Abstract

Early on in Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, the narrator presents a scene that reveals Pierce Inverarity's penchant for playing that mysterious hero of pulps, radio, motion pictures, and comic books and strips: The Shadow. In his best Lamont Cranston voice, Pierce, spurned by his one-time lover, Oedipa Maas, concludes a phone call to her with the ominous warning that she and her husband Mucho can expect "A little visit from the Shadow." Although the Shadow himself neither appears in the novel nor is ever mentioned again, this brief allusion is far from gratuitous. Rather, like the countless other references to pop characters in this novel and Pynchon's V. and Gravity's Rainbow, this allusion to the Shadow enriches the thematic texture of The Crying of Lot 49.

How to Cite:

Guzlowski, J. Z., (1982) “The Crying of Lot 49 and "The Shadow"”, Pynchon Notes 9, 61-65. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.449