Crying of Lot 49

This was by far the weirdest book I've read all year. It seems sort of like a mix between a warped mystery and a satire of just about everything in the sixties. The weird thing about it is that it reminds me of a mystery because you see Oedipa figure out all these clues and try to piece them together like bits of evidence in a mystery novel, but it never really leads to any conclusion. It's a mystery without suspense because it's put together in such a manner as to make the reader feel as insane as Oedipa does instead of building up to a grand finale. The language and pop-culture allusions mixed with satirical images of subcultures makes it hard to take seriously, which is probably why it feels differently than a mystery novel even though the entire plot is driven by piecing together bits of evidence to try to arrive at some final conclusion. It is, however, a mystery in the sense that Pynchon never really tells the reader whether Oedipa is really onto something with the Tristero and Lot 49 or if it's all in her head. He makes it ambiguous so the reader is just as confused as she is. Oedipa's paranoia mirrors the paranoia of the Cold War era and makes fun of it, bringing up the question of whether the paranoia was due to real threats or just in the minds of Americans. Oedipa shows how easy it is to put pieces together to try to come up with some way to make sense of it all, whether there's meaning behind it or not. I think Pynchon purposefully leaves the "mystery" unsolved to maybe get people thinking about the issue while at the same time pointing out who ridiculous things are.

Crying of Lot 49: Chapter 1

So far the thing that most stands out to me is how tragically insane Oedipa's life is. She doesn't seem to have any strong connection with any of the characters outlined so far except Pierce, who is now dead. Her husband seems to be a typical male drama queen who will find any excuse for a moral vendetta at whatever job he has. While dishonesty may have marked his job at the lot, the fact that he no longer works there should count for something, but it doesn't seem to. It seems he's overreacting because on page 6 Oedipa reflects on the idea that maybe if he'd gone through a horrific war he'd get over the post traumatic stress sooner than he would having worked at the car lot. This seems a bit extreme. Even at his radio station job he takes out a vendetta against the censorship of his calls with his listeners. When Oedipa shows him the letter about Pierce's will and asks his advice, he dismisses it and says it's not his expertise. To me so far he seems a bit self-involved and over dramatic, providing hardly the emotional support that Oedipa seems to need. Another weird character is Roseman, the lawyer. At their business lunch, he tries to play footsie with Oedipa. This is particularly unprofessional and offensive because he knows she is married to Mucho. Even Oedipa's therapist seems shady, as he calls her at 3am to try to persuade her once again to participate in a study about LSD. Oedipa is surrounded by dysfunctional men who can't seem to "rescue" her from the tower she imagines herself locked in. She does paint Pierce as her knight in shining armor, but that is of little use now because he is dead. There is a sense of helpless resiliency in Oedipa and it will be interesting to see where it develops.

There Was a Queen

The thing that most stuck out to me in this story was how Faulkner depicted the death of the old Southern culture. Jenny, in her old age, represented the honor and pride of the old South while Narcissa represented the new, degraded state of the South after the Civil War. The fact that a Yankee took advantage of Narcissa over the letters that he had shows how the South was defeated and degraded by the North, at least in a cultural sense after all the carpetbaggers came down after the war. However, it's Narcissa's own foolishness in keeping the letters and her lack of honor for doing so that allows the Yankee to do so in the first place, showing that the degredation of Southern culture was rooted in the South itself and the abandonment of old values. Narcissa doesn't listen to Jenny's wisdom and she suffers for it. Jenny's feeble old age and lack of ability to walk on her own shows the weakness that the old South had in this new age. The most potent imagery is when Jenny fades away at the end in the dark, representing the dying of the old values of the South as Narcissa admits to what she's done. Jenny even puts on her old bonnet, sort of like a crown as she stands indignant against the fading of the old ways.