The Crying of Lot 49

I heard a lot about how this is a great book, maybe it wasn’t for me. Its nature seems to be sarcastic commentary on our tendency to get caught in uncovering conspiracies. Its supposed to be ‘funny’ because its a conspiracy concerning a ridiculous and separately operated Postal service. Although the protagonist, Oedipa Maas, is not sure if its all a ruse to stir her up by a former lover.

Yes the writing and playfulness is terrific, but I guess I may not have been in the place to accept a book like that, or maybe it was not what I was expecting to encounter. Not that the humor or commentary was lost on me, but simply, I did not exactly care about the plot very much, and it was not very well developed… I think a better balance would have helped made this more compelling. Cleverness for the sake of cleverness sometimes is quite amiss.