So it has been awhile since I have blogged last....whoopsies. Where does the time go? If I were the main character in the novel "The Crying of Lot 49" I would invent a conspiracy theory to explain where time goes. (A+ segue way) This was a tough one. Not in the Faulkner "can't understand the grammar or lack of punctuation" kind of way, but in a 60's induced hallucinogenic kind of way.
What I can gather from the plot, after the death of a former love interest, the protagonist Oedipa (ha!) is left as the executor of his estate and she gets embroiled in a search for answers regarding a conspiracy that relates to two rival postal services that date back hundreds of years. The novel is a winding narrative of seemingly unrelated encounters where Oedipa finds pieces of possible clues to the existence or non-existence of one of these postal services. What Pynchon seems to be commenting on is the need that people have to invent conspiracies or other belief systems to fill in the blanks of their own knowledge.
Cool beans, huh? The novel is beautifully written, and it kept me wanting to read more simply because some of the encounters and situations are so bizarre. Needless to say, however, that if you are looking to a satisfying resolutions to any answers regarding the possible conspiracy, there are none.
