The Crying of Lot 49: Her Errand Into the Wilderness One of the central themes touched upon in Pierre-Yves Petillon's essay, "A Re-cognition of Her Errand Into the Wilderness,” is the general sense of awakening you feel when reading The Crying of Lot 49 by Thos Pynchon. Petillon begins his essay by expressing the opinion that "it is rather strange that The Crying of Lot 49, a short novella should have become a classic overnight (O'Donnell, p.127)." What at first seemed like a typical piece expounding the virtues of LSD, turned out to be hiding much more beneath the surface than a first reading would have revealed. “Here's another 'groovy' sample of the emerging psychedelic scene: om, sweet om, O(edipa) M(ass) and his Lonely Hearts Club Band (O'Donnell, p. 128).” Petillon beautifully harnesses the power of the book by realizing that "its 'mood' grows in you with each reading (O'Donnell, p. 129)." Born in the late 1930s, Thomas Pynchon "came of age during 'Eisenhower's Siesta,' when everything, it seemed, had slowed to a sudden stop (O'Donnell, p. 135)." Petillon then connects the lot 49 to Jack Kerouacs On The Road, recounting their simultaneous "sense of 'blossoming,' as if awakening from a long sleep (O'Donnell, p. 130)". He also points out that both Kerouac's and his main characters of Pynchon (Kerouac is himself and Pynchon is Oedipa Maas), both move increasingly into an "invisible and hidden America (O'Donnell, p. 130)." I believe what Petillon did not adequately mention, However, it is the fact that the reader never has a sense of his surroundings. Upon awakening from a long sleep, he usually finds himself with a general awareness and clarity about what is happening around him. However, with The Crying of Lot 49, you reach the end of the story, or the end of the awakening, if you prefer, only to find that you have slipped further into a dream..