Tags
Doug Dorst, Floris of Bruges, Follow the Monkey, JJ Abrams, Mind the Time, Obsidian Island, pouting sailor, The Lady, V.M. Straka, VM Straka
Cambin plans, Maelstrom says. Y’got t’viz the Lady now.
“Sola?” S. asks, perhaps too quickly.
Maelstrom snorts. Dunt y’wish. Move y’self. Time’s scortin.
On p266 (266 = 19*14), S. descends to the main deck of the ship and has a curious encounter with the pouting sailor – a female. She appears to be trying to teach the monkey to swab the deck, but it isn’t working. The monkey doesn’t seem to understand, and in fact ends up leaving a puddle of urine on the deck.
We already have several indications in “S.” that the monkey and S. are connected in some fashion. Both S. and the monkey are simultaneously being pursued/captured in Chapter 1 as S. says Run, monkey, run. Eric’s pencilled marginalia on p54 calls the monkey another iteration of S. On p401, S. comments to Sola that he thinks the monkey is following him. With an implied smile, Sola responds, “Or you’re following it.”
Back to the story on the deck between the woman and the monkey on p266 – if the monkey represents S., who does the woman represent? And what is she trying to teach S.?
Just 19 pages later, on p285 (285=19*15), S. meets The Lady on Obsidian Island. In the pages that follow, we see that The Lady has pinprick scars around her lips and an obsidian piece around her neck (p287) – indicating that she was once a sailor on a ship, if not the ship. In addition, she tells S that she doesn’t live on the island and that the hunters have found us on the waters (p288). Found us. That means she is part of S’s ship.
The Lady also bears the scars from a terrible burn accident. On p372, we see S. witness the remains of his ship after an attack by Vevoda’s warplanes. Every sailor on board is dead – including a reference to the body of the pouting sailor, floating face-down. As S. takes in this scene, all around him is the smell of burned flesh.
On p286, Eric writes in pencil that The Lady looks like Floris of Bruges. Back on p266, FXC comments that one of the candidates that served as a model for the pouting sailor is Floris of Bruges.
Is the female pouting sailor on S.’s ship also The Lady on Obsidian Island? And, if so, why her?
And if she is, how are The Lady’s interactions with S. to be compared with the pouting sailor’s attempts to teach the monkey to swab the deck?
Follow the monkey…
Thoughts On "S" 
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Your link is broken. Here is the correct. Love your perspective – more to think about.
Ah, thank you for that correct link!
Yeah, as I’ve been reading through the marginalia and seeing Jen’s frustration with Eric’s constant refusal to meet her (despite the fact that they are obviously falling in love) is a mirror reflection of S. and Sola as well as Straka and Caldeira.
It is easy to get lost in the DOING of life that we lose touch with WHY we’re even here. S. thinks that by recovering his memories he will discover WHO he is, when in reality he is simply he-who-belongs-with-Sola. Apart from that, his past means absolutely nothing by comparison. From what I can tell by the final annotation at the end of the book, Eric and Jen finally come to that realization and end the cycles of separation.
It’s a fine line that we walk trying to find the balance between our day-to-day lives and the ultimate reason that we’re here. Love is the beginning and the ending to all of existence, and if we have that as our foundation, then all of our actions spring forth from that central place within ourselves.
It’s only when we forget about our love connection that we actually invert the polarities–causing our DOING to be fueled by the desire to reconnect with the WHY we’re here. But the DOING will never lead to the answer, because the truth is that we already have God’s love, and there is nothing we can do to earn it.
That is what is meant in the Book of Hebrews when it talks about the eternal rest/Shabbat. That means that from the foundation of resting in God’s love we can then perform our DOING without the DOING becoming the WHY you exist. We rest from our work, which makes all future work joyful and not burdensome.
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I am very amused! How did I miss this one! 😀
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i took the lady on the island to being a sure reference to floris of bruges. the margin note on 278 mentions erasmus discovering the black mountain, an axis mundi, a place where heaven and earth connect. this all comes to fruition a few pages later, the lady has a similar biography as the real erasmus, except erasmus narrowly avoiding being burned. erasmus was the world’s first best-selling author (after invention of the printing press) who mocked the pope, yet stayed faithful to the institution. he belongs in a book on a secret society of writers who challenge authority. floris of bruges was martyred, burned alive, first time unsuccessfully, according to margin note on 286, because she exposed abuses of power mostly in the church. according to the eotvos website of candidates, the florence who claimed to channel floris, odds a million to one, had lifelong claims first by her parents and then by herself to be straka. she died in 1983. the mere fact that this is all physically impossible does not matter in this book which experiences many such impossibilities and emphasizes that stories are somehow out of time. if straka did not die in havana then a central question is, when did he/she die? bruges and erasmus birthplace rotterdam are both in belgium.
another question connected to the obsidian island, this is a mythical place in a book, yet obsidian artifacts seem to have great appeal in the jen-eric world and be very rare. where did they originate and who collected them?
“Floris of Bruges was martyred, burned alive, first time unsuccessfully, according to margin note on 286, because she exposed abuses of power mostly in the church.”
I’d have to check the book again and I’m out of home right now, but I remember an FN talking about a saint (can’t remember whom, but his name showed up in the main text, thus the FN) who was a Christian martyr in the Roman Empire. I just remember he was ALSO martyrized twice, FIRST TIME UNSUCCESSFUL and ALSO BY FIRE. Both times by the same Emperor, Dometian, I think. It was said that he lived quietly after surviving the first time and then confronted the Emperor again.
Floris and this saint whose name I can’t remember are DEFINITELY connected. Reincarnation, perhaps? XD Seriously though there’s definitely a clue there
The Lady of Obsidian Island is able to read his unspoken thoughts and reply to them. Has anything in S. been able to do that? This has the markings of the Author showing herself. Her abode is filled with all unknowable Mysteries, all designs for S. and all other ships/vessels for her stories. The imagery is reused when Eric meets Caldreira.
I think S. would have recognized her if she were the pouting sailor, only older and burned. The ladies defigurement bears a functionality for a writer: he faceted eye allow her to see all variations of S. at the same time. If she doesn’t symbolize some architect/lorewright, who else does?
Burning from the black vine seems to sometimes heal without scars, as seen in S. toes. So maybe the burns are not from the event from p.371, but rather from sth. else. Edvard 6 was a cruel firestarter, and many a servant vanished from his estates. What if She was once a servant and now writes to avenge his cruelties? Obv. the burns do not translate into reallife, FXC does not bear those burns, so maybe this motif is not important aswell. It seems important that Eric found her, almost exactly like the Lady on the Axis of the World.
This lady might be the equivalent of Rashīd ad-Dīn Sinān, the mysterious “Old Man of the Mountain” of the most famous assassins. Matches well with the choice she gives S.
Or with some additional thought, including the descriptions of “Chapter 7: The Obsidian Island” about prevalent death, lifeless, no vegetation; axis mundi connection between earth and sky, and death being mostly feminine. the lady seems to be dead, but she is also the opposite, the promise of life, and she knows S.’s thoughts intimately. Since she is already old, she is a mother figure representing the choice of life: Demeter, Earth Mother, Mother Earth as opposed to Earth Shaker (Poseidon), or her younger aspect, persephone. maybe she represents someone who Straka was involved with extensively. Since she knows the designs of the ship, the FXC as alternative author, or the writing together theory might be played at here. The lady certainly shows all the aspects a creative straka would have, seeing the characters in every permutation.
As a fellow sailor, she might be a stand in for all of the women, young sola, fertile amarante, old filomela. If she is a stand in for the pouting sailor, might the pouting sailor not also stand for one of the three?
Also, maybe more far fetched, the pouting sailor tries to teach the monkey, which is sometimes described as a baby. she is therefore a mother figure. The lady is a mother figure, and sola her apprentice, which reminds me again of demeter and persephone, mother and daughter.
if i remember correctly, s. reaction to the lady was somewhat unemotional if we consider the circumstances and revelations. this still reminds me of the reactions of s. towards the woman wearing sola’s whistle in vevodas cellar.
Finally, the warning to regard the passing time is in my opinion about the obsidian island being the center of attention, the axis around everything spins at the moment. coriolis and revoltion in SOT explains the spinning of the spindle through the coriolis effect. the main axis spins very slowly, unnoticable (like the poles), the further one gets away, the spin increases (maximum at the equator). So although not a lot of time seems to be passing at the axis (or the connection between body and spirit), a lot of time will have passed at the equator. therefore he is told to mind the time.
In JenTheUndergrad’s Twitter, Jen is reminding Eric twice when he is investigating (i think desjardins letter with the obsidian piece and the elusive symbols from negative space), because of the utmost importance of the matter (of chosig life and/or death).
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