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"Small Comfort": Significance and the Uncanny in The Crying of Lot 49

Author: David Sorfa (University of Cape Town)

  • "Small Comfort": Significance and the Uncanny in The Crying of Lot 49

    Article

    "Small Comfort": Significance and the Uncanny in The Crying of Lot 49

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Abstract

A reading of the uncanny modeled largely on Shoshana Felman's work on The Turn of the Screw opens up The Crying of Lot 49 in a way that is not possible through the periodizing transfiction of the "postmodern." This essay is itself slightly transfixed by the strangeness of Lot 49, and it is this uncanny reading effect that I want to explore–the creeping ambiguity of the word and what Dorothy Kelly calls the "ghost of meaning."

How to Cite:

Sorfa, D., (1993) “"Small Comfort": Significance and the Uncanny in The Crying of Lot 49”, Pynchon Notes , 75-85. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.216

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Published on
1993-09-22