Thos Pynchons The Crying of Lot 49 - Her Errand Into the Wilderness :: Crying Lot 49 Essays

  The Crying of Lot 49 Her Errand Into the Wilderness        One of the primeval themes touched upon in Pierre-Yves Petillons Essay, A Re-cognition of Her Errand Into the Wilderness, is the general sense of awakening one and only(a) feels when he reads Thos Pynchons The Crying of Lot 49. Petillon begins his essay by expressing the opinion that it is sort of odd that The Crying of Lot 49, a slim novella should set about be come an overnight classic (ODonnell, p.127). What at first seemed like a typical piece expounding the virtues of LSD, turned out to throw more than more under the surface than a first reading would reveal. present was another groovy sample of the emergent psychedelic scene om, sweet om, O(edipa) M(ass) and her only(a) Hearts Club Band (ODonnell, p. 128). Petillon touches upon the books power beautifully by realizing that its mood grows upon you with apiece reading (ODonnell, p. 129).   Born in the Late 1930s, Thomas Pynchon came of age during the Eisenhower Siesta, when everything had, it seemed, slowed to a sudden standstill (ODonnell, p. 135). Petillon then relates Lot 49 to Jack Kerouacs On The Road, by telling of their simultaneous sense of blooming, as if awakening from a considerable sleep (ODonnell, p. 130). He also points out that both Kerouacs and Pynchons master(prenominal) characters (Kerouacs being himself, and Pynchons being Oedipa Maas), both move further and further into an invisible, privy America (ODonnell, p. 130).   I believe the one thing Petillon has failed to mention adequately, though, is the situation that the reader never gets a sense of their surroundings. When awakening from a long sleep, one usually ends up with a general awareness and clearness as to what is going on around him. However, with The Crying of Lot 49, you come to end of the story, or the end of the awakening if you will, only to find that you have slipped further into a dream.