The Crying of Lot 49

This book had a very interesting feel to it as I read it. For some reason I never felt like I understood it's true identity. The author was almost trying to test my patience with what seemed like new and unrelated details and or characters every few pages. Every run-on sentence seemed to take me further and further from reality as Oedipa Maas was trying to distinguish between hallucinations and reality for herself.

The connections between the Vietnam War and this book are very subtle but have some meaning behind them. The book was set in the 1960's when the U.S.'s involvement in the Vietnam War was reaching its peak. How Oedipa is introduced to her journey is similar to the situation presented to the U.S. when it became fully invested in the war. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution did just this for the U.S. and is very similar to how Oedipa was pulled into a war over property by a higher authority. You could even say that Oedipa was drafted into the will execution by her ex as the young men that died in Vietnam were drafted into battle by contract with the government. Yet once in the conflict, both, for the most part, seemed intrigued by the mystery of the battle and pressed forward to the end. Another parallel between the book and the war is the basic confusion that each provide the reader. The psychological effects endured by Oedipa and the soldiers in Vietnam seem to blur the true story of what really happened during their journeys. Both the Vietnam war and this book never really had a definite direction or really any sound logic of how to solve the overall problem. Oedipa seemed to never fully commit to or abandon her duties in the execution of the will. She was reminiscent of the leaders of the U.S. that never could admit defeat, or that they were in over their heads. Instead they both wanted to try and prove something out of pride or something ridiculous rather than just giving up.