The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. 0 Stars

Being wrong usually feels like being certain I’m right

I want to dismiss The Crying of Lot 49 as a pretentious piece of junk, but people who are much smarter than I am love it. Maybe those smart people are right when they say that this is a stunning blend of formalism, cubism, and the infield fly rule.  Also, I only read 102 of its 152 pages. For all I know, in the last three pages Pynchon says, ‘phew, can you believe all that crap I was spewing? Okay, here’s the meaning of life.” But even if that is true, I don’t care. I have a strict rule that I have to read all of a book to include it in this diary, but dammit, those 102 pages nearly killed me and I want some credit. 

Here’s the thing though….Is it smart to argue with people who you know are smarter than you are?

Most of us know that we’re wrong some of the time but we always know that time is not this time. This time, we’re always sure we’re right. Nobody ever thinks they’re wrong now, because if they did think they were wrong, they’d just think something else and be sure about that being right. If I was wrong about Pynchon or anything else, I instinctively feel I’d know it, but that’s not how being wrong works. Being wrong usually feels like being certain I’m right. 

Part of being an American is believing that good old fashioned common sense works better than being smart and knowledgeable but I don’t dismiss the words of experts lightly. It’s unfair to expect my brain to come up with brand new ideas and perspectives I haven’t thought of yet. I have to rely on other people for that, and what the hell, they might as well be smart people. Seriously, a lot of smart people think Pynchon is a genius. Smart people are probably smart.

Except….dismissing experts is actually pretty fun and not entirely irrational. Smart people get all sorts of stuff wrong.  Experts drafted 261 college players before the guy who is now the star quarterback for one of the teams in this year’s Super Bowl. He was literally the last guy drafted. The last one! That’s where I always got picked for teams when I was in school. I should never have that in common with any professional athlete. Experts get stuff wrong all the damn time and then they get replaced by new experts who explain how little the old experts really knew.  For years, I was told by people who knew fashion not to wear black and brown clothes together and now it’s totally a thing. And yes, I am still upset about that one. I wasted a lot of time thinking about which socks to wear and I’d like some of those hours back. Yes, all the people who picked me last at recess were right, but mostly experts aren’t even consistent.

The problem, however, is that while it’s easy to say that experts are pinheads and we should only read what interests us, that’s no way to grow your mind. Certainly, Thomas Pynchon is under no obligation to dumb down his brilliance so that I appreciate it. That said, I can spend as much time as I want talking to my dog about the French Revolution and the sad truth is, she’s never going to get past a general understanding of the failings of monarchy and the basics about Robespierre.*  The trick, I suspect, is to read books that are hard enough to require me to think without being so beyond me that all the thinking in the world will get me nowhere. 

*Your milage may vary with your own pets. 

Of course, if nothing else, ‘give up after 102 pages of crap’ is as good a rule of thumb as any.