The Crying of Lot 49: Trip to San Narciso

In this chapter Oedipa travels to San Narciso, a city close to L.A which obviously is San Francisco. She travels there in order to see some books and records that Pierce had left behind and to meet with Metzelger an interesting character that is the coexecutor.

In this Chapter Pynchon uses a lot of songs in his writing. This songs show the reader the way Pynchon sees that humans, more likely those who live in San Francisco see life in a very shallow way. The songs have some weird phrases and artists. One song is done by a group called the paranoids which sing a song of total loneliness. The songs are not the only thing that shows the use of music in this chapter, In page 30 Pynchon says:

"At the end his suffering eyes filled the screen, the sound of incoming water grew deafening, up swelled the strange 30´s movie music with the massive sax action, in faded the legend THE END."

He uses music to explain the suffering in this Hollywood movie. I definitely see the use of music as a characteristic of this chapter and maybe will continue through the book.

In this chapter we can also see how Oedipa dislikes Metzger even though she spends most of the chapter with him.

"She watched him fill her glass growing more anti-Metzger as the level rose." (Page 21)

She will have to spend a lot of time with him, because he is the lawyer that will help her with the will, will this hate reflects on some actions ahead or will it affect the will itself? The book is starting to create a lot of intrigue and feelings that could affect its outcome.