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Guide to the Symbols Used in the Tim Novels
Inspired by the very same in Dave Eggers's novel A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
What
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It Really Represents
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Alta Lara |
Home, family, safety, comfort, wealth, security |
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Banana slug |
Fragility but also resiliency of life |
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Beastie Boys |
Culture, the city, art, enlightenment |
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Beer |
Agape, friendship, society |
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Bongwater |
The abyss, nothingness |
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Cats |
Sexuality; the id |
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Claimstake |
Human society |
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Crazy For Love |
Eros, sexuality, romantic love, transformation |
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Dorm I |
The ego, phallus, consciousness |
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Five keg rager with three bands |
Grail-quest |
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Fog |
Universality and awareness of death, loneliness, alienation |
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Forest |
Subconscious, nature |
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Gorky St. house |
Primitive human society, male society |
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Holly St. house |
Female society, matriarchy |
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Journey*/Rush |
Adolescence, puberty, youth |
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Kane College |
Feudal society |
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Late 80s heavy metal like Def Leppard, Poison, Winger, Whitesnake, etc. |
Experience unmediated by irony. passion, purpose, desire, possibly even lust |
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Led Zeppelin |
Good & evil, temptation, damnation, redemption |
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Macintosh computers |
Technology, creation, Dedalus theme, tool |
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Mexicali |
Games, competition, nightmare of history, patriarchy |
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Moon |
Femininity, conscience, superego |
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Ocean |
Death, hell, nothinginess, annihilation |
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Political Correctness |
Religion; orthodoxy |
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Route 27 |
Birth canal, trial, challenge |
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Santa Zita |
Babylon, experience, world of the senses |
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Santa Zita County Transit buses |
History, memory, time |
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Santa Zita Movies I & II |
Capitalism |
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Sophie's parents' house in
Galena |
Limbo, purgatory |
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Stars |
The divine, grace, forgiveness |
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Sun |
Authority, paternity |
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Terra Nueva bay |
The womb, vagina, omphalos |
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Terra Nueva peninsula |
The future, death, eternity |
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The constellation Orion |
Hunting, masculinity, conquest |
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The Grateful Dead |
Religion, ceremony, transcendence |
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The Orion rollercoaster |
Psychological perception of experience, coitus |
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UC Santa Zita |
The new Jerusleum, education, learning |
*This is in contrast to Eggers's novel, in which he claims Journey has no symbolic meaning.
But I don't believe it.
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