The Crying of Lot 49 is a novella written by Thomas Pynchon. Released in 1966, it tells of a woman discovering a massive conspiracy.
Characters[]
- Oedipa Maas
- Wendell "Mucho" Maas - Oedipa's husband, a former car salesman who was disgusted with the job and became a disk jockey
- Metzger - The lawyer of Pierce Inverarity and a former child actor
- Miles, Dean, Serge, and Leonard - the members of the Paranoids, a Beatles-inspired band who frequently use marijuana
- Mike Fallopian - a right-wing historian who is hypercritical of the postal system
- Dr. Hilarius - Oedipa's crazed psychiatrist who tries to dose her with LSD
- Randolph "Randy" Driblette - the director of The Courier's Tragedy
- Professor Emory Bortz - a professor who aids Oedipa near the end of the novella
- John Nefastis - the inventor of the Nefastis Machine
- Stanley Koteks - an engineer at Yoyodyne with ties to W.A.S.T.E.
- Roseman - Mucho's lawyer who is obssessed with destroying the image of Perry Mason
- Manny Di Presso - a friend of Metzger's and an actor/lawyer
- Genghis Cohen - the "most eminent philatelist in the L.A. area"
- Mr. Thoth - an old man whose grandfather rode in the Pony Express
- Jesús Arrabal - a member of the Conjuración de los Insurgentes Anarquistas
- Arnold Snarb - a member of the Inamorati Anonymous and a devout anarchist
- C. Morris Schrift - a possible agent of W.A.S.T.E.
- Grace Bortz - Emory's wife
- Winthrop "Winner" Tremaine - the Neo-Nazi owner of a government surplus store
- Helga Blamm - Hilarius' "sometime-assisstant"
- Loren Passerine - an auctioneer
Publisher's summary[]
1986 Vintage paperback
Suffused with rich satire, chaotic brilliance, verbal turbulence and wild humor, The Crying of Lot 49 opens as Oedipa Maas discovers that she has been made executrix of a former lover's estate. The performance of her duties sets her on a strange trail of detection, in which bizarre characters crowd in to help or confuse her. But gradually, death, drugs, madness, and marriage combine to leave Oedipa in isolation on the threshold of revelation, awaiting the Crying of Lot 49.
Plot[]
Chapter 1[]
One summer afternoon, after a Tupperware party "whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue", Oedipa Maas returns home to find that she has a letter naming her as the executor of the will of Pierce Inverarity (her ex-husband). Oedipa tries to think back on her life to find out why she had been decided to be the executor but can only think of a very odd phone call she had a year ago. She tries to ask her husband (disk jockey Wendell "Mucho" Maas) but he tells her to visit his lawyer instead of actually helping.
That night, Oedipa is called by her psychiatrist Dr. Hilarius who tries to get her to take her pills (which he claims are tranquilizers but which are actually hallucinogens). Oedipa refuses, though she finds that she cannot get to sleep. The next day, she visits her husband's lawyer (Roseman). She tries to get him to do all of the work on the will but Roseman asks her to look it over - to see what she might find in the will.
Chapter 2[]
Oedipa decides on visiting the co-executor of Inverarity's will (his lawyer Metzger) in the Southern Californian town of San Narciso. While in San Narciso, she stays at the Echo Courts and meets with the manager - a "drop-out" named Miles who is also the frontrunner of a band called the Paranoids - who tries to convince Oedipa to sleep with him after Oedipa mentions her disk-jockey husband. That night, Metzger finally arrives at Echo Courts.
At first, Oedipa assumes that he is an actor sent by a mysterious "Them". Though Metzger is currently a lawyer, he was a child actor twenty years ago under the name "Baby Igor". While Oedipa and Metzger sit in Oedipa's room, one of "Baby Igor's" films - a movie about an ex-navy officer, his son, and his dog manning a submarine called the "Justine" and torpedoing Turkish merchantmen - comes on. Though Oedipa briefly thinks that this is a part of a greater plot, she ignores it and begins a bet with the former actor on the characters' deaths. Metzger initially refuses to reveal anything but he decides on starting a "Strip Botticelli". Due to this, Oedipa slips away to the bathroom and begins putting on many different pieces of clothing to become as covered as possible. While in the bathroom, she knocks over a can of hair spray - which begins flying around the room. On entering the bathroom, Metzger "hits the deck" and is found by the Paranoids lying on the floor with Oedipa. Oedipa tells the band to "serenade" her and Metzger outside. As the Paranoids perform a serenade with electric guitars, Oedipa and Metzger begin to play Strip Botticelli. This ends with Oedipa finding Metzger nearly naked and "sleeping" together. After the two "finish", the TV shows the end of the movie - with all hands on the Justine being lost to the waters of Gallipoli.
Chapter 3[]
WASTE? Oedipa wondered. Beneath the notice, faintyly in pencil, was a symbol she'd never seen before, a loop, triangle and trapezoid, thus:
The next day, Oedipa and Metzger visit a bar called "the Scope" which caters to employees of a company called Yoyodyne. While there, they meet a member of the right-wing Peter Pinguid Society (a society centered around a Confederate veteran who they believe is the first "casualty" in Russian-American aggressions) named Mike Fallopian who is writing a history of mail. During this meeting, the two discover that Fallopian (and several other people) use a secretive mail service. Along with this, Oedipa finds a mysterious symbol in the bathroom of the Scope tied with a mysterious organization known as "WASTE" next to an address in Berkeley.
Oedipa and Metzger (followed by the Paranoids) visit Fangoso Lagoons ("one of Inverarity's last big projects") where they meet one of Metzger's fellow actors/lawyers, Manny Di Presso. Di Presso reveals that one of his clients (a mobster named Tony Jaguar) is pursuing litigation against Inverarity's estate involving a group of bones found on a beach. Due to the mention of bones on a beach, one of the Paranoids mentions a play they watched - The Courier's Tragedy - before Di Presso leaves in his boat (stranding the assembled party on an island).
After being rescued from the island, Oedipa and Metzger visit a performance of the Tragedy. This play (an extremely violent Jacobean tragedy) features its villain using the bones of an entire platoon to make ink but also introduces a mystery involving the mail-courier "Thurn and Taxis" and a figure known as "Trystero". After the play, Oedipa meets with the director - one Randy Driblette - intending on gaining more detail on the bone plot but instead finds herself asking about the mystery of Thurn and Taxis. To both, Driblette gives very few answers.
Chapter 4[]
Oedipa takes part in a meeting of Yoyodyne stockholders to further her investigations. While at the meeting, Oedipa gets lost and meets with an engineer named Stanley Koteks who introduces Oedipa to the "Nefastis Machine" (an attempt to make Maxwell's Demon a reality which can only be used by "Sensitives"). After getting the address to apply to this, Oedipa realizes that it is similar to the one she found in the bathroom of the Scope and attempts to press Koteks (who had doodled the W.A.S.T.E. symbol) on his ties to the mysterious "WASTE". This only makes Koteks frosty towards Oedipa. Oedipa attempts to ask Fallopian what he knows about Koteks, but this only leads to an argument between the historian and Metzger about politics.
Seeking to find the original text of The Courier's Tragedy (which Driblette did not have on hand), Oedipa buys a copy of Jacobean Revenge Plays from a book store known as Zapf's Used Books. While looking through the book in Echo Courts, Oedipa discovers another book holding the text of the Tragedy (Plays of Ford, Webster, Tourneur and Wharfinger) and plans to visit its publishers in Berkeley. Shortly after this, Oedipa visits a retirement home named Vesperhaven which Inverarity helped to build. While there, Oedipa meets an old man named Mr. Thoth who tells her a story about his grandfather being attacked by figures dressed in all black while riding for the Pony Express. He also reveals a ring that one of the figures dropped which has the W.A.S.T.E. symbol on it.
As Fallopian is writing a history of mail, Oedipa asks him about the mysterious riders. He ties it to a story recounted on a historical marker about a battle between Wells, Fargo mailmen and mysterious masked marauders, though he ties it to the Federal government. Oedipa begins to intuit that it was a battle between rival postal companies here. On a rainy morning shortly after this, a stamp expert named Genghis Cohen hired by Metzger meets with Oedipa to talk about Inverarity's stamp collection. He reveals that quite a few of the stamps are forgeries, seemingly with ties to W.A.S.T.E. Cohen speculates that the forgeries are evidence of a battle between the mail carrier Thurm and Taxis and an unknown enemy that has lasted for around 800 years. When Oedipa asks him about the name W.A.S.T.E., Cohen clams up - just like Koteks.
Chapter 5[]
After finding that the publishers of Plays do not have a copy on-hand, Oedipa visits a warehouse in Oakland and finds a copy. Unfortunately the copy does not have the line mentioning Trystero within it, though it does have a note about a similar line. Seeking to find out more about said note, Oedipa visits Berkeley College but finds that Professor Emory Bortz (the professor that wrote the note) left the college several years ago. While in Berkeley, Oedipa visits John Nefastis and attempts to find if she is a "sensitive' and can use the Nefastis Machine. Though Oedipa briefly sees (or imagines) some effect, she seemingly is not a sensitive. After Nefastis tries to get her to have sex with him, Oedipa flees.
By this time, Oedipa has begun to notice the symbol of the muted post horn (a sign of W.A.S.T.E.'s existence) everywhere she goes. Shortly after leaving Nefastis, Oedipa visits a gay bar named the Greek Way and meets a man named Arnold Snarb who wears a pin of the post horn. Though Oedipa assumes he is tied to W.A.S.T.E., it turns out that he is part of an unrelated group called the Inamorati Anonymous that uses the same symbol as W.A.S.T.E. After leaving the Greek Way, Oedipa meets with an old acquaintance of hers and Inverarity's named Jesús Arrabal in an "all-night Mexican greasy spoon". Several years before this, Oedipa and Jesús talked of the "anarchist miracle".
"Just before the morning rush hour", Oedipa finds an old sailor with the post horn tattooed onto one of his hands. The old man hands Oedipa a letter to send through the W.A.S.T.E. system using something under the freeway. On leaving the sailor, Oedipa puts the letter into a trashcan near said freeway and follows the postmen that pick up the letter across California - ending up in Berkeley, "back where she started". While in Berkeley, Oedipa visits a hotel hosting a convention for deaf-mutes and dances with them before staying for the night.
The next day, Oedipa returns to Kinneret to visit Dr. Hilarius in the hopes that he will assure her that W.A.S.T.E. is nothing more than a delusion. While walking up to Hilarius' office, Oedipa is shot at. Hilarius' "sometime assisstant", Helga Blamm, reveals that Hilarius has gone insane and is talking about being hunted by three mysterious men. Oedipa enters the building hoping to help Hilarius out and is held hostage by the doctor. Hilarius revealed that he worked at Buchenwald during World War II - helping to develop a technique to render prisoners of the Camp into a catatonic state. Hilarius managed to escape judgement and fled to California and spent twenty years before finally cracking due to fear of being executed like Eichmann. After a short standoff with the police, Hilarius is arrested and Oedipa is reunited with her husband after several days. While talking with his associates, Oedipa discovers that Mucho has been acting weird. It is revealed that this is because Mucho has been taking Oedipa's "medication" (actually LSD) and has gained the ability to intuit the frequencies of music and speech.
Chapter 6[]
On returning to Echo Courts, Oedipa discovers from the Paranoids that Metzger has ran away with another woman. She tries to call Driblette, only to be met with his mother. She then decides to call Professor Bortz. Bortz's wife Grace picks up and briefly talks about her husband and his book of Wharfinger (whose publisher is planning to release a new edition soon). Oedipa decides to drive to Bortz's house. While on the way, she finds that Zapf's Used Books has burned down. She asks a nearby store owner what happened to the store. Though the owner says that Zapf burned his store down for the insurance money, he also reveals himself to be extremely racist and a Neo-Nazi. Oedipa leaves while contemplating murdering the man in cold blood.
On arriving at Bortz's house, Oedipa is greeted by the Professor and his wife. Oedipa talks with him about Driblette and learns that the director died - seemingly committing suicide by walking into the sea. Despite this depressing news, Oedipa continues to ask about the Tragedy and its ties to Trystero. Bortz reveals that the lines about Trystero most likely came from a "pornographic" ripoff of the play produced by a Puritanical sect known as the Schurvhamites due to their hatred of the theatre. He also produces a book written by one Diocletian Blobb showing an encounter between its author and several agents of Trystero.
Over several days, Bortz and Oedipa are able to piece together the origins of Trystero. During the Low Countries' war with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, a "junta of Calvinistic fanatics" in Brussels ejected the then-Baron of Taxis from his position as Postmaster for the Low Countries and replaced him with the then-Lord of Ohain, a loyal adherent of William of Orange. This led to an extremely unstable rebel named Hernando Joaquín de Tristero y Calavera (who claimed to be the true Lord of Ohain and the cousin of the "false" Lord) started a guerilla war with the-then Postmaster. The Baron of Taxis was soon returned to his position but this was during a low point for Thurn and Taxis. Seeking to keep his supposed cousin from taking over the position once again, Tristero formed his own mail system - taking up the muted post horn symbol and instructing his followers to wear all black. A "sub rosa campaign" then began between Tristero's organization and the family of Thurn and Taxis.
While at Driblette's funeral, Oedipa begins trying to conjure his spirit out of the ether but fails to do so. While searching for more information on Tristero, Bortz theorizes that its presence can be seen within Thurn and Taxis' low points. Around the middle of the seventeenth century, the hold of the family over Europe began to wain. Bortz sketches a story of a "hip" member of Tristero (whom he dubs Konrad) seeing the upcoming fall of the Holy Roman Empire and putting forth a unique strategem - to merge with their enemy and gain control over all mail in Europe. Most of the Tristerans refuse to follow this strategem and after the fall of the Empire, the family slowly becomes aware of Tristero. By the late 18th century, the shadow of Tristero loomed over Europe (with it being suggested that they started the French Revolution).
While diving further and further into the history of the two postal services, Oedipa visits Fallopian at the Scope but finds that Fallopian is way less "believing". He suggests that the entire conspiracy is nothing more than a hoax created by Inverarity. Around this time, Cohen finds out what W.A.S.T.E. stands for - We Await Silent Tristero's Empire - from one of the bootleg stamps. Despite this huge leap forwards, Oedipa also finds evidence of W.A.S.T.E. being a massive hoax - for all of Inverarity's assets have links to the various places and people that Oedipa visited in her search for the truth.
Shortly after this, Cohen reveals a document showing that Tristero's influence in Europe almost completely collapsed by the middle of the 19th century. Most of its surviving members fled to America, where they established a secretive postal organization seeking to escape being crushed by federal policies which destroyed similar independent mail carriers. Several days later, Cohen calls to inform Oedipa that Inverarity's stamp collection (dubbed "lot 49") is to be auctioned off and that a mysterious figure (presumably working with Tristero) tried to buy the stamp collection using a cats'-paw named C. Morris Schrift. Seeking to find out if everything is a hoax or not, Oedipa calls Snarb but he only gives cryptic answers before vanishing.
Oedipa wanders through some railroad tracks while thinking about everything that has happened so far. She decides to attend the auction, hoping to meet the mysterious figure or his agent but not knowing what to do after that. The novella ends with Oedipa waiting for the auctioneer to cry out and start the bids on lot 49.
In-author continuity[]
- A "Bloody Chiclitz" is mentioned by Koteks. This figure first appeared in V. and also appears in Gravity's Rainbow.
- The Yoyodyne Corporation first appeared in Pynchon's V. and is referenced several times within Star Trek.
See also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vineland | Thomas Pynchon | 1990 | A novel by the same author with similar themes |
| The Broom of the System | David Foster Wallace | 1987 | A postmodernist novel with a similar main character |
| Foucault's Pendulum | Umberto Eco | 1988 | A postmodernist novel about the unprofessional and paranoid hunt for a conspiracy |
| An Unnecessary Woman | Rabih Alameddine | 2014 | A novel with a similar heroine |
| Libra | Don DeLillo | 1988 | A postmodernist novel with similar themes |
| Mrs. Dalloway | Virginia Woolf | 1925 | A novel with a similar protagonist |
| Memoirs and Misinformation | Jim Carrey and Dana Vachon | 2020 | A novel with vaguely similar themes |
| Gravity's Rainbow | Thomas Pynchon | 1973 | A novel by the same author with similar themes |
| The Man in the High Castle | Philip K. Dick | 1962 | A postmodernist novel with vaguely similar themes |
Sources[]
- Wikipedia
- Goodreads
| Works of Thomas Pynchon | ||
|
Early works (Collected in Slow Learner) | ||