'm glad I listened to the podcast after reading the book!
 

First, because I didn't pick up at all what Sean sensed was the core of the book - well I did realize that there were only male characters and all of them were unreliable but I never thought it could be a central piece to the book.

So that's super valuable :tup:

 

Second, because, while listening to the discussion about the portrayal of subculture, I came to the realization that maybe, the whole book is all the fate of sub-cultures. About how, in the real world, they get quietly integrated to the main culture and what would happen if, like in the book,  they fought to remain independant asTrystero did and become these lockness monsters of infinite irrevelancy: after all, Trystero existence isn't a game changer and their operation, though its history is fascinating, really isn't anything special: it's just secret courrier.

This is not a earth shattering conspiracy - it is no Solient Green or Illuminati reveal - and Oedipa could walk away from it very easily, even after unveiling everything. The fact that she doesn't is truly a puzzle to me.

 

What is monstrous about Trystero though, is the extent at which the members of this forever lasting sub-culture might be going (might because no one is really sure whether the conspiracy is real) to preserve this puny secret - and I'm not sure if the author is making a point through that.

 

Like everybody else, I had a lot of problem with a style at first but got used to it - but I don't think it's something on our part: I re-read the beginning and the style is way more affected than the rest of the book.

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I've been catching up on the Idle Book Club of late (FINALLY finished Telegraph Avenue, ordered Evidence of Things Unseen (still waiting on it), and finished The Great Gatsby and The Crying of Lot 49).

 

Dang I loved this book. It was super hard for me to read, especially in the beginning (if this is "easy", I fear the other Pynchon books you people talked about). But by the end, I loved it, and appreciated the meandering in the beginning all the more once I'd finished. DANG.

 

I'll just, uh, quote the "review" I wrote on my Goodreads account:

 

Man, what? This was a difficult book to read. The language used, the style of writing, made it very difficult. The first few pages were kind of a blur. So I read them over, and they were still a blur. Finally, I got it. That happened a few more times before I gave in and went with the flow, much to my chagrin.

 
Despite that hurdle, I found myself just as enthralled as dear Mrs. Maas in discovering what the hell is going on - including the exhaustion near the end: "Are you serious? This can't be real." So I kept reading, and reading, and reading. As Oedipa's discoveries surrounding this strange, underground, non-governmental postal service came to her faster and faster, I wanted to read more and more, until, before I knew it, the book was done. Two sittings, book OVER. I don't often finish books in two sittings, these days! It was engrossing. Despite Pynchon's apparent desire to make the language as thick and creamy as possible, I made it. I did it!
 
I'm just a little sad it took a while. Sort of. At the time, I was frustrated, but now, in the aftermath, I appreciate it all the more because it was so meandering in the beginning.
 
I think the first scene that really, truly grabbed me was the play. The Courier's Tragedy, was it? I flew through that play faster than, it feels like, everything I'd read up until then, because it was so strange, so bizarre. Why is the narrator spelling out the plot of an entire play? Weird. And that's where the postal service finally comes into focus. Kind of a slap in the face, like, what, weren't you paying attention?! Geez, I loved it.
 
Side note: Dr. Hilarius? Great name.
 
But anyway wow I think I'm a fan of Pynchon. I should read more of him!
 
I'm gonna go start By Blood, now. Although, I'm a little sad we're back to super long books. Part of the reason Telegraph Avenue took me so long is because it was so long. I did like the book when I was finished, but geez. ANYWAY.

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Pynchon is one of those writers that trains you to become a better reader. If you let it, everything clicks into place. It isn't like some other hard texts that are just hard and impenetrable. 

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I definitely think that's true, and I appreciate it. That's undoubtedly also at least a little part of why it became easier to read as I went along. Also, just because the actual Story Telling started moving faster and faster. But dang was it hard when I started. Especially coming off of The Great Gatsby (which I was happy to hear echoed in the podcast which I am just now listening to)!

 

Oh god I also loved the scene with Dr. Hilarius.

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I definitely think that's true, and I appreciate it. That's undoubtedly also at least a little part of why it became easier to read as I went along. Also, just because the actual Story Telling started moving faster and faster. But dang was it hard when I started. Especially coming off of The Great Gatsby (which I was happy to hear echoed in the podcast which I am just now listening to)!

 

Oh god I also loved the scene with Dr. Hilarius.

 

If you liked Crying of Lot 49 than you should check out Bleeding Edge; they're both roughly the same level of difficulty, plus, Bleeding Edge is all about Pynchon's take on the early 2000s tech and programming culture.

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Hmm! I will definitely do that. It'll be interesting to read his take on a culture I'm intimately familiar with.

Currently flying through By Blood, though. Geez, already a fifth of the way through... Huh. I started like right after my last post. Neat. That's fast for me!

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I can second that recommendation. I'm about 200 pages into Bleeding Edge, and so far it has been great. Much easier read than The Crying of Lot 49 as well, though I don't know to what extent that is just me improving as a reader. Same goes for Inherent Vice.

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I absolutely loved the podcast and it definitely gave me a better appreciation of other people's appreciation of the book. 

 

When I read the first two or three pages I was immediately captured by how clever some of his storytelling was, for example the bit already mentioned about 'Mucho' Maas's time as a car salesman sold me on reading further because you understand him to be a ridiculous and unlikable character not because it is explained as such (the story itself hints at him having a poetic soul) but because of Oedipa's reaction to his story and the way she seems to mock patronise him for being a dick.

 

Later that is justified by tales of his quasi-pedophilic infidelities, but in the moment it is entirely down to the reader to take Oedipa's side (or not). A weaker story would have immediately followed up that car lot story with his infidelities but instead Pynchon waits until later for the reader to have to potentially re-evaluate their feelings.

 

Unfortunately, my initial excitement for the novel waned and the whole thing outstayed its welcome with me. There were flashes of fun had at the end (the swastika salesman, Hilarius) but I was so bored that I just plowed through the overly long, overly wordy sentences and pretty much yawned my way to the final page.

 

I totally agree that it shares things in common with the illuminatus trilogy (a book I thought was fucking awful) but it never quite plumbs the depths of tedium that illuminatus did.

 

The book ends on a high note for me, if Pynchon had tried to wrap it all up and give a traditionally satisfying conclusion I would've chucked the book in the bin once done but I did like the final line (even if it is a little overwrought in some ways).

 

I also equate part of my lack of enjoyment of the book with my sobriety. I was pretty drunk when I first started reading the book and I had time in those sauced moments for the book's playfulness with words. I haven't had a drink in 10 days and that almost perfectly coincided with my lack of tolerance for the sentence structure and my constant tripping over the stupid names he gave all his characters. Even drunk, I was not able to internalise their silliness and calling them that was like putting a semi-colon in a part of the sentence; it had no place in being.

 

Not dreadful (I think people touched enough on Pynchon's handling of Oedipa so I won't go into my enjoyment of that), and I certainly enjoyed the discussion had around it but I am not sure I am going to bother with any more Pynchon until I am regularly drinking again.

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Pynchon is one of those writers that trains you to become a better reader. If you let it, everything clicks into place. It isn't like some other hard texts that are just hard and impenetrable. 

Oh my, yes.  I'm also having this experience now with Infinite Jest.  One of my first reading priorities when this is done (alongside reading a bunch of very short books) is to return to Pynchon and see if that resistance has softened.  It's a wonderful feeling, knowing your brain has been rewired for the better.

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