The Crying of Lot 49

"She was overcome all at once by a need to touch him, as if she could not believe in him, or would not remember him, without it. Exhausted, hardly knowing what she was doing, she came the last three steps and sat, took the man in her arms, actually held him, gazing out of her smudged eyes down the stairs, back into the morning. She felt wetness against her breast and saw that he was crying again. He hardly breathed but tears came as if being pumped. 'I can't help,' she whispered, rocking him, 'I can't help.' It was already too many miles to Fresno... 'Ramirez,; she cried. The arthritic looked around on his rusty neck. 'He's going to die,' she said. 'Who isn't?'" Pg 102-104

When this passage occurs, Oedipa has stumbled upon an old man linked to the Trystero who's last wish is to have a letter delivered to his wife. The moment allows Oedipa to, for once, let in few emotions that she has managed to block out before. She seems to detach herself out of getting hurt, which is why this moment is so perfectly characterized for her. The way that Pynchon uses imagery to describe how the moment in all its simplicity is very unlike his style of writing, which is why it stuck out so much for me. Words like "wetness" and "arthritic," help the reader visualize the way these people behave and almost captures their aura. I particularly like how Pynchon says that she had to take a few steps towards the man and how she "actually held him" because it almost shows the emotional steps Oedipa needs to take to come close to another human being.
Then, right after this emotional scene, Oedipa kind of sits back and talks to the man who is supposed to be taking care of the other man and her emotions are thrown right back in her face. I think that this is very satirical and also extremely realistic. Ramirez does not care that she has made an emotional breathrough, or that the old man has a final wish, he just figures, he's going to die and that is that. I feel like most people say and do these kinds of things, because mourning over people and letting your hopes go is much easier than feeling things. Pynchon is making the same criticism about people because Ramirez should care more. After having spent several months with the old man, taking care of him and leading him around town, he should have some kind of emotional connection, right? But maybe that is why he is actually distancing himself, is because he does not want to be too close and feel that sorrow when the old man does die.

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1. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://joshspear.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/lisa-solberg.jpg&imgrefurl=http://joshspear.com/item/lisa-solberg-x-new-paintings/&h=265&w=550&sz=88&tbnid=6PD8TqG_Cia-JM:&tbnh=64&tbnw=133&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlisa%2Bsolberg&usg=__Ey9j6hFdAPrYzewBdybofEcqZ2E=&ei=IdchS-WaBoaVtgeG8_TRBw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=6&ct=image&ved=0CBcQ9QEwBQ


2. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.thearchibaldprize.com.au/07/__data/page/9918/Fransella.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.thearchibaldprize.com.au/07/winners/trustees_watercolour&usg=__5T8mGw8w8j12xwdDUy8zcNbbkCI=&h=500&w=376&sz=45&hl=en&start=3&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=JhCoHKVpBEguLM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=98&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgraham%2Bfransella%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4ADBF_enUS324US325%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1


3. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://aquafornia.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/los-angeles-aerial-bor.jpg&imgrefurl=http://sacnewsblogger.blogspot.com/2008/07/los-angeles-mini-earthquake.html&usg=__Yp4dM6FJj5Kw59NjuCp56SEWQcs=&h=1280&w=1600&sz=304&hl=en&start=42&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=QVo45Exm05fnTM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlos%2Bangeles%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4ADBF_enUS324US325%26sa%3DN%26start%3D36%26um%3D1
4. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.lonelycomics.com/lonelyleague.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.lonelycomics.com/&h=625&w=565&sz=35&tbnid=6d_n_CtpiZet3M:&tbnh=237&tbnw=214&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlonely%2Bart&hl=en&usg=__WHtTf70H9P3XxqVvjSVlGK8kfbY=&ei=ru4hS5PxD9GOtgfFt_DUBw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=1&ct=image&ved=0CAcQ9QEwAA

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Character names in this book were especially important in this novel. Most of them were named to be a contradiction to ther original names while still applying to the character in the book. Their names almost mock themselves, as the people are almost the opposite of what they arelike and how they act. The other thing that is important about their names is the way they sound and are spelled. One big theme in this novel is how people confuse things. The character's names are all strange from their pronounciation to spelling, which really helps reflect who they are and whether or not they are confused.

1. Oedipa Maas is the main character of the novel. She is never directly described, either in personality or looks, but is expected to be pretty, since men are constantly attracted to her. Oedipa is very confused between what is reality and what is a lie, both before she stumbles upon the Trystero and after. Over time, she has been worn down, and no longer has faith in anything. This contributes to her confusion because she does not know herself since she does not have a definite personality anymore, but by trying to understand who the Trystero are, she starts to refind herself as well. Oedipa is named so because she has a questionable life, like Oedipus, but she is cowardly and weak, unlike Oedipus. Both were deeply confused and lived surrounded by secrets that they wanted to know. However, when Oedipus found out his truth, he went crazy, while we never know what Oedipa did.

Mucho Maas is Oedipa's husband. In the beginning of the book, he is weak just like Oedipa. They have both been known to cheat on each other, but are both so emotionally distant they do not know if they should care or not. Mucho's name is satirical because mucho is the exact opposite of who he is. Mucho is not really a full man in the beginning of this book because he cannot hold a job, cannot keep his wife, and cannot believe in anything, as much as he wants to. But as the book progresses, he becomes more of a man, and less of one, because he must rely on LSD to be one. He finally realizes that he has aspirations, and that he does not wanted to be trapped speaking WASP (never acknowledging the things that are on his mind).

Metzger is the co-executor of Pierce's will. He is restless and lonely. He has lived a rather strange life since he was a child star and grew up in an environment notorious for drugs and isolation, but has managed to grow up and become a lawyer. He is interested in challenges, since everything seems to come easy to him. Metzger is described to be very good looking which helps the author convey the idea that better looking people have it easier. Much of the southern California lifestyle becomes Metzger since he is good looking and has so many privileges, but is still looking for something.

Driblette is a playwright and actor. He starred in his own production of The Couriers Tragedy where he slipped in little bits of information about the Trystero, which led Oedipa to him. He really seems to signal the beginning and end of the journey Oedipa is taking since he is the first person to point her on the journey. He also signals the universe's paranoia since he knows says that they are each interpreted their own way. When he kills himself, it leads Oedipa into a dead end that she does not know how to get out of until someone else helps her out.

Fallopian is not particularly importan to the plot, but he symbolizes the rational side of things. Whenever Oedipa is questioning something, she miraculously finds him. When she wants to believe in the Trystero and other government plots, there he is to say, "It is possible." But when she feels like giving up he has a rational possibility that "It was all somebody putting [her] on." He has many different ideas for what everything is, but based on the situation, he comes up with rational explanations.

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Oedipa returns to San Narciso to finish learning what she can about the Trystero and hopefully figure out whatever Pierce had wanted he to know so she can put the whole experience to an end. She finds out that Metzger has run off to get married and has left a lawyer Oedipa does not know to help her execute the will. She moves on quickly and decides her best start is to find Driblette, the playwright who knew more about the Trystero than he let on, who committed suicide. Oedipa then goes to look for Emory Bortz, who wrote the original play that Driblette put on, in hopes that he can explain where the line "No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow, Who's once been set his tryst with Trystero" came from and more importantly, what it means. Bortz does not know the exact origin of the phrase, but thinks Trystero is linked to the Puritans as well as the Italians, and several other places. He gives her a book about the Trystero that describes a postal battle between them and Thurn and Taxis, as well as how the muted horn came, why men in all black are important, and other various secret symbols they use. She does not know what to make of the information, and goes to find Fallopian, who suggests that the whole Trystero is a clever trick that Pierce has played on her. Oedipa thinks the same, whether she wants to or not, and after talking to Genghis Cohen, decides to take a second look at everything. She realizes everywhere she has been and that has to do with the Trystero, is somehow related to Pierce. She then goes crazy. Oedipa finds out from Genghis that someone is interested in buying Pierce's stamp collection, whch will be auctioned off as lot 49. Still hungry for the truth, Oedipa assumes that this person knows about the Trystero, and goes in pursuit of him. The book closes as Oedipa regains her drive to solve the mystery as well as the beginning of the auction.
It is easy to say that this ending made me mad. I was so angry at Oedipa for giving up for the brief amount of time that she did because she wasted time. She never looked for the other people to see if the theory about Pierce and the Trystero being fake was true, so she should have kept pursuing, especially since her instincts told her it was not true. Then the entire ending is just so frustrating because the cycle never ends. The reader feels so close to the truth that they can taste it, but they never get to read about this new character who is crucial to the plot. Not only that, but I felt like Oedipa never finished changing. Her character was mid-recovery and it ended just as she was finding herself again. However, if the mystery were solved, and Oedipa made whole again, I do think that it would have been a little too happily ever after for me. But I really do wish that there was some kind of conclusion to the conspiracy.
From this book, I know that I like what I could understand. I basically had to reread this whole thing because so many things did not make sense. The final two chapters felt like a blur since it was kind of hard to understand what was going on. As far as the actual conspiracy goes, I had no idea what the Trystero was or why Oedipa needed to know if they existed or not. It is not like she knows what they do or how they affect society, or probably even her life. The Trystero could be anything, so it was kind of dumb for her to be in such avid pursuit of it when she didn't know what she was fighting for.
That is another big theme in the book that I liked and related to. The question of knowing and not knowing and believing in it or not. Fiction vs. non-fiction was ever present, and the way that the characters live in the world, with both fake and real, just shows how sometimes fiction is right. The whole character of Mucho is one way of showing this, since he wound up hooked on LSD and living a complete fallacy. He needed something to make him feel like he was happy, which is not that bad since in pretending to be happy, he actually becomes it.
Overall, I thought this book was good when it was good, but very dry and confusing. Maybe it is because I am a girl, but I like reading books that have more emotion in it than conspiracy plots. I also like to read about characters who are actually interacting with their world instead of the world interacting with them. Oedipa seems like such a dull main character because she does not have a strong female role that could match her intricate and wacky life.

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In chapter five, Oedipa develops new conspiracy theories as she speaks to people who are actually involved with the Trystero. She first meets John Nefastits to see if she is a "sensitive" or can operate a machine that defies the Law of Thermodynamics, only to realize that she is not special at all. She then wallows while drinking in a bar until she sees a man with a tattoo of the muted horn who tells her about the Inamorati Anonymous (IA), a satirical version of AA. The next day, Oedipa meets a man who has a tattoo on his arm of the muted horn and is about to die. He asks Oedipa to mail a strange letter, with a postage stamp that has the muted horn on it as well. Intrigued, she decides to help, and waits for the mailman to pick up the letter along with all the other mail with the strange post markings, which only leads her back to John Nefastis. She goes back home, with thoughts of the Trystero and the symbol in mind, and decides she should talk to her shrink. When she does to find Dr. Hilarius, she finds that he has gone crazy himself, as a consequence of surrounding himself with crazy people. He reveals how he used to be a Nazi and accidentally kidnaps her. When she escapes, she is reunited with Mucho only to find that he is hooked on LSD, and has decided to realize his dreams and have a personality, which is why she leaves him.
This chapter was much more interesting than the others, and was written in a way that was not nearly half as jumbled as the rest of the book. Not only that, but the book starts to get into things that are much more interesting, like the whole government conspiracy idea about the mail being rigged, and everyone in on it from your local business workers, to the children who play hopscotch.
It is funny how Oedipa starts to really develop in this chapter, because I feel that, for a main character, she does not have an established personality. I don't really like her because she does not have a real personality, is weak-minded, and lacks self respect. But, in this chapter I started to not be annoyed by her. I still don't really like her, but understand her more. She is all the things that I hate about her, but she is like that because she is so much more lonely than she wants to be. It is hard for her to believe in people, and wound up abandoned because they did not believe in her in return. Then you see why she likes mysteries and being confused. After walking home from the bar, she goes on a walk and realizes how she never solves the things that confuse her because she does not want to get any closer to the truth. But she has this underlying feeling that she needs to know the truth sooner or later.
I actually really like the whole concept behind the IA. I think that it was a funny allusion to use, but it is also sad because I know that there are much sadder and more unrealistic support groups. When the story behind the IA is expained, it actually makes sense because so many people make mistakes because of love and getting rid of it altogether actually makes sense. The basic story behind the IA is that a man came home ready to committ suicide because he could not find a new job, but overhears his wife sleeping with the man who got him fired, and decides to live and help people avoid falling in love. This only further proves the theme in this book that you cannot trust other people.

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