The Crying of Lot 49 is An Allegory of… Something

Author Thomas Pynchon finds a way to create a book with absolute meaning and no meaning at all.

Two months into my Thomas Pynchon iceberg has finally led me to The Crying of Lot 49. Arguably his most famous book, Pynchon was three years fresh off his debut novel V. when it was published. With little known about his modus operandi, we are left to assume he wanted to mellow out as best he could with this second book. Its very short length is the only evidence we have of this pursuit, for when one looks at its content, it is pretty much the standard cluster fuck prevalent in V. and the rest of his work.

The novel follows the movements of Oedipa Maas in her quest to uncover the mystery of the post horn and its apparent associations. As the story progresses, she begins to suspect there’s a centuries-old organization behind the many mysterious occurrences surrounding her current pursuit. It operates under the same guise as the marvelous cat-and-mouse trope, except on this occasion the mouse is on LSD while the cat is on Adderall. Any more information will ruin the labyrinth Pynchon purposefully set up for his own amusement.

There’s a quote on the book’s back-cover grinding my gears for its failed comparison. While it accurately compares Pynchon to…