The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

I believe you would find that the readers of this novel would fall into one of these groups: those who really sincerely love it; those who want to love it, who think they should love it, who maybe even pretend they love it, but who really don't; those who don't love it even a little bit, who want to throw it across the room when, or if, they finish it.

Those who love it would certainly include those English professors and graduate students who love analyzing books and teasing out hidden meanings and clever puns and metaphorical references. These folks don't read a novel for its plot or characterization and generally dislike books with a clearly discernible message or emotional content. This book, then, is perfect for them. Usually their favorite book is Joyce's Ulysses.

The second group, those who want to love it, are those graduate students and others with intellectual pretensions who can see the cleverness involved in the writing, who get some of the references and word plays and can understand some others when they are pointed out, who maybe think if they were just smarter they would like the book more. These folks, however, in their heart-of-hearts would really like a novel to make more sense and to have characters who seem real, even if exaggerated.

Those who don't love this novel might laugh at some of the satirical comedy, including the names of the characters, and might catch glimpses of the supposed metaphorical meanings, but they would find this book to be pretentious and empty. These folks don't like to think that there are no answers, that none of life makes sense, that people cannot connect and communicate. All of that may be privately suspected, but they hope it's not so.

I fall somewhere between the last two groups, although I tend to veer toward the last in my old age. I did not throw the book across the room; I could appreciate it on one level; but I did not love it, or even like it, at all.

The plot is pretty superfluous, but here it is: Oedipa Mass is named as executrix of the will of a past lover and starts finding clues about a centuries-long (possible) conspiracy involving Trystero, an alternate postal service. Three possibilities occur to her: she is hallucinating and going mad, her dead lover arranged the whole series of clues as a practical joke, or the secret conspiracy actually exists. Do we find out the answer....NO.

Privately, I even wonder if the whole novel was a practical joke by Pynchon, satirizing post-modern writing. Surely not.

Anyway, I do not recommend this novel to the average reader.