Difference between revisions of "Chapter 6"

Revision as of 04:53, 26 July 2024

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

If your edition has 183 pages, follow the pages marked a:

If your edition has 152 pages, follow b:

a: ???, b: 120 - Humbert Humbert
Humbert Humbert is the narrator and main character in Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" (1955)[1]

15 cent Columbian Exposition Issue, 1893

3 cent Mothers of America Issue, 1934

Postage Stamp Centenary Issue, 1947

3 cent Statue of Liberty, 1954

3 cent Brussels Exhibition Issue, 1958

b: 121 - eight-year-old
Why does Serge choose eight? Anything below 13 would probably be equally shocking. Numerology might give clues. For instance there are 8 Jungian cognitive functions; Timothy Leary identified 8 levels of consciousness; a byte is 8 bits; V8 is an automobile engine with 8 cilanders and also a vegetable juice drink.[2]

b: 122 - Emory Bortz
The most obvious allusion would be to Emory University in Atlanta, GA,[3] but there are also several individuals of interest named Emory.[4] The last name Bortz might allude to an Hungarian chieftain.[5] It is also a diamond of inferior quality, commonly used for drill tips; abrasive diamond powder; bort.[6]

b: 122 - Grace
The wife's name may or may not live up to her name. Free and undeserved favour, especially of God; unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification, or for resisting sin.[7]

b: 123 - Winthrop Tremaine
Winthrop is a colonial era surname, colonial governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut.[8] Tremaine is a Cornish language name, though most often a surname.[9] Johnny Tremain, minus the e at the end was a character and title of a children's book written in 1943. The main character lives through the American Revolution.[10]

b: 123 - girlie magazines
1950's (etc) "porn" magazine featuring scantily-clad females (about like modern underwear ads!!)[11]

b: 123 - riparian
Relating to or living or located on the bank of a natural watercourse.[12]

b: 124 - historical
Of, concerning, or in accordance with recorded history, (particularly) as opposed to legends, myths, and fictions.[13] Oedipa seeks to know the writer, not the myth or legend. The student mocks her by implying that Shakespeare, Marx, and Jesus are unknowable as "historical" figures.

b: 124 - Bowdlerized
Thomas Bowdler published a version of Shakespeare that removed profanity and sexual references in an effort to be more appropriate for audiences of his time. Since then, the term 'bowdlerize' generally refers to censorship of offensive material from artistic works.[14]

a: 151, b: 124 - K. da chingado
Chingado is Spanish slang meaning "fucker."[15]

b: 126 - taken a Brody
Steve Brodie [sic] was a New York City bookie who claimed to have survived the 135 foot jump from the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886. The notoriety surrounding this story is the source of phrases such as "pull a Brodie" or "take a Brodie." As Driblette's walk into the Pacific was fatal and did not include a fall from a great height, Oedipa's appropriation of the expression is forced at best.[16]

b: 127 - poetaster
An inferior poet; a writer of insignificant or shoddy poetry.[17]