The Crying of Lot 49

Upon the completion of this book (The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon), my original declaration that this book was eccentric and confusing, stands confirmed. Before I really delved deep into the book, I was aware that the novel would have hallucinations and a sense of paranoia (as vividly displayed by the music band “The Paranoids” that were constantly present). From the onset of the book there was this general consensus from literary elements as well as the cultural elements of the time, that this book was unusual and was a depiction of the times. At the very beginning of the story, Oedipa’s doctor is randomly calling her in the wee hours of the morning attempting to convince her to take LSD: “When can you let us fit you into our schedule.”(8). This random and abrupt incident serves to set the absurdity of the tone for the story. Occurrences such as these are common happenings in the novel and they add to the confusion as well as ridiculous nature. The next major act presented in the story that hinted to me that this would be a strange tale of everyone being “paranoid” was the continuous presence of “The Paranoids”. Each time The Paranoids were around, naturally, I assumed (as the characters felt) an eerie feeling was around. The band seemed to appear in the most random, awkward, and strange moments, like when the minor character, Manny Di Presso suddenly runs up on Oedipa and Metzer claiming to be a lawyer bringing a case against the estate of Pierce Inverarity: “Metzer looked around. The Paranoids and their chicks may have been out of earshot…. ‘They’ve been listening’, screamed Di Presso, ‘thosde kids. All the time, somebody listens in, snoops; they bug your apartment, they tap your phone-‘” (48). The Paranoids seem to add even more absurdity to bizarre situations. Everyone is on the edge of their seat. Everyone believes that there is some great conspiracy out there and the presence of the Paranoids adds to the mood of their anxiety. This was another indicator to me that this book would be full of delusions. The last and one of the most important indicators of the certain in congruency of the story was the use of drugs/the attempt to get others to take drugs. Drugs such as LSD and mushrooms were highly popular drugs during the 1960s and the topic of drugs surrounds this entire story. Each chapter has some mention of drugs and has representations of the side affects of drugs: “They had all been smoking, snuffing, or injecting something, and perhaps did not see her at all.” (98).. Even though Oedipa refuses to take them, she herself is constantly surrounded by people who are taking them and the atmosphere is mostly convoluted with these drugs, that even though she does not directly take these drugs, she still suffers the side affects such as hallucinations and confusion. These hallucinations interfered with her every day functioning as she was willing to admit to herself that: “Later, possibly, she would have trouble sorting the night into real and dreamed.” (95). With such conflict and confusion amongst the main character, I knew that I myself was doomed to be confused, because if she herself did not know whether or not the events she believed to be happening were real or not, then how was I suppose to know. I think Pynchon did this (wrote the story this way) to heighten the story so it would not only fit in the time period by its topic and allusions, but also in the mood of the times.