The Crying of Lot 49 Audiobook By Thomas Pynchon cover art

The Crying of Lot 49

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The Crying of Lot 49

By: Thomas Pynchon
Narrated by: George K Wilson
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The highly original satire about Oedipa Maas, a woman who finds herself enmeshed in a worldwide conspiracy.

When her ex-lover, wealthy real-estate tycoon Pierce Inverarity, dies and designates her the coexecutor of his estate, California housewife Oedipa Maas is thrust into a paranoid mystery of metaphors, symbols, and the United States Postal Service. Traveling across Southern California, she meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not inconsiderable amount of self-knowledge.

“The work of a virtuoso with prose … His intricate symbolic order [is] akin to that of Joyce’s Ulysses.”—Chicago Tribune

©1965, 1966 Thomas Pynchon (P)2005 Recorded Books Literary Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Witty Funny

Critic reviews

"The comedy crackles, the puns pop, the satire explodes." (The New York Times)
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I recently rediscovered Pynchon after a brief brush with him in collrege and am in awe of his singularly American genius. This complex, layered, immensely intellectual, wildly wacky, symbolic and ultimately spiritual novella was written in the mid 60's. Way ahead of its time, its scary clairvoyant glimpse into the culture-to-be is classic Pynchon-to-be. In "Crying" we see the genesis of genius and a completely original mind not to be missed by anyone who loves literature. I'm on my 6th reading (listening) of this book and each time I appreciate it more. I like the narration even though other reviews have been negative about it. It's a tough book to read, and I feel this narrator does it justice.

Beginnings of Genius

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Pynchon's prose is exceptionally beautiful and intelligent, his narrative world is a remarkable structure of a collective, shared projection of a counter-counter-revolutionary conception of new America, lost in technology and human disconnection, and brought back into reality only through the reinvigoration of reason, imagination and a new history of original human agency.

"Shall I project the world?"

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Narration was challenging all the way through. I’ll need to read it again to myself in order to cleanse my mind’s pallet.

A Masterpiece, but not here.

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This feels like a study for a larger piece, as there is more or less just one plot. It is hilarious. I can't imagine anybody writing an ancient conspiracy novel after this biting story. Names of people and things are so funny, too! Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto, hahaha!

Hilarious

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You can hear the reader's nose whistle it got distracting many times throughout the book

Oy

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