by Thomas Pynchon.

What do you all think of it? Let me know when you've started to read!

Suits me. I'll begin this evening.

Fine I'll order a copy. It's available on both Amazon and Play.

The library might save you some money. </shameless plug>

quote:

Originally posted by Caterwauller:
The library might save you some money. </shameless plug>

It might indeed, were there a library within a convenient distance. Unfortunately where I work doesn't give me time to get into the city at lunch times and the nearest lending library that I could get to on Saturday would entail a ninety minute round trip assuming I just walked in, picked up the book and walked back out.

There used to be a local library but it's been closed for at least twenty years now and was such a small establishment that I'd have needed to order in the book from a main library anyway.

Alas in this modern world libraries are fewer and further between than ever.

Thanks, CW. I will find a copy and begin to read it, too.

quote:

Alas in this modern world libraries are fewer and further between than ever.

Oh my goodness, how very sad!

I am almost finished. It really is a short book. How are others doing?

Just got it today but it shouldn't take long to read. I'll start on the train going to work tomorrow.

We just got it last night, and Shu will read it first.

I am into a very good book, but not all that intellectual, I fear.

The library has just notified me that they have the book on reserve for me. I will pick it up tomorrow after work.

quote:

I am into a very good book, but not all that intellectual, I fear.

Very best type of book, IMHO.

Very best type of book, IMHO.

I used to feel the same way, but from the other end of the spectrum. Now, I simply read whatever I like, and stop reading whatever I don't like pretty soon on. There are many who think fiction is a waste of time, and some call a waste of time entertainment. All types, etc. I enjoyed Lot 49 immensely upon first reading it, and my enjoyment hasn't diminished with subsequent re-readings.

quote:

Very best type of book, IMHO.

I had my good book today in a great coffee shop, with leather couches and a fireplace. I read the book I'm loving as I sipped on excellent coffee, and I felt as though I were in Heaven! Of course, my favorite person in the world was sitting next to me, which rounded out the experience.

Well, I finished. Should I write about it here and now or wait until we get an o0n-line discussion going?

I, too, finished. What say you, CW?

I'm about 2/3 done, but go ahead and start discussing! One thing I've really enjoyed are the character names. Koteks being one of my favorites.

OK, I'll go first. I've always wondered about Oedipa's name. Oedipus, means "lame of foot" in Greek, and he answers the Sphynx's question and also uncovers a horrible secret about himself. As for Maas, it's the Dutch/German form of the Meuse (Muse?). And, of course, it leads to her husband's delicious name of Wendell "Mucho" Maas.

There's a lovely sequence that's stuck with me, in describing San Narciso: "She drove into San Narciso on a Sunday, in a rented Impala. Nothing was happening. She looked down a slope, needing to squint for the sunlight, onto a vast sprawl of houses which had grown up all together, like a well-tended crop, from the dull brown earth; and she thought of the time she'd opened a transistor radio to replace a battary and seen her first printed circuit. The ordered swirl of houses and streets, from this high angle, sprang at her now with the same unexpected, astonishing clarity as the circuit card had. Though she knew even less about radios than about Southern Californians, there were to both outward patterns a hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate." [p.13 Bantam paperback]

A few random(ish) observations.

When I started to read this I expected, on the evidence of the first few pages, to like it. I liked the writing style and the use of language although I found the "cleverness" of the names rather self-consciously used.

Unfortunately I soon realised that my appreciation of the book began and ended with the language. Perhaps it is a book that makes more sense to Americans but there appears to be no narrative cohesion - in fact, by and large, no narrative. Instead we have a series of improbable and unconnected events which start well enough, spend the rest of the book going nowhere and then stop.

I was tempted by facile comparisons to Lewis Carrol (female protagonist, weird characters, a world out of kilter with any reality I'm familiar with) and slightly less facile ones to Kafka (a lead character who doesn't understand what's happening, a world in which everything seems arbitrary, a sense of paranoia brought about by mysterious external forces that may or my not exist) but both Wonderland and The Trial have an internal logic that seems to me to be lacking in The Crying of Lot 49. It wasn't that nothing seemed to connect for Oedipa, nothing seemed to connect for me either.

That was the essential problem. I felt absolutely no connection with the book. The language use was clever but that's about all I got from it. For such a short book I found it hellishly difficult to finish.

I am sorry you didn't enjoy it, Bob. It's interesting how my reaction was pretty much the reverse of yours. When I first read the book, I was sucked in by the surfeit of plot points (which reminds me of Chandler's novels), and never really noticed how the narrative was not quite cohering. Also, the language was something I only appreciated on a second, slower reading. The parts I liked were the contemporary critique of California culture of the '60s and the whole lit crit pseudo-apparatus of the revenge play. I hope not everybody disliked it ...

And there you have the very heart of the problem - on me a "contemporary critique of California culture of the '60s" is entirely lost. It's meaningless as I have no applicable frame of reference for it. As I was reading I suspected that opinions would be split down the middle - down the middle of the Atlantic in fact.

Did anyone else over here read it?

I find the book entertaining largely because it is so very different from what I usually read. It is quite surreal, and I constantly have the feeling that there are myriad jokes that I'm missing. I feel like I know when I should be chuckling, but I'm not always sure WHY I should be chuckling. I just assumed it was my extreme youth and cluelessness.

I also have to concentrate more than I usually do when reading - LOL. There are words I've never heard of, and sometimes the context isn't familiar enough to me to tell me what they mean, so I have to actually look them up! Gasp!

But I am finding it enjoyable . . . fascinating because it's so very odd.

I have started it...finally. So far I am enjoying it, though, as CW said, I have to concentrate a whole lot more than I did in the previous book I read ("The Devil Wears Prada"). But that's good because it makes me think I am reading good literature! I also find myself laughing...for example, when Dr. Hilarious (!) called his own patient at 3:00 a.m. and then asked what she wanted to talk about! Not that was hilarious!

quote:

book that makes more sense to Americans

Interesting, Bob, because there are a fair number of European references in the book, and on my book cover it talks about it having a "strong European flavor."

[I doubt anyone here has read "The Devil Wears Prada" because it's a little superficial. I found it a great "boss" story, and that part was fun. However, the book's ending was not well thought out, so I felt a little cheated.]

Maybe we should read something like "The Devil Wears Prada" next! I just finished both "The Crying of Lot 49" and "Sex, Lies and Online Dating"(probably on the same level as your book, Kalleh!).

quote:

I just assumed it was my extreme youth

Now I'm chuckling, and I haven't even read the book!

Well this time you need to read the book! I'd like to go back and read _March_ about the father's story in Little Women.

CW,
I will.. when summer arrives and I have a Life!

Did anyone else from the UK read the book? I'd love to find out of my perception of it, where I appear to be in a minority of one, is really, as I thought, because the book has little or no meaning if you are not AMerican.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

So here is my poll question - is it great literature with deep meanings, or is it surreal vignettes loosely tied together and most likely written in a drug-induced haze?

B masquerading as A.

And is there a wonder nobody wants to discuss this book what with critical fatwas like that? Let's see what's the name of that fallacy? Ah, yes, ad hominem.

Sorry. I didn't have a tongue in cheek smiley.

However, since you ask.

I found the book to be very nearly unreadable. The style of the language at first misled me into expecting more than I got as there is little doubt that Pynchon is a fine wordsmith. However where there should be a plot with some sense of narrative drive, structure and cohesion I found the book to be little more than a series of unconnected events and the characters to be a carnival of grotesque caricatures. It felt at times as if I were reading a mutilated novel where every alternate chapter had been thrown away so that I was frequently forced to go back and read an earlier section to find out what I had missed only to discover that I hadn't missed anything. The apparent lack of any internal logic wasn't simply apparent it was real.

In an earlier post I suggested that the novel bears superficial comparison to Kafka's "The Trial" but it is indeed superficial for Kafka, while driven by the same sense of alienation and lack of control over an impossible universe maintains the internal logic of the story while engaging in ever more fanciful flights of fancy. Lot 49, by comparison, never approaches any kind of narrative cohesion and as such becomes a chore to read.

It may, as I suggested be a problem of perspective. I have neither a temporal nor a spatial perspective on the events and so can find no points of connection to hook my attention and no sympathy for any of the characters.

All in all, not a book I could recommend and certainly not one I could recommend to anyone unfamiliar with the subculture of the West Coast in the 1970s.


In short,

"surreal vignettes loosely tied together and most likely written in a drug-induced haze"


How's that? Better?

You're right, zmj, I was rather flippant. I'm sorry if it came off as cruel or mean-spirited. I guess Bob states it more eloquently. I just couldn't relate to the characters much. I constantly felt as if I were missing half the jokes. The problem is probably as much my own as that of the work itself. It does, though, seem like it was drug-induced . . . or maybe enhanced?

After Bob's initial reaction a couple of weeks ago, I had hoped that we could just pick another book and move on. But I reacted a bit peevishly to Bob's renewed critical efforts. Of that I am sorry. All I can say is that I honestly enjoyed the book, and, it would seem, for most of the reasons that Bob loathes it. Although, I don't agree that it has no plot. It does, and it's rather a simple one. Another thing is that the story lets off before any sort of closure to the plot occurs. In this sense, I find it a rather realistic novel. I remember the first time I read Crime and Punishment, how I wondered how the author stopped right around the time that most murder mysteries would be getting started. But then, Agatha Christie and Dostoevsky were two rather different authors. So, rather than escalating things, I apologize to everybody who read the book and di not enjoy it. Let's pick another one and get on with it. Thank you.

I don't feel like an apology is necessary at all! I liked reading it and I am glad I did. Thanks for recommending it. I often read things that aren't my exact cup of tea . . .it helps me in my work and I find that it helps my brain work in new ways, too.

I think the book people seem to be veering towards is _Reading Lolita in Tehran_. Whatcha think?

Hey, it's just my opinion. I'd be astonished if you liked all the stuff I read. And, though it's rare, I have been known to be wrong occasionally. I just wish someone else over here had joined in reading it so that I could find out if my "means nothing unless you're American" theory holds up.

Feel free to tell me what I'm missing. I'd genuinely like to know what you can see that I can't.

Sorry to be here late. CW, your response wasn't "flippant" at all. I found it thought-provoking and a great way to get the discussion going. And Zmj, I enjoyed the book a lot and am very glad you recommended it. I found it hilarious, delightful, and I almost airy feeling. Yes, I didn't always connect to the characters, but I surely enjoyed the language and humor in the book. I didn't have the reaction that CW nor Bob had at all. CW is right, Zmj, there is absolutely no need to apologize for recommending a book! We don't all like everything we read, but it does widen our perspective on literature.

Please don't let Bob's reaction affect your recommending another book, Zmj.