New Close Readings of The Crying of Lot 49

by Robert E. Kohn

This book provides numerous new interpretations of Thomas Pynchon's THE CRYING OF LOT 49, arguably the most epistemologically complex novel, page for page, ever written. One of the continuing surprises of the 1960s was that such a novel was destined to become a blockbuster. The continual flow of new editions demonstrates that THE CRYING OF LOT 49 has remained a major seller well into the first decade of the 21st century. It is not surprising that J. Kerry Grant reported that some "Forty years after its first publication, [THE CRYING OF LOT 49] is still selling at the rate of between fifteen and twenty thousand copies annually." Kohn's close readings of Pynchon's novel draw on writings by Henry Adams, Roland Barthes, Rachel Carson, Charles Darwin, Loren Eiseley, W.Y. Evans-Wentz, E.M. Forster, Don DeLillo, F.R. Leavis,  Paul Virilio and Jerry Wilkerson.  

220 pages, Paperback

First published August 14, 2013

Reviews

[Luke Dylan Ramsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

C+/B-

Check out the Pynchon centered podcast I cohost, Mapping the Zone. We just finished Lot 49 and are moving on to Mason & Dixon next. I cite this book multiple times during the podcast.

While I enjoyed reading this book, I didn’t find its various conclusions to be that convincing. Basically the only parts I found that insightful were the parts about Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism and how they relate to Modernist and Post-Modernist literature.

The writer is endearing but more cute than convincing. The book is a bit all over the place, rarely focused, and alternatively too technical and rather amateurish. You can tell that the author lacks formal training in literary criticism.