Essay: The Crying of Lot 49

I wrote this essay for class, I'll be posting another with more general thoughts about the book sometime later today or tomorrow:

The writer and the reader rely on each other. The reader requires a certain amount of clarity in order to understand the work. The more difficult a story, the more work required of the reader. Occasionally, a writer will present similar difficulties to characters within their story. Such is the case with Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. Mrs. Oedipa Maas, Pynchon’s main character, struggles through the quagmire of Peirce Inverarity’s estate. As she struggles through, she seemingly discovers a secret society in operation throughout the United States and possibly the world; the story revolves around her gradual exploration of this secret society. Oedipa and the reader must struggle through the confusion and complications created by Thomas Pynchon together.

The reader enters into the world of Crying of Lot 49 when Oedipa discovers she has been named executor of Peirce’s Will. Oedipa, surprised by this, ponders her history with Peirce, and recalls a late night phone call; she wonders “had Peirce called last year then to tell her about the codicil?” (3). Eventually, she recalls a painting by Remedios Varo in which “frail girls with heart shaped faces” attempt, hopelessly, to fill “a void” with a tapestry (11). In theory, the reader should make a connection between the void from this painting, and the emptiness Oedipa feels at the end of the novel; which she attempts to fill with The Tristero, a secret postal society. Similarly, Oedipa herself is forced to make several connections throughout the novel itself, the symbol of a muted post horn to the society for example.

Perhaps the most complex connection Pynchon requires of Oedipa is between “The Courier’s Tragedy” and the events within the novel itself. Some of the connections she makes are simple, such as the soldiers’ corpses in Peirce’s housing development and the Lost Guard’s corpses in the river; the bones of which are used in cigarette filter or to create ink. A specific line from “The Courier’s Tragedy”, “No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I Trow/Who’s once been set his tryst with Trystero”, ultimately leads Oedipa to the discovery of Tristero, be it imagined or real (124). She only hears this line when she actually witnesses the play; the written copy she finds has a different version in it. However, after a significant amount of searching, she finds the source of the original version, and hence discovers Tristero. The reader is led along this path in a similar manner, but instead of discovering the possible existence of a secret society the reader is required to develop other connections.

Throughout the story Pynchon requires nearly as much of the reader as he does of Oedipa. For example, the scene in San Francisco where the old sailor requests that Oedipa deliver a letter to his estranged wife develops the loneliness and nigh hopelessness of her quest. Ultimately, the greatest challenge presented by Pynchon, faced by both Oedipa and the reader simultaneously, is Tristero. The reader and Oedipa, by gradually discovering its existence, or nonexistence as the case may be, are faced with the question of what exactly it means. Pynchon creates this problem with the possibility of its nonexistence; Oedipa has either discovered the existence of Tristero or she “[is] fantasizing some such plot, in which case [she is] a nut, Oedipa, out of [her] mind” (141). Oedipa has the luxury of existing within the novel, and thus can discover who the bidder is at the end; the reader does not. The reader goes back to the beginning, to the painting by Remedios Varo, to the women attempting to fill a void with an embroidered tapestry.

The Crying of Lot 49 exists as a writerly book, written for a reader willing to do significant work in order to understand. The reader, in this case, will not be alone though, as Mrs. Oedipa Mass has a significant amount of work to do and in rare occasion helps the reader come to understanding. Still, ultimately the book is left in the reader’s hands, with an ending that leaves us wondering about the existence of Tristero, and what exactly it means should it exist.