We Finally Got To It

January 3, 2011 1:33 PM

OK, it's been slightly less than a month but wanted to let you know the MeTa book club is now (drumroll) reading Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, and the discussion of the book and accompanying lecture goes up in MetaChat on January 31. Questions? Everything you ever wanted to know about the MeTa book club is here.
posted by bearwife to MetaFilter-Related at 1:33 PM (16 comments total)

Posthorn!
posted by fixedgear at 2:15 PM on January 3, 2011

Report all obscene mail to your Potsmaster.
posted by gimonca at 2:29 PM on January 3, 2011

Thank you, hippybear! Will email that out to all MeTa book club members for whom I have an email address.
posted by bearwife at 3:04 PM on January 3, 2011

What a W.A.S.T.E.
posted by mudpuppie at 4:33 PM on January 3, 2011

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except Thurn and Taxis.
posted by gubo at 5:39 PM on January 3, 2011

Go tell it to Byron the Bulb wait which book is this.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:42 PM on January 3, 2011

Just ordered a copy from the local Carnegie, will pick it up tomorrow. I've read it but that was almost 35 years ago and I don't remember much. It was the only Pynchon that I liked, V was a slog and I never got very far through Gravity and gave up on him after that.
posted by octothorpe at 7:03 AM on January 4, 2011

This is the cover of the copy that I read back in 1977. To quote the front cover blurb, "A BIZARRE SATURNALIAN PLUNGE INTO THE UNDERGROUND. A STREAMLINED DOOMSDAY MACHINE."
posted by octothorpe at 7:11 AM on January 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

A BIZARRE SATURNALIAN PLUNGE INTO THE UNDERGROUND. A STREAMLINED DOOMSDAY MACHINE

Hellooooo, new business card.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:37 AM on January 4, 2011

Yeah that is pretty rad.
posted by Mister_A at 10:04 AM on January 4, 2011

oh viv
posted by clavdivs at 11:44 AM on January 4, 2011

I'm going to try to get in on this one! (January is quite crazy for me and I have a bunch of other reading that I can't ignore...but it's not as fun.)
posted by iamkimiam at 12:39 PM on January 4, 2011

The Crying of Lot 49 taught me everything I know about thermodynamics.
posted by giraffe at 12:42 PM on January 4, 2011

A friend borrowed my copy of TCoL49 and returned it with a cutout from Newsweek that discussed the death of Johannes von Thurn und Taxis which made all the hair on the back of my neck prickle. Until then I'd had no idea how much historical fact was in the book.
posted by jet_silver at 7:18 PM on January 4, 2011

Edna Mash, all of 'em, any one of 'em. Maybe especially Raquel Welch.
posted by chavenet at 4:02 PM on January 5, 2011

The paperback with the psychedelic cover that octothorpe mentions is the edition I read. It's the only Pynchon book I really enjoyed a lot. It would make a swell movie.
posted by ovvl at 11:01 AM on January 7, 2011