The Lost Book Club: July Update

I just wanted to put up a quick post and mention that Melissa Lossa has been working very hard and has come up with a stellar list for this summer's Lost Community Book Club. The first two selections for July are:

• Of Mice and Men
  
• Lord of the Flies

Since they are carry-overs from the hiatus reading list, I had already done a post on Of Mice and Men. It is HERE.

Also, ABC seems to have bellied up to the bar and come up with a sparkly, swanky, awesomely graphic-y, book club of their own. It is extremely well organized and full of goodly-goodness. Give it a look-see and see you in a few weeks!

VALIS

"Right. It means my body is in two space-time continua simultaneously, or else my body is nowhere at all."

The book VALIS was seen in season four in two episodes, Eggtown and The Other Woman. It is given to Ben by Locke to, "...pass the time." The main character of the book is called Horselover Fat, who exists within the author Philip K. Dick. So in essence the main character throughout the book is two people but in the same body, however everyone addresses them as two different entities.

The Theory:

• Horselover Fat has been shown things and his mind expanded when a ray of pink light beams things directly into his brain. He claims this beam came from God, who he calls Zebra, and planted information (about his son's hernia specifically) into his brain. He then goes on to tell how this beam of pink light changes his entire life beginning in 1974. These ideas are documented in his Exegesis, which is referenced throughout the novel.
  
• Additionally, Horselover Fat thinks that he is two people living simultaneously in two different times and sometimes he can remember what his other self is doing. One of him lives in California in the late 1970s, and the other in ancient Rome.

Zebra:

• According to Fat, the universe consists of one irrational entity into which has broken a high-order life form which camouflages itself by a sophisticated mimicry. This is Zebra, and Zebra is rational where the universe is not.
  
• Zebra camouflages like a moth, its always there but only lets you see it when it wants you to but it can MORPH into things and people and act like them. It does this in order to consume the universe and turn everything into one thinking-alike entity (the Lord).
  
• I thought this was exceptionally relevant to the idea of Smokey and what we now know about it. In the March 21, 2008 OLP, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse confirmed that Yemi, the spider, and some versions of Walt are indeed manifestations of the monster.
  
• So if you think about the theories of VALIS and that it is always there and sort of always changing, could our "Smoke Monster" be an actual higher form of intelligence that is trying to lead the Losties to salvation, or higher thinking, or even to a higher state of being?
• The universe, seen as one vast irrational entity, I think applies to the island and how it seems to have a consciousness all it's own. It knows what it needs and seems to have gathered the inhabitants there for a purpose.
  

The movie above is the uncut version of the Room 23 film that the others are being shown. The ideas in it are similar to the ideas in the film VALIS, from the book. The film in the book is an enlightening experience for Fat and his friends, as it leads him to find others that have also been "beamed" information. It was also this idea that kept me jumping to the idea of the Room 23 video.

VALIS The Film:

• VALIS stands for Vast Active Living Intelligence System.
• Information in the film comes in images flashed throughout, and while there is a story going on, much of the information is subliminal. Examples would include a woman in a river on an ancient landscape (Roman), a satellite that appears in various forms in the film, a soda can, and a pot.
  
• The film contains an electronic soundtrack that isn't actual music really, but more mind opening sound.
• The film expands on the idea that human beings are all from a place called Albermuth, and that we are toxified by the atmosphere on earth. VALIS detoxifies people by "...fire[ing] rational instructions at us, to override the pathology caused by the toxicity of the atmosphere." VALIS has been doing this to all people since birth, and VALIS is rational while people are not.
• An idea in the film is that people do not die, but are reborn, and will then remember the knowledge that we have been beamed on some level.

Room 23:

• The music is like the VALIS music. I feel that when watching the film it is designed to illicit some sort of trance or hypnotic brain state.
• The Room 23 movie may be used to help "awaken" the alien part of a person's brain so they can receive the "beamed information" so to speak.
  
• Lights are strapped to the viewers face, and the images in the video flash and pulse. Fat's theory of Zebra is that when it's beaming data into the human brain, "At flash-cut speed you can load the right hemisphere of the human brain with a titantic quantity of graphic data." p. 71.
• Some Key Phrases from Room 23:
• Divest your ordinary nature and then Find your true nature
  
• God loves you as he loved Jacob
  
• We are the causes of our own suffering.
• Also the backward "Only fools are enslaved by time and space" repeated throughout the video.
• THINK ABOUT and then YOUR LIFE

Final Bullets:

• The radiation from VALIS, if coming in too intense dose, can cause cancer. Ben has cancer, but technically you shouldn't be able to get cancer on the island.
• Fat thinks that in order to see God or know God (Zebra), you have to try to kill yourself. We've seen a lot of self sacrifice/suicide mentions on Lost. Does this act lead to an enlightenment?
  
• Jack tired to kill himself by almost jumping off a bridge.
• Michael tries to commit suicide in his car and by shooting himself.
• Tom implies that he has tried to shoot himself when recounting the experience with Michael.
• Charlie ultimately kills himself through sacrifice when turining off the communication jamming device.
• Eko faces Smokey and allows himself to be killed.
• Mikhail may have been killed when he blows a grenade outside of Looking Glass.
• While reading, the two characters that most came to mind were Ben and Locke, which makes it fitting that they were the two to actually handle this novel in the episodes.
• Are Ben and Locke on a spiritual quest to find their Zebra? Are they seeing this "entity" on the island, or in the island, or have they been "beamed" information that they are just now recognizing?
• Horselover Fat and Philip K. Dick are the same person. The catalyst in the break in personality comes when Fat's friend commits suicide. They are only rejoined when Fat meets God or Zebra in the form of a two-year-old girl. But for a time Horselover Fat was the main entity inhabiting the body, sort of overriding the rational P.K. Dick.
  
• I felt like this was describing Ben. It seems that at one point he showed promise of being a normal, rational person, but circumstances sort of broke him apart. The death of his mother, followed by an abusive relationship with his father, and then being brought to the island where he may have begun to be "enlightened" seem to have led to a significant personality change. He "sees" his mother (the sophisticated mimicry of the island?) and is groomed to become the person we see now.
  
• There is no time, there is no death ("Only fools are enslaved by time and space"). All time happens at once, we all live multiple lives, and sometimes you can be awakened and see all of these lives at the same time. Again, reflective of the island, how time there is different, and how people passing on and off can become unstuck in time.
  
• Horselover Fat becomes unstuck in the book with his life from ancient Rome (there are Roman artifacts in the Room 23 video incidentally). "Horselover Fat is living in two different times and two different places; i.e. in two space-time continua; that is what took place in March 1974 because of the ancient fish-sign presented to him the month before: his two space-time continua ceased to be separate and merged." This passage from page 109 of the book describes what happens when upon seeing the ancient Christian fish symbol. Fat remembers all of his past life in Rome and it becomes superimposed over his 1970s life.
  
• The "proof" of this, so to speak, is pointed out by Fat's friend Kevin. Within the film VALIS he notices a reoccurring "pot" which has a DNA double helix around it's rim which in turn resembles the Christian fish symbol.
  
• I found this interesting because in Lost we see a reoccurance of a variety of themes such as the octagon, black and white items, eyes, and the numbers (which we see everywhere).
  
• Could the numbers actually be sort of awakening this deeply embedded knowledge in our Losties, and that's how they all managed to be so connected yet strangers at the same time? Could this common symbol be the reason that they all ended up on that flight? Something in them awakened and told them to do it?

This book was very full of theory, religion, and concepts that could tie to Lost on so many levels, and with so many layers. It was hard to pick and choose some key areas to focus on, but for me at least, these were the ones that most stood out. And with that, we're back to watching the show, and looking less into dissecting the books from Ben's library :D. Counting the days until April 24th.

Carrie

"What happens if there are others like her? What happens to the world?"

Stephen King's novel Carrie has been seen many times in the Lost series. In A Tale of Two Cities, it's the book club book chosen by Juliet. In Not in Portland we see it on a nightstand in Juliet's sister's home. Also, Ben is reading it on One of Us, in a flashback, in preparation for the book club.

Some Key Points in Bullets:

• Carrie White is telekinetic.
• Who on the island is telekinetic? It seems Walt is, and maybe even Jacob or Ben.
• The novel purports that TK is genetic (p. 233) perhaps there is some sort of test for the gene, and this could be one of the things going on with the island.
• In the Room 23 V-cast we see a load of dead birds on the ground after something Walt has done. What if the birds smashing into walls and windows is only a side effect from what Walt is doing with his mind. Sort of like the town's people just "knowing" Carrie is behind what's going on.
• What if Jacob's cabin chaos is also a side effect of him using TK to try to communicate with Locke.
  
• Carrie makes the things in the town happen by picturing it in her mind. Could this be what happens in Room 23? The flashes on the screen allow the viewer to make things happen according to what the pictures suggest?

• Throughout the book, Carrie hears a constant inner voice. It drove her to practice her TK, it drove her to kill her mother, and it drove her to destroy her school and town.

• The town "knew" that Carrie was causing all of the things going on without anyone telling them or anyone really seeing her do it. It was like she was in their minds telling them what she was feeling and doing. It was like they were able to hear her inner dialogue in their minds.
  
• Could this be how Ben tells Harper what he wants her to do, or how he communicates with the others when he is captured?
• The book has a lot of blood in it. It's all stemmed from blood, from Carrie's first period , to pig's blood flowing over her at the prom, to the blood of the town that flows when she begins her reign of terror and destruction. Carrie's blossom into womanhood and with it her ability to become pregnant is the catalyst for all that happened in the story.
  
• Carrie's mother thinks that womanhood is dirty, conception is dirty, and as a matter of fact viewed her own pregnancy as terminal cancer before she knew better.
• To Carrie's mother, sex as painful, sinful, bad, and dirty.
• Ben feels that Alex (having sex) becoming pregnant would be catastrophic, as all pregnant women on the island die.
• We see Kate struggle with having sexual relations with Sawyer as she thinks she is pregnant.
  
• For the longest time Jin was very protective of Sun showing her body too much, as if it was sinful or shameful for a woman to do that.
  
• The Prom was to be a new start for Carrie. Almost everyone viewed her differently (like Roger Linus and his new start on the island?).
  
• The chaos in town was very reminiscent of the chaos in Jacob's cabin when he and Locke go there. Is Jacob like Carrie, and if so does he lose control of what he is able to do when he gets upset?
  

Losties Versus Carrie:

• Juliet- She proclaims that Carrie is her favorite book. Is this because she identifies with Carrie on some level?
  
• She was sent to the island as a new beginning. She was told by Ben that she was needed but was lied to about how long for, and also as to the circumstances of her stay. This is like Carrie, who was led to believe the prom would be wonderful, but was then subjected to pig's blood on her head and ridicule just like always, even though that was not what was intended.
  
• The kids at the prom sort of adopted a mob mentality and in their hysterics resorted to laughter at Carrie because that's what they had known in the past. Is this what Juliet being branded was all about? She was just a victim of what the inhabitants knew to be the thing to do in crisis?
• Walt- He seems to be telekinetic, and so was Carrie.
  
• Is this what makes him special, or does it make him an outcast. Is his "specialness" what makes his step-father wary of him.
  
• Is he unable to control the things that he is able to do (the birds), like Carrie was at the end of the book?

• Ben- Like Carrie, he is the sort of person that would invite ridicule if he were in the real world. One of those strange, maniacal people that no one really gets. I wonder if he didn't take over power and make everything "his", would one of the bodies in the pit have been him, rather than he being a huge cause of all the chaos that went on the day of the purge.
  
• In a way I wonder if the purge as an idea was fine for him, like Carrie making her mind stronger and practicing her TK (flex). As she got more upset though, it sort of got out of her control, until the chaos from the prom just really led to her destruction. It started happening and she just couldn't and wouldn't stop it. I wonder if the purge became like that? An ultimate revenge for Ben against his father that just sort of spiraled out of control, but he wouldn't and couldn't stop it.
• Jacob- Like Carrie, it seems that whoever or whatever Jacob is, he has some weird abilities that allow him to do the things that he can do. Is he telekinetic?
• He seems to cause all of the stuff in his cabin to fly around, and catch on fire. He makes his cabin hop around the island, and he can't be seen by everyone. I'm going on the idea here that it is indeed Jacob that is making all of this happen and not actually someone else like Locke or Ben (whether willingly or unknowingly by them).

Final Bullets:

• I sort of want to say Carrie White is telekinetic and so is Walt...the end. I want it to be as simple as that, but I also re-read this book before Season 4 began. We now know there is a heck of a lot more going on on that island than people being able to move things with their minds.
• What if it really is that simple though? Maybe Stephen King was onto something when he writes about TK being genetic. Maybe having the TK gene in combination with getting near the island, and being exposed to electromagnetism makes Desmond get unglued in time. Could this be what Ben is trying to get a handle on?
• Wiki has quite a lengthy entry on Psychokinesis (aka Telekinesis), and often lumps teleportation into the theme and term of TK.
• I'm also curious as to why this book in particular is Juliet's favorite. What about that story strikes a chord with her? Don't get me wrong, it's a great book, but in my experience for something to be your "favorite" you really need to identify with it on a deeper level.
  

Coming Soon: VALIS by Philip K. Dick

Of Mice and Men

Sawyer is seen reading this in his prison flashback in season two's Every Man For Himself. Also, Ben quotes the book (see below) when showing Sawyer the other island from the hilltop.

I haven't read it since high school, and this time around I was struck by how emotional I felt for all of the characters. From Crooks and how lonely he was, to Lennie and how simple it was to make him happy (and how easy it was for him to kill things). To George who had such a kind heart, and even Candy looking for a dream to share, and his poor old dog. The thing that did strike me however was that each and every one of them was lonely, and looking for somebody.

I have tried very hard to look for connections between the book and the show, and came up with some basic comparisons:

• Rabbits. Lennie is pretty obsessed with rabbits and we see rabbits currently playing a role in whatever experiments are going on on the island. Not only did Ben use #8 to terrorize Sawyer, but we saw #15 in the orientation video released at Comic-Con.
  

• The bunk house being a gang of rag tag workers all kinda thrown together by a common thread puts me in mind of the survivors. None of them have a reason to have anything to do with each other but all seem to have a certain small degree of separation in the world off the island as well as a common interest on it now.

• Curly going around acting like a big bully and picking fights with everyone puts me in mind of Sawyer.

I could go on with the little comparisons, but I think like Turn of the Screw, it might be about the title of the book or maybe just the quote that is used from it.

"A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya, I tell ya," he cried, "I tell ya a guy gets lonely, an' he gets sick." (Crooks to Lennie in the Book, and Ben to Sawyer on Lost)

This quote could really represent many of the characters on Lost.

• Many of the characters haven't really got anybody. If they do have someone, they either do something to push them away, use them for their own gain, or force them away to keep a secret. Has this made them sick? If so mentally sick, socially sick, lunatic sick, what?
  

• Ben: He says this specific quote to Sawyer. Is there any significance to this pairing?
  
• I think that Ben feels that he has no one. He is surrounded by people who follow him, but he is lonely.
  
• He has/had cancer (sick), but also his mental state can certainly come into question. What sort of person can participate in/orchestrate a mass killing? What sort of person could kill, lie, and steal children? I think that Ben is looking so hard to find a purpose or a place where he fits, that it has just made him nuts. Either that or being so isolated, he just doesn't realize how maniacal his behavior is.
  

• Sawyer: He has isolated himself with his quest to find and kill the real Sawyer. His loneliness comes from not allowing himself to care for people and just basically turning everything into a con. Until Cassidy, who turned on him in the end as well.
  
• Sawyer could have had a chance to be someone new on the island, clean slate and all. However, he chose to continue being a horrible person pushing people away, and forcing himself to continue to have nobody.
  

• Locke: He was so lonely in the real world. Thrown out of a window and paralyzed by his father, giving him a handicap that separates him from mainstream society. Being rejected by his father, lied to by his mother, and just pretty much getting the shaft from everyone he knows. Being rejected by Helen, etc... He is so lonely that he turns to a phone sex operator for friendship. His is heartsick, and he has nobody, certainly, and it's one of the reasons that he has embraced the island so much as his true place of belonging.

• Kate: She has nobody in the real world because she can't let anyone know who/where she is for fear of getting thrown in jail. Her mother has rejected her for blowing up her husband and her house. She is responsible for the death of her best friend, and she just can't share this with anyone. She has nobody in the real world, but seems to have used the island to forge some real relationships based on who she really is rather than who she pretends to be.

• Eko: He is like Ben in that he initially did what he had to do to survive, but became a murderous maniac with loads of people to do his bidding, but none being friend. He had isolated himself with his power, and like Ben sort of embraced the island to cleanse himself just in a spiritual way rather than a I-am-the-boss-of-you way.

• Charlie: Well, he isolated himself with drugs. Basically drove everyone away and messed up his career, relationships, and life. The island helped him get over his sickness and find people that he truly cares about. Enough to sacrifice himself to make sure they survive.

So, as I wrote this, I realized; while many of the survivors were alone and isolated in the regular world, there were two camps on the island. Those that used it to make themselves new, less isolated and not so alone, and those who just became more isolated. Ben and Sawyer fall into the latter category, which makes it apt that they are the two speaking the quote from the book.


Final Bullets:

• John Steinbeck is the author, and ROT used Steinbeck as the password for one of their clues.

• The Pearl is a Steinbeck novel and it is the name a station on the island.

• Ultimately the story of George and Lennie (even Candy and Curly) is of a lost dream. I think that can be applied to Ben as well. Whatever it is that he is hoping the island will give him, seems to be falling apart.
  
• This could also apply to the DHARMA project as a whole. We have no where near the whole story, but it's implied at this time that the dream that was to be The DHARMA Initiative has been unrealized.
• The idiom, The best laid schemes of mice and men means: The most carefully prepared plans may go wrong. Lots of plans have gone awry in the tales of DHARMA and the Losties, do I really need to elaborate? :D
  

Next Month: Stephen King's Carrie

The Turn of the Screw

It was as if, at moments, we were perpetually coming into sight of subjects before which we must stop short, turning suddenly out of alleys that we perceived to be blind, closing with a little bang that made us look at each other--for, like all bangs, it was something louder than we had intended--the doors we had indiscreetly opened.

The Turn of The Screw makes its appearance in season one where it marks the hiding place of the Swan Orientation Film. There were two comparisons between the book and the show that I wanted to focus on, they each leave me with questions and they each get a bullet:

Juliet’s Story?

• The first thing I was struck by was the way that the governess was hired and eventually was transported to Bly. To me it seemed to parallel Juliet’s story. The governess recalls the circumstances of her hiring as something that she, “…took a couple of days to consult and consider. But the salary offered much exceeded her modest measure, and on a second interview she faced the music, she engaged.” That was pretty much Juliet’s story. She was made an offer, the money would enable her to do so much and the research aspect of the position was hardly something she could pass up. Yet, she was hesitant to take the job on the island as she didn’t know what it entailed, and for the fact that she would be cut off from her family. Turn of the Screw even goes on to detail the travel arrangements of the governess which include long hours in a “swinging, bumping coach” to a stopping place where they are met by another vehicle that would take her to the house, This is very much like the plane ride and eventually the sub that took Juliet to the island.
  

• When the governess arrives at Bly she instantly is struck by how perfect the children are. Even Miles, who was expelled from school for “something”, can do no wrong. She is quick to see small acts of "badness" as flaws in them and she thinks they are becoming corrupted by the ghosts she keeps seeing. I wonder if that’s how we’re meant to see the island, and specifically is how the island was sold to Juliet. It was meant to be her perfect haven for research. Is that one of the reasons this particular book leads to The Swan Orientation Film? DHARMA was billed as this perfect place, where research could be done without financial limitations or pesky regulations. A place where Juliet could do her research, or where Roger and his son Ben could start a new life and leave their hardships behind. All of the characters that have willingly (Kelvin) signed up for island duty seem to be under the impression that they are signing on to a place that is good, just, and the answer to what they have been looking for. Much like the governess taking the position where she finds the children to be perfect. She learns that Flora and Miles are not perfect, just as the DHARMA recruits learn the same about the island. The orientation films want try to paint us a rosy picture of perfection, while at the same time alluding to something being afoot indicating “the incident” and that the computers should not be used to try to communicate with the outside world. Nothing is as perfect as it initially seems…but we already knew that about the island didn’t we.
  

Ghosts or Madness?

• The second thing that stood out was the ghosts, and seeing people that are not there. Throughout the book the governess sees what she thinks are the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. We are never really certain if she actually sees the ghosts or not, as no one else seems to see them (maybe Miles and Flora, but we're never really sure). She thinks the children are being taken over by the ghosts who are causing them to be bad. It seems that indeed at the end Miles dies because of seeming otherworldly intervention.

• I find it interesting that this character is haunted by the ghosts of people that no one else sees. How many times on Lost have we see the dead walking, and appearing to individual characters only? Jack sees Christian Shepard, Eko sees Yemi, Ben sees his mother. On another level Hurley sees Dave, and again we have the semi transparent shapes of Walt and Jacob. They certainly could be dead, but we don’t know for sure. Ultimately though, we have lots of characters seeing people that for all intensive purposes should not be there.

• In the book it seems that the governess might be going mad. Is that what we are supposed to wonder about the characters on Lost? Are the things they think they are seeing (the impossible things) real, hallucinations, or their minds slipping into madness? Is there some kind of mass hysteria going on here, where like the governess, the characters are trying desperately to pull someone else into their delusions?
  

• In the story Mrs. Gross and Flora eventually cast the governess aside. Becoming horrified at her behavior and delusions, as well as frightened of her. Flora and all of her things are removed from the bedroom of the governess and she is left by herself. Mrs. Gross, claims to believe the governess, then takes Flora away, but not before disobeying her direct order to keep Miles and Flora apart. I wonder if something is being hinted at here. Ben and Locke are the only ones that we know of that have seen Jacob. Up until now it seems the others are willing to accept Ben's word on Jacob. But what if this book is foreshadowing for us some things to come? Perhaps the others will begin to be less accepting of the idea of Jacob and will eventually think that Ben and Locke are going mad. Maybe they think that already, Like Mrs. Gross suspected early on that the governess was acting strange, but kind of went along with it because of her stature in Bly.
  

Final Bullets:

• Is Ben Miles? Is he being bad because he can, and following ghosts or so it seems. Is Ben really as bad as we think he is, or are we just seeing him from the wrong point of view?

• Is Sawyer Miles? Is he being bad because he can, not really following ghosts, but certainly making choices based on the ghosts in his past.

• We were shown this book twice in season one. Were the writers trying to foreshadow Juliet and her story, and/or some sort of impending madness that will soon come to a head?

Later this month: Of Mice and Men

The Third Policeman

"...a journey is a hallucination."
"Apparently there is no limit, Joe remarked. Anything can be said in this place and it will be true and will have to be believed."

This book was seen in the Season 2 premier “Man of Science Man of Faith”. It was being read by Desmond and is also seen on his bunk (this information is from Lostpedia). Lostpedia as well as other blogs and Lost media sources quote one of the shows writers, Craig Wright, as saying that the book was chosen for the show for a reason, and that there are key ideas that relate to the show. This is not really confirmed anywhere so I’m not sure how much stock I want to put in the ideas it presents us. That said, this book, while full of bicycles, has many concepts and ideas that tie in in such an interesting way. I literally had notes on every other page. So to avoid another big, long post a la AiWL I give you The Third Policeman in four bullets and a list…

• Comparisons To Lost:

1. The road to Eternity compares to the way Lock and Boone had to run through the jungle to find the plane. Also when Eko and Lock find the big ? on the ground by following their dream.
2. The map…well it parallels the blast door map. I think that is pretty much cut and dry.
3. Omnium parallels Ben’s magic box if it is indeed a real thing and not just a metaphor.
4. The policemen who stay in Eternity don’t age when they are there, which reminds me of the constantly young Mr. Alpert.
5. De Selby attributes night to “black air” coming from volcanic activity. Our island has a volcano, and also our island has volcanic rock that may or may not be creating some kind of effect on the island.
6. Grey powder shows up in Eternity when the narrator asks for a weapon and is given a device that will turn an enemy into a gray powder (or other colors if calculated to do so). On the show we see a gray powder surrounding Jacob’s cabin. Maybe volcanic ash, maybe something else, but curious (not to mention outlandish) to ponder that it could be powdered enemies.
7. The policemen are constantly taking recording in their notebooks, checking instruments, and looking at numbers. Lost has numbers, yes it does, and they add up to 108, and they show up in curious places, and they need to be entered into computers so that things will not “happen”. So yeah numbers parallel the book and the show.
8. De Selby claims that there are only two directions on a sphere north-south and east-west...or maybe only one direction because, "...if one leaves any point on the globe, moving and continuing to move in any "direction", one ultimately reaches the point of departure again." (p 94). Could this be describing Michael and Walt on the boat pointing it in one direction and eventually getting home? Maybe they are just going to go in one big circle and end up at the island again.
9. De Selby also thinks that Earth is sausage shaped, and "If a way can be found, says de Selby, of discovering the "second direction", i.e., along the "barrel" of the sausage, a world of entirely new sensations and experiences will be open to humanity." Okay we know the earth is not sausage shaped really, but it is not perfectly a circle either, so, is this what DHARMA has discovered... a new direction and a new world? Is this where the numbers lead to? Is this the island?

• Travel From Point A to Point B (pgs. 50-52)
• De Selby says that, “…a journey is a hallucination.” He believes that wanting to move or get from one place to another one must begin, then rest at various points between when you begin and end, and finally rest when you are where you want to move to. Each separate rest, grouped by the “many millions” make up the illusion of motion. It even goes on to recount a time when de Selby wanted to get from Bath to Folkstone by locking himself in a room with pictures of where he wanted to go, and instruments to simulate change in time, etc…he believed that he had indeed traveled.
• How does this relate to Lost? Well, there are two characters in particular that come to mind when I think about traveling without really going anywhere and they are Jacob and Walt. Both have appeared in season three (Walt in season two as well) in sort of semi-transparent states. So perhaps these characters are not really on the island but rather locked in a room somewhere with pictures of the island, and sort of willing themselves to be there. The result is them showing up in a not quite formed manor, as I would imagine flinging yourself into motion by constantly hallucinating and then grouping your "millions of rests" between two points may do. The question then is, will we see anyone else who is able to do this on a more formed level? Are there characters that are able to manifest themselves off the island and have interactions with other people that we don’t know are doing this? Maybe Desmonds monk, the ring lady, Nadia, etc… are all people who are sort of jumping about by literally thinking about it hard enough.

• Eternity:
• To get there you take a hidden road that is overgrown. Once inside, you travel underground and end up in a series of tunnels and passages that basically all connect into one big circle. Off of these are doors that open into different things, but mainly through the use of omnium, can give you anything you want. Anything at all…poof just like that. The catch is that while you’re there you can play with the stuff you get, but you can’t take it with you. So yes, this sounds exactly like Ben’s magic box, that he proclaims can give you anything you want.
• Also, while in Eternity you don’t change. You don’t age, grow hair, etc. Even the cigarettes that are smoked don’t burn down. On the island Hurley never gets any thinner (and yes I am actually LOLing at myself for writing that), people become whole again and then don’t seem to change (Rose and Locke), Richard Alpert seems to not age, and no new babies are carried to term (from people at least). So, it could be said that the Losties are in some sort of “Eternity” of their own and just don’t know it. There are loads of holes in this idea beginning with the birth of Aaron, if things didn’t change he would just stay in Claire forever I guess. Also with Sun’s pregnancy, and maybe even Kate’s if she is indeed pregnant.

• The Punchline:
• There is this third policeman who we don’t see until the end of the book, but through the whole thing has been in the walls of Mathers’ house (the murdered man) in his own little police barracks, and he has been messing with the readings, numbers, and data of the other two policemen. Thusly he has saved our narrator from a hanging. BUT then our narrator goes to seek out his box of omnium, which is at his co-killer’s home only to find that he is dead, and has been through his whole odd adventure. He then walks back out to the road and starts the whole thing all over again.
• I’m not going to lie, I am becoming more and more alarmed at the number of book club books that are ending as dreams or as after-death adventures. So I am going to pretend that the Losties are not dead, or in purgatory (ugh I can’t believe I wrote that), or in a mass hallucination/coma, or in a snow globe, and just say…at the end of the book, Flann O’Brien’s letter to his friend appears. In it he states, “…all the queer ghastly things which have been happening to him are happening in a sort of hell which he earned for the killing.” That idea is interesting. I totally forgot as I read the book, that this narrator has brutally killed a man. I actually sort of like the guy, as I do most of the characters on Lost. But let’s review; there are loads of people on the show who have indeed killed someone before getting to the island, we all know this, and there are loads of lists posted so no need to make this one any longer. But I do like the idea that Hell is this cyclic thing and that it keeps going round and round and actions earn you a journey there.

• Final Bullets:
• Here is where my brain is going into overdrive. Okay so we have the idea that there is this place where you don’t change while there. Couple that with the idea that Hell is cyclic and weird and full of two dimensional police barracks where everyone is obsessed with bicycles, taking measurements, and omnium. Add in the idea that you can have whatever you want but you can’t take it with you, and the fact that the main character is stuck in a loop that he has earned himself by being a bad murdering dude.
• Desmond is holding/reading the book on the show, and he is the one that we know is doing some sort of looping. Maybe it's a clue that with this book we are on the right track. (Thanks for the reminder on this Jess.)
  
• What if our Losties are stuck in some sort of cyclic place, where they have unwittingly earned themselves a spot? What if while they are there nothing changes, and time outside of where they are is moving slow or not at all (ie: pgs 142-143 where the narrator emerges from Eternity after 2-3 hours and it seems only minutes has passed. Or when he makes it to his partner's house and it is 16 years later while it has only been 3 days for him)? They have been there for months, but maybe things off the island are moving like a day for every month they have been there.
• Now add to that the looping idea where things are running in a circle and not all in a consecutive manor. Is there a way that our Flight 815 crashed, and everyone ended up in an “Eternity” but somehow in the whole big loop of things they are also back at home, at some point in the past or future. There is another crash of Flight 815, one in which the bodies are located with undersea cameras and played for the news shows. All the while the other “survivors” are just out of synch with the world. When they get out of Eternity will they actually have to loop around to another point in time and crash again? Is that what Jack is looking for? Is that why they need to stay on the island, to avoid their deaths? I know somewhere, somehow this makes a little bit of sense.

Next Month: Turn of the Screw and Of Mice and Men

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass

"If there's no meaning to it," said the King, "that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any."

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:
This book is nonsense! This is also a very long post, but keep in mind it includes two books and SUPER SKINNY Blogger format makes it look longer. There was so much to include, that it became overwhelming, so I decided to look at each book separately and just sort of compare and contrast things from the show. Also, I will look at some of the larger themes present.

Themes:
Let me begin by saying that I am a big supporter of the idea that Ben could well be a twin. So I found it quite relevant that throughout the book there was this theme of Alice thinking that she was someone else (Mabel, her sister, even the cat Dinah) and also that the White Rabbit thought she was someone else as well (he mistook her for his maid).

• This quote in particular stood out for me, "...for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people.”But it's no use now," thought poor Alice, "to pretend to be two people! Why there's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!""

• It begs the question, is someone on the show pretending to be two people...or perhaps two people pretending to be one person.
• As I said, I am of the mind that Ben is perhaps doing this. His back healed awfully fast...maybe his twin is acting as Ben until the other half is healed. Also I feel that Ben has two distinct sides. One seems stammering and unsure, while the other is cold and maniacal.
• I also tend to think that the pretending to be more than one person applies to Kate, Sawyer, and even Sun and Jin. Kate and Sawyer literally taking on different identities and acting as if they are someone else. Jin and Sun on the other hand, are acting toward each other. Jin acting like he is not the hired muscle that beats and kills people for her father, and Sun acting like she is not in love with someone else.

Along with the dual person theme we see a huge theme of change in the story, both size and shape. Alice is constantly growing and shrinking, the baby literally becomes a pig, the white roses are painted red, and the Cheshire Cat is always going through various states of visibility.

• I think that the characters on Lost are certainly going through huge amounts of changes. Some have been healed, and that is a huge change. But there are subtle ones as well:

• Charlie has kicked his drug habit.
• Claire has become a mother
• Juliet has become an accomplice
• Danielle has become a recluse
• Hurley is finding his purpose
• Michael became a true parent
• Locke is becoming part of the island

Observations:

• Throughout the story questions never seem to get answered and distraction is used to divert Alice from further pursuit.

• Much like Ben or Richard Alpert and their answers to the others and Locke about just what is going on on the island.

• The whole book is just nonsense and Alice is trying to make sense of what is going on throughout it.

• In truth there really is no sense to make. The characters have no idea that they live in nonsense, so really there is nothing there for them to figure out. It only seems abnormal to Alice because she is an outsider.
• The Others I think have gotten this way. They have been on the island for so long that they have just sort of accepted what goes on there to a degree, as normal. They really no longer question things because it's just the way it is. Things like a plane falling from the sky and infiltrating the survivors, taking children, and watching someone who is supposed to kill their father all seem normal to them at this point because daily life is just that bizarre.
• Alice seems to have trouble remembering verse that she should know. It ends up coming out all wrong and she can't make sense of it. I wonder if the island has that effect on people. Maybe the flashbacks we have seen could be memories that are remembered wrong. OR maybe the island simply makes you forget what the right thing is. Things you were supposed to know are now replaced by nonsense, and it’s somehow normal.

• Food makes Alice shrink and grow throughout the book. Could this idea be reflected by the food drops and the DI food that the survivors are eating? Could there really be drugs in the food that are making things happen to the people who eat it?

• Who on Lost is most like the Cheshire cat?
• I think Jacob is a good choice because he is literally transparent. However, Ben is also a good candidate as we haven't really seen all of him yet.
• Also, Danielle as she sort of pops in and out it seems when the time is convenient.

• In the end, even though Alice wakes up, Wonderland is still with her (the idea spreads to sister and to her children later in life). This certainly sounds like Jack to me, now that we have seen flash forwards to his life off of the island.

"...Alice began to remember that she was a Pawn, and that it would soon be her turn to move."

Through the Looking-Glass:
While reading this book I felt very much like Alice must have when she was running with the Red Queen. Rushing and running so very fast but only to find you're running to stay in the same place. There were so many things in this book that could compare to Lost, but I'm struck again by the nonsense, as well as the fact that again, Alice dreams the whole thing.

Themes:
Like in the first book, we find Alice is again involved in a game. In AiWL it was cards, and in TtLG it's a large game of chess. Both games of skill and process, however playing cards is more a game of chance and diversion where chess is a game of skill and strategy. She has moved from luck of the draw to skill and thinking.

• The Losties have had fate and chance deal them their hand in the first two seasons. Falling on the island, it seems by chance, and sort of just playing the hand they have been dealt.

• Later they meet The Others and are learning strategies to survive, beat them at their own game, and get off the island. No longer so much chance as strategy and skill being put to better use.

Alice keeps progressing through the Looking-Glass world, following the game and going forward. At one point she gets frustrated because she keeps coming back to the door to her house, and she doesn't want to go back until the adventure is finished. "I'm NOT going in again yet. I know I should have to get through the Looking-glass again--back into the old room--and there'd be an end of all my adventures!" (Chapter 2).

• I think this is the embodiment of Locke. He sees the island as his adventure, his purpose. He is not going back home (off of it) until he sees the end of the adventure.
  
• This could also embody Ben, in that he is home on the island (and even lies about being born there). He really has nowhere to go if he leaves the island (that we know of) and seems eager to stay and do what Jacob needs him to do.
  

Throughout the book Alice is reminded by many characters (the gnat, The Red Queen) to remember her name. She even encounters a forest where she forgets who she is, but remembers as soon as she walks out.

• I think that this is one of those things that ALL of the Losties are experiencing. The island is giving them the opportunity to remember who they really are, or at least remember circumstances that have gotten them to the places they are in life. The island is giving them the freedom to recover their names and be rid of the parts of themselves that they are not happy with.

Observations:
When Alice first stumbles on the King and Queen chess pieces, she picks them up and puts them on the table. They can't see her and somehow reason that she is a volcano picking them up. Says the Queen, "Mind the volcano!...Blew-me-up," panted the Queen, who was still a little out of breath."

• This season we've been speculating about the volcanic properties of the island, whether it is doing something to the water, whether it's ash is being used somehow, and weather it is spewing these magnetic black-rocks all over the island.
  

• Alice wanders into a talking flower garden where a tiger lily tells her that flowers can always talk but only "when there's anybody worth talking to." Other flowers eventually chime in and Alice describes it as..."shouting together, till the air seemed quite full of shrill voices."
• This made me think of the whispers and how they seem to come from the forest. They begin as an almost rustle of the trees, and evolve into voices, much like the flowers.
• Are we experiencing a hallucination, on the show, of plants and animals sounding like voices, or is something much larger and unexplained going on? OR is someone integrating parts of the island into a sort of lucid dream (like Alice)?

• The Red Queen takes Alice up on to a hill to look over the Looking-glass Land and view the chess board.
• This really made me think of when Ben took Sawyer for a walk and showed him where they actually were in relation to the Lostie's camp.

• Could Tweedledee and Tweedledum represent a set of quarreling twins on the island (going back to my favorite Ben is a twin theory :D)

Smokey-isms:
"Here she checked herself in some alarm, at hearing something that sounded to her like the puffing of a large steam-engine in the wood near them, though she feared it was more likely to be a wild beast." (Chapter 4)

• At one point Tweedledee and Tweedledum are fighting and Alice wishes a crow would come and stop them. A crow does come and she describes it like a large black cloud descending upon them. To escape it, she runs into the woods rationalizing that the crow/cloud is far too large to squeeze between the trees to get at her.
• This is very reminiscent to when Juliet and Kate are handcuffed and running from Smokey. They hide in a tree and Smokey goes away.
• The crow comes because there is a conflict happening and/or Alice has willed it. It seems that Smokey has a way of showing up when some of the Losties are experiencing a conflict or commotion (the crash, Kate and Juliet yelling, etc.) or even when willed to arrive like with Locke and Eko.
• The Lion and the Unicorn call Alice a "monster" just because they don't know what she is. Are we and the Losties doing that with our smoke "monster"?
  

Final Bullets:

• Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (info here and here) is a real for honest thing!

• People who suffer from it see objects as smaller/larger or up-close/far-away at the same time (micro or macropsia).
• This syndrome can be caused by migraine, schizophrenia, psychoactive drugs, epilepsy, viral mononucleosis or Epstein Barr.
• Sufferers also experience distorted movement of time and distorted sound perception.
• So could this be "the sickness" or part of it?
• Could this be where the sounds of the whispers come from?
• Could there be psychotropic drugs in the food (alluded to in TLE with Apollo Bars) that are making their normality slightly skewed?

Both stories end with Alice waking from a dream. I don't even want to speculate that THIS will be how Lost ends...I get light headed and nervous just thinking about that, but I will end with this quote from TtLG describing The King, as Alice comes upon him sleeping on the grass:

Said Tweedledee, "Why, you're only a sort of thing in his dream! If that there King was to wake, you'd go out--bang!--just like a candle!"

The Wizard of Oz

No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home."

This, I am ashamed to say, is the first time I have ventured to read The Wizard of Oz, and not just look at the movie. It seems to be the theme of the summer; reading books I probably should have long before now! So, hooray for Lost and the book club, and new horizons.
I really liked this book, and can say that even though it didn't actually appear on the show, it certainly has a lot of ideas that are relevant. For reference I am using the book The Wizard of Oz~ L. Frank Baum (complete and unabridged) ISBN 0-812-52335-0. I'm going to look at a few key themes here: Comparisons to the Losties, Comparisons to Ben and the Others, and Comparisons to Jacob.

The Losties:
The first idea to look at is that any of the flight 815 survivors could be compared to Dorothy, as she literally came into Oz by falling from the sky.

• Her house crash landed and ended up killing a not-so-nice witch for which she is congratulated. Flight 815 didn't necessarily fall on top of anyone and rid the place of an evil, but there were certainly people aboard that probably had questionable morals, and were cleansed (for lack of a better word) of them by the crash. The survivors didn't have a house fall on them, but in their fall from the sky, something in them changed. We can see an examples of this in Kate, Charlie, and Eko (just to name a few).

• Kate, until the crash was really out for her own survival and took whoever was in her way down or got them killed. She is now very much worried about the well being of those around her (specifically Jack and Sawyer). Charlie, through the crash and island survival, was able to conquer his drug addiction. Eko was able to confront his brother, his past, and move out of the world not apologizing for anything, but being cleansed in a way by accepting his faults and knowing that he has not led a good life.

• On the flip side, the island seemed to make the bad side of others come out, like Ben, Locke (could be argued, but I think he's up to no good), and any of The Others really. Take your pick. While not technically bad people, since coming to the island they have been encouraged to do bad things in the name of science, and survival.

Ben and The Others:
The character of Ben is reflected throughout the book in several areas. Firstly, when we meet him on the island he calls himself Henry Gale and purports to have fallen onto the island in a hot air balloon. I'm pretty sure I don't need to delve into that much further as it's cut and dry right out of the book.

• Right in the story it mentions that the wizard can see all that goes on in the land of Oz. I thought that this particularly related to Ben as he sees all through his monitors and cameras.
• At one point in the story Dorthy is granted an audience with Oz because she has been marked by a kiss from the good witch. Are Ben and Locke somehow marked and that is why they are allowed to see Jacob? Perhaps killing your own father marks you in a way which allows you to meet and/or see Jacob?
• From chapter 11: "Everyone seemed happy and contented and prosperous." Ben has created a strange vibe in his version of Otherville. Almost like everyone is going through life with this illusion of happy. Carrying on with a book club, keeping a community. Even Jack, when he briefly joined Otherville was somewhat included in this with his infamous game of football.

Jacob:
The character of Oz pretty much screams Jacob. There are just blatant flat-out comparisons that can be made, and I think the easiest way to look at them is to just go ahead and list them:

• (p. 13) No one knows what Oz is, no one sees him. As far as we know, only Ben has seen Jacob, and now Locke as well.
• (p. 68) Oz never lets anyone come into his presence. It's the same with Jacob and the others.
• The actual Emerald City is all an illusion. Nothing there is really emerald colored, it's just an illusion put on by Oz when he makes everyone strap on green glasses. Otherville is also an illusion. Especially the rugged, ripped up clothes, tent city that we first think is Otherville.
• (p. 71) To those who are not honest, Oz appears terrible. Could honest translate to good? Perhaps that is where the whole good and bad lists come from in Lost. Only the "good" can see Jacob for what he is and not something terrible?
• (p. 120) Oz is a ventriloquist and can imitate bird and beast. Could this be where Smokey is coming from? The mind of Jacob, or some sort of projection (either from his mind or from a machine) that he controls?
• (p. 132) Oz can't go out because people will know that he has deceived them. Could this be why Jacob is holed up in a shack in the woods? Is Jacob the illusion, and the real controller is hiding, and afraid of being discovered?

Final Bullets:

• (p. 34) We meet the tin man and he tells the story of how he came to be made of metal. His story begins with the removal of his legs, which he replaces with tin ones. Eventually his whole body is replaced and he is left without a heart. This story reminded me of Locke and how his legs were repaired. Also, for Locke, it seems that the more he goes through the more jaded his heart becomes.
• (p. 80) Dorothy is told by Oz that she can go home if she kills the wicked witch. She becomes disheartened because she can't kill anything. I thought this also reflected the story of Locke and how in order to see what he wanted, he had to kill his father. He was also unable to and so was Dorothy. She only succeeded because she accidentally killed the witch. Lock was similar in that he just got someone to do the dirty work for him.
• (p. 96) Dorothy could have become a slave because she doesn't know the powers that she has (ie. the hat that calls the winged monkeys and the silver shoes). I thought this was very reflective of Walt, in that he seems to have extreme abilities but has no idea of this until the others take him and poke at him for a while.
• (p. 150) When Dorothy encounters the China Country she discovers that if she's not careful she will break everything there including the people. One little china woman says, when asked if they just couldn't be mended, "...but one is never so pretty after being mended you know." This really made me think about all of the Losties that have been mended in different ways, and really haven't been the same since. This is certainly not all of them but just a few that come to mind:
• Locke (legs)
• Jack (Kate stitched up his back)
• Sawyer (shot)
• Charlie (hanged/drowned)
• Ben (tumor removal)

Final Final Bullets :D :

• Each character in the story eventually got what they wanted because of Dorothy (Lion=courage, Tin Man=heart, Scarecrow=Brain, all of them ruled lands, even the munchkins got rid of the wicked witches). All if their desires were filled by this stranger that fell from the sky. I think that Ben is hoping, even though he fears the Losties a little, that all of his desires will be filled by the people that fell from the sky in flight 815.
• Throughout the story Dorothy just wants to go home. Even though home is very depressing, and not really that happy at all. Her entire journey is to leave this beautiful land where she could live like a queen if she wanted to and get back to dreary Kansas. Some of the Losties are reflective of this. Jack in particular, really hasn't got that much to go back to, yet his desire to return home seems to drive him into loads of trouble and sticky situations.

Next Month: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

"He had no wish to perfect his escape--was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken."

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge appears in full text here. The book appears in the episode The Long Con, and was shown being held by John Locke when he is arranging the books in the hatch. This story doesn't really have any hugely obvious plot-to-plot parallels with the show, unless you would like to speculate that the show will end in a way similar to this story. I did however, find many interesting points that parallel between the book and the show.

Point 1- The Men on the Bridge:

"It did not appear to be the duty of these men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge."

This line is used to describe the sentries on the bridge at the execution of Peyton Farquhar.

• This reminds me of the Dharma recruits when they first come to the island (per Ben's flashback) where they seem to have no idea what they are even doing there.
  
• Roger Workman doesn't seem to know that he is to be a "workman" and has apparently signed up for this island without really knowing what it's all about.
  
• Cindy and the others who are there to watch (Sawyer in the cage, and Locke who is to be killing his father), also put me in the mind of this idea. You get the feeling they aren't even really sure what they are supposed to be watching, just doing that they're told.

Point 2- The Banks of the River:

"He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange, roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their branches the music of Æolian harps."

This description is almost hyper detailed and tells how Peyton Farquhar sees his world after feeling he's almost died. It's as if he's seeing things in a new way.

• The world he describes reminds me of the island with it's huge green plants, strange arrangements of trees, and beaches.
• This made me think about when Sawyer and Michael finally washed ashore after the debaucle with the raft when Walt was taken.
  
• This put me in mind of the trees that Kate and Juliet hid in when they were running from Smokey.
  

Point 3- The Whispers:

"--he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue."

I'm pretty sure you know exactly where I'm going with this. WHISPERS! In an unknown tongue! Well, how about whispers that we can't quite hear?

• On a simple straight forward level, perhaps the whispers he hears are simply the plants, animals, and water around him gurgling and rustling and what-not.
• Maybe the whispers are actually what's really happening in the world while his mind is having his escape from the gallows fantasy. Maybe the whispers he hears are the voices of the soldiers on the bridge.
  
• The whispers could also be his subconscious sort-of flashing his life before his eyes.
  
• On a spiritual level, maybe the whispers are the voices of dead loved ones who are calling to him as he prepares to die.

All of these ideas tie in nicely with Lost, as we do know from Ben's flashback for one, that some of the whispers could indeed be loved ones that have died (his mother). We also know that they are people speaking or at least voices, as in one instance Sawyer can clearly hear the phrase, "It'll come back around," when he hears the whispers. Also, we have seen Losties encounter loved ones on the island, that are not there, or are supposed to be dead (Christian Sheppard, Dave, Shannon, Walt, and Yemi).

Point 4- Home and The End:

"As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is!"

At the end of the book, we discover the escape has all been the wishful fantasy of a man who is in the process of being hanged. It probably occurs in the seconds he is falling at the gallows. The last part of this fantasy is HOME, of being home and seeing his wife.

• Many of the Losties have this fantasy, of getting home to their loved ones. So in essence the ending of his fantasy is much the same as it is for all of the flight 815 survivors.
• Not all of the Losties want to get home. Locke for one, and perhaps even Rose as her cancer may come back if she does. But the ones that do certainly are willing to chance death in trying to get there. Peyton Farquhar was willing to chance death to get home, and as a matter of fact, started seeing the world as wondrous the more he ran. Having survived each thing made him see the world slightly differently and become more appreciative of what's around him.
• When Sawyer and Michael wash up on shore in Adrift, sawyer proclaims, "How 'bout that. The current brought us back. We're home."
  
• Peyton's survival fantasy is wrought with running, being shot at, nearly drowning, etc. All things that the Losties encounter on the island. If the Losties are having a survival fantasy, will they die as they finally arrive home?

Final Bullets:

• Payton's crime was attempting to sabotage Owl Creek Bridge, much like we see Locke do time and again on the show. I find it interesting that this was the case in the story, and it was Locke who was holding the book when it appeared on the show.
• Peyton was sort-of tricked into sabotaging the bridge by a man disguised as a Confederate Soldier. The Losties are constantly being run around in circles and persuaded to do things by people who are pretending to be things they aren't (Ben, Juliet, Michael, Danielle, etc...).
• I personally hope this isn't how Lost ends. It'll be a bit of a "Timmy Westphall" moment for me if it does. I do however, think this is a great story, and has been interpreted well through the various movies and television episodes that have used it as their plot. I certainly see how Lost could be like this book, but I just really hope it's there as more of a Red Herring than as something we should be looking at as a possible ending.

Coming Soon: The Wizard of Oz
Next Month: Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass

A Wrinkle in Time

"Do you think things always have an explanation?"
"Yes. I believe that they do. But I think that with out human limitations we're not always able to understand the explanations. But you see, Meg, just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist." (p. 47)

Admittedly this book was not as cut and dry a comparison structurally to what the groups or events on the island look like (like Watership Down was). You can't read this book and have an "Oh yeah" moment where you relate the group behavior to the others or the Losties, but the theories and ideas in this little book certainly do apply to some of the things that we have been shown on Lost. In an attempt to keep this from becoming a rambling mess of paragraphs I am going to forgo a summary (but you can read one here at Wikipedia if you like). I'm going to look at three specific parts of this book; The character of Charles Wallace, a tesseract, and finally, The Black Thing.

Charles Wallace:

• He is a precocious and alarmingly brilliant little boy. As we read the story we learn that he can sort of read minds and he can understand an inner language that they use "inadvertently" (p. 34). In the same way he is able to know when things aren't right, and also sense things about people that he hasn't been told. For example, he knows that the three random women that he encounters in the woods are meant to find him and mean him no harm. He knows that Calvin, although an unlikely candidate, is meant to be part of the adventure he and Meg are about to embark on. He also knows that on Camazotz there is an unseen presence sort of running the show (p. 115).

• Although these little strange bits are reminiscent of a few people we know from Lost island (Walt, Des, Locke, Ben, even Charlie on some level) the thing I find the most interesting about Charles Wallace is that he felt that in order to save his father and be successful in what he was destined to do, he had to give himself completely over to this force that was running things. He had to literally look into it's eyes ("...and focused his clear blue eyes on the red ones of the man in the chair.") and let it take him over. Sound familiar, "But I've looked into the eye of this island. And what I saw was beautiful." John Locke had his looking into the eye moment, and I believe it was at that point that he completely gave himself over to whatever force he thinks is running things and is allowing it to lead him to what he thinks he is supposed to be doing.

The Tesseract:

"Well, the fifth dimension's a tesseract. You add that to the other four dimensions and you can travel through space without having to go the long way around. In other words, to put it into Euclid, or old-fashioned plane geometry, a straight line is not the shortest distance between two points." (p. 75)

• In the book a tesseract (or tessering) is the ability to travel by folding time and space on to itself. Meg and Charles Wallace's father has mysteriously disappeared and we come to find out that he has been working on a way to travel using a tesseract. However his experimentation has gotten him trapped on the planet Camazotz which is currently within an evil black cloud.

• While I don't think that the Losties have "tessered" or traveled to another planet, I do find the theory interesting and see many ways it can apply. This season we have seem some odd happenings with time, things that might be time loops, glimpses of the future, and the seemingly ageless Mr. Alpert. What if somehow the Others or DHARMA have found a way to harness/fold time, or travel through time in some way (even Memphish, in her blog explores this with the similarities of genetic time travel from The Time Traveler's Wife)? What if flight 815, or even the submarine that they use to get to the island had to travel through a tesseract of some kind to get to the island?

The Black Thing:

"It was a shadow, nothing but a shadow. It was not even as tangible as a cloud. Was it cast by something? Or was it a Thing in itself?" (p. 69)

Yes, it is literally a black thing. A cloud of pure evil that has taken over the planet of Camazotz and has even begun to cast a shadow over Earth. What we learn is that this cloud is being actively battled by the stars in the universe, as well as some of the great thinkers on Earth.

There are two things that I find interesting about The Black Thing:

• The first being the glaringly obvious comparison to Smokey on the island. Smoky being literally, a black thing, or black cloud too. Although at this point I am not perfectly clear on the purpose of Smokey (See Fenris's ideas on Smokey here) or if, in fact, it is an evil presence or just security and data collection run amok.
  

• The second is that the stars (Mrs. Whatsit being one of them) are sacrificing themselves to battle this thing. Also, Charles Wallace gave himself over to IT in order to save his father, Meg, and Calvin. On the island we are not really seeing anyone sacrificing themselves to Smokey, but we have certainly seen self sacrifice. Charlie most recently, willing to drown himself in order to complete the prophecy that he will turn off the communication blockers. Mr. Eko also, I feel sacrificed himself in a way by confronting Smokey and also his demons. While this didn't seem to accomplish anything other than his death, the fact is that he gave himself to the black thing. Locke also is a perfect example of this. He sacrificed his father, Boone, his alliance with the Losties...for what? To see what he thinks is in the heart of the island, to get some sort of power, to keep his ability to walk? Even he doesn't know what he is giving himself over to, much like Charles Wallace or even the people of Camazotz, who blindly do what they are told by IT in order to keep order and peace.

Final Bullets:

• The complete mission of the children in this book is to save their father and bring him back home. Father issues are always an underlying theme in Lost.

• IT or The Black Thing, is seated in a chair having taken on the form of a man with red eyes. It is this man that Charles Wallace gives himself over to. Much like Jacob in his chair waiting in the cabin for Ben and Locke.

• Charles Wallace at one point tells Meg, "You're not ready for IT yet." (p. 127) That screamed Ben and Locke to me the moment I read it.

• Towards the end of the book Meg is forced to confront IT, where she encounters a light that was, "...pulsing with a light that seems to Meg to be insane. Again she could feel the light, neither warm nor cold, but reaching out to touch her, pulling her toward IT." (p. 185). That passage very much put me in the mind of Room 23, and Karl with his pulsing light glasses and images on the wall. Perhaps Room 23 is a way to open your mind to some sort of tesseract ability or even just allowing your mind to be given over to the inner force of the island.

As always, I am pretty certain that the writers of Lost have not gone through the book A Wrinkle in Time and plucked thing from it to include on the island. The fact is though, that they did include it in the show, and I feel that we are meant to look at it in reference to some of the ideas that we are presented with. Regardless, I'm always happy to have an excuse to read this book again.

Next Month: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (Hooray, my favorite short story of all time!)