Tags
A Sleeping Dog, Abdim, El H--, Khatef Zelh, Osfour, Samar, Sola
Another one of our mysterious locations to discover is El-H—, an obviously Arabic city but with few other clues to help us find out where on earth it actuallly is. Below is a list of characteristics that may help us triangulate its location.
- It borders open water/ocean on one side and desert on the other. Attacking armies must cross that desert in order to attack it by land.
- It has ancient stone walls surround it, making it an ancient city.
- There is a night suq – an Arabic marketplace.
- The local currency is purple and blue.
- Possible child charmers being sold for the amusement of one pasha or the other (see p147). Ostrero told a cautionary tale he was told when young about disobedient children that were carried across the straits to the Arab markets where they would be stuffed into baskets and charmed by flute players – just like what we see happening on p236 in the night suk. This seems to strongly imply that El-H– is across “the straits” from where Ostrero grew up, likely in Spain. So it seems there is a strong possibility that we need to concentrate our search in Morocco near the areas where it is closest to Spain. Maybe.
- It’s not in Europe, because Samar might have fallen in love with a European sailor.
- The name Khatef-Zelh is Arabic for the pied kingfisher. (Thanks, Osfour).
- Musical instruments: drum, oud, spike fiddle.
- Insects: locusts.
- Flora: Date palms.
- Fauna: finch, feral dogs, cats,.
- Clothing: checheya, kaftan.
- Food: lamb, cumin, cardamom, pepper.
- Archaeology: Moorish archway, minarets.
Anyone else notice anything about El-H– that might help us pinpoint its name and location? Or see anything in those things mentioned that stand out?
Thoughts On "S" 
Hi, thank you. I still haven’t figured this out because i can only match very few locations with the large scale aerial bombardment at the end of the chapter. I could remember wrong, but was there not also mention of ancient/roman? ruins, triumphal arches and/or and an aqueduct?
Presumtion of geographical range: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lybia, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria. Because of the slave trade (child charmers), maybe even further, including the ottoman empire. Therefore perhaps also modern day turkey, or Constantiople(Istanbul) and east africa, somalia, but probably only limited to barbary slave trade/Maghreb.
Analogous to child charmers > snake charming: the practice is most common in India, but also in other Asian nations, as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Malaysia, and even in North African countries of Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia.
drum, oud, spike fiddle: Oud: ommonly used in Persian, Arabic, Greek, Turkish, Jewish, Byzantine, Azerbaijani, Armenian, North African (Chaabi, Classical, and Spanish Andalusian), Somali and Middle Eastern music. All three instruments fit at least the Maghreb. Spike lutes are common in West Africa, see Rebab.
Locusts: geogr. range too great.
Date palms: small hint towards morocco or tunisia.
Wildlife, feral dogs, cats, finch: inconclusive. Range of Finch is very wide, excluded feral dog or cat could still be explained by escaped human companion animals.
Checheya: In Libya, a soft black fez, called the checheya, is worn by the rural population with or without a long tassel. In the east, a red one called a chenna is worn. But not limited to Libya, because : The traditional headgear for Moroccan men is the fez, a close-fitting red felt hat with a flattened top and a tassel. The fez is common throughout the Islamic world but it is thought to have originated from Morocco. It is also referred to as tarbush, checheya and phecy. So maybe this is limiting our search on Libya and Morocco, but probably neighboring countries as well.
Kaftans: kaftan is a variant of the robe or tunic, versions of which have been worn by several cultures around the world for thousands of years. Kaftans were worn by the Ottoman sultans in the Ottoman Empire. Maghrebi (North African): kaftans are worn by women. This dress actually was masculine in the beginning which has become a dress worn by women during the centuries. Today, kafta is only used the describe women dress and people would rather describe the man’s dress as Djellaba.
The Kaftan could still apply to maghreb if we allow some ignorance on the narrators part, but that would still make an inelegant match.
In West Africa, a kaftan is a pullover robe. Kaftans are worn by both men and women. In West Africa, the female robe is called a kaftan, and the male robe is called the Senegalese kaftan.
Moorish architecture > Algeria, Morocco & Tunisia > arch >Moorish arch:
Arches are common feature in Morocco, which can be divided into two types. The first arch is the horseshoe which is clover shaped. The second is cusped like a rounded keyhole. These are called Moorish arches.
Moors: the Maghreb’s inhabitants, Maghrebis, were known as “Moors”
Maghreb: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lybia, historical also Mauretania, Numidia. maghreb (as most westernly): particularly Morocco.
Maghreb > Berber: Barbary Coast: in the West, the name commonly evoked the Barbary pirates and Barbary Slave Traders. Barbary Pirates appear elsewhere in S.
Pasha: of 16th century, 3 are mentioned, pasha of Algiers, Tunis and Tripolis.
Barbary Slave Traders: Apart from Algier, Tunis and Tripolis, there was extensive white slave trade in Morocco. Ports in North africa involved in slave trade: Tangier (Morocco), Marrakesh (Morocco), Algiers (Algeria), Tripoli (Libya), Cairo (Egypt), Aswan (Egypt).
My personal favourites until now are in Tunisia, because there are extensive ancient ruins from minoan, greek, phoenician and roman colonies, including carthage and theveste. tangier for its interzone and international espionage, tunis, tripolis and Libya for its war history, along with the city of Gabes. Close by is a town of Asfour; in Morocco there is a city called smara/Samāra close to one el-Hamra.
Others may be Alexandria, Taraboulus and other cities in Syria; Constantinople.
Because of the Repository, i expect to find one important collection of art, books or other treasures or obscurities. Or Archives, Magazins, Museums, Warehouses, Storehouses mentioned. Because of the ottoman slavetrade, maybe the idea of repository could be extended to harem > harim (a sacred, inviolable place), > haram (forbidden) to form the small towns name of El-H.
All of this does not lead to a satisfying match for now, leaving me to search for “Aerial bombing of cities”. Iraq had about 100t of bombs dropped in 1920, and there was also the Italo-Abyssinian War. Probably combined with land attac from the desert. Idk
My assumption is that we are not going to find a location where the bombing has any bearing in real life. That part is this fictional as our characters (S, Osfour, Abdim, Samar/Sola, Khatef-Zelh). I could be wrong, but Vevoda’s black vine is fictional and so is the bombing itself in my opinion.
Might be, but i think i just found some good matches in the tunisian campaign in ww2 and the run for tunis, or in the western desert campaign that was leading to that (el Hamma and el Halfa). Based on the Painter of Samar, Omar Tisatishar, i think i found our resistance leader in Omar al Mukhtar, of the Senussi resistance.
I tried posting my reasoning on Tunis a few times, but it doesn’t let me. I guess wordpress is not ok with some ww2 general’s or dictator’s name. To summarize, i searched for Omar Tisatishar, and took that and the mention of several armies, and heavy bombardment and lots of airplanes (ww2) as indicator to look into Tunisian history.
I think our resistance in this chapter might have belonged to the Senussi Resistance. I posted the whole, way to long explanation on reddit/r/whoisstraka (see link in Name). So lots exclusion still to do.
Do you think this currency/banknote color matches? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Mukhtar#Legacy
Am i right to emember a hurricane approaching at the end of the chapter? There were Hawker Hurricanes Mark IID Fighter Planes used in the tunisian campaign.
I have followed my lead further toward Tunis – during World War II, Algiers was the last city to be seized from the Germans by the Allies during Operation Torch. While searching for an english pirate Sailor for Samar there, i found John/Jack Ward, also known as Jack Bird, also known as Yusuf Reis, who was so obsessed with birds that he became known als Jack Asfur by the locals in Tunis, Asfur being in arab. = Sparrow. The pirate the Pirates of the Caribean movies are based on. Ward build a white Palace in Tunis and married another renegade from Christendom, Jessimina from Sicily (Our Samar?). If i can find their fair white alabaster and marble Palace, this may also be the Repository. Because the the Painting Khatef-Zelh recognizes as of Samar by the Painter Omar Tisatishar was taken at the same place:
“S. sees a painting of a young Sola in the city under attack., though the painting appears to be hundreds of years old. Khatef-Zelh explains that they call the woman in the painting “Samar,” and that it was probably painted by “the great artist Omar Tisatashar.”
Quote:”My assumption is that we are not going to find a location where the bombing has any bearing in real life.”
Upon further consideration, i don’t think that event is ficticious. Many events may be, but i think the locations of the mysterious Cities__ are on the same validity level as historical events (haymarket, arctic exploration, shoe/pencil factories (singer) requisited for war effort, one drifting twin being the ship Pollux, etc).
There obviously are other levels, like the metaphorical black vine, substantia, molyb, black-thread stigmata, but i don’t think the cities are on that level, because they are the most obvious red-carrot riddles hung in front of our nose. The cities present the most obvious second question in S., if they don’t make any sense and remain obscure, this would seriously detract from looking for other encryption methods apart from those already solved by Jen and Eric.
As i see it, S. is a Bildungsroman where you can/need to revisit human history, mythology, society, government in order to find the proper connections, because otherwise you just would not find relevancy to our themes by accident, i.e. Samar connected to a Sailor-Archer like Magellan, Sailors strongly connected to birds or what have you.
I know it’s in Europe, but what about the Alhambra in Spain, or El/Al Hamra?
It’s got the Mediterranean Sea on one side and the Tabernas Desert on the other side. The Tabernas Desert is even the filming location for several westerns according to https://100falcons.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/where-great-westerns-were-filmed/.
The Alhambra is a palace and fortress complex located in Granada, Andalusia, Spain. It was originally constructed as a small fortress in AD 889 on the remains of Roman fortifications, and then largely ignored until its ruins were renovated and rebuilt in the mid-13th century by the Moorish emirMohammed ben Al-Ahmar of the Emirate of Granada, who built its current palace and walls [Wikipedia].
Moorish poets described it as “a pearl set in emeralds,” an allusion to the colour of its buildings and the woods around them.[3]The palace complex was designed with the mountainous site in mind and many forms of technology were considered [Wikipedia].
Due to touristic demand, modern access runs contrary to the original sequence which began from a principal access via the Puerta de la Justicia (‘Gate of Justice’) onto a large Souq or public market square facing the Alcazaba, now subdivided and obscured by later Christian-era development [Wikipedia].
Spain is home to the largest and northernmost date palm grove in Europe, in the town of Elche in the province of Alicante.
More details about the Alhambra palace specifically can be found at http://www.spanish-living.com/palaces-museums-galleries-spain/alhambra-palace-granada.
Hey, Jonathan! I love this line of thinking. It opens up new possibilities for my mind. However, help me understand how this would work when it appears to be so far inland. El-H— seems to be all coastal with its own lighthouse.
You’re right about its limitations, but I also found an Alhambra in California with ties to Spain, which makes me think of the Los Angeles church in LOST that had the compass that could find doorways to the Island. Like the church (where the show’s finale took place) is a part of the Island, the California Alhambra is a part of the Spanish Alhambra, completing certain requirements, such as being coastal. I’m probably reaching, but it’s more of a feeling in finding interpretations of locations. For instance, one location in the book can symbolize multiple real-world locations, and it’s in the overlapping of layers that we see the three-dimensional aspect of the story’s template.
I hear you. And maybe you’re right. I just want to find that definitive fit of the puzzle piece!
I liked the Alhambra too and looked at it a lot of times, but eventually dismissed it because i couldn’t t find enough conforming pieces.
Does anyone have an idea of who Agent 26 is? It says he discovered the location of El-H, so maybe there is another clue. Any speculation about him being mentioned first (1. Agent #26) and YOU second?. p315 tells us how he dies: “Lost in a daydream while riding a bus he doesn’t notice “the tingling sensation across [his] thigh,” as his “vision dissolves into kaleidoscopic smears of color.”
“Kaleidoscope of Color” reminds me of the many colors of Chapter 2.
Update on the search: I looked around the Alhambra and found the Magellan/Samar/Siloy/Archimedes de Sobreiro connection, which did not help me towards El-H. I looked around Osfour/Asfur/Jack Ward/Sparrow and found Archimedes of Syracuse because of his wife in Sicily. The first was big on converting natives to Christianity, the second ones on converting away from it. Again no El-H clue.
More clues might be found in the Wall Writing on pp259-260.
– Agents hid among us in plain sight
– I raged at the sun
– the moon and constellations whistled for me;
– angels bade us adieu
– We walked to a cenotaph,
– we damned pilgrims
– The thunder had no mercy; punished by sound; battle the sundering force
– Cairns of fiction flummoxed the winds, held their positions
– chastened men of ink
. Agents in plain sight: “In 1942, Tunisia became the only Arab country to come under direct German occupation”. – Nemec Agents during italian occupation?
. raged at the sun, during night time. perhaps a flag with sun motif, like Japan? Or New Yorks The Sun Newspaper in 1942/3?
. moon and constellations? turkmenistan air forces flag has sun, moon and constellation. but they are whistling, so refer to the man in kaftan (osfour?) perhaps wearing moon and constellations.
. angels. statues?
. cenotaph, a tomb, or monument. pilgrims visiting a tomb?
. thunder and sunder. apart from bombardment/artillery, maybe the u.s. air force song?
. cairns of fiction. tombs with fictional names in the air= air planes holding the position/defending the city? Flags waving in the wind?
. a caged finch might have been a Fleet Model 16B Finch airplane.
. chastened men of ink. monks? journalists under wartime censorship?
I found “Angels bade us adieu” in “The Angels of Anzio”. On the night of 13 September 1943, 103 nurses abord the British hospital ship HMHS Newfoundland (a ships name we encountered before) en route to Salerno Beachhead was bombed by German planes. Before the ship sank, they were evacuated to Bizerte, Tunisia (very close to Tunis harbor). A few days later, they waved good by and were again on route towards Sicily Battlegrounds. So this may point towars Biserte or tunis, but just as well towards Algier, from which the Newfoundland had departed a few days earlier.
The Acropolium in Tunis (= Saint Louis Cathedral) features a Cenotaph – a funerary monument was erected in memory of Cardinal Lavigerie (1892) who crusaded against the slave trade, for which he founded the order of priests called the White Fathers (missionaries). Possible Child Charmer Connection here. The first Convent of the White Fathers was in Maison-Carrée, later called El-Harrach, in case the Arches and Columns of El-Harrach fit better.
Hope you don’t mind the amendings, its obviously getting to long.