The Crying of Lot 49

Holding a distinguished place in my personal graveyard of great books I've started but never finished is Thomas Pynchon's opus, Gravity's Rainbow. Since I can't hang with Pat's 48-Hardy-Boys-and-then-Infinite Jest strategy for this year, I couldn't see trying to tackle the big Pynchon's again, but wanted to explore the author that is namechecked by so many authors and friends I respect. And so we land on the much easier to manage Crying of Lot 49.

Pynchon is as wonderful as advertised, absurd and inventive and laugh out loud funny. The book is strewn with references, in-jokes, original songs, and even a Jacobean play (which was especially delightful for me, as Pynchon nails the form while mocking it perfectly). The book follows one Oedipa Maas (husband: Mucho--one thing Pynchon is widely known and loved/mocked for is his ability to come up with outlandish character names, the aforementioned two plus out standouts from this book including but not limited to Dr. Hilarius, Mike Fallopian, and Genghis Cohen. Seriously, those are actual characters' actual names) who is named executor of late her ex-lover/multi-millionaire's will, and is drawn into a seemingly never ending and widespread conspiracy dating back to the 1500's. The plot is important but not paramount to the book (the other discursions being as much fun or more so) but to give it away would be to ruin at least some of the power of the book, so I'll leave it at saying that the book draws heavily into question truth and reality and how one judge's their own. The only thing lacking was the book (and this may be in part because of my expectation of the epic from Pynchon) constantly felt like it was about to tip into something much larger and sprawling, and yet clocked in at a slim and perhaps underexplored 152 pages. But for any lover of the absurd, this is definitely worth the read. I hope there is more Pynchon in my future.