COLGR49--specificity of place

[Kato du Bois]

>From: Doug Millison:
>
-- I don't remember Pynchon using  the Northern/Southern California
>rivalry that is so important to some snooty San Franciscans who look down 
>on
>Los Angeles and what they often refer to as Lower California.

Just barely into chapter 2, Oedipa is ruminating on San Narciso, the fact 
that it was Pierce's base of operations, his beginning, that his empire 
sprang from there and that this might give it an "aura" separate from the 
"rest of Southern California" ... a subtle dig, but I read it as that fairly 
common thumbing-of-the-nose you speak of.

I grew up in the Bay Area and went to school in L.A. ... and always found it 
amusing that the Northern Californians would be full of scorn (whether it be 
the Southland's overwhelming voting bloc, water consuming/thieving policies, 
overall phoniness and Hollywoodization, Dodgers vs. Giants, or the 
tremendous ugliness of L.A. when compared to the City), while the vast 
majority of L.A. folk considered San Francisco a nice place to visit, with 
some real good restaurants.

K d B




_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp