The Lost Book Club: Season 3

I’m still working on The Brothers Karamazov. I’m reading other books simultaneously so it’s slow going. I’m about halfway through it, but I haven’t run into anything that I would need to add or change from my earlier post on the subject. I did run into this quote in “From the Talks and Homilies of the Elder Zosima”:

For all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it ehoes at the other end of the world.

I’d say that nails Lost pretty well.

I wasn’t too surprised by last week’s episode (“The Cost of Living“) which ended with the end of Mr Eko. The suggestion that this would happen was planted pretty well last season by the reference to The Epic of Gilgamesh in which Mr Eko becomes Enkidu to Locke’s Gilgamesh. Now, having lost his spiritual ally, Locke, like Gilgamesh, is about to set off to the other side of the world island searching for answers. I guess I wasn’t too far off on that one.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to continue this Lost Book Club thing into season three, but when the season began with the Others engaged in a book club meeting, I thought, well, maybe that’s a sign. Of course, I could just be “mistaking coincidence for fate” again.

But then, the books that have appeared so far this season comprise an interesting list:

• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens referenced by the title of the season opener: “A Tale of Two Cities”
• Carrie by Stephen King also referenced in “A Tale of Two Cities”
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck referenced in “Every Man for Himself”
• On Writing by Stephen King referenced (apparently through the white rabbit with the number 8 stenciled on it) in “Every Man for Himself” (And what’s up the rabbit thing? We’ve now got Of Mice and Men (“Tell me about the rabbits, George”), this white rabbit thing from On Writing, Alice in Wonderland, Watership Down, and a season one episode called “White Rabbit.”)
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee referenced in “The Cost of Living” (Ok, it was the movie not the book, but I’m still going with it.)

Now, I’m still working on Karamazov and haven’t even touched Our Mutual Friend, but I’ve enjoyed the books I’ve discovered so far and I since I’ve already read Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Tale of Two Cities, and intended to read On Writing anyway, that only leaves Carrie.

What the hell, I’m in, but I’m not rereading anything unless I bloody well feel like it.

Over the next few days I’ll post on the three books that I have read and so continue with this little literary adventure.

And, finally, I found another blogger plumbing the depths of literature to better understand Lost. Check out Reading Sawyer.

James Brush

James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.

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