Category: LOST

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.

With school in session, I find less time to read (what I want) so I haven’t yet finished Fyodor Dostoevsky’s majestic The Brothers Karamazov, which means that I didn’t make my goal since I also still have to read Our Mutual Friend. Still, since Season 3 of Lost begins tonight, I decided to steal a page from the blog of Danigirl and apply her ’10 Pages In’ Book Review concept to The Brothers Karamazov. I’m actually at p186, but it’s a long book.

Dostoevsky’s book is dense, rich and beautiful, full of the kind of compelling characters that keep me engaged in a story that at this point is only now beginning. The book tells the story of the relationship between an old man and his three sons, each of whom represents a different psychological/spiritual type.

The father, Fyodor Pavlovich, is a drunken self-proclaimed buffoon. He delights in making a public ass of himself. He is a lecher, scoundrel and liar who is thoroughly unlikeable, despite the fact that some of the scandalous things he says are truly funny.

Oldest brother, Dmitri is passionate and ruled by emotion. He behavior is much like that of his father, except that Dmitri has a working conscience buried deep inside. He despises his father and seems to love his brothers. Ivan, the middle brother, is a rationalist and intellectual. He is an atheist who wrestles with issues of faith. The youngest brother, Alyosha is the central character in the book. Alyosha is sweet and gentle, a deeply religious and good-hearted soul whose faith guides him in all things. There is also an illegitimate brother – Smerdyakov – who is dark and brooding, but I haven’t learned much about him yet.

Each brother has varying degrees of conflict with each other and with their father, Fyodor. I think – based on the back of the book – that one of them will kill Fyodor. I don’t know for sure, but my money is on Dmitri. (btw- If you’ve read this – don’t ruin it for me in the comments.)

Ok, on to Lost. The Brothers Karamazov appears in the episode “Maternity Leave” when Locke gives the book to Henry Gale while he is being held captive in the hatch. Henry complains that he can’t get through books like that and says he prefers Hemingway. Jack and Locke discuss Hemingway’s feelings of inferiority because of Dostoevsky’s long literary shadow. Later, Henry asks Locke if he resents living in another man’s shadow, by implication: Jack’s. At this point in the series cracks begin to show in the family of survivors as they increasingly come into conflict with one another.

When looking at The Brothers Karamazov, we can also see parallels between the brothers and certain characters on Lost:

• Dmitri and Sawyer are both passionate and ruled by their emotions especially lust and greed; both use women, and each possesses a deeply buried conscience.
• Ivan and Jack are both rationalists, both men of science.
• Alyosha and Locke are both men of faith, both good-hearted.

I admit, not having read the book in its entirety (yet), that there may be deeper parallels. I particularly wonder if Alyosha has a crisis of faith as Locke did when he stopped pushing the button in the hatch. I also see that Kate could as easily be the Dmitri character as Sawyer; likewise Mr. Eko resembles Alyosha in many ways, though not as closely as Locke.

I don’t see a Fyodor character yet except in that Jack, Locke (and Kate if we go that way) have major conflicts with their fathers. Sawyer’s father hasn’t really come into play except his ‘spiritual father’ – the con man who destroyed his family – from whom he took his name and trade. Interestingly this ‘father’ is the man that Sawyer went to Australia to kill. Kate also killed her father.

I’ll try to explore all of this more fully when I finish the book.

For more of my Lost book posts, please visit The Lost Book Club.

Update: I finished it. Finally.

At long last, I’ve now finished all of the short books on the Lost books reading list that my wife and I started back in May. The last one was The Epic of Gilgamesh, and Herbert Mason’s translation of this ancient Persian epic is the version I chose.

Gilgamesh is one of – if not the – oldest known literary work, and it still speaks eloquently of problems central to human existence. It is about friendship, the loss of a dear friend, and coming to terms with the fact that there is nothing we can do to bring those we lose back to life.

It’s a tale of grief and suffering and ultimately acceptance. The best summary is actually the first page:

It is an old story
But one that can still be told
About a man who loved
And lost a friend to death
And learned he lacked the power
To bring him back to life
It is the story of Gilgamesh
And his friend Enkidu.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu begin as enemies, then become friends who do great deeds until Enkidu is killed and Gilgamesh rebels against the gods in order to bring his friend back to life. Along the way he gains wisdom and learns ultimately that he is powerless to do anything other than accept his loss.

Mason’s translation is simple and elegant. The story he tells is a powerful one and he tells it beautifully. After having just lost a feline friend (and still heartbroken by that) I found Gilgamesh’s poignant journey especially moving and cathartic.

This is a book I know I will come back to.

On to Lost.

Gilgamesh is referenced in “Collision.” Locke is working on a crossword in the hatch. The clue is “Friend of Enkidu” and the answer is Gilgamesh. This is the episode in which Mr. Eko and Locke finally meet.

Lostpedia suggests that Gilgamesh reflects the relationship between Locke and Eko, at first adversarial, but then as they become friends they work more closely together to understand the mysteries of the Hatch.

This makes me wonder if one or the other will die, leaving the surviving friend to seek the answers to the island. If so, we’ll need to determine which of the two represents Gilgamesh and which Enkidu.

Another point to consider is the general theme of moving on after great loss. Each of the survivors has experienced loss and all of them have lost their old lives. Gilgamesh reminds us that grieving must end as we continue with the building of our lives just as Gilgamesh looking up at the walls of the City of Uruk is able to put his past behind him.

Well, this brings me to the end of the short books on the Lost list, leaving only The Brothers Karamazov and Our Mutual Friend. I’ll post on those as I finish them. I’m starting with Dostoevsky.

It might be a while.

For more of my Lost book posts, check out the Lost Book Club.

Reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (aka Alice in Wonderland) by Lewis Carroll is sheer fun. We all know the story, Alice follows a white rabbit into a hole and finds herself in a strange world in which the ordinary rules of logic and language do not apply.

The characters from the Mad Hatter to the Cheshire Cat to the Queen of Hearts (“Off with her head!”) are some of the most enduring and well-known in all of literature. Alice’s adventures are meant to be a fun and whimsical diversion that reminds the reader of the magic of childlike imagination.

It’s great fun to read something that makes me laugh out loud, that I read with a smile, once again enjoying it as if for the first time.

The connection to Lost comes in the episode “White Rabbit” wherein Jack chases his dead father around the island – itself a sort of Wonderland where the ordinary rules of logic may or may not apply – much as Alice pursued the white rabbit through Wonderland.

At one point Locke suggests to Jack that his “white rabbit” (this is the explicit connection to Alice in Wonderland) may be a hallucination. Since then we’ve come to expect these kinds of hallucinatory experiences on Lost.

Like many Lost books, Alice in Wonderland takes place in an alternate reality, though one that is seemingly less malign than that of The Third Policeman (full of its own brand of nonsense and word play), falling instead a bit closer to The Wizard of Oz.

Interestingly, “White Rabbit” is also one of the episodes in which Watership Down, a book about rabbits, makes an appearance. Watership Down, though, deals with characters creating a new world, rather than escaping to an alternate one.

I think Alice is referenced early in the series to reinforce for the viewer that the world of Lost doesn’t exactly follow the rules we’re used to. It may not be Hell (The Third Policeman) or Purgatory (Bad Twin) or a moment just before death (“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”). It may not be Oz or even Wonderland, but that island is different from everything we think we know.

For more of my Lost book posts, please visit The Lost Book Club.

There are some books that I think exist primarily to torment the reader, and Flan O’Brien’s The Third Policeman is just such a book. It’s not bad. In fact, I kind of like it, but I did not enjoy the experience of reading it.

The narrator has committed a brutal murder in order to steal money that will allow him to write the definitive word on the philosopher De Selby, whose theories are argued back in forth by various scholars in the extensive footnotes that occur in the novel creating a sort of dual storyline. De Selby, of course, is a quack whose theories make no sense.

The narrator soon finds himself in a two dimensional police station where Officer MacKruiskeen and Sgt. Pluck spark in grafty cibberish about the connections between people and bicycles, the nature of time, omnium – a sort of proto string theory (the book was written in the 1930s and published posthumously in 1967), all the while discussing mysterious readings and generally making very little sense. All accompanied by footnotes relating to De Selby, who is incidentally also a fictional character.

It’s really torturous to plod through it all, but then that’s the point. The narrator is dead and he is in Hell. He is given plenty of false hope, lots of confusion and circular reasoning (the book was originally titled Hell Goes Round and Round), and ultimately has to repeat everything that happened to him without any knowledge of having already experienced it.

As his soul, Joe, puts it:

Hell goes round and round. In shape it is circular and by nature it is interminable, repetitive and very nearly unbearable.

Which pretty accurately describes The Third Policeman. I suppose it’s one of those books that I like the idea of more so than the actual experience.

On to Lost. This book appears pretty important to figuring out the Lost mysteries (from Wikipedia):

The Third Policeman is seen when Desmond is packing before fleeing the underground bunker in “Orientation.” Craig Wright, who co-wrote the episode, told the Chicago Tribune that, “Whoever goes out and buys the book will have a lot more ammunition in their back pocket as they theorize about the show. They will have a lot more to speculate about and, no small thing, they will have read a really great book.”

So here’s my back-pocket theorizing. The book, like “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” tells the story of a character who is dead, but doesn’t realize it yet. Like Bad Twin and The Turn of the Screw it focuses on the between states of human existence that is the fine edge between life and after-life.

Now the theory that the characters on Lost are all dead and don’t know it has been discredited by the show’s writers, but the idea of paying for past sins, and a chance at redemption certainly are reinforced by these books.

The other connection is the hatch. The Third Policeman appears in the episode “Orientation” in which the characters learn about the hatch and the need to enter the numbers or Bad Things will happen. This is very similar to the constant readings the two policeman constantly take. When the readings get out of balance, they must go to Eternity, an underground chamber that, much like the hatch, is full of strange machines and useful supplies. While in Eternity the policeman must readjust the settings (none of this is ever explained) to keep things running smoothly.

A central question in Lost‘s second season was: Do the numbers entered into the computer really mean anything, and does it really matter? The answer provided in The Third Policeman is that it’s all a sham put on by the third policeman – a truly devilish character -  in order to keep the other two busy. Sound like the Hanso Foundation?

Of course, by the end of season two, we know that not entering the sequence does something. Or at least appears to. As to what it does, we’ll have to wait and see.

For more of my Lost book posts, please visit The Lost Book Club.

Watership Down by Richard Adams is probably one of my favorite books and one of the few that I’ve read more than twice.

I first read it while in college. I was in my freshman year at UT (yes, long before we were the number one party school) and Richard Adams’ heroic tale of a group of rabbits building a new home for themselves was the best thing I read all year. It wasn’t even a course requirement; it was just something I found.

The story begins when one of the rabbits, a psychic named Fiver, has a vision that the Warren will be destroyed. The elders do not heed his warning, but an adventurous group led by Hazel, a small and unlikely leader, follows Fiver’s vision to Watership Down where they establish a new warren that will be a model of rabbit civilization.

The book examines the ways in which revolutions and social change occur from within and from outside societies. It explores issues of warfare, totalitarian governance, personal courage, leadership, and religious faith and mysticism.

Not bad for a book “about bunnies,” as Sawyer described it in the Lost episode “White Rabbit.”

Watership Down was one of the first books to appear on Lost, and its story of survivors building a new life for themselves neatly parallels events during the show’s first season. It is seen in “White Rabbit” in which Jack (like a combination of Hazel and Fiver) follows visions of his dead father to the caves where the survivors of Oceanic 815 will have water, shelter, and the possibility of a better life.

Like many of the Lost books, Watership Down deals with psychic phenomenon, the establishment of a new and better world away from the old world, and the ways in which societies select their leaders.

In terms of leadership, it provides an interesting counterpoint to another Lost book, Lord of the Flies that explores the ways in which leaders are chosen and societies structured. The vision presented in Lord of the Flies is of a decidedly Hobbesian system of governance.

It’s interesting to remember at this point that the philosophical counterpoint to Thomas Hobbes is John Locke, the philosopher who lends his name to a certain character on Lost. Watership Down depicts a more Lockian basis for society where leaders such as the lame and inspirational Hazel are chosen for their wisdom and courage and their dedication to protecting the freedoms of their subjects.

In this way we can see Watership Down providing a hopeful model for what life on the island could be like for the survivors which is why the book appears in the episode in which Jack begins the process of leading them to the caves to begin building what will hopefully be a temporary settlement.

In many ways, season one focused on the Watership Down model of creating an ideal society, whereas season two, with its emphasis on the more hardened tail section survivors explored the Lord of the Flies model. I suspect that the Locke vs. Hobbes argument (that can be simplified down to liberty vs. security) will be further explored in the third season when the survivors will have to deal with the threat of the Others.

For more of my Lost book posts, please see The Lost Book Club.

L Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a fairly simple children’s tale, but it’s also a fascinating political allegory about the populist movement in late nineteenth century America. I enjoyed reading it, but in this case, I think the movie is better.

Much has been written elsewhere about Wizard‘s political message, but briefly: Scarecrow is the farmer lacking the brains to use his political power; Tin Woodman is the industrial worker who cut off from the land has lost his heart; Cowardly Lion is William Jennings Bryant, a populist pol who was all roar and no bite; the Yellow Brick Road is the gold standard; Wicked Witch of the East is the big eastern banks that enslave the common man (The Munchkins) until savior Dorothy (backwards thy-o-dor, as in Roosevelt) comes to crush the Eastern robber barons and unite the farmers and factory workers in a magnificent populist revolution; Wicked Witch of the West represents drought and difficult environmental conditions; Flying Monkeys are the American Indians, rendered powerless by Westerners; Oz is Washington DC; and the Wizard is the president, a politician who is all things to all people, but really nothing more than a sham who offers fake solutions to real problems.

Nineteenth century populist politics and debates about the relative merits of the gold vs the silver currency standards aren’t really issues central to Lost, but thematically, The Wizard of Oz is a story of peaceful social change and looking inside one’s self to find the things one needs to live a fulfilling and successful life.

Throughout the story, the Scarecrow clearly has brains; the Tin Woodman, heart; and the Cowardly Lion, courage. They just need to be shown, and ultimately it is the wizard who shows them that they already possess what they thought they lacked. With these tools, they now have the capacity to change the world.

The journey down the Yellow Brick Road ultimately becomes one of self discovery similar to what the characters on Lost experience during their adventures on the island. They too have what they thought they lacked ultimately allowing them the ability to change themselves and find redemption. The Wizard of Oz is about reaching one’s potential, a concept we see time and again on Lost, and also an apparent goal of the Hanso Foundation.

The example that springs to mind first is that of John Locke who finds within himself the strength, the ability to lead, and the conviction that he never knew he had. It’s worth remembering that Henry claimed to be coming for John because he was “one of the good ones.”

The Wizard of Oz does not actually make an appearance on Lost, but it is referenced in the name of Henry Gale. Henry’s name alludes to Dorothy’s Uncle Henry from the Wizard of Oz, and like the wizard – who let’s not forget is really a charlatan – Henry claims to have arrived in a hot air balloon. Or, at least he says he did.

The Wizard of Oz also brings us to the “Lost Continent Theories” in which we are meant to wonder if the survivors are actually on the remains of Lemuria, a Pacific Ocean version of Atlantis. This is implied by the four-toed statue that Sayid sees in the season two finale and by the fact that psychic Edgar Cayce (worth looking into since so many of his ideas correspond to what we see in Lost) “confirmed” the existence of Lemuria (and Atlantis).

Cayce believed that the citizens of Lemuria had psychic abilities and were both technologically and spiritually advanced. He also referred to Lemuria as Oz.

Considering the amount of psychic phenomenon on Lost and the number of Lost books that involve psychic phenomenon including prophetic dreams and spirit projection (Watership Down, Turn of the Screw, Lord of the Flies, A Wrinkle in Time) and the religious themes that appear on the show, it would not surprise me at all if the writers of Lost were using some of Cayce’s ideas as source material for the show.

So are the survivors of Oceanic 815 in another world, an enchanted land like Oz, or the remains of a lost continent? It would explain why Desmond couldn’t sail away. It would explain why everyone seems to have arrived by accident.

Of course, how does the Hanso Foundation know about it? If they can find it to drop supplies from the air, why doesn’t it show up on Google Earth? Is the Dharma Initiative an attempt to exploit a found Lemuria or to recreate it based on some kind of scientific/psychic discovery?

Check out the rest of my Lost book posts at The Lost Book Club.

There are many mysteries on ABC’s Lost and the rabbit hole goes pretty deep as viewers discovered late in the second season in the episode “Two for the Road” when Sawyer was seen reading a manuscript that was found in the wreckage of Oceanic 815. The manuscript was for a detective novel called Bad Twin written by fictional fiction author Gary Troup.

Viewers who looked the book up on Amazon found, to their surprise (and my dismay), an actual book called Bad Twin by Gary Troup. The publisher says it was his last work before disappearing on Oceanic 815.

ARGGHH, I thought.

The last thing I wanted to do was get sucked into some metafictional work that exists only for the creators of Lost to cash in. But then the second season ended leaving many unresolved mysteries and my wife suggested that we should read it along with all the other books mentioned on the show as a sort of fun summer reading project. So here we are.

First of all, Bad Twin is pretty good for what it is: a genre-style detective novel about a small time private eye named Paul Artisan who gets stuck with a big case in which a powerful man, the chairman of the Widmore Corporation, wants him to find his identical twin brother because “he may be in danger.”

It’s a fun summer read that can be enjoyed without any knowledge of Lost because in their world and ours, it’s just a private eye book.

Of course there are connections for those of us who watch Lost. The Widmore Corporation is referenced throughout Lost. Bad Twin mentions Lost‘s ominous Hanso Foundation. In the Lost world Gary Troup was something of an enemy of the Hanso Foundation and when the book was published the imaginary Hanso Foundation took out ads in real (our world now) newspapers denouncing the book.

This is all part of the Lost Experience, a sort of real-world/Lost world scavenger hunt for clues and meaning that I won’t be participating in other than to read the literature referenced on the show which has more to do with me being an English teacher than a TV junkie.

So, other than to make bigger bucks, why was Bad Twin written?

First off, I think that it exists to help educate readers about some of the literary and philosophical references in Lost. Conveniently, the detective in Bad Twin has a close friend with whom he meets every day. This friend is an old literature professor at Columbia University who talks about books that are relevant to Artisan’s investigation. Surprisingly, among these books are Turn of the Screw and Lord of the Flies.

He also talks about the philosophy of John Locke (whose name is shared by a character on Lost) and talks frequently about both Purgatory and Purgatorio.

This alone would be a boon to anyone trying to make sense of Lost but who doesn’t have the time or inclination to go off reading classic literature and seventeenth century philosophers (several of whom give their names to Lost characters) because it distills some of the key ideas that tie in with Lost.

The second reason for Bad Twin, I think is thematic. The story deals with a recurring theme on Lost: that of Purgatory. In fact, Gary Troup’s name is an anagram for purgatory.

Lost’s creators say that the characters are not in Purgatory, but I think they are in something of a purgatory. Each of the characters that has not been nabbed by the Others has a checkered past. In nearly every case, they are given second chances on the island. Some pass this test, others don’t. Like the characters on Lost, detective Paul Artisan gets many second chances and opportunities to redeem himself.

Purgatory is neither Heaven nor Hell, neither here not there. In a way, Purgatory is something of an island between destinations. Bad Twin reinforces this concept by having all of the action take place on islands: Manhatten, Long Island, Key West, Cuba, Australia, and a host of smaller imaginary islands.

Touching on another theme common across the Lost literature is the idea that things are not as they seem. Characters in Bad Twin who are presumed to be good, often are not and vice-versa. I’ve seen this pattern in the Lost lit as well as on the show itself. I keep going back to Henry Gale’s claim that the Others are – contrary to what we’ve been led to believe – the good guys

So it comes down to this. Based on my reading of Bad Twin and the other Lost books, I suspect that the Hanso Foundation is trying to remake the world by moving humanity to the next step in human evolution. I’m not sure if the Others are against or with Hanso, but I think they are trying to save the world, if not remake it.

So the bottom line on Bad Twin? If you watch Lost, it’s a clever re-imagining of the central themes along with a few obscure tidbits about the show. If you don’t watch Lost, it’s a light, enjoyable detective story. Read it at the beach or on a plane.

If you dare.

For more of my Lost book posts, check out The Lost Book Club.

I read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies back in high school and couldn’t put it down. I read it pretty much straight through, which is exactly what happened the other day when I reread it front to back in one sitting. Amazing work.

Lord of the Flies is rich in the kind of symbolism and subtext that makes it more than just a tale about a group of boys just losing it on a deserted island. It explores the very nature of evil and positions it firmly within the human heart. The boys had everything and they threw it all away, partially out of fear of imaginary beasts and partially to satisfy their own hunger.

I find the book a little more chilling now than I did when I was a teenager. Then, it was a cracking good story that I couldn’t put down. Now it seems so much more believable and therefore more terrifying.

In terms of Lost, there are many connections, many similarities, but each with a twist. There is Jack who, like Ralph in Lord of the Flies is allowed to lead by popular consent. There is the hunter (John Locke) who goes after wild pigs and brings meat back to the survivors, but unlike the cruel Jack of Lord of the Flies, Locke is kind and (so far anyway) unwilling to challenge Jack’s authority. The lack of tension between these two types in Lost is probably due to the fact that we are dealing with adults as opposed to children who are unable to recognize that fact that they need one another.

Another similarity is the beast, but where in Lord of the Flies the beast is a figment of the boys’ imagination, in Lost, the beast is, apparently, quite real.

Thematically, Lost and Lord of the Flies (along with Heart of Darkness) address the issue of the fragility of civilization and the speed with which civilized people will revert into behavior they would have called barbaric from the comfort of their old living rooms. The Oceanic survivors of Lost have not reverted as far as Jack’s tribe in Lord of the Flies, but at times the fine line between civilized and savage seems very fine indeed.

The last issue in both works stems from the problem of evil. Is it external or contained within the hearts of all men? Lord of the Flies suggests we all carry the capacity for evil and that it is civilization that holds it in check, if only sometimes and barely at that. This is still an open question on Lost, though. I’ve wondered before if the survivors have brought evil to the island much as the boys in Lord of the Flies brought evil to what could have been paradise for them. Each survivor has had a checkered past and only “the good ones” have been taken by the others. Back to an original question of mine then. Who are the “good guys” on Lost?

I think Lord of the Flies is a natural inspiration for Lost, though of course, the two tales differ considerably in large part because in Lost we’re dealing with adults who are capable of thinking longterm and recognizing the fact that they need each other to survive and that they must make decisions that will keep them alive for the long term.

Or, perhaps, Lost just hasn’t gone on long enough. The tail section survivors did “go all Lord of the Flies” as Hurley put it. Maybe the rest of the survivors just have to get a little closer to the edge before they start painting themselves and having ritual dances. Probably not. They are adults after all.

For more of my Lost book posts, please visit The Lost Book Club.

Rereading Jospeh Conrad’s Heart of Darkness for the first time since I was a senior in high school was an interesting affair. When I read it back in the spring of ’89, I had almost no interest in it. There were other things to do. I had photos to develop, friends to hang out with, Calculus to do, and besides I’d already been accepted to college and was ready for my AP English test. Naturally, I gave the book a perfunctory read all the while wondering what the big deal was.

Our teacher showed Apocalypse Now, leaving me to wonder if we read the book mainly so he could show his favorite film. It was springtime. We were AP seniors. I’m convinced.

As I reread Heart of Darkness last week I kept going back to high school and wondering how and why I didn’t get into it back then. This time around I was in awe of Conrad’s rich prose, the vivid intensity with which he tells his tale of Europeans plunderers and their encounters with primitive Africans. This time around it was dark, mysterious, and a bit scary. It was a brilliant meditation on the ease and speed with which men will throw off the illusion of civilized behavior when given the chance to do so.

Last time, reading it was a hassle. More than anything else, Heart of Darkness made me think about the way young people relate to literature. Being an English teacher, this is something that’s of more than a little interest to me.

Sometimes we cynically joke and say that education is wasted on the young, but I think that that’s not true. I think they’re so loaded down with homework, projects and other classes that there just isn’t time to truly absorb the richness of books like Heart of Darkness. Most kids are going to give it a cursory read, memorize the major characters and plot points, keep the potential essay question in mind and never give it much thought. The list of great books that I read in that manner while in high school is quite extensive. Many of them I’ve reread and in most cases I like them more now.

There are certainly many books that some students really get into, really see all the way through, but I sometimes wonder if the ideal situation for high school teachers is to get most of their students to like a book enough to remember it and reread it later, when they have more time to really appreciate it, to let it in. Having a few extra years of life experience probably helps too.

In short, I loved Heart of Darkness this time around, but as always, what does it have to do with Lost?

It does not appear, but rather is referenced in “Numbers” in which Hurley goes on a quest into the dark heart of the island’s interior searching for Rousseau – his own Mr. Kurtz – who has been on the island for sixteen years and has left many of the trappings of civilization behind.

Other than that, the connection between Lost and Heart of Darkness if a relatively obvious one: in both cases we wonder just how powerful a force civilization really is and we see how quickly and effortlessly people will move away from it and revert to more savage behavior once the constraints of civilized society are gone.

For more of my Lost book posts, please see The Lost Book Club.