The Crying of Lot 49: Was there really a mistery?

This last chapter of The Crying of Lot 49 was the total opposite to what I expected. The whole mystery about the tristero and W.A.S.T.E was really no mystery and the whole idea of a conspiracy was not present at all. There are many angles by which you can approach this novel but the whole idea of the trystero is not what it’s all about.

In this last chapter Oedipa is able to find the meaning of trystero which is many things: from the underground mail service (Waste) to the symbol of the silenced horn. This whole mystery doesn´t help her at all in her job as executor and there was really no mystery to Pierces life. Other than this there are many other important events in this chapter that show the satirical content of the novel.

Pynchon makes fun of the church saying: "what’s in the Vatican?" Asked Oedipa "a pornographic couriers tragedy"(Pg 125). He links the church with sexual themes when the members of the church have sex prohibited. The fact that he talks about a tragedy that is being held in the most important religious site of the world is very satiric. The tragedy itself is very strange for there is a lot of sex in it that doesn’t match the real text of the play.