The Suffusion of the Televisual in The Crying of Lot 49

This essay demonstrates the ways in which The Crying of Lot 49 is invested in recreating the televisual experience through stylistic means. Its central point is that the assertion advanced by some critics that the novel's relationship with television comprises part of Thomas Pynchon's critique of mass media, a critique aimed at distancing the literary novel from more popular forms, must be rethought in light of the fact that The Crying of Lot 49 is more deeply indebted to and interpenetrated by the strategies and formal features of early broadcast television than previous readings have been able to show.