The Crying of Lot 49 - The truth is out there? In a story as confusing and ambiguous as Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, it's difficult to connect any aspect of the book to a piece of modern culture. However, Oedipa's quest, her search for the truth, and the paranoia that ensues are inherent in the plots of today's most watched films and television. While many themes in the story can be tied to modern culture, perhaps the most important is the theme of the search for truth. Oedipa's quest is best depicted through a popular FOX television program called The X-Files. At first glance the comparison is all too obvious. Agent Fox Mulder, played by David Duchovny, searches for the truth behind the apparent mystery of alien abduction and the supernatural, a quest he dubs the "X-Files." Oedipa is also looking for the truth behind her mystery: WASTE. Both characters long for the truth behind events, a truth that may or may not exist, in mysteries that twist plots back on themselves endlessly. Beyond the obvious similarities, however, lie other, almost disturbing parallels. Although both Mulder and Oedipa claim to seek the truth, what they both seek is resolution of the questions within themselves. For example, X-Files fans believe that Mulder began his search for extraterrestrial life with the alleged alien abduction of his sister. The search for the truth, then, is personalized to Agent Mulder, as he himself states that he would not be working as an FBI agent if his sister had not [allegedly] been kidnapped. Edipa is also engaged in a personal search. No other character in the story searches for the "truth" behind WASTE, the Courier's silenced horn, the play The Courier's Tragedy, Pierce Inverarity stamps, and a secret postal service. In fact, no one else has ever made such a [perhaps ridiculous] connection! Then, as both characters search for their personal truths, they slowly begin to fear that no answer exists. The motivations of these two seekers are important and indeed similar. There seems to be an obsession with finding a truth in symbols (be they horns or crop circles), a truth that both characters come to realize may as well not exist. By definition, obsession is "a persistent and disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling." Therefore, the moment their questions are answered, the moment their hypotheses are proven, the search and resulting paranoia, frustration, and pain are removed. The reason is the fear that the search is endless, that there are no answers to the questions and perhaps that there really is no mystery to begin with. For each character, Mulder and Oedipa, this fear drives them in their own personal search for the truth. Many themes of The Crying of Lot 49 can be seen in modern culture, particularly in films: paranoia in Conspiracy Theory and Enemy of the State, and the psychodrug culture of Hilarius in Girl Interrupted. However, no film or show ties into Oedipus' quest as well as FOX's The X-Files. Both Oedipa Maas and Fox Mulder seek personal truths, one based on a secret postal system, another on alien intervention in human life, but they have more in common than meets the eye. Maybe aliens deliver mail behind the US government's back.