摘要
Having been named executor of her late boyfriend＇s estate. Oedipa Maas. the protagonist, a housewife, started her journey and soon found herself enmeshed in a worldwide conspiracy, meeting some extremely interesting and absurd characters, quite beyond her imagination and self-knowledge. These characters came from different walks of life and social classes, but all have some defects and deficiencies in one way or another, both physically or mentally. Meanwhile, they seemed to be busy involving themselves in some ridiculous and meaningless tasks or missions of work or life, lingering and struggling, with uncertainty and hopelessness for the future. In this way. Pynchon＇s The Crying of Lot 49 presents us a chaotic and meaningless postmodern society which gradually turns into decadence and entropy. These absurd and pathetic characters were exactly, without doubt, both products and victims of this materialized, alienated and depressing postmodern society. The fiction is humorous, obscure, and very complicated, involving politics, history., religion, science and art etc.. This paper is to analyse the absurdity of some main characters in this fiction.
奥迪帕被指定为已故前男友皮尔斯？英弗拉里蒂的遗嘱执行人。在遗嘱执行过程中，她发现自己被置身于一个庞大而复杂的阴谋集团，所遇之人也大部形色各异、荒谬可笑。作为一位家庭主妇，这完全超出了她的想象和承受能力。这些人物职业身份不同，阶级层次不同，但大都或多或少存在身体或精神上的缺陷和不足。同时，他们看起来也大都奔忙于各自毫无意义可言的生活或工作的使命，俳徊着、挣扎着，未来却充满着不定的因素、希望渺茫。诚然，这些荒诞、可悲的人物正是这个物化、疏离和压抑的后现代社会的产物和受害者。品钦的《拍卖第四十一九批》因此呈现给了读者一个充满着混乱和无意义、逐渐走向颓废和熵化的后现代社会。这本小说幽默却也晦涩难懂，内容丰富，涉及政治、历史、宗教、科学和艺术等诸多学科和领域。本文旨在探究书中部分重要人物的荒诞性。
