The Ending of The Crying of Lot 49

            For some reason, after finishing this book, I am still completely and utterly confused as to what happened in the story. I was hoping for some sort of mind blowing clarity in the last chapter and I was somewhat denied that luxury. Personally, I did not like the ending of this book because I felt like it was a cliffhanger of sorts; you want to find out who this mystery bidder is but it is never revealed. I would think the author is alluding to the fact that the bidder is Metzger or Pierce Inverarity, but I cannot be completely sure. For the sake of this blog though, I am dreaming of my own ending to take place where the current ending leaves off. In this dream ending, Pierce reveals himself and proves to Oedipa that he is not dead, and has been playing tricks on her for the entire length of the story. At points of the story, and even in chapter 6, Oedipa is concerned that this quest has been nothing but a huge lie. On page 140, she realizes that “every accessible route to the Tristero could be traced back to the Inverarity estate.” At this point, she contemplates the idea that Pierce has paid all these men to play this trick on her. Farther down on page 140 she states, “Or loyal, for free, for fun, to some grandiose practical joke he’d cooked up, all for her embarrassment, or terrorizing, or moral improvement?” I feel as if at this point, Oedipa is putting all the pieces together and realizing that Inverarity is in every part of this mystery, even where she had no idea. While Oedipa is putting all of this together, she calls the man she met at The Greek Way and asks him to put the final piece of the puzzle together. It was at this point that she does not get that clarity; instead he proclaimed “it’s too late” and hung up the phone on her before she could question his intentions. Anyway, I was really looking for meaning in the end of this chapter, and also looking for an explanation of what “The Tristero” was, since I really did not understand this concept throughout the rest of the book. With the lack of clarity at the end, I will just have to research more into this “quest” online.

microcosm: a little world; a world in miniature

            “Nobody else I ever knew was so close to the author, to the microcosm of that play as it must have surrounded Wharfinger’s living mind.” Page 125

incommensurate: disproportionate; inadequate

            “…her love, such as it had been, remaining incommensurate with his need to possess, to alter the land…” page 147-148

litanies: a ceremonial or liturgical form of prayer consisting of a series of invocations or supplications with responses that are the same for a number in succession.

            “…monotone litanies of insult..” page 149