How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Into the mixing of the twilight's whiskey sours against the arrival of her husband, Wendell ("Mucho") Maas from work, she wondered, wondered, shuffling back through a fat deckful of days which seemed (wouldn't she be first to admit it?) more or less identical, or all pointing the same way subtly like a conjurer's deck, any odd one readily clear to a trained eye. (1.2)
What does the phrase "a fat deckful of days" suggest about the way that Oedipa perceives the passage of time? Why does she sense that she is living a day in a "conjurer's deck"? Does this have a basis in reality or it just part of her imagination?
Quote #2
A number of frail girls with heart-shaped faces, huge eyes, spun-gold hair, prisoners in the top room of a circular tower, embroidering a kind of tapestry which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking hopelessly to fill the void: for all the other buildings and creatures, all the waves, ships and forests of the earth were contained in this tapestry, and the tapestry was the world. (1.55)
What does Remedios Varo's painting suggest about the nature of Oedipa's time in Mexico? What does it suggest about Oedipa's later struggle with the Tristero?
Quote #3
It's all part of a plot, an elaborate seduction, plot. (2.31)
Why does Oedipa think of a plot as "an elaborate seduction"? How will her suspicion of Metzger later latch on to the Tristero? Is Pynchon trying to give the reader a hint here about how plot functions in Lot 49?
Quote #4
"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." (2.48)
How can Manny Di Presso keep track of when he is "acting" and when he is being a "lawyer"? Is there a difference?
Quote #5
The can knew where it was going, she sensed, or something fast enough, God or a digital machine, might have computed in advance the complex web of its travel. (2.78)
How does Oedipa tend to explain and understand complexity in the novel? Why does she link "God" and "digital machines"? Is she equating the two, or simply comparing them?
Quote #6
That's what haunted her most, perhaps: the way it fitted, logically, together. As if (as she'd guessed that first minute in San Narciso) there were revelation in progress all around her. (3.1)
What is this recurrent sense Oedipa has that she is surrounded by revelation, but not privy to it? Isn't it natural for things to fit logically together? Why is Oedipa surprised by this?
Quote #7
They'd never heard it that way. Went on warming their hands at an invisible fire. Oedipa, to retaliate, stopped believing in them. (5.82)
At this point in the novel, how stable is Oedipa's mind? Do you believe in the children in Golden Gate Park? Is it possible to tell if Oedipa is actually seeing children, if she is dreaming, or if she is hallucinating?
Quote #8
"You know what a miracle is. Not what Bakunin said. But another world's intrusion into this one [...] An anarchist miracle. Like your friend. He is too exactly and without flaw the thing we fight." (5.88)
How does Arrabal's story function as a parable about Oedipa's own quest? Are there other "miracles" in Lot 49?