Changes

In April 1964, Pynchon wrote to his agent, Candida Donadio, that he was facing a creative crisis, with four novels in progress.<ref>Gussow 1998</ref> In December 1965, Pynchon politely turned down an offer to teach literature at Bennington College, writing that he had resolved, two or three years earlier, to write three novels at once.<ref>McLemee 2006</ref> Pynchon called the decision “a moment of temporary insanity,” but noted that he was “too stubborn to let any of them go, let alone all of them.” Pynchon's second novel, ''The Crying of Lot 49,'' is also set in California. It was published a few months later in 1966, and . Whether ''The Crying of Lot 49'' was one of the three or four novels Pynchon had in progress is unknown.  ''The Crying of Lot 49'' won the Richard and Hilda Rosenthal Foundation Awardshortly after publication. Although more concise and linear in its structure than Pynchon's other novels, its labyrinthine plot features an ancient, underground mail service known as "The Tristero" or "Trystero," a parody of a [[revenge play|Jacobean revenge drama]] entitled "The Courier's Tragedy," and a corporate conspiracy involving the bones of [[World War II]] American GIs being used as charcoal cigarette filters. It proposes a series of seemingly incredible interconnections between these and other similarly bizarre revelations that confront the novel's protagonist, Oedipa Maas. Like ''V,'' the novel contains a wealth of references to science and technology and to obscure historical events, and both books dwell upon the detritus of American society and culture. ''The Crying of Lot 49'' also continues Pynchon's habit of composing parodic song lyrics and punning names, and referencing aspects of popular culture within his prose narrative. In particular, it incorporates several allusions to the Beatles and Nabokov's ''Lolita.''