Lot 49 thematic dictionary

Sick Dick and the Volkswagens - English group which Mucho "was fond of at that time but did not believe in". Recorded 'I Want to Kiss Your Feet'. [p14]

addiction - Even cities are addicts; Oedipa sees rhe road as

this hypodermic needle, inserted somewhere ahead into the vein of a freeway, a vein nourishing hte mainliner LA, keeping it happy, coherent, protected from pain, or whatever passes, with a city, for pain [p16]

appearance - Is this a reference to Red Riding Hood

Metzger flashed her a big wry couple rows of teeth. "Looks don't mean a thing any more," he said. "I live inside my looks, and I'm never sure. The possibility haunts me." [p18]

cars - Mucho is a car salesman [p7-9]. Oedipa rents an Impala [p14], a Chevy which seems 'parked at the centre of an odd, religious instant' [p15]. This 'religious instant' is linked to the ideal of freedom on the road: as it is 'broken'[p15], so 'stillness and four walls' become preferable to the 'illusion of speed, reedom, wind in your hair, unreeling landscape'[p15].. The car is seen as an #seealso(addiction)

city - Oedipa sees LA as a junkie, with sliproads as needles [p16]. It is again a body on page 81:

The city was hers, as, made up and sleeked so with the customary words and images (cosmopolitan, culture, cable cars) it had not been before: she had safe-passage tonight to its far blood's branchings, be they capillaries too small for more than peering into, or vessels mashed together in shameless municipal hickeys, out on the skin for all but tourists to see.

coincidence - The narrator mentions 'Hollywood distortions in probability' in describing the end of Cashiered [p28]. The plot of Lot 49 is built up of improbably coincidences

Courier's Tragedy, the - Play by Richard Wharfinger, which Oedipa and Metzger see at the Tank Theatre in San Narciso [p43]. -resemblane to hamlet?- The play contains echoes of the rest of the book. The poisoning of the Duke of Faggio relies on him kissing the feet of an icon[p44]; compare the song 'I want to kiss your feet' whistled by Mucho [p14]. It is by a group which Mucho 'was fond of at that time but did not believe in', perhaps an warning for Oedipa to react similarly to the Courier's Tragedy Saint Narcissus, the image whose feet is poisoned, resembles San Narciso.

fairy tales - Oedipa thinks of her relationship with Inverarity in terms of Rapunzel [p12]. Metzger seems to be the wolf from Red Riding Hood:

Metzger flashed her a big wry couple rows of teeth. "Looks don't mean a thing any more," he said. "I live inside my looks, and I'm never sure. The possibility haunts me." [p18]

fantasy -

What fragments of dreams came had to do with the post horn. Later, possibly, she would have trouble sorting the night into real and dreamed.[p81]

Fangoso Lagoons - A housing development, and one of Pierce's investments. Bychance, a commercial for it appears on the television during Metzger's film 'Cashiered' [p19]. 'Fangoso' is a spanish word meaning miry, muddy, slushy or sticky

hieroglyphics - Oedipa's reaction to the muted posthorn is 'God, hieroglyphics'[p34]. This repeats the 'hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning' which she finds in the San Narciso landscape and printed circuit-boards [p15]. As Oedipa, Metzger and the Paranoids approach Fangoso Lagoons:

They came in among earth-moving machines, a total absence of trees, the usual hieratic geometry, and eventually, shimmying for the sand roads, down in a helix to a sculptured body of water named Lake Inverarity

intentions - Part of Oedipas' growing paranoia is the assumption of an underlying purpose behind events.

The repetition of symbols was to be enough, without trauma as well perhaps to attenuate it or even jar it altogether loose from her memory. She was meant to remember. She faced that possibility as she might the toy street from a high balcony, roller-coaster ride, feeding-time among the beasts in a zooany death-wish that can be consummated by some minimum gesture. She touched the edge of its voluptuous field, knowing it would be lovely beyond dreams simply to submit to it; that not gravity's pull, laws of ballistics, feral ravening, promised more delight. She tested it, shivering: I am meant to remember. Each clue that comes is supposed to have its own clarity, its fine chances for permanence. But then she wondered if the gemlike "clues" were only some kind of compensation. To make up._for~her having lost the direct, epileptic Word, the cry that might abolish the night.

isolation - "despair came over her, as it will wehn nobody around has any sexual relevance to you"[p80]

madness - #seealso(paranoia) is dealt with separately.

Manny di Presso - Friend of Metzger, 'a one-time lawyer who quit his firm to become an actor'[p21] (in a parallel to the screenplay being written by Roseman, another lawyer[p 11]). He then appears at Fangoso Lagoons [p37-8]. The name suggests 'manic depression', and indeed he has been 'temporarily insane' (metzger explains temporarily as 'over thrity years')[p40]. Manny's partifcular mode of madness is paranoia, and more particularly fear of being spied on. When Oedipa first meets him, he says that 'they're watching. With binoculars', and later explains that 'All the time Cosa Nostra is watching...watching'[p40]. When #seealso(Miles) joins in a conversation, his reaction is:

"They've been listening," screamed Di Presso, "those kids. All the time, somebody listens in, snoops; they bug your apartment, they tap your phone"

Metzger - Pierce's lawyer, and co-executor of his will. Oedipa is frightened by his handsomeness, and hy his knowledge #seealso(paranoia).

"A tourist thing. Did Inverarity use lemons when you were there?" "How did you know we were there?" She watched him fill her glass, growing more anti-Metzger as the level rose. "He wrote it off that year as a business expense. I did his tax stuff." "A cash nexus," brooded Oedipa, "you and Perry Mason, two of a kind, it's all you know about, you shysters." "But our beauty lies," explained Metzger, "in this extended capacity for convolution. A lawyer in a courtroom, in front of any jury, becomes an actor, right? Raymond Burr is an actor, impersonating a lawyer, who in front of a jury becomes an actor. Me, I'm a former actor who became a lawyer. They've done the pilot film of a TV series, in fact, based loosely on my career, starring my friend Manny Di Presso, a one-time lawyer who quit his firm to become an actor. Who in this pilot plays me, an actor become a lawyer reverting periodically to being an actor. The film is in an air-conditioned vault at one of the Hollywood studios, light can't fatigue it, it can be repeated endlessly."

Mike Fallopian - 'A frail young man' who meets Oedipa and Metzger in The Scope, and prosletyzes for the Peter Pinguid Society [p31-2]. He is writing a 'a history of private mail delivery in the US, attempting to link the civil War to the postal reform movement that had begun around 1845 [p35]

Miles - manager of the Echo Courts motel, member of the Paranoids [p16-17]

Mucho Maas - DJ and husband of Oedipa. His real name is Wendell Maas, and he was so called by Pierce Inverarity[p6]

fantasy - Fangoso Lagoons contains 'Atlantean fragments of columns and friezes from teh Canaries'. The boat hijacked by the Paranoids is called the 'Godzilla II' [p38] #seealso(fairy tales)

names and pseudonyms - Oedipa's husband Wendell Maas [p6] is generally known as Mucho Maas. Anthony Giunghierrace, the apparent follower of Manny di Presso, has the alias Tony Jaguar[p38] Even when people have only one name, they are addressed differently by various characters. Oedipa is 'Oed' to her husband Mucho [p10], is initially 'Mrs. Maas' to Metzger [p17]. We never learn her maiden name, despite the insignificance of her husband in the book.

nature -

Oedipa had believed, long before leaving Kinneret, in some principle of the sea as redemption for Southern California

night - "nothing of the night's could touch her; nothing did...But then she wondered if the gemlike 'clues' were only some kind of compensation. To make up for her having lost the direct, epileptic Word, the cry that might abolish the night

Oedipa - age of - Miles calls Oedipa an 'older chick'

Oedipa - mirrors of - Oedipa imagines, or perceives, representations of herself throughout the book. She sees herself in a motel-sign of an unpleasantly sexy nymph [p16]

paranoia - Roseman tries to cover his paranoia with humor:

"You might have been one of Perry Mason's spies," said Roseman. After thinking a moment he added, "Ha, ha." [p12]

Miles distrusts Oedipa's offer to give Mucho a Paranoids tape:

Miles closed the door behind them and started in with the shifty eye. "In return for what?" Moving in on her. "Do you want what I think you want? This is the Payola Kid here, you know." Oedipa picked up the nearest weapon, which happened to be the rabbit-ear antenna off the TV in the corner. "Oh," said Miles, stopping. "You hate me too." Eyes bright through his bangs.

that Oedipa thought at first They, somebody up there, were putting her on. It had to be an actor...she looked around him for reflectors, microphones, camera cabling, but there was only himself and a debonair bottle of French Beaujolais[p17]

Either he made up the whole thing, Oedipa thought suddenly, or he bribed the engineer over at the local station to run this, it's all part of a plot, an elaborate, seduction, plot. O Metzger.

"You one of these right-wing nut outfits?" inquired the diplomatic Metzger. Fallopian twinkled. "They accuse us of being paranoids." "They?" inquired Metzger, twinkling also. "Us?" asked Oedipa. [p32]

"Not so loud, hey," said Di Presso, skulking as best a polyethylene cone can along the landing towards them. "They're watching. With binoculars." [p38]

pareidolia - the word isn't used in Lot 49, btu seems appropriate. It means 'a type of illusion or misperception, involving a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as something clear and distinct'.

And spent the rest of the night finding the image of the Trystero post horn. In Chinatown, in the dark window of a herbalist, she thought she saw it on a sign among ideographs. But the streetlight was dim. Later, on a sidewalk, she saw two of them in chalk, 20 feet apart. Between them a complicated array of boxes, some with letters, some with numbers. A kids' game? Places on a. map, dates from a secret history? She copied the diagram in her memo book. When she looked up, a man, perhaps a man, in a black suit, was standing in a doorway half a block away, watching her. She thought she saw a turned-around collar but took no chances; headed back the way she'd come, pulse thundering. A bus stopped at the next corner, and she ran to catch it.

She stayed with buses after that, getting off only now and then to walk so she'd keep awake. What fragments of dreams came had to do with the post horn. Later, possibly, she would have trouble sorting the night into real and dreamed. [p80-81]

parents - Metzger, under the name 'Baby Igor', is pressured by his mother, and wonders what effect it has had on him [p18]. On the next page, Oedipa jokes that he has now 'cashiered' her. Baby Igor's film is 'about this kid and his father', although the mother looms over them, giving the name to their submarine

payola - Miles, making a pass at Oedipa, calls himself 'the Payola Kid' [p17]. payola refers to payments for airtime made by bands or labels. The term is also used by Metzger in discussion with Manny di Presso about payments for human bones:

If there was payola in there, I doubt it got written down

Peter Pinguid Society - The, presumbaly fictional, account of Peter Pinguid is on page 32. 'Pinguid' means greasy or oily, and Peter is slang for a penis (as explained here. The account of the history of Peter Pinguid given on page 32-3

posthorn - The symbol of the Tristero system, of Inamorati Anonymous, ?and of Yoyodyne? The founder of IA chose it after nearly burning himself to death in despair:

From this day I swear to stay off of love: hetero, homo, bi, dog or cat, car, every kind there is. I will found a society of isolates, dedicated to this purpose, and this sign, revealed by the same gasoline that almost destroyed me, will be its emblem." And he did.

PPS - The 'handstruck initials' on a letter which Mike Fallopian receives [35]. Presumably they refer to the Peter Pinguid Society, of which he is a member

religion -

Smog hung all round the horizon, the sun on the bright beige countryside was painful; she and the Chevy seemed parked at the centre of an odd, religious instant. As if, on some other frequency, or out of the eye of some whirlwind rotating too slow for her heated skin even to feel the centrifugal coolness of, words were being spoken. She suspected that much. She thought of Mucho, her husband, trying to believe in his job. Was it something like this he felt, looking through the soundproof glass at one of his colleagues with a headset clamped on and cueing the next record with movements stylized as the handling of chrism, censer, chalice might be for a holy man, yet really tuned in to the voice, voices, the music, its message, surrounded by it, digging it, as were all the faithful it went out to; did Mucho stand outside Studio A looking in, knowing that even if he could hear it he couldn't believe in it? [p15]

Remedios Varo - Artist. His painting 'bordando el manto terrestre' ('embroidering the terrestrial mantle') has an emotional impact on Oedipa [p13], and later her hotel room has 'a reproduction fo a Remedios Varo in it' [p69].

revelation - Oedipa repeatedly feels that a revelation has just eluded her:

Some immediacy was there again, some promise of hierophany: printed circuit, gently curving streets, private access to the water, Book of the Dead. . . . [p20]

River Clyde - The landing of the River Clyde, included in Baby Igor's film [p23], is a genuine historical event in the 1915 Gallipoli landings. The River Clyde had been designed as a 'trojan horse', which would sail up to the beach and quickly let soldiers out of it. The expedition turned into a massacre, in which only 11 of the 1,100 on board survived

San Narciso - A city near LA, which Oedipa visits to execute Pierce's will [p14]. San Narciso seems to Oedipa to have meaning concealed within it; on her arrival 'a revelation also trembled just past the threshold of her understanding'. 'Narciso' means either a dandy, or a narcissus flower. The word conjures ideas of narcissism both in English and in Spanish

songs - Miles [p17] and Metzger/Baby Igor [p19] have songs, which are marked out as such in the text. This reminds me of editions of Alice in Wonderland, which are marked with 'the Mock Turtle's song', etc, but that is probably not significant. If it is, it would just be another fairy tale reference.

Strip Botticelli - Botticelli is a guessing game, which Metzger alters so that 'for each answer, you'll have to take something off'

structure of the book -

a sunrise over the library slope at Cornell university that nobody out on it had seen because the slpe faces west

She drove into San Narciso on a Sunday, in a rented Impala. Nothing was happening. She looked down a slope, needing to squint for the sunlight, onto a vast sprawl of houses which had grown up all together, like a well-tended crop, from the dull brown earth; and she thought of the time she'd opened a transistor radio to replace a battery and seen her first printed circuit. The ordered swirl of houses and streets, from this high angle, sprang at her now with the same unexpected, astonishing clarity as the circuit card had. Though she knew even less about radios than about Southern Californians, there were to both outward patterns a hieroglyphic sense of concealed meaning, of an intent to communicate. There'd seemed no limit to what the printed circuit could have told her (if she had tried to find out); so in her first minute of San Narciso, a revelation also trembled just past the threshold of her understanding.

she'd only been reminded of her look downhill this noontime [p20]

Tank Theatre - 'A small arena theatre located out between a traffic analysis firm and a wildcat transistor outfit' in San Narciso, where The Courier's Tragedy is playing. There are several Tank theatres in the real world, and one fictional one mentioned in chapter 3 of 'The diary of a nobody'

television - Oedipa suspects that television is Mr Thoth's dream about his grandfather's battle with Tristero couriers is 'all mixed in with a Porky Pig cartoon' [p63]

Tony Jaguar - Also known as Anthony Giunghierrace[p38], 'very big in Cosa Nostra', according to Manny di Presso[p39]. He supplied bones to Inverarity[p40]. More precisely, these were the bodies of American servicemen killed in Italy. Some of these became the 'real human skeletons from Italy' sunk in Fangoso Lagoons for scuba divers [p20]. Others were used for the filters in Beaconsfield Cigarettes [p21]:

"No bribes, no freeways," Di Presso shaking his head. "These bones came from Italy. A straight sale. Some of them," waving out at the lake, "are down there, to decorate the bottom for the Scuba nuts. That's what I've been doing today, examining the goods in dispute. Till Tony started chasing, anyway. The rest of the bones were used in the R&D phase of the filter program, back around the early '50's, way before cancer. Tony Jaguar says he harvested them all from the bottom of Lago di Pieta."

Yogodyne - 'one of the giants of the aerospace industry', a company in which Pierce was an investor and otherwise involved. The mailboy in The Scope is 'wearing a Yoyodyne badge' [p34], and Mike Fallopian later admits that the Peter Pinguid Society 'use Yogoydyne's inter-office delivery' for their mail, as an act of rebellion against the government mail monopoly [p35].

America - Oedipa has a hallucination of Uncle Sam [p10]. Pierce considers himself 'a founding father' of Yoyodyne #seealso(cars)