Cultural Cross References
- Chapter five includes a description of a "Snow Crash Spectacular parade" based on Neal Stephenson's book Snow Crash.
- The book contains references to the Beatles song "Rocky Raccoon". Julius' girlfriend leaves him for his friend Dan, just as Lil leaves Rocky Raccoon for a man named Dan in the song. At the beginning of the book, Jules and Lil sing some lyrics from the song.
- Doctorow's short story "Truncat" is also set in the Bitchun Society, sometime after the events of Down and Out.
- Doctorow's short story "I, Row Boat" also appears to be set in the same universe (though more distantly future), with references to artificial uploading and downloading of intelligence, but no explicit mention of the Bitchun Society or Whuffie.
- The title is a reference to George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London.
Read more about this topic: Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or cross:
“They’re semiotic phantoms, bits of deep cultural imagery that have split off and taken on a life of their own, like those Jules Verne airships that those old Kansas farmers were always seeing.... Semiotic ghosts. Fragments of the Mass Dream, whirling past in the wind of my passage.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“He is asleep. He knows no longer the fatigue of the work of deciding, the work to finish. He sleeps, he has no longer to strain, to force himself, to require of himself that which he cannot do. He no longer bears the cross of that interior life which proscribes rest, distraction, weaknesshe sleeps and thinks no longer, he has no more duties or chores, no, no, and I, old and tired, oh! I envy that he sleeps and will soon die.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)