The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)
Thomas Pynchon
How is The Crying of Lot 49 a mystery novel?
In Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, the plot progression and narrative are embellished with mystery and comspiracies surrounding the thoughts and actions – namely the execution of Pierce Inverarity’s will – of the protagonist, Oedipa Maas. The suspense elements that derails Oedipa from her daily activities as a housewife starts at the beginning of the novel when she learns of Iverarity’s death, her subsequent journey to execute Inverarity’s will, and in the process, stumbles upon chanced coincidences, an album of forged stamps and the possibility of a secret underground cross-country mail system. However, it is clear that the novel engages a plethora of semiotics and mystery devices not to answer the questions it raised. Instead, it appears that by parodying a mystery novel, The Crying of Lot 49 uses various literary devices, including a play-within-a-play, to criticise the sub-cultures in 1960s America.
Pynchon obfuscates the narrative with countless signs and plot suspensions; the novel opens with an announcement of Inverarity’s death and Oedipa’s emotional, or rather the lack of, response. As Oedipa wonders about the circumstances surrounding Inverarity’s death and the duties of an executrix, questions immediately fill up the novel like a fog. When Oedipa asks, “Was that how he’d died, she wondered, among dreams, crushed by the only ikon in the house?” Pynchon alludes a possibility of Inverarity’s death as being crushed by a sign – a plaster icon of Jay Gould. The unlikely chances and amusing vision of such a death makes Oedipa’s speculation seem absurd and parodic.
By giving the reader a posthumous introduction to Inverarity through his voice impersonations, the narrative makes Inverarity’s unpresence even more sinister and ambiguous. For if we know that Inverarity is capable of voice impersonation, then he is certainly capable of impersonating the narrative, albeit, posthumously. This absurd sense of Inverarity’s presence or unpresence, his instigation of making Oedipa the will executrix and her subsequent discovery of a possible underground mail system from his collection of forged stamps colours the novel’s progress to the very end. Oedipa’s initial apathy about Inverarity’s affairs are gently nudged away by the various characters at different stages. When she approaches Roseman for help, he suggests to her to take more interest in the role that has been designated for her, subtly coercing her path out of Kinneret to Metzger. Oedipa’s initial reluctance is certainly not a common reaction, when compared to a typical mystery novel where a protagonist is constantly piqued by events both ordinary and extraordinary. Of course, we find once she is out of Kinneret and on her way to San Narciso, both external and internal forces keep her in the mystery even if it means destroying her sanity, as it is only after Oedipa sleeps with Metzger that makes her realise that her being in San Narciso may very well be pre-mediated.
After her infidelity, the novel does not forestall or hide any attempt to be recognised as a mystery with the commanding opening line in the third chapter ‘Things then did not delay turning curious”. Both Oedipa and the reader, whether they like it or not, must participate in this game of elusive chase for The Tristero. Since it is due to the cataloguing of Inverarity’s stamps that led to the suspicion of the Tristero System, it may then be suggested once more that it is not merely a whim on Inverarity’s part to have chosen Oedipa as his executrix. The unwilling detective is fed an influx of signs, starting from the forged stamps. In her process of becoming a detective, she began to be aware of her learning faculties; her ability to question and analyse grow stronger as she goes along, trying to solve the mystery of The Tristero. This process is indicated when she looked upon San Narciso earlier and reflected on the smilarity of pattern between the geography and a circuit board she came upon as a child. Having no desire to understand the intricacies of a circuit board, she manages to make a surreal comprehension about San Narciso towards the end of the novel.
Even though Oedipa does gradually become a more effective detective and achieve moments of epiphany, constant weariness and reluctance suggests an initial detective who is rather lethargic or dazed. As she learns to spy, trick, read signs and question, she comes across more as a student (“put[ting] on a sweater, skirt and sneakers, wrapped her hair in a studentlike twist, went easy on the makeup”), than as an astute detective. However, Oedipa’s ineffective detective work is a narrative device that aims to intrigue the reader into solving the signs that Oedipa cannot see or understand. The play-within-a play, the history on Thurn and Taxis, and Tristero are all elements of narrative that is addressed to the reader more than to Oedipa herself. LIke the example of thermodynamics and information entropy and Maxwell’s Demon, Pynchon is suggesting that the reader is the Demon who is behind-the-scenes sorting out the meta-realities the narrative has presented. The reader is then similar to Oedipa, who is not a sensitive, and just like she is unable to communicate with the Demon to push the piston, the reader is unable to communicate with Oedipa to solve the mystery but merely observe the run of events as a reader. Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 is then parody of a mystery novel that parodies itself onto the reader, allowing for multiple dimensions of doubts, questions, information, interpretation and inconclusive evidence.
The futility of detective work in the novel is presented most starkly in Oedipa’s trail of the W.A.S.T.E. carrier, who led her right back to John Nefastis’ apartment. When presented with recurring evidence, she is not inclined to pursue it further but instead heads back to Kinneret to seek validation for her growing paranoia from Dr. Hilarius, who is raving mad when they meet. Oedipa’s inability to handle her paranoia like a real detective and instead chooses to give into a state of pyschosis suggests the constant state of suspense that persists to the very end of the novel.
The Crying of Lot 49 culminates to an outcome that alludes to and even personifies the ideals and daily lives of an America that knew no boundaries of personal expansion or invasion. The last suspension, like a musical chord is indicative of the narrative’s parodic outcome continually expanding upon its own narrative, and is unable to come to a resolution. Pynchon’s mystery novel is then a novel that simply uses a variety of literary device to parody the circumspect, the plot and the spy-and-chase elements of the mystery genre to the fullest.
