The reader for Jonathan Cape was dissmissive of the "local colour heaped on in shovelfuls". When Lowry responded to Cape that his novel contined "some of the most plausible gutters in fiction", he was defending the accuracy of his surface detail.
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the name on the trembling, offered, and rejected cigarette package struck her: Alas! – UTV, 52.
A cheap brand of cigarette, the name of which means "Wings"; cigarettes are an image, throughout the novel, of humanity's bent to consume itself as quickly as possible (105). |
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Country Club el Bueno Tono tobacco .... Monterey peeper – UTV, 342. The El Buen Tono company used radio advertisements to great effect in the early days of that medium. |
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| 'Absolutemente necesario,' he said, and Yvonne realized it was the woman, not the Cafeaspirina, he meant – UTV, 51.
The advertisement featuring a woman with a scarlet brassière, and the vivid red packaging of the Cafiaspirina [sic; Lowry's 'Cafe' is a jest], inevitably remind the Consul of the scarlet woman of Revelation. Courtesy of Alberto Rebolla. |
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666 ... to the quiet delight of the Consul. – UTV, 188. A small tin of a vapour rub, translated by the Consul's imagination into an insecticide. Courtesy of Alberto Rebollo. |
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| El Universal newspaper | Euzkadi tyre repair |