A Book A Week - Week 7: The Crying of Lot 49

This week's book:
    The Crying of Lot 49     by Thomas Pynchon

Grade:
    C-

Thomas Pynchon is famous, but he's famous for not allowing photographs of himself.  No one but his family knows what he looks like nowadays.  Fifty years ago, perhaps, he was more famous for his fiction, but now he's kind of the anti-Kardashian, and instead of plastering media with his image he's notable for exactly the opposite.  But he's been touted as a possible Pulitzer nominee for decades now, so I thought I'd give his prose a try.

I hated - HATED - the first three chapters.  Seriously loathed them.  They were wordy and pretentious and not at all entertaining.  If this is literature, then 'literature' means 'boring run-on sentences that don't track and leave me not caring about the message at all.'  Based on the first three chapters - there are only 6 chapters in all - I was set to give this book an F.  Yup, that's how much I hated the first three chapters, I thought 'Twilight' was better.
    I hated the first part of the book so much I actually went back and re-read the first three chapters again, after I finished the book, to see if I could tell what it was that sent me over the edge.  I found the first three chapters really no different than the last three, but by the time I got to Chapters Four through Six, I was no longer outraged and incensed, I had grown used to what I was reading.  Like living by the airport, at first the sound drives you insane, then it becomes background noise.

Once I got past the first half of the book the story picked up and I got a little more interested.  But only a little.  I still didn't care at all about the main character, or about her struggle, or about whether she had really stumbled onto a worldwide conspiracy or had just become paranoid.  Honestly, the only thing I cared about is whether any of the plot threads would be wrapped up by the last page.  Some were, most weren't.  Whatever.  Meh.

I think this book both benefits and suffers from being a product if its time.  Published in 1965, it was the first thing of its kind published.  Or, at least, it was the first thing the Baby Boomers thought was published, which was why it made it on the shelves.  It's a pale imitation of James Joyce, done by a kid just out of college without any of the world experience an author needs to pull off this kind of rambling, almost stream-of-consciousness narrative.  He tried to bring in contemporary music and cultural references but those just fall flat, like he's a stand-up comic calling out familiar things because he can't think of anything funny to say.  'Hey, look, the Beatles, and Pismo Beach, and the Mafia - those are things in the early '60's!'  There are dense passages of description that don't really pack an emotional punch, and purposefully absurd character and place names that do nothing but call attention to themselves and don't advance the narrative.  It's an experiment that failed.

 Since this reads to me like a Senior thesis from a Creative Writing major, I gave it the grade I thought it deserved.  Nice try, but give it a rewrite to tighten up the narrative.  And give me characters I care about, instead of names on a page.

Oh, and for those curious about the title, it refers to 'crying' an auction, or 'calling' it, where the various lots are put up for bid.  Lot 49 is the lot of stamp forgeries that might lead the main character to a person who can tell her whether the worldwide conspiracy she feels closing in around her is real or a figment of her imagination.  And that is precisely where the story ENDS.
   Yeah, I feel cheated too.


Next week:
   Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep    by Philip K. Dick
    The inspiration for the movie 'Blade Runner.'