The Beatles Bible - Topic: Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49

Joe on Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:39:27 +0100

I had to read Gravity's Rainbow at university (postmodern American fiction course). I hated it. I read Lot 49 afterwards and, although it's an easier read, I can't say I enjoyed it either. His stuff is far too impenetrable for my liking - I don't really know why people might read it for pleasure.

I didn't know about the Beatles references – I can't remember if i spotted them at the time. I do know that Radiohead's mailing list, W.A.S.T.E, was named after it though.

Von Bontee on Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:30:51 +0100

Oh, "Lot 49" is great! And fairly short, like 150 pages or so, which means it's nowhere near as dense as "Gravity's Rainbow" or Pynchon's other biggies which I found way-baffling and convoluted. (Not that "Lot 49" isn't plenty dense in its own write, Pynchon being Pynchon.)

Incidentally, I first read that book right around the time that Prince changed his name to that unpronounceable symbol, and I convinced myself that the book was a partial influence.

Marcelo on Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:35:08 +0100

This is something new for me, an allusion to the Beatles in Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 novel:

I paste the entire quote from Wikipedia:

The Beatles

The Crying of Lot 49 was published shortly after Beatlemania and the "British invasion" which took place in America and other Western countries. Indeed, internal context clues indicate that it is probably set in 1964, the year in which A Hard Day's Night was released. Pynchon, aptly, makes a wide variety of Beatles allusions. Most prominent are the Paranoids, a band composed of cheerful marijuana smokers whose lead singer, Miles, is a high-school dropout. ...