Simply Wierd.

The first thing I do when starting a new book is read the back cover. “The highly original satire about Oedipa Mass, a woman who finds herself enmeshed in a worldwide conspiracy, meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not inconsiderable amount of self-knowledge”(The Crying of Lot 49) I did not know what I was getting into. Usually, after reading the back cover I get a general idea of what the book is going to be about this time I got nothing.

Thomas Pynchon starts off the novel telling us that Oedipa arrives to her house and finds a letter. After that I got lost in the story. Since I did not understand what was happening in the novel the names of the character began to call my attention. Oedipa, Mucho Maas, Pierce, Dr. Hilarius, Roseman do these names seem common? I could not help but wonder why Pynchon decided to use these weird names. Maybe throughout the novel they will have some significance, it could be a joke, or it can be just plain absurdity (in the back cover it said it was a satire).

“And had gently conned herself into curious, Rapunzel-like role of a pensive girl somehow, magically, prisoner among the pines and salt fogs of Kinneret, looking for somebody to say hey, let down your hair.” Why would Oedipa feel like Rapunzel? Dis she feel like she had to be rescued from something? Or is it just absurdity again? There are more questions that were left unanswered, hopefully they will be answered and my impression of the book will change. We just cant know with what will Thomas Pynchon surprises later on.