I’ve read all of Pynchon’s books before, and this one was the first I read. I think I was around 16, and I remember feeling really smug and a-cultured while I was reading it. So not much has changed!
I read it in translation, and I only remember one single thing about it: The protagonist’s name is Oedipa Maas, which must be the best name in literature.
This book here, though, is a disappointment — physically. It’s a print-on-demand book! But why! Surely Pynchon still sells sufficiently to print it properly every few years? I mean, they wouldn’t do it if that were the case, so, er, not? I’m just surprised.
About half of the “new” books I’ve bought in this buying spurt have been print-on-demand books, which is way, way more than it used to be even just a few years ago, so I guess we’ve reached some kind of tipping point where there’s no point in trying to buy an older book in a newish edition any more? If I’d known that this was a print-on-demand book, I would just have bought a copy from a used book store instead.
So from now on I’m going to head to Biblio.com instead of Bookshop.org whenever I’m looking for a book that’s older than a couple years.
But I mean, this isn’t a horrible print-on-demand edition — but it’s got that slightly icky phthalate treatment of the cover, and the pages aren’t quite flat. It’s just doesn’t feel like completely like a proper book, so I’d rather just have a used edition instead.
Oh, how’s the novel? It’s terrific! All that paranoia and excitement… and so funny and well-written. It’s a delight.
It makes me want to re-read Gravity’s Rainbow… Hm.
The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) by Thomas Pynchon (buy new, buy used, 3.69 on Goodreads)