Brisk, funny, poignant, The Crying of Lot 49 comes across as a sort of compressed, entertaining overview of Pynchon's roiling imaginative landscape. Many of the same tendencies familiar from his longer work turn up -- paranoia and conspiracy, entropy, elaborate symbol systems, absurd jaunts into surreal and hilarious set-pieces, large and varied ensemble cast -- but here concentrated into a very readable package. If I hadn't already read Gravity's Rainbow, I'd probably recommend that I start here.