Blog Post #2: The Crying of Lot 49

Thomas Pynchon’s novella The Crying of Lot 49 appears to take an ironic and despairing worldview in which the protagonist, Oedipa Maas, becomes increasingly isolated throughout the story as she struggles to understand the workings of the Tristero, and its system of communication; ironically, the more she learns about the Tristero’s way of communication, the more isolated from her life she grows. For example, after being told about Driblette’s suicide she thinks to herself: 

They are stripping from me, she said subvocally­–feeling like a fluttering curtain in a very high window, moving up to then out over the abyss–they are stripping away, one by one, my men. My shrink, pursued by Israelis, has gone mad; my husband, on LSD, gropes like a child further and further into the rooms and endless rooms of the elaborate candy house of himself and away, hopelessly away, from what has passed, I was hoping forever, for love; my one extra-marital fella has eloped with a depraved 15-year-old; my best guide back to the Trystero has taken a Brody. (Pynchon 125-126)

In this instance Oedipa lists all the connections she has lost during her investigation into the Tristero and its meaning. There is irony in her isolation being caused by her interest in what turns out to have been a courier organization, a system of communication. Furthermore, it is ironic that the more she understands about the way this system of communication currently works, the harder she seems to find it to communicate with the world around her, as she notes when she visits Driblette’s grave and tries to get him to come to her: “Driblette, she called…But as with Maxwell’s Demon, so now. Either she could not communicate, or he did not exist” (Pynchon 134). The mention of her failure to get a reaction from Maxwell’s Demon emphasizes Oedipa’s growing difficulty to communicate as well as her desire to find a connection with someone, emphasizing the irony and hopelessness of her situation.

Pynchon also presents a despairing worldview, as Oedipa loses her husband to drugs, and the potential connection to Driblette, whom she “needed” and “could fall in love with” (Pynchon 133) after he commits suicide. Additionally, her doubts about whether her discoveries are real or just an elaborate prank organized by Inverarity before his death “for her embarrassment, or terrorizing, or moral improvement?” (Pynchon 140) further alienate her from the world around her, making her less trusting as she begins to question all her previous interactions throughout the story, making her connections seem meaningless from the beginning. 

There is also an element of pessimism in Oedipa’s growing indifference towards supporting her discoveries with sources the more she investigates the Tristero Organization. In the beginning of the story, Oedipa is portrayed as very determined to reveal the truth, she travels to track down sources and follows even the smallest of leads, but by the end she seems to become apathetic to whether the information she is receiving is accurate and valid. For instance, during her discussion with Bortz about the possible role the Tristero took on after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, Bortz seems to make an unbacked assumption and the narrator states that Oedipa: “…didn't press the argument. Having begun to feel reluctant about following up anything” (Pynchon 137). The narrator’s statement about Oedipa’s “reluctance to follow up anything” presents a contrast to her previous enthusiasm for the mystery that the Tristero represented and portrays her as slowly giving up on finding things out by herself and instead allowing herself to be led by what she is told rather than what she knows or can learn for herself. She becomes more dependent on the information provided to her and stops following her own instincts.

In conclusion, Pynchon’sThe Crying of Lot 49 portrays a despairing and ironic worldview, as Oedipa grows increasingly isolated and finds it harder to communicate the more she learns about the Tristero’s system of communication. Her obsession with understanding their origins and the way they communicate leads her to lose her connection with the people in her life, like her husband. There is also a despairing worldview as Oedipa loses her motivation to find out the truth throughout her investigation. In a way, the more she learns the less enthusiasm she has, and she begins to become distanced even from her own desire to uncover the truth.