The Crying of Lot 49 and the Parody of Detective Fiction

• Authors: Borys Róg
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The Crying of Lot 49, recognized as an important example of postmodern fiction, is a novella by an American author Thomas Pynchon. It follows the story of Oedipa Maas, who encounters a possible underground conspiracy related to postal services. Its themes and structural properties suggest affinities with a detective story genre, although there are crucial differences which actually mark the novel as a parody of the genre. In my article I want to analyze two elements which contribute to the parodic nature of The Crying of Lot 49. One is the wide use of various cultural references to the popular culture, history, American society etc.; they are usually satirized by the author as to what contributes to the overall sense of a parody. The second contributes directly to the reversed structure of a detective fiction; the use of entropy as the plot device distorts the unraveling mystery in the novel. Moreover, the reading of the novel as a parody in terms of the characteristics listed above justifies its reputation as a postmodern text. 

Keywords

EN

Pynchon, Postmodernism, parody, detective fiction

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej
• Journal: New Horizons in English Studies
• Year: 2017
• Issue: 2

Dates

published

2017

online

2017-08-17

Contributors

author

Borys Róg

• University of Zielona Góra

editor

Aneta Okuń-Jaśkowiak

editor

Adam Głaz

editor

Lidia Kniaź-Hunek

editor

Anna Bendrat

editor

Ewelina Prażmo

editor

Przemysław Terejko

editor

Piotr Szczypa

editor

Grzegorz Czemiel

editor

Ewa Antoszek

editor

Justyna Galant

editor

Marta Komsta

editor

Edyta Frelik

editor

Agata Waszkiewicz

editor

Anna Oleszczuk

editor

Agata Waszkiewicz

other

Aneta Okuń-Jaśkowiak

References

• Abernethy, Peter L. 1972. “Entropy In Pynchon’s The Cring of Lot 49.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 14 (2): 18–33.
• Bloom, Harold. 2003. “Dumbing down American readers”. The Boston Globe. Accessed February 16, 2017. http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/24/-dumbing_down_american_readers Chotiudompant, Suradech. 2005. “From Dupin to Oedipa: Thomas Pynchon’s Parodic Take on Detective Fiction.” Manusya Journal of Humanities 8 (1): 68–86. http://www.manusya.journals.chula.ac.th/files/essay/Suradech_68–86.pdf
• Davis, Robert Murray. 1972. “Parody, Paranoia, and the Dead End of Language in The Crying of Lot 49.” Genre 5 (4): 367–77.
• Encyclopædia Britannica. 2016. “Thomas Pynchon.” Accessed February 16, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Pynchon
• Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. “Detective story.” Accessed April 26, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/art/detective-story-narrative-genre
• Freese, Peter. 1997. From Apocalypse to Entropy and Beyond. The Second Law of Thermodynamics in Post-War American Fiction. Essen: Die Blaue Eule.
• Hutcheon, Linda. 1985. A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms. London and New York: Methuen.
• Hutcheon, Linda. 1980. Narcissistic Narrative. The Metafictional Paradox. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
• Hutcheon, Linda. 1989. The Politics of Postmodernism. New York: Routledge.
• Kalaba, Jovanka. 2013. “Parodic Forms and Their Use in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49.” Linguistics and Literature 11 (2): 133–142. http://facta.junis.ni.ac.rs/lal/lal201302/lal20130-2-04.pdf
• Pynchon, Thomas. 2012. Slow Learner. New York: The Penguin Press. https://books.google.pl/boo-ksid=mTlDf5j2en0C&printsec=frontcover&hl=pl#v=onepage&q&f=false.
• Pynchon, Thomas. 2000. The Crying of Lot 49. London: Vintage.
• Rundle, Vivienne. 1989. “The Double Bind of Metafiction: Implicating Narrative in The Crying of Lot 49 and Travesty.” Pynchon Notes (24–25): 31–44. PDF file.

Identifiers

DOI

10.17951/nh.2017.2.59