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Dani Bondurant

Dr. Van Ness

2 May 2017

“No end to it, baby”: Pynchon, Communication, and The Crying of Lot 49

The experimental novel subverts the norms and conventions generally exemplified in

traditional narrative literature. Post-modern techniques, such as metafiction and hyper-reality, are

strategically used in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 to express the flaws of American

culture in the 1960s, primarily focusing on the human inability to communicate effectively.

Pynchon declared in an article for the New York Times on October 28, 1984: “But if we do insist

upon fictional violations of the laws of nature— of space, time, thermodynamics, and the big

one, mortality itself— then we risk being judged by the literary mainstream as insufficiently

serious” (Pynchon 1, 40). These violations of nature, Pynchon suggests, are exemplified by The

Bordando el Manto Terrestre triptych, the puzzling musical qualities shown by The Paranoids,

and other narrative elements that appear in the novel and that characterize the failure of

communication in America during the 1960s.

After Oedipa is named executrix of her former lover’s estate, a series of abnormal events

occur that leave her more uncertain of her findings than when her search began. As Oedipa tries

to assemble the miscellaneous information she is given over the course of the novel, she

simultaneously attempts to organize the strange discoveries into a pattern she can understand.

However, her attempts to make sense of the clues are futile, as too many vague and incomplete

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findings present themselves. She becomes entrapped in a sequence of highly unusual discoveries,

often meeting bizarre individuals in the process, such as the child movie star and lawyer,

Metzger; the playwright, Randolph Dribblette; and the obsessive scientist, John Nefastis. After

she discovers Pierce Inverarity’s extensive stamp collection, meets a member of the Peter

Pinguid Society, and finds the muted post horn symbol scrawled on a bathroom stall, Oedipa

believes she has enough information to discern the answers of Inverarity’s will. Believing “Each

clue that comes is supposed to have its own clarity, its fine chances for permanence” (95), she

does not realize her entrapment within the search. She trudges on in her journey, however, to

understand the secret postal service, the Tristero, which is an ambiguous and conspiracy-driven

mail distribution company. Oedipa’s inability, finally, to uncover the inner workings of the

Tristero supports the novel’s meditation on communication by presenting an underground postal

service intended to be used as means to send messages, even though it appears flawed, cryptic,

and possibly even non-existent. Oedipa’s endless obstacles are heightened by her nonsensical

and disconnected conversations wherein she attempts to gain information regarding the estate,

which only leave her knowing less than she initially discerned.

Early in the novel, the circuit card to which Oedipa compares the landscape of San

Narciso exemplifies the deterioration of communication that Pynchon asserts is prevalent in

America in the 1960s. As Oedipa approaches San Narciso, her flawed tendency to mold

information and images into patterns is revealed when she notices the way in which the houses

and landscape are arranged:

The ordered swirl of houses and streets, from this high angle, sprang at her now with the

same unexpected, astonishing clarity as the circuit card had. Though she knew even less

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about radios than about Southern Californians, there were to both outward patterns a

hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate. There’d seemed

no limit to what the printed circuit could have told her (if she had tried to find out); so in

her first minute of San Narciso, a revelation also trembled just path the threshold of her

understanding. (Pynchon 14)

Comparing the landscape to a circuit card, Oedipa categorizes these two entities as forming a

pattern in order to execute their purpose. The circuit board’s purpose is to permit an electrical

object to work, while the roads and houses that make up the landscape allow for the community

to function easily. As suggested by Pynchon, the problem with Oedipa’s pattern-seeking is that

she may be imagining the design to better grasp the information. One of Oedipa’s subtle flaws is

that she assumes everything must follow a pattern. Circuits follow a predetermined configuration

to produce an electrical effect, such as the creation of noise or light. Feeling as though she is “on

some other frequency” (14), Oedipa’s search does not follow a similar pattern because it does not

end with a satisfactory, conclusive product. Her journey throughout The Crying of Lot 49, as one

critic notes, leads to “an informational overload that collapses ‘communication’ in a chaos of

signals. In this way, informational entropy promotes communicational disorder: it generates an

excess of output that cannot be reduced to meaning, sense or coherence” (Vine 167). She is

desperately traveling to different locations and meeting unrelated people to connect the obscure

information about Inverarity’s estate, but by the conclusion of the novel, the clues do not link

together in the satisfactory way that the circuit board does.

Oedipa’s husband, Mucho, represents society’s inability to communicate because he

broadcasts on his radio station, KCUF, yet resorts to LSD as a result of his failed attempts to

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send a message to his audience. Mucho initially owned a car lot but later switched to

broadcasting for the radio station because he “could never accept the way each owner— each

shadow, filed in only to exchange a dented, malfunctioning version of himself for another, just as

futureless, automotive projection of somebody else’s life” (Pynchon 5). Mucho’s car lot business

is symbolic of the way humans conform their communication based on the situation they are in

or the individual with whom they are interacting. Mucho’s character exemplifies the obscurity

surrounding communication that Pynchon asserts as a failure throughout the novel. As a radio

broadcaster, Mucho attempts to communicate with a wide audience through his radio station, but

feels it is a failure and turns to usage of LSD. He tells Oedipa: “You take it because it’s good.

Because you hear and see things, even smell them, taste like you never could. Because the world

is so abundant. No end to it, baby” (Pynchon 118). Mucho depicts the world as extravagant, yet

can only come to this conclusion under the influence of LSD. His abandonment of

communication altogether is a result of the fragmented and distorted methods humans have to

interact.

Mucho’s embrace of drugs exemplifies Pynchon’s assertion regarding the deterioration of

elective communication. When characters attempt to talk to each other in The Crying of Lot 49,

information is always given that becomes misinterpreted or is unclear. Matthew Guillen explores

Pynchon’s stance on communication, asserting: “The scaffolding of society, presented in this

light, is well in the process of irreversible collapse. Pynchon certainly does work on post-

modernist themes which underscore the inscrutability, relativity and ultimate subjectivity of

reality. And, with the possible exception of Schaub [a critic who analyzes how thermodynamic

entropy reveals Pynchon’s stance on American civilization], Pynchon is generally perceived as

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celebrating the logical self-destruction of Western institutions” (Guillen 109). Guillen’s

suggestion of a “scaffolding of society” implies we are guided from an early age to follow the

norms of communication. However, Pynchon in The Crying of Lot 49 suggests these conventions

are flawed and have further deteriorated, so much so that it actually hinders Oedipa from

fulfilling her duty as executrix. Instead of continuing to follow these failed attempts at

communication with the listeners of KCUF, Mucho takes LSD to gain a sense of the world he is

unable to have by relying on his verbal communication with other individuals.

As Oedipa becomes more invested in her attempts to understand the underground postal

service, more cryptic clues come forward that have questionable usefulness. For example,

Oedipa and Metzger, the lawyer assigned to her to help her execute Pierce Inverarity’s will, see a

play entitled made-up Jacobean play entitled The Courier’s Tragedy in hopes there will a

connection to the vague information they have uncovered. The play is extremely convoluted, but

Oedipa hears one word in the script that causes her surprise: Trystero, which she thinks proves

that she has found another piece of the puzzle in understanding Inverarity’s estate. The Courier’s

Tragedy symbolizes the tangled mess into which Oedipa has entrapped herself by fully trusting

that every clue will lead her to the answers. Like the characters of The Courier’s Tragedy,

Oedipa is enveloped in chaos. She is encouraged to continue her research into the underground

postal service because she hears the word “Trystero” within the play, taking the information at

face-value.

The play contains short monologues, one of them being, “The swan has yielded but one

hollow quill, / The hapless mutton, but his tegument; / Yet what, transmuted, swart and silken

flows / Between, was neither plucked nor harshly flayed, / But gathered up, from wildly different

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beasts” (Pynchon 54). Even though Oedipa does not realize it, her journey and her inability to

communicate effectively are reflected in these lines. She is symbolized by the swan that “has

yielded but one hollow quill,” the quill representing the one piece of information Oedipa has

possibly obtained regarding Pierce Inverarity’s estate: the Tristero. However, as said in the play,

it is “hollow.” The clue is not even useful to her in understanding his estate. She acquires this

knowledge by coming upon various different individuals, the “wildly different beasts” as they

are called in The Courier’s Tragedy. Oedipa’s false pretense of gained insight into Inverarity’s

estate foreshadows her failure to execute the will as a result of her failed methods of

communication.

A subtle yet significant narrative element that suggests a failure in communication is the

scene in which Oedipa returns to her hotel and an unidentified man in a tweed coat pulls her to

him for a dance. He immediately grabs Oedipa, without speaking, as dancing overtakes speaking.

Dancing becomes communication, and Oedipa wonders:

But how long, Oedipa thought, could it go on before collisions became a serious

hindrance? There would have to be collisions. The only alternative was some unthinkable

order of music, many rhythms, all keys at once, a choreography in which each couple

meshed easy, predestined. Something they all heard with an extra sense atrophied in

herself. She followed her partner’s lead, limp in the young mute’s clasp, waiting for the

collisions to begin. But none came. (Pynchon 107)

Oedipa and the man in the tweed coat share no verbal communication because dancing fills the

void of talking in this instance, and she awaits a collision of people to occur that would destroy

the pattern of dancing they have formed. This scene embodies yet another flawed interaction

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because they do not even attempt to communicate using words. As one critic states, “The silent

signs neither crash nor coalesce into epiphany, but their very movement, their ‘rustling,

shuffling’ dance, invokes the brimming energy of suspended revelation” (Serpell 107). Oedipa’s

ability to reach this “revelation” without using verbal communication reveals that messages can

be obtained through a variety of ways. Pynchon uses this scene as a way of depicting humans’

total reliance on spoken language to converse, even though other means of interaction exist. This

human dependency on verbalization, he suggests, is the reason communication has become a

failure. Even though Oedipa lacks the ability to converse properly, the individuals fail in their

attempts to impart information by being ambiguous and perplexing. They rely heavily on spoken

communication, but fail to realize the dangers of this absolute dependence.

Aside from the narrative elements that portray Pynchon’s stance on communication, art

and music also assert the inherent flaws in human relations. Oedipa tends to see herself depicted

in art, as shown when she arrives at the motel in San Narciso and looks upon a statue of a nymph

whose face, Oedipa thinks, looks just like her own (16). Just as Oedipa envisions a pattern

imbedded in the landscape which she compares to a circuit board, she also sees the physical

similarities between herself and the nymph. Oedipa’s desire to create connections between two

objects is often a figment of her imagination and exposes her impulsive nature. The Bordando el

Manto Terrestre triptych by Remedios Varos is introduced by Pynchon to depict the circular

journey in which Oedipa finds herself, and she yet again sees only a reflection of herself. The

triptych shows women in a tower who are creating a tapestry that flows out of the windows of

the tower, where it appears they are being held captive. As Oedipa recalls the moment in which

she first saw the triptych, she remembers the deep sadness she felt as she looked upon it.

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Pynchon writes: “What did she so desire escape from? Such a captive maiden, having plenty of

time to think, soon realizes that her tower, its height and architecture, are like her ego only

incidental: that what really keeps her where she is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited on

her from outside and for no reason at all” (11-12). Again, Oedipa is struck by the resemblance to

herself. While the realization of her similarity to the triptych saddens her, she does not fully

understand the parallel, failing to know that the triptych is meant to depict her as trapped in her

journey; instead, she romanticizes the idea of being entrapped by imagining herself as

“Rapunzel-like.” As David Cowart declares, “Thus Oedipa sees in the painting a representation

of her own psychological-existential problems. She, too, is locked in a tower ‘like her ego only

incidental’, a tower in which she must embroider or spin out a world she finds uncongenial”

(24). The depiction of Oedipa as an entrapped figure accurately shows her bound by her frantic

journey. Pynchon’s presentation of this painting furthers the argument of communication as a

failure in America during the 1960s by offering a depiction of the human state of mind that

individuals do not recognize. In the triptych, there is no illusion of freedom. The women are

clearly trapped with no means of escape. Conversely, Oedipa is under the delusion that she has a

certain amount of control over her interactions with other individuals and can escape the

entrapment of uncovering Pierce’s will through communication. The use of art to represent

Oedipa’s situation is meant to transcend the physical world of The Crying of Lot 49 in order to

reveal ideas beyond those Oedipa can perceive.

Pynchon brings art into The Crying of Lot 49 to show various forms of communication

that exceed the verbal communication on which Oedipa relies. The triptych portrays Oedipa

more clearly than she could describe herself by simply using words; it enables her to understand

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her situation more accurately than would verbal communication with another individual. Oedipa

ponders: “because of a painting, that what she stood on had only been woven together a couple

thousand miles away in her own tower, was only by accident known as Mexico, and so Pierce

had taken her away from nothing, there’d been no escape” (Pynchon 11). Even after viewing the

painting, Oedipa remains ignorant as to how futile her journey will be.

Just as the triptych represents the entrapment of Oedipa’s journey, it holds a double-

edged meaning by also epitomizing the confinement of humans as a whole. Oedipa, symbolizing

America in the sixties, is trapped within her patterns of communication. Just as the women in the

triptych are imprisoned in the tower, Americans are constricted by their inefficient patterns of

communication. Oedipa is the clearest representation of flawed communication, but the bizarre

individuals with whom she interacts to learn more about Inverarity’s estate also possess flawed

communication styles. Each character is constructed by Pynchon in order to hold Americans

equally accountable for continuing the flawed techniques in communication that earlier

generations constructed.

Shortly after Oedipa checks into her motel in San Narciso, she meets Miles, the teenage

lead singer of The Paranoids, a bizarre band comprised of other teenagers. The band’s song

lyrics are seemingly hollow and pointless, but they point to a disorder in human communication

in 1960s America. Miles’s first song, which Oedipa hears him sing as he carries her bags to the

motel room, goes:

Too fat to Frug,

That’s what you tell me all the time,

When you really try’n’ to put me down,

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But I’m hip,

So close your big fat lip,

Yeah, baby,

I may be too fat to Frug,

But at least I ain’t too slim to Swim. (16)

Miles’s short song refers to an inability to “Frug,” a dance that became popular in the 1960s. The

song’s literal depiction is that of a speaker who is too large to dance the Frug, but is still able to

“Swim,” a dance made popular by Bobby Freeman, an R&B singer in the sixties (Lee 552). The

figurative meaning, however, points to the abandonment of one form of communication in favor

of another. Particular styles of dance have techniques and patterns to follow in order to correctly

perform the movements. Dance is communication in this instance because speaking also revolves

around techniques in order to convey and receive a message. Oedipa attempts to adhere to these

patterns to gain information useful in her execution of Inverarity’s will, but she becomes

discouraged by her lack of progress and abandons her attempts in communication.

Though Oedipa regards Miles’s song as “lovely” (17), she does not realize the way in

which it alludes to her futile exploration throughout the novel. As Cowart asserts, “Music, in

these books [The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity’s Rainbow], seems always to hint at the extra

dimensions of experience that one misses because of the narrow range of frequencies—physical

or spiritual—to which one is attuned” (81). The musical qualities Pynchon laces throughout The

Crying of Lot 49 underscore meaningless communication exemplified by Oedipa’s inconsistent

journey. The underlying meaning in The Paranoids’ songs cannot be understood by Oedipa

because she neglects the relevance of their lyrics. Utilizing emerging cultural trends in 1960s

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America, Pynchon presents American culture, such as pop music, to subtly yet effectively

critique the flawed patterns of communication.

As Oedipa becomes deeply invested in her attempts to connect the Tristero to Inverarity’s

estate, The Paranoids sing yet again. Two lines from the song read: “And the older generation/

Has taught me what to do” (121). These lyrics refer to the repetition of ideas through

generations, particularly exemplified in the norms of communication that have been shaped over

history. In Pynchon’s introduction to Slow Learner, a compilation of his early stories, he writes:

“There were no more primary choices for us to make. We were onlookers: the parade has gone

by and we were already getting everything secondhand, consumers of what the media of the time

were supplying us” (193). Pynchon’s frustration with communication in the sixties is a result of

the repetition of learned habits over history, exemplified not only in this quotation but also

throughout The Crying of Lot 49.

America in the 1960s was a time of radical events largely driven by politics. Presidents

John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson sought to enlarge the federal government in order to

solve social problems, as well as to expand America’s influence in the world (Giglio 38) . This

desire effected innumerable political, social, and cultural protests among numerous groups,

including African Americans who struggled for civil rights (Carson 144), Mexican-American

students seeking identity (Muñoz 168), Vietnam draft protestors (Chafe 91), hippies who

searched for meaning (Miller 193), and women who wanted to dismantle the gender inequality

(Pedriana 1719). These various groups all criticized or even rejected America’s mainstream

society, deeming it impaired and acting in hopes of bringing equality to the nation. By relying on

several communication strategies in order to change aspects of the American culture with which

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they disagreed, these groups exemplify Pynchon’s assertion of human manipulation of

communication in order to receive their desired outcome. Oedipa intuitively believes there may

be someone purposefully exploiting her mission to execute the estate, although it is likely her

inability to interact with others that hinders her.

Though initiated in the fifties by challenging schools’ segregation laws, the civil rights

movement evolved into a greater issue during the sixties. The National Organization for the

Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student

Nonviolent Coordinating Committee were all civil rights protest groups that emerged in hopes to

transform American stigmas and rules regarding African Americans (Carson 144). Mexican-

Americans became inspired by African Americans’ demonstrations and began to engage in their

own political protests as a result. These protesters wished to maintain their ethnic pride, earn

political recognition, and eliminate discrimination. Upon his declaration of candidacy in 1960,

John F. Kennedy asked leaders of this Mexican-American movement for help, to which they

complied by aiding in his political campaign (Muñoz 170). These demonstrators used their

communication and voice to reach a goal. Oedipa also attempts to do this, but cannot obtain her

desired knowledge.

Upheaval continued during Kennedy’s presidency. Involvement in Vietnam escalated

rapidly, which a large amount of Americans greatly disapproved of. After his assassination in

1963, Lyndon B. Johnson continued to heighten America’s participation in the war (Siegel 43).

As a result of this, draft resistance and protest marches became increasingly popular by 1965 .

The draft resistance held underlying meaning for its partakers because it caused their fellow

citizens to constitute them as unpatriotic, at times even ridiculing participants’ masculinity.

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During organized protests by those involved in draft resistance, groups would burn their draft

cards. These burners viewed the war as criminal, and claimed they were entitled to reject the

draft. The burning of the draft cards was the protestors’ way of communicating their resistance to

the war. However, this act supports Pynchon’s assertion of flawed communication techniques

because a draft card was not an essential part of the government’s ability to recruit soldiers

(Chafe 91).

Emerging in 1967, a large amount of young individuals, termed “hippies,” blatantly

rejected American middle-class values in the way they dressed and behaved. Like African-

Americans and Mexican-Americans of the sixties, these hippies were outsiders of society. They

maintained a stigmatized identity because of their drug use, dismissal of sexual norms, and

unconventional music preferences. These distinctive qualities visually distinguished hippies from

the average American citizen, communicating their individuality to others. Their rejection of

American values through these unorthodox practices reveals how they utilized communication to

further separate themselves from society (Miller 193). New music preferences began to emerge

in the sixties, largely from England’s musical influence. Rock music’s development in the sixties

was rapid, and often contained lyrics which reflected political and cultural topics of the sixties.

Even though rock music appeared to be a way of inspiring America into action, it was essentially

a means of skillful marketing to a young generation (Hodgson 207). Just as The Paranoids in The

Crying of Lot 49 sing about deteriorating communication, rock music in the sixties’ attempt to

comment on culture and politics. However, this ideal was tarnished by America’s commercial

nature.

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The feminist movement of the sixties was originally intended to rid inequality in the

workplace. Women were denied access to better jobs and salaries, and so they turned to courts

and legislators in hopes to have an act passed that would even their playing field with men in the

workplace. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was formed, which prohibited discrimination

in regards to employment. Women’s opinions of this act were divided; some were pleased with

the law, and others were unsettled because it threatened protective labor laws that existed

exclusively for women (Pedriana 1718-1719). The laws passed regarding women’s rights were

incredibly subjective. As Pedriana states, “law itself is a language system. The vernacular staples

of law—rights, duties, privileges, prohibitions, remedies, and so on—construct and express ideas

of social conflict and their resolution. And for exactly this reason, master legal frames can set

rigid and enduring boundaries on the very words and discourses available to challengers in their

attempt to produce and mobilize resonant cultural frames toward instrumental ends” (1727).

Unlike these law-makers who are able to manipulate their wording in order to accomplish tasks,

Oedipa’s inability to form language in a way that allows her to receive information from other

individuals may be the preventative factor in executing the estate.

Pynchon’s direct critique on the failure of human interaction in The Crying of Lot 49 is a

result of the exhaustion of communication in 1960s America. Pynchon was not the only writer

critiquing this decade, as there was a widespread frustration among individuals regarding

multiple facets of politics and culture in the 1960s. The high expectations Americans held for the

possibilities of a new era containing growth and prosperity were decisively extinguished.

Pynchon uses The Crying of Lot 49 as a means to further expand on his disappointment brought

on by the sixties, specifically focusing on how the decade maintained the flawed communication

styles developed by earlier generations. Using Oedipa Maas, a female variation of the Greek

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figure Oedipus, as a means to represent this continual failure of communication, Pynchon

integrates the theme of “decline and decadence and its relationship in turn to language and

thought” (Chambers 97). He deems Americans in the 1960s as repeating old ideas and

innovations, with no real progress towards an understanding of the world and communication.

Pynchon critiques society’s flawed means of communication throughout The Crying of

Lot 49. Oedipa’s endless and meaningless interactions with a number of individuals all leave her

entrapped in a theory that may be a clue to Inverarity’s estate or that may as equally be a large

hoax. Her entire search is futile because her methods of communicating are defective. The

narrative elements Pynchon continually interposes in the novel undercut the decaying norms of

communication, while art and music serve as entities that Oedipa cannot truly understand as a

result of her closemindedness. Her expedition is purposefully bewildering and complex as to

bring attention to the unnecessary and cryptic methods of communication in 1960s America.

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Works Cited

Chambers, Judith. Thomas Pynchon. New York City: Twayne Publishers, 1992. Print.

Cooper, B. Lee. "Love Me Do: 50 Songs that Shaped the Beatles." Popular Music andSociety 36.4 (2013): 550-57. JSTOR. Web. 14 Apr. 2017.

Cowart, David. Thomas Pynchon: The Art of Allusion. Carbodale: Sourthern Illinois U Press,1980. Print.

Dudley, William , ed. The 1960s. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000. Print.

Guillen, Matthew. "Pynchon's Social Aesthetics: Sixties Activism in Postmodern AmericanLiterature." Revue française d'études américaines 84 (2000): 106-25. JSTOR. Web. 13Apr. 2017.

Pedriana, Nicholas. “From Protective to Equal Treatment: Legal Framing Processes andTransformation of the Women’s Movement in the 1960s.” American Journal ofSociology 111.6 (2008): 1718-1761. JSTOR. Web. 5 Oct. 2017.

Pynchon, Thomas. "Is It O.K. to Be a Luddite?" New York Times, 28 Oct. 1984.

---. Slow Learner: Early Stories. Boston: Little, Brown, 1998. Print.

---. The Crying of Lot 49. New York City: HarperCollins , 1965. Print.

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Serpell, C. Namwali. "Mutual Exclusion, Oscillation, and Ethical Projection in The Crying ofLot 49 and The Turn of the Screw." Narrative 16.3 (2008): 223-55. JSTOR. Web. 1Apr. 2017.

Vine, Steve. "The Entropic Sublime in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49." InterdisciplinaryLiterary Studies 13.1/2 (2011): 160-77. JSTOR. Web. 10 Apr. 2017.

Pledge: I have neither given nor received help on this work, nor am I aware of any infraction of the Honor Code.

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