"A puzzle, an intrigue, a literary and historical tour de force with a strongly European flavor." -- San Francisco Examiner "The comedy crackles, the puns pop, the satire explodes." -- New York Times "Mr. Pynchon's satirical eye doesn't miss a thing, including rock n' roll singers right wing extremists, and the general subculture of Southern California." -- Library Journal "[A] spectacular tale. The work of a virtuoso with prose. His intricate symbolic order is akin to that of Joyce's Ulysses." -- Chicago Tribune "Pynchon is again whispering something in our ear about the meaning of coincidence, the possibility of recurrence in history, and the circularity of time.

The Crying of Lot 49 is one of those mystery novels that can't be solved." -- New York Review of Books "Remarkable. The Crying of Lot 49 resembles metaphysical poetry in the range of its allusions and the curiosity of its creator. Consequently, the book is always surprising." -- Washington Post.