Editing The Crying of Lot 49 (section)

==Allusions in the book==
[[Image:crying of lot 49.jpg|thumb|''The Crying of Lot 49'' book cover, featuring the Thurn und Taxis post horn]]
As ever with Pynchon's writing, the labyrinthine plots offer myriad cultural references. Knowing these references allows for a much richer reading of the work. J. Kerry Grant wrote ''A Companion to the Crying of Lot 49'' to catalogue these references but it is neither definitive nor complete.<ref name="grant">Grant, J. Kerry.  ''A Companion to The Crying of Lot 49'' (Athens:  University of Georgia Press, 1994). {{ISBN|0-8203-1635-0}}.</ref>

=== Maxwell's demon ===
After being prompted to by Stanley Koteks, Oedipa seeks out John Nefastis and his invention coined the 'Nefastis Machine'. This machine attempts to serve as a [[perpetual motion machine]], utilizing the theory of [[Maxwell's demon]] to sort molecules within a closed chamber.<ref name=":14">{{Cite journal |last=Palmeri |first=Frank |date=1987 |title=Neither Literally nor as Metaphor: Pynchon's the Crying of Lot 49 and the Structure of Scientific Revolutions |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2873106 |journal=ELH |volume=54 |issue=4 |pages=979–999|doi=10.2307/2873106 |jstor=2873106 }}</ref> Nefastis explains that a telepathic operator or 'sensitive' is necessary to work the invention by looking into a photo of [[James Clerk Maxwell]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Clarke |first=Bruce |date=1996 |title=Allegories of Victorian Thermodynamics |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/8094 |journal=Configurations |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=67–90|doi=10.1353/con.1996.0005 }}</ref>

Despite Nefastis' attempt at invention, the [[second law of thermodynamics]] and its statement regarding [[entropy]] cannot be disproven, as the system gains entropy by way of measurement by the demon.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Grant |first=J Kerry |date=Spring–Fall 1991 |title=Not Quite so Crazy After all These Years: Pynchon's Creative Engineer |url=https://www.academia.edu/download/99710634/pn-2776-grant.pdf |journal=Pynchon Notes |volume=28-29 |pages=43–52}}</ref><ref name=":33">{{Cite journal |last=Abernethy |first=Peter L |date=January 1, 1972 |title=Entropy in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/177a3a204bdb638de1267a708c8a13ee/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1819230 |journal=Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction |volume=14 |issue=2 |pages=18–33|doi=10.1080/00111619.1972.10690022 }}</ref> This alludes to a famous retort of Maxwell's demon by [[Leo Szilard|Szilard]] and [[Léon Brillouin|Brillouin]] which sought to establish congruence between entropy in [[information theory]] and [[thermodynamics]].<ref name=":23">{{Cite journal |last=Leland |first=John P |date=Jan 1, 1974 |title=Pynchon's Linguistic Demon: The Crying of Lot 49 |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1310174806 |journal=Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=45–53|doi=10.1080/00111619.1974.10690082 |id={{ProQuest|1310174806}} }}</ref> Scholars have pointed to the entropic nature and indeterminacy of the novel as a symbol which invalidates the demon's existence.<ref name=":05">{{Cite journal |last=Ferrero |first=David J |date=Spring–Fall 1999 |title=Echoes of Narcissus: Classical Mythology and Postmodern Pessimism in The Crying of Lot 49 |url=https://pynchonnotes.openlibhums.org/article/id/2400/download/pdf/ |journal=Pynchon Notes |volume=44-45 |pages=82–94}}</ref><ref name=":23" />

Oedipa's role within ''The Crying of Lot 49'' can be likened to [[Maxwell's demon]]—a force which seeks to reverse the flow of entropy on the town of San Narciso.<ref name=":05" /> Just as the demon is hypothesized to sort unpredictable, random molecules to create order from disorder, Oedipa seeks to make sense of the mystery of Trystero.<ref name=":05" /> San Narciso as a city is often described as 'still' or 'silent'; a place where life has stagnated, one cultural microcosm of many within the United States.<ref name=":05" /><ref name=":33" /> The concept of Trystero acts as a promise to reverse the entropic regress that America has fallen into, as an 'anarchist miracle'.<ref name=":14" /><ref name=":23" />

=== ''Oedipus Rex'' ===
The connection between [[Oedipus]] and the protagonist of ''The Crying of Lot 49'', Oedipa Maas, tends to align with one of two interpretations within literature: that of the [[Sophocles|Sophoclean]] tragedy ''[[Oedipus Rex]]'', and that of the [[Oedipus complex|Oedipus Complex]], a psychoanalytical theory pioneered by [[Sigmund Freud]].<ref name=":05" /> Comparing the novel with ''Oedipus Rex'', some scholars argue that both Oedipus and Oedipa serve as solvers of riddles—Oedipus in answering the [[Sphinx's riddle]] and Oedipa in attempting to uncover the mystery behind Trystero. However, critics of this interpretation claim that these riddles share little topical symmetry.<ref name=":05" />

Supporters of the Freudian interpretation tend to point towards Pynchon's heavy borrowing of Greek literature and extensive use of allusions as part of the cyclic, incestuous nature of recycling within literature.<ref name=":05" /> Alternatively, the homogeneity of society around San Narciso as a result of the convergence of [[entropy]] has also been pointed to as having an incestuous nature.<ref name=":05" />

=== ''Metamorphoses'' ===
[[File:Narcissus_poeticus_Spechtensee_01.JPG|thumb|The flower held by the nymph Echo, ''Narcissus poeticus'']]
Upon arrival in San Narciso, Oedipa stops to check in at the Echo Courts Motel, which sports a painted sheet metal likeness of the nymph [[Echo (mythology)|Echo]] from Ovid's ''[[Metamorphoses]]''.<ref name=":05" /> This figure of Echo is holding a flower, suggested to be ''[[Narcissus poeticus]]'', alike to the flower Narcissus turns into within the myth of [[Echo and Narcissus]].<ref name=":05" /> Additionally, the pool at Echo Courts Motel is described as flat-surfaced, possibly symbolizing the pool in which Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection.<ref name=":05" />

Scholars have drawn parallels between Oedipa and both Narcissus and Echo.<ref name=":05" /> Oedipa is initially suggested to bear a self-proclaimed resemblance to Echo, and it has been suggested the longing for answers regarding Trystero mirrors Echo's desire of Narcissus.<ref name=":05" /> Oedipa also recurringly encounters mirrors throughout the novel, initially failing to find herself in the bathroom mirror at Echo Courts, which could point to the beginning of her paranoia. She additionally recounts a dream in which she is making love to her husband at the motel, only to awake to herself staring back at her through a mirror, an act of self-love by way of a mirror, alluding to the fate of Narcissus within ''[[Metamorphoses]]''.<ref name=":05" />

===''The Courier's Tragedy''===
Pynchon devotes a significant part of the book to a play-within-a-book, a detailed description of a performance of an imaginary [[Jacobean era|Jacobean]] [[revenge play]], involving intrigues between Thurn und Taxis and Trystero.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kohn |first=Robert, E |date=2008 |title=The Corrupt Edition of The Courier's Tragedy in Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 |journal=Notes and Queries |volume=55 |issue=1 |pages=82–86 |doi=10.1093/notesj/gjm269 }}</ref> Like "The Mousetrap", based on "The Murder of Gonzago" that [[William Shakespeare]] placed within ''[[Hamlet]]'', the events and atmosphere of ''The Courier's Tragedy'' (by the fictional Richard Wharfinger) mirror those transpiring around them. In many aspects it resembles a typical revenge play, such as ''[[The Spanish Tragedy]]'' by [[Thomas Kyd]], ''[[Hamlet]]'' by Shakespeare and plays by [[John Webster]] and [[Cyril Tourneur]].

===The Beatles===

''The Crying of Lot 49'' was published shortly after [[Beatlemania]] and the "[[British invasion]]" that took place in the United States and other Western countries. Internal context clues indicate that the novel is set in the summer of 1964, the year in which ''[[A Hard Day's Night (film)|A Hard Day's Night]]'' was released. Pynchon makes a wide variety of Beatles allusions. Most prominent are the Paranoids, a band composed of cheerful [[cannabis (drug)|marijuana]] smokers whose lead singer, Miles, is a high-school dropout described as having a "Beatle haircut". The Paranoids all speak with American accents but sing in English ones; at one point, a guitar player is forced to relinquish control of a car to his girlfriend because he cannot see through his hair. It is not clear whether Pynchon was aware of the Beatles' nickname for themselves, "Los Para Noias"; since the novel is replete with other references to paranoia, Pynchon may have chosen the band's name for other reasons.<ref name="harrison">[[George Harrison|Harrison, George MBE]] ''et al.''  ''The Beatles Anthology'' (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000).  {{ISBN|0-8118-2684-8}}.</ref>

Pynchon refers to a rock song, "I Want to Kiss Your Feet", an adulteration of "[[I Want to Hold Your Hand]]". The song's artist, Sick Dick and the Volkswagens, evokes the names of such historical rock groups as [[the El Dorados]], [[the Edsels]], [[the Cadillacs]] and the Jaguars (as well as an early name the Beatles themselves used, "Long John and the Silver Beetles"). "Sick Dick" may also refer to Richard Wharfinger, author of "that ill, ill [[Literature in English#Jacobean literature|Jacobean revenge play]]" known as ''The Courier's Tragedy''.<ref name="grant"/> The song's title also keeps up a recurring sequence of allusions to [[Narcissus of Jerusalem|Saint Narcissus]], a 3rd-century bishop of [[Jerusalem]].

Late in the novel, Oedipa's husband, Mucho Maas, a disc jockey at Kinneret radio station [[Fuck|KCUF]], describes his experience of discovering the Beatles. Mucho refers to their early song "[[She Loves You]]", as well as hinting at the areas the Beatles were later to explore.  Pynchon wrote,

<blockquote>Whenever I put the headset on now," he'd continued, "I really do understand what I find there. When those kids sing about 'She loves you,' yeah well, you know, she does, she's any number of people, all over the world, back through time, different colors, sizes, ages, shapes, distances from death, but she loves. And the 'you' is everybody. And herself. Oedipa, the human voice, you know, it's a flipping miracle." His eyes brimming, reflecting the color of beer. "Baby," she said, helpless, knowing of nothing she could do for this, and afraid for him. He put a little clear plastic bottle on the table between them. She stared at the pills in it, and then understood. "That's [[LSD]]?" she said.</blockquote>

===Vladimir Nabokov===<!-- This section is linked from [[Thomas Pynchon]] -->
Pynchon, like [[Kurt Vonnegut]], was a student at [[Cornell University]], where he probably at least [[Academic audit|audited]] [[Vladimir Nabokov]]'s Literature 312 class. (Nabokov had no recollection of him but Nabokov's wife Véra recalls grading Pynchon's examination papers, thanks only to his handwriting, "half printing, half script".)<ref name="appel">Appel, Alfred Jr.  Interview, published in ''Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature'' '''8,''' No. 2 (spring 1967).  Reprinted in ''Strong Opinions'' (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973).</ref>  The year before Pynchon graduated, Nabokov's novel ''[[Lolita]]'' was published in the United States. ''Lolita'' introduced the word "nymphet" to describe a girl between the ages of nine and fourteen, sexually attractive to the [[Hebephilia|hebephilic]] main character, [[Humbert Humbert]] and it was also used in [[Lolita (1962 film)|the novel's adaptation to cinema in 1962]] by [[Stanley Kubrick]]. In the following years, mainstream usage altered the word's meaning to apply to older girls. Perhaps appropriately, Pynchon provides an early example of the modern "nymphet" usage entering the [[wikt:canon|literary canon]]. Serge, the Paranoids' teenage counter-tenor, loses his girlfriend to a middle-aged lawyer. At one point he expresses his [[angst]] in song:

:What chance has a lonely surfer boy
:For the love of a surfer chick,
:With all these Humbert Humbert cats
:Coming on so big and sick?
:For me, my baby was a woman,
:For him she's just another nymphet.

===Remedios Varo===
Early in ''The Crying of Lot 49'', Oedipa recalls a trip to an art museum in Mexico with Inverarity, during which she encountered a painting, ''Bordando el Manto Terrestre'' ("Embroidering the Earth’s Mantle") by [[Remedios Varo]].<ref>{{cite news|author=Julia Bozzone|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/obituaries/remedios-varo-overlooked.html|title=Overlooked No More: Remedios Varo, Spanish Painter of Magic, Mysticism and Science|date=24 September 2021|access-date=2021-11-20|work=New York Times}}</ref> The 1961 painting shows eight women inside a tower, where they are presumably held captive. Six maidens are weaving a tapestry that flows out of the windows and seems to constitute the world outside of the tower. Oedipa's reaction to the tapestry gives us some insight into her difficulty in determining what is real and what is a fiction created by Inverarity for her benefit,

<blockquote>She had looked down at her feet and known, then, 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.</blockquote>