Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49

Sebastian Huber (Ludwig-Maximilians Universität Munchen)

Ed. by Christopher Hugh Gair, University of Glasgow
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1966

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Metafiction
Novel

Resources

While Thomas Pynchon’s second and arguably most accessible novel thematically “singl[es] up all lines” (Crying 20) with the overarching leitmotifs of his oeuvre, it really stands as the odd one out in terms of length. With its roughly 130–180 pages (depending on edition), The Crying of Lot 49 might appear as a relapse towards the brevity of Pynchon’s first work, the short stories later published in Slow Learner. Particularly when compared to his other major works, V., Gravity’s Rainbow, Mason & Dixon and Against the Day, which tend to incorporate a plethora of such micronarratives and knot them into a byzantine tapestry, The Crying of Lot 49 at first sight seems …

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3315 words

Citation: Huber, Sebastian. "The Crying of Lot 49". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 December 2010 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1139, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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