Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs recounted in the canonical Bible. The "Testament" adds that Reuben spies Bilhah as she bathes in secret; and that when she later becomes drunk, Reuben rapes her. That trope derives from a reading of Genesis 49:4, "wanton as water", as "wanton "in" water", taken from the Book of Jubilees. This theme is also in 2 Samuel 11:2's account of David and Bathsheba. The "Testament" portrays women as the cause of the downfall of the Watcher, and of man in general (excepting Bilhah, in accordance with "Jubilees"). Joseph is on the other hand portrayed as the ideal, for his resistance against
The Crying of Lot 49 real character's name," protests one reviewer. Pynchon disparaged this book, writing in the prologue to his 1984 collection "Slow Learner", "As is clear from the up-and-down shape of my learning curve, however, it was too much to expect that I'd keep on for long in this positive or professional direction. The next story I wrote was "The Crying of Lot 49", which was marketed as a 'novel', and in which I seem to have forgotten most of what I thought I'd learned up until then." As ever with Pynchon's writing, the labyrinthine plots offer myriad linked cultural references. Knowing these