Tag: books

Season three of Lost began with an episode called “A Tale of Two Cities,” the two “cities” being, I have assumed, the suburban neighborhood inhabited by the Others and the beach camp where the survivors live. It was a clever title for an episode that gave us our first look into the world of the others while continuing the Dickens references that cropped up throughout the season two finale.

I read A Tale of Two Cities (probably excerpted or abridged or both) back in eighth grade and only have dim memories of the story. It was the best of times and the worst of times, and some guy went to the guillotine doing a far better thing than he had ever done.

Memories come flooding back like a flashback to my life before the island (helped by a quick trip over to SparkNotes), and I recall that the doomed man a scoundrel throughout his life willingly chose to die in place of another man. He made his choice because they loved the same woman and he knew that the other guy was the better man. Or something. The whole ruse worked, of course, because the two men looked very nearly alike.

So, as usual, what does A Tale of Two Cities have to do with Lost?

A Tale of Two Cities focuses on the reinvention of the self, moving from the selfish to the selfless and from the scoundrel to the hero. Interestingly, this is the trajectory that nearly every character on Lost experiences.

The other observation relates to the idea of the two men looking alike. We’ve seen this throughout Lost characters looking very much like other characters even when they are unrelated. Ben told Jack that it was no coincidence that Juliet looked a lot like his ex-wife. Who also looks like Desmond’s love, Penny. There is also the book Bad Twin, which obsessively twins both people and ideas.

I suspect that if I reread A Tale of Two Cities, I’d probably find it there two too. I mean, two cities. Come on. If that ain’t twinning I don’t know what is!

Finally, the most compelling connection, and the one that didn’t play out fully on Lost until the end of this first mini-season, is the self-sacrifice angle. Sawyer, the resident scoundrel, has finally learned to think of someone else first. In fact, he seems completely willing to sacrifice himself to save Kate. Is this a far better thing that he does now than he has ever done before?

Here’s a link to a fascinating post at Quigley that explores the mythological references in Lost. Really interesting thoughts about the spiritual nature of the “polar” bears.

Click here for the rest of the Lost Book Club entries.

I actually read To Kill a Mockingbird earlier this year (post here) so I’m not rereading it, and yes, I know it was the movie not the book that was referenced in last week’s episode “The Cost of Living,” but either way, I thought I’d post my thoughts on how it intersects with Lost.

The mention is brief. Juliet wheels a TV up to the aquarium where Jack is being held prisoner and tells him she’s going to show him a movie: To Kill a Mockingbird. She then goes on to explain to Jack why he needs to save Ben who is a great man and will die if Jack doesn’t operate, but on the TV screen there is no To Kill a Mockingbird. Instead we see Juliet holding signs telling Jack that Ben is a dangerous liar and asking him to botch the surgery and kill Ben.

Part of me suspects that this is yet another one of the cons psychological tests that the others perform on the survivors. Still, why To Kill a Mockingbird? Briefly, it’s about two children who watch their father Atticus Finch stand up to the prejudices in their small southern town by defending a black man who is accused of raping a white woman. The events leading up to and surrounding the trial effectively bring an end to the youthful innocence of the two kids.

In the book, Atticus tells his son Jem that it is a sin to kill mockingbirds because they are themselves harmless and innocent creatures. Throughout the book we see a variety of ‘mockingbirds’ – innocent people destroyed (or almost destroyed) by evil: Tom Robinson, Boo Radley, Jem and Scout Finch.

This keeps bringing me back to the whole question of whether or not the others are good people. Is it possible that Juliet is evil and Ben is as good as he claims to be, just an innocent mockingbird who only beats the crap out of people like Sawyer when he has to? Of course the book also reminds us that everyone carries the capacity for both good and evil.

Which brings us to prejudice, the central problem in To Kill a Mockingbird. Are the writers asking us to reconsider any prejudices that we viewers may harbor against the others? Should we take Atticus’s advice to Scout and not judge a man until we’ve walked around in his skin for a little while? Or at least enjoyed an episode featuring his flashbacks?

As with the blacks and whites of Maycomb County there are tensions between the survivors and the others, tensions that may stem mainly from a lack of understanding. Is the conflict between the survivors and the others based mainly on mutual fear and ignorance?

Jack, like Atticus, is a professional man who must decide to take on an unpopular case. When Atticus chose to defend a black man – and really defend him – he made a very unpopular decision that turned many of his own people (the white folk of Maycomb County) against him, but his belief in the constitution and the equality of all men gave him no choice but to do the right thing, despite this being a dangerous decision for him and his children.

Will Jack follow the path of Atticus Finch and save the life of the man who is holding him prisoner, or will Jack betray his Hippocratic oath and kill Ben for Juliet? Apparently, we’ll find out more in tonight’s episode, “I Do.”

I think Jack will operate and save Ben. He’s too principled not to. I don’t think he’ll kill this mockingbird.

Now the big question is who is the island’s Boo Radley? Who is hidden away from sight, feared and misunderstood by all, but secretly coming out of the basement as it were to help the survivors and save them from evil? Could it be the smoke monster? I wonder if the visions – that always seem to help the survivors find what they need, be it inner peace or clean water – might be the smoke monster.

I wonder if the smoke monster also protects the survivors by showing up out of nowhere, just like Boo Radley, to open up a can of whupass when needed such as that opened up on Mr Eko who turned out to be not quite as good as he appeared.

Smoke monster as Boo Radley? It may be a reach, but why not?

Check out these blogs for some good Lost analysis: Lost…and Gone Forever and The Joshmeister’s Lost Blog and Podcast.

Click here for all of my Lost Book Club posts.

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.