The Crying of Lot 49

By: Thomas Pynchon

Narrated by: George Wilson

Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Quite unexpectedly, Mrs. Oedipa Maas finds herself the executor of the estate of Pierce Inverarity, a man she used to know in a more-or-less intimate fashion. When Oedipa heads off to Southern California to sort through Pierce's affairs, she becomes ensnared in a hilarious and puzzling worldwide conspiracy.

Calling Thomas Pynchon a "virtuoso with prose", the Chicago Tribune compares his work to James Joyce's Ulysses. Pynchon, winner of the National Book Award, has shocked, enthralled, and delighted fans for more than 40 years with his satire and wit.

©1965, 1966 Thomas Pynchon (P)2005 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"The comedy crackles, the puns pop, the satire explodes." ( The New York Times)

fantastic book, terrible reading

As amazing as this book was, if I hadn't had the text, I would have put it down after after 2 hours!! I have Audio book of every Pychon novel short of V. & all work great as assists in reading the text. Not so much with this one.
There's a difference between reading and narrating. This is Prime Example of Reading & it took Alot away from actual audiobook!
And those Nose Whistles & Stomach Growls! Never in my audiobook reading time have I ever listened to such an unprofessional recording!
Still, An amazing, hilarious novel very much like Inherent Vice! Perfect intro to beginners of Pychon, Just Not This Recording!

Private postal conspiracy theory

Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 is a surrealistic journey of a woman designated as the executor for a recently deceased real estate tycoon / former lover. Her meeting with a lawyer initiates a bizarre adventure that stumbles across what appears to be the remnants of an old private postal feud resulting in one of the companies going underground and continuing existing as some sort of secret society with unknown intentions.

Pynchon offers an eclectic assortment of odd individuals with humorous names that fits well with the time period of the 60’s, including a German psychiatrist, Dr Hilarius, who happens to have been Nazi medical intern during WWII. The secretive underground postal service is largely a McGuffin that serves to simply offer various situations for comedic relief.

The narration is acceptable with decent character distinction. Pacing is a tad slow.

Note: The title word ‘crying’ refers to an auction where the particular lot (49) has material related to postal service.

Great rendition of an amazing novel.

Though on the fifth read, returning to it from McLuhan, Wiener and Eliade the novel will make complete sense and basically lose its mystique, it's still worth the effort, and listening ro the audiobook is a fine way to get there.

The source of all the pomo lit I've loved

What about George Wilson’s performance did you like?

The narrator's performance was solid. Didn't overly color the text, which is good, but it did seem a bit too passion-less.

Any additional comments?

I love Haruki Murakami's A WILD SHEEP CHASE, Umberto Eco's FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM, and Tom Robbins's EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES and STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER. Now I realize they all can trace their DNA back to this novel. The conspiracy theory. The metaphysical detective story ... or the post-modernist style of wrapping a hidden history or a social commentary within the wrapper of a genre novel.

Awsome Book, Awsome Performance

I love this book. I've read it a couple times and I'm on my second time through the audiobook. The story is gloriously surreal. What's real? Is anything? Is it an elaborate joke? Conspiracy? Insanity? All three? Since this is Pynchon, don't expect to be handed the answer.

I enjoyed the presentation. The narrator's tone was appropriate for the story,

Extra attention to detail

Thomas Pynchon is definitely in a distinct class of writers . really I'm not to much into comparisons but will try here . most I notice similarities to Hunter Thompson as his descriptives but more drawn out . the flow on this book has some likeness to Ulysses by James Joyce I believe but more tied together . best I can do I will have to read more of his books for a better informed opinion of the authors work . was a great read I would highly advise this book for a little something different .

Mistakes, awkward pacing, loud breathing.

This review is solely regarding the performance of the reader and not the novel itself.

The reader has a deep baritone voice that is not unpleasant to listen to but his pacing is slow and awkward.
There are several instances where words are mildly but annoyingly mispronounced (eg: sideways as “sidewise”), incorrect pronouns are read (“HE said” when it should be “SHE said”), and incorrect words are read that could alter the meaning of a sentence for listeners (eg: “chance” read as “change”).
There were several times where I felt the reader’s prosody and/or pacing miscommunicated or confused the meaning of a sentence.

In pauses of silence, excessive mouth noises and breathing can be heard. This hasn’t ever bothered me in an audiobook before, but it REALLY grated on my nerves with this one. Around 1/3 or more of the way into the novel, the reader’s nose starts to make an annoying whistling sound as he breathes.

Overall, I would not recommend this to audiobook to anyone. The performance is just too inaccurate and tainted by excessive noises. Hopefully a better performance of this excellent novel will materialize in the future.

Awesome reading of one of my favorite books

The author does a great job of bringing this complex work to life. Distinguishes between characters with distinct voices (similar to what I imagine the characters would sound like fake accents and all) delivers the authors jokes the way I thought they should be delivered. Audio, story and reading quality 10/10. great for listening to during a commute

My favorite author

This book talks about a secret mail service. So I will be silent. Read it for yourself.

Yuck.

Not my type of writing. If you're SUPER into reading books that make you feel like you're in a Masters English class have at it. Had to read (well "read" I couldn't even get through it) for book club and would not recommend for one.