Difference between revisions of "Chapter 8"

(Page 121: italicize book titles and link to wiki. correct spelling error. delete attribution /CW/ (please don't sign your contributions))
(Page 116: James M. Cain wrote 'Postman', not Hammett.)
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==Page 116==
 
==Page 116==
 
'''Cora Smith'''<br>
 
'''Cora Smith'''<br>
Also from ''The Postman Always Rings Twice''. This is another detective favorite of Pynchon from Dashell Hammett, the other being Dumbell Indemnity. /CW/
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Also from ''The Postman Always Rings Twice''. This is another detective favorite of Pynchon from James M. Cain, the other being Double Indemnity.
  
 
==Page 119==
 
==Page 119==

Revision as of 04:58, 8 August 2009

Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.

Page numbers refer to editions with 369 pages, where the story begins on page 1. Not sure if there are other editions with variant pagination. Please let us know otherwise.

Page 116

Cora Smith
Also from The Postman Always Rings Twice. This is another detective favorite of Pynchon from James M. Cain, the other being Double Indemnity.

Page 119

Charlie the fucking Tuna
Charlie the Tuna is a cartoon character and mascot for StarKist Tuna. You can see his "designer shades" and "beret" here.

single up all lines
This is a special phrase for Pynchon. It is used in V. (pp.11 and 438), The Crying of Lot 49 (p.31), Gravity's Rainbow (p.489), Mason & Dixon (pp.258 and 260), and it is the very first sentence of Against the Day. Apparently, Vineland is the only novel without this phrase.

See here for a longer note on the significance of this phrase.

Page 121

yet another Hitler documentary
The "another" implies that they had watched other Hitler documentaries - the most famous being Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will. The description of the Nixon rally that Doc is watching has similarities to Triumph.

One of Pynchon's research materials for writing Gravity's Rainbow was a book called From Caligari to Hitler by Siegfried Kracauer.

Note that Triumph of the Will was a favorite film of G. Gordon Liddy, a man responsible for the eruption of "Cop" shows on TV and the emergent "War on Drugs" in the early 70's.

Page 122

fuck Spiro, too!
Spiro Agnew was Nixon's Vice President.


Anybody know the dog's name?
Yes. Its name was Checkers.

the P-DIDdies
A (deliberately) lame joke. Sean Combs is a rapper, producer, and entrepreneur whose stage names include Diddy, Puff Daddy, and P. Diddy.


Chapter 1
pp. 1-18
Chapter 2
pp. 19-45
Chapter 3
pp. 46-49
Chapter 4
pp. 50-54
Chapter 5
pp. 55-67
Chapter 6
pp. 68-88
Chapter 7
pp. 89-110
Chapter 8
pp. 111-123
Chapter 9
pp. 124-153
Chapter 10
pp. 154-162
Chapter 11
pp. 163-185
Chapter 12
pp. 186-206
Chapter 13
pp. 207-234
Chapter 14
pp. 235-255
Chapter 15
pp. 256-274
Chapter 16
pp. 275-295
Chapter 17
pp. 296-314
Chapter 18
pp. 315-342
Chapter 19
pp. 343-350
Chapter 20
pp. 351-363
Chapter 21
pp. 364-369
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