The Crying of Lot 49-Thomas Pynchon
Oedipa Maas's ex-boyfriend is dead, and she has been named executor. She must leave her ordinary life and drive to San Narciso. While there, she uncovers what may be a centuries old worldwide conspiracy between rival post systems, or perhaps an undiagnosed paranoia within herself, causing her to see connections and conspiracies where none exist, only her own desperate need for life to have both meaning and directedness.
What a great book. To start with, the language is wonderful. It's not pretty, but it is hypnotic and lyrical, and though Pynchon may have single paragraphs that encompass four or five pages, you hardly notice, because you're pulled forward through the rapids of his words, hardly noticing til it comes crashing to a halt. There are puns and songs and witty bits of banter and history. The Thurn and Taxis was real.
And the story itself is highly engaging and entertaining. Everywhere she looks, she sees the post horn:
This is the symbol of the conspiracy, and wherever she seeks it, she finds it, from a biker gang to a publishing house. This was the part that was most interesting to me, not only because I love conspiracy theories, but also because if a conspiracy is this open and this widespread, does it still count as a conspiracy? Is she seeing a conspiracy, or just noticing for the first time since she took up idyllic living in a small town that everything really is connected, and only in her isolation does it seem strange? Or is it something you never see til you start looking, in the way stoners find such deep meaning in the symbols on a dollar bill, along with a Masonic conspiracy? Given that people involved in the conspiracy start dying, but no hard evidence arises, she sinks deeper into uncertainty. Perhaps a rival postal delivery service really is trying to hide itself from prying eyes.
I highly recommend it. Anyways, off to pick up Gravity's Rainbow.
What a great book. To start with, the language is wonderful. It's not pretty, but it is hypnotic and lyrical, and though Pynchon may have single paragraphs that encompass four or five pages, you hardly notice, because you're pulled forward through the rapids of his words, hardly noticing til it comes crashing to a halt. There are puns and songs and witty bits of banter and history. The Thurn and Taxis was real.
And the story itself is highly engaging and entertaining. Everywhere she looks, she sees the post horn:
This is the symbol of the conspiracy, and wherever she seeks it, she finds it, from a biker gang to a publishing house. This was the part that was most interesting to me, not only because I love conspiracy theories, but also because if a conspiracy is this open and this widespread, does it still count as a conspiracy? Is she seeing a conspiracy, or just noticing for the first time since she took up idyllic living in a small town that everything really is connected, and only in her isolation does it seem strange? Or is it something you never see til you start looking, in the way stoners find such deep meaning in the symbols on a dollar bill, along with a Masonic conspiracy? Given that people involved in the conspiracy start dying, but no hard evidence arises, she sinks deeper into uncertainty. Perhaps a rival postal delivery service really is trying to hide itself from prying eyes.
I highly recommend it. Anyways, off to pick up Gravity's Rainbow.