Agent X Marks the Spot

Tags

Agent X, cipher, Corbeau, Doug Dorst, JJ Abrams, Stenfalk, Ten, X Marks the Spot, xabregas

Is there an emphasis/clue on the number 10 in Chapter 4, entitled Agent X?

• X is the Roman numeral for ten
• S is referred to as Agent X by the newspaper and jokingly by his fugitive friends.
• The tenth footnote has a marginalia drawing of a large X. This is also the only self-referencing footnote in the book.
• The Chapter 4 cipher uses ten words beginning with ex- (expressly, expatriate’s, extracting, exiling, explosives, explicitly, examination, experiment, exculpation, extraverts) to reveal the ten-word solution (AVOID GRAND CENTRAL KEY STOLEN ASSUME BAG GONE I FAILED)
• Pfeifer regrets not making the diversionary fire ten times larger (139)
• When the fugitives first notice Vevoda’s blasting site in the meadow, it is at least a ten-minute walk from where they stand.
• The blast site is a double-quincunx – a cluster of ten overlapping holes. A quincunx is five dots that form the shape of the letter X, like the five on a domino. And the word quincunx ends in x.
• P135 seems to have several references to the number 10…
  • Corbeau mentions that she worked at the factory for ten years
  • Fn8 mentions dime novels
  • Fn8 mentions the 1920s and 1930s – decades separated by ten years
• On the last page of the chapter, Jen and Eric discuss Filomela’s middle name, which begins with X: Xabregas.
• X often marks the spot where something is hidden. This chapter ends with Corbeau shouting We found it! We found a cave! As she says this, she is looking down at S (Agent X) and Stenfalk (whose name contains the word ten).
• The last chapter of Ship of Theseus (Chapter 10) is entitled Ships of Theseus. The only difference between the book title and the Chapter 10 title is the letter S. And, of course, Chaper 10 begins and ends with the letter S.

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The Many Colors of Chapter 2

Tags

cipher, color, Doug Dorst, FX Caldeira, JJ Abrams, Juan Blas Covarrubias, Ship of Theseus, VM Straka

Time slows, allowing him a thought, a strange, wordless association of color and shape. (pp 64-65)

Fellow “S” fan Adam Laceky pointed out to me that Chapter 2 is filled with colors.  His detailed catalog of those colors is below. Perhaps, as he suggests, there is a message or cipher here for us to discover. He may be onto something. Consider that our buried treasure may have been left by Juan Blas Covarrubias, whose last name means red cave(s). Take a look below at the page numbers and color references and let us know if you see anything noteworthy.

37 blue(ish)

” black

40 black

” green

41 white(ened)

42 white

43 (fiery)

” verdegris (green)

” black(ened)

44 blue

” blue-black

45 straw-colored (gold?)

49 yellow-orange

50 black

52 VARIOUS HUES

53 blue (azure)

” white

54 black(ened)

” gray(ing)

55 pink

” white

” black

57 blue(r)

62 (wine) purple

” black (bar)

” black(ly)

63 green

” white (knuckling)

” silver

” black

64 dark-blue

” red (Covarrubia)

” (ink-dark)

65 COLOR

” cream(ing)

66 black

In Search of the Cipher in the Foreword

Tags

cipher, Doug Dorst, Ernest Hemingway, Foreword, FXC, JJ Abrams, Kurt Vonnegut, Le Monde, The World, Translator's Note, VMS

Typically, when FXC embeds a cipher in a chapter of Ship of Theseus, she includes a deliberately incorrect fact in a footnote that indicates where to find the enciphered message and what type of cipher it might be. And the chapter title typically is some sort of keyword to help break the cipher.

For example, in Fn1 on p70, FXC says that something happened in five days in Straka’s The Square when in reality it was ten days, as Eric Husch points out in the marginalia. Jennifer Heyward correctly deduces that the error “five” points to the fifth footnote. And FXC uses the word spotted on p70 to indicate that the “spots” in the fifth footnote highlight the message to be deciphered. The chapter title, The Emersion of “S”, indicates that the letter S-es that have spots should emerge and we are to take the two letters on either side of it to produce the message ARP IS BOUCHARD IS HW (see p80).

If we are to trust that FXC is consistent with this pattern, then there are still ciphers to be discovered in the Foreword, the Interlude, and Chapter 9: Birds of Negative Space. It could also be that there are additional ciphers (see Fn6, p84 – where FXC uses an incorrect name).

This blog is meant to stimulate conversation that might lead to the discovery of a cipher in the Translator’s Note and Foreword.

Consider Fn2 on p vi…

The newspaper Le Monde did not exist until December 19, 1944 – well after the so-called interview with Ernest Hemingway appeared in print. Beyond that error, Eric points out that there is no evidence to support anything FXC claims about Hemingway’s admiration, request for a personal audience, or later criticism.

What might we deduce about a possible cipher, its location, or the key to its solution? A few thoughts to get the conversation started…

• December 19, 1944 – the date Le Monde actually did begin its life in print is the same date that author Kurt Vonnegut was captured and became a POW. His experiences would ultimately lead to his masterpiece Slaughterhouse Five. And Vonnegut was influenced heavily by Hemingway. But this may just be an Easter Egg from Doug Dorst since at the time Ship of Theseus was published, Vonnegut was still an unknown literary figure.
• FXC uses the phrase Hemingway’s about-face. Is this a play on the word Foreword? Go forward and then do an about-face somehow?
• Since 1935 is an impossible year for anything to be printed in Le Monde, perhaps 1935 refers to FNs 1, 9, 3, and 5 in the Foreword. Perhaps just 3 and 5. Perhaps 3-5. Or something else?
• Since part of the title of this chapter is Translator’s Note, are we to translate Le Monde (“The World”) and with that phrase make discoveries? For example, in Fn11 on p xiii, FXC twice uses the phrase “mundanely literal.” The word  mundane comes from the same root as Monde and means “world.” And this: the second sentence of the Foreword – the one that starts to answer the question in the first – begins with the two words The world. And this: on p x (X marks the spot?), FXC says “I saw the world through the eyes of his characters; I heard his voice in his letters and in our discussions in the margins of his typescripts.” Eric underlines the entire sentence and points to it as proof that FXC was “a hack.” Does this sentence explain how we are to see “The world?” And this: the first underlined sentence in the Foreword (and thus the entire book) is the world never knew Straka’s face (pp v-vi). The associated marginalia is from Jen, who asks “So why’d. You have to leave the library in such a hurry the other night?” Contrast this with Doug Dorst’s tweet that “the answers you seek may be found in the library” – implying that to see Straka’s face we must be in the library. And this: Straka’s work often contains shadow-world occurrences (vi). And this: Hemingway had room 511 all to himself at the Hotel Ambos Mundos in Havana, Cuba between 1932 and 1939 – including 1935, though he was not there much. Ambos Mundos means both worlds, celebratin Cuba as a bridge between the Old World and the New World. And this: our friend Archimedes has the famous quote…

Give me a place to stand and I shall move the world.

The Interlude Cipher

Tags

cipher, dorian, Doug Dorst, interlude, JJ Abrams, locrian, mixolydian, phrygian, VM Straka

If Interlude contains a cipher, no one has come forward with its solution, or even its nature. However, an S. enthusiast has consulted a professor of music theory who specializes in musical ciphers. This highly qualified and amazingly cooperative expert has been unable to identify any encrypton method in Interlude. Prof.Hi.Scale, as he wishes to be known, has not read the whole book, but he has read Interlude. He has found nothing resembling the kind of musical cipher he is familiar with (and creates).

However, Prof.Hi.Scale was very helpful in providing a possible starting point for the rest of us. He offers this observation about the “tumble of notes” FXC delimits in Footnote 5 (P. 307):

If you overlap the tumble of notes in the order of modes provided, you could generate a 21-element sequence (without repeating the final e) or 22-element sequence.

[E-phry] ‹B-loc›           «B-loc»
[E F(G A ‹B C {D E] F G) A «B› C D} [E F G A B» C D e]
    (G-mixo)  {D-dorian}            [E-phryg]       ^last note or wrap-around?

This interpretation is based on all of the modes sharing the same key signature. In this example they are all relatives of C major (or C Ionian).  All of the modal scales are created from circular permutations of the same 7 note sequence.  For example, E-Phrygian is formed by rotating a C major scale two steps to the left: E becomes the new starting note and C&D get rotated to the end.

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As a different example, if you stayed with the same starting note, the scalar transformation through each mode would be like this:

1  2  3  4  5  6  7   Scale degree numbers
E  F  G  A  B  C  D   E Phrygian
E  F# G# A  B  C# D   E Mixolydian (change 2, 3, & 6)
E  F  G  A  Bb C  D   E Locrian (change 2, 3, 5, & 6)
E  F# G  A  B  C# D   E Dorian  (change 2, 5, & 6)
E  F  G  A  Bb C  D   E Locrian (change 2, 5, and 6)
E  F  G  A  B  C  D   E Phrygian (change 5)

In this case, scale degrees 1, 4, and 7 remain constant, the the other scale degrees nudge up or down depending on the mode. This could (theoretically) suggest some progressive shifting of a cipher key.

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Yet another way to think about it: each modal scale is a pattern of half-step (1) and whole-step (2) intervals.

Phrygian = 1-2-2-2-1-2-2
Mixolydian = 2-2-1-2-2-1-2
Locrian = 1-2-2-1-2-2-2
Dorian = 2-1-2-2-2-1-2