‘The Crying of Lot 49’

The Crying of Lot 49 is one of the most deceptive – as well as one of the most brilliant – short novels to have appeared since the last war. It is a strange book in that the more we learn the more mysterious everything becomes. The model for the story would seem to be the Californian detective story – an established tradition including the works of writers such as Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald and Eric Stanley Gardner. In the simplest terms, the novel concerns Oedipa Maas, who learns that she has been named as an executor of the estate of a deceased Californian real-estate mogul named Pierce Inverarity. The chapter describes Oedipa Maas among the eclectic bric-a-brac of contemporary Californian culture, buying lasagne and Scientific American in shops that indifferently play Muzak or Vivaldi. To recount Oedipa’s encounter with the many possible clues that seem to ‘bloom’ for her as she pursues her inquiries would be a pointless exercise.