New Essays on The Crying of Lot 49

Thomas Pynchon’s novel, The Crying of Lot 49, is widely recognised as a signficant contemporary work. In the introduction to this collection of original essays, Patrick O’Donnell discusses the background and critical reception of the novel. Further essays by five experts on contemporary literature examine: the novel's 'semiotic regime' or the way in which it organizes signs; the comparison of postmodernist Pynchon and the influential South American writer, Jorge Luis Borges; metaphor in the novel; the novel's narrative strategies; and the novel within the cultural contexts of American Puritanism and the Beat movement. Together, these essays provide an examination of the novel within its literary, historical, and scientific contexts.O'Donnell, Patrick is the author of 'New Essays on The Crying of Lot 49' with ISBN 9780521381635 and ISBN 0521381630.