Volkswagen Blues

Discuss the significance of names in the novel and how they relate to the characters’ identities, taking into consideration why the narrative never reveals Jack’s real name and why La Grande Sauterelle’s real name is also ambiguous—is it La Grande Sauterelle or Pitsémine? Other characters in the novel are also essentially nameless, including the bull rider’s wife and the vagabond. Does the lack of a name signify a lack of importance (as Jack suggests when Théo’s name is missing from the Ferlinghetti photograph) or something about the construction of identity?

Why does Jack maintain “the insane hope that old Peckinpah would call” him (25)? What does Sam Peckinpah represent to Jack? When Jack returns to Quebec at the end of the novel, will he still be hoping for a call from Peckinpah? Why or why not?

The last postcard Théo sent Jack was from the museum in Gaspé, but the message is a copy of a text written in old French, which Jack can’t read. When La Grande Sauterelle sees the card, she says, “If your brother has taken the trouble to have an old text printed on a postcard, there must have been a reason.