The crying of lot 49
This is considered a postmodernist novel. The protagonist is a woman named Oedipa Maas who, when the novel begins, learns that her former boyfriend, the wealthy Pierce Inverarity, has died and designated her to be the executor of his enormous estate. Inverarity's assets include vast stretches of pro...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Philadelphia :
J.B. Lippincott Company,
[1966]
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: | |
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| Summary: | This is considered a postmodernist novel. The protagonist is a woman named Oedipa Maas who, when the novel begins, learns that her former boyfriend, the wealthy Pierce Inverarity, has died and designated her to be the executor of his enormous estate. Inverarity's assets include vast stretches of property, a significant stamp collection, and many shares in an aerospace corporation called Yoyodyne. As Oedipa goes through her late boyfriend's will, aided by a lawyer named Metzger who works for Inverarity's law firm, she learns about a series of secret societies and strange groups of people involved in a sort of renegade postal system called Tristero. She leaves her husband and heads for Southern California. She starts seeing ubiquitous cryptic diagrams of a simple horn, a symbol with a seemingly infinite number of meanings. Every clue she uncovers about Tristero and the horn leads haphazardly to another, like a brainstorm, or a free association of ideas. --A.J. at Amazon.com. |
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| Item Description: | "A portion of this novel was first published in Esquire magazine under the title: The world (this one), the flesh (Mrs. Oedipa Maas), and the testament of Pierce Inverarity. Another portion has appeared in Cavalier." |
| Physical Description: | 183 pages ; 21 cm |
| ISBN: | 9780397004188 0397004184 9780062334411 0062334417 9780060913076 006091307X 9780060931674 0060931671 9781568493206 1568493207 |
| Author Notes: | Pynchon won the Faulkner First Novel Award for V. in 1963, and in The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), again his symbolism and commentary on the United States and human isolation have been praised as intricate and masterly, though some reviewers found it to be maddeningly dense. With this book Pynchon won the Rosenthal Foundation Award. Gravity's Rainbow, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in 1974, is in part a fictional elegy and meditation on death and an encyclopedic work that jumps through time. Pynchon has also written numerous essays, reviews, and introductions, plus the fictional works Slow Learner, Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, and Inherent Vice. His title Bleeding Edge made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2013. He is famous for his reclusive nature, although he has made several animated appearances on The Simpsons television series. (Bowker Author Biography) |
