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Miles
The Paranoids are a band of marijuana-smoking hippie teenagers (including Miles) who closely imitate the Beatles, even to the point of singing in British accents. They provide background music during much of Oedipa’s time in San Narciso, and they take a particular interest in her affair with Metzger, even dropping by Oedipa’s room at times to watch her and Metzger have sex. During a day trip to Fangoso Lagoons, the Paranoids alert Oedipa to the similarity between Manny Di Presso’s story about soldiers’ bones being dug out of a lake to make the bone charcoal filters for Beaconsfield cigarettes and the plot of Wharfinger’s play The Courier’s Tragedy.
The Paranoids Quotes in The Crying of Lot 49
The The Crying of Lot 49 quotes below are all either spoken by The Paranoids or refer to The Paranoids. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2 Quotes
Outside a fugue of guitars had begun, and she counted each electronic voice as it came in, till she reached six or so and recalled only three of the Paranoids played guitars; so others must be plugging in.
Which indeed they were. Her climax and Metzger's, when it came, coincided with every light in the place, including the TV tube, suddenly going out, dead, black. It was a curious experience. The Paranoids had blown a fuse.
Related Characters:
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Explanation and Analysis:
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The Paranoids Character Timeline in The Crying of Lot 49
The timeline below shows where the character The Paranoids appears in The Crying of Lot 49. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...while he carries Oedipa’s bags and tells her that he’s in a band called the Paranoids. Oedipa offers to show Miles’s music to Mucho. Miles assumes that she is asking for...
(full context)
...falls asleep several times while they have sex. The movie is still on, and the Paranoids are still playing music outside. More of them start plugging in their guitars. Precisely when...
(full context)
Chapter 3
...with Metzger. They go to get a break from Echo Courts, where Miles and the Paranoids frequently walk in on them having sex (even after they start doing so in the...
(full context)
...her over time, like a performance. Its continues with a trip with Metzger and the Paranoids to the Fangoso Lagoons neighborhood that Inverarity built. On the drive over, Oedipa thinks about...
(full context)
...to cross the lake, and two men in gray suits are pursuing him. While the Paranoids sing, Di Presso explains that the mafia is after him and that he’s planning to...
(full context)
Miles and one of the other Paranoids’ girlfriends comment that the story about the bones reminds them of The Courier’s Tragedy, a...
(full context)
Oedipa, Metzger, and the Paranoids eventually get off the island after they get the neighborhood security force’s attention that night....
(full context)
Chapter 6
Oedipa returns to Echo Courts in San Narciso, where she finds the Paranoids sitting motionless with their instruments next to the swimming pool, as though frozen in time....
(full context)
