The Crying of Lot 49 - Chapter 6

Vocabulary:
Infanticide - a person who murders an infant
Sodden - expressionless, stupid, and dull, especially from drink

I feel like Pynchon shifted the focus of the novel in chapter six. In the previous five chapters, the main goal of the novel was to learn about the Tristero, the muted horn symbol, and W.A.S.T.E., however, in the sixth chapter, Pynchon focused more on Oedipa learning about herself. Her personal struggle and concern that everything in her life was being staged to fool her reminded me of The Truman Show. In that movie, every character's life revolves around the main character, Truman. He lives his entire life thinking that he is a normal citizen, but at the end of the movie realizes that in fact his life is all being set up to deceive him, very similar to Oedipa's concerns at the end of the novel.

Overall, I was not impressed by Pynchon's conclusion to The Crying of Lot 49. While I understand that Pynchon's point in ending the novel in this way was to show that Oedipa is now coming to peace with her own emotional turmoil, I was annoyed that Pynchon didn't announce who the bidder was, considering that would have concluded the entire purpose of the novel up until that point.