James Nohrnberg
James Nohrnberg is Professor Emeritus at The University of Virginia and the author of The Analogy of The Faerie Queene.
October 2025Critics Page
The Case for—and of—a “Saint Oedipa”: Reflections on Some Un-generic Echoes in Thomas Pynchon’s Novella The Crying of Lot 49
Lot 49 is a shaggier dog story than any in Jorge Luis Borges—such as Lot 49’s outline in “The Approach to al-Mu’tasim” (Edward Mendelson has shown the relation): because Pynchon’s tale is more hirsute in length than apparatus. But they share their conjectural and detective story ilk.
