Transjordan in the Bible have the wrong ethnicity, but are "within the boundary of the 'pure' geographical location." According to Genesis, (), Ammon and Moab were born to Lot and Lot's younger and elder daughters, respectively, in the aftermath of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Bible refers to both the Ammonites and Moabites as the "children of Lot". Throughout the Bible, the Ammonites and Israelites are portrayed as mutual antagonists. During the Exodus, the Israelites were prohibited by the Ammonites from passing through their lands (). In the Book of Judges, the Ammonites work with Eglon, king of the Moabites against Israel.
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