What it Means to Follow the Monkey

Tags

cybernetics, Doug Dorst, epistemogical crisis, feedback loop, feedback loops, Follow the Monkey, Godel Escher Bach, JJ Abrams, truth, VM Straka

Here is a beginning framework of what it means to follow the monkey.

It is only that. A framework. A beginning. An armature. We still need to work together to solve the remaining mysteries of S. It is my hope that an explanation of this armature helps us do just that.

To orient ourselves, here are a few previous blog posts that help set the stage.

• Godel, Escher, Bach in S
• Overlooping
• What Begins at the Waterwheel

It would also help before we continue to make sure we all understand the basics of  cybernetics (from the Greek word kybernetes, which means steersman or governor), along with its most basic concept: the feedback loop. The best summary on this subject I have seen is from a Wired Magazine article that says…

A feedback loop involves four distinct stages. First comes the data: A behavior must be measured, captured, and stored. This is the evidence stage. Second, the information must be relayed to the individual, not in the raw-data form in which it was captured but in a context that makes it emotionally resonant. This is the relevance stage. But even compelling information is useless if we don’t know what to make of it, so we need a third stage: consequence. The information must illuminate one or more paths ahead. And finally, the fourth stage: action. There must be a clear moment when the individual can recalibrate a behavior, make a choice, and act. Then that action is measured, and the feedback loop can run once more, every action stimulating new behaviors that inch us closer to our goals.

In summary, a feedback loop’s four stages explained in a way that are contextualized for S are

1. An individual gathers new information.
2. The irrelevancies of that data are stripped away and what matters is emotionally conveyed to the individual for rumination.
3. Insights – creative leaps (as the author of Godel, Escher, Back would call them) – from the new information drive the individual to continue to write his/her  story with the new paths of choice that are illuminated.
4. The individual selects one path of illumination, recalibrating his/her behavior accordingly. Then the feedback loop repeats.

Communications between two people always include feedback loops. The act of writing creates a feedback loop between author and reader. What we witness in the marginalia of Eric and Jen’s writing is a concrete example of cybernetics at play: continuous feedback as both Eric and Jen learn more about each other and about themselves with each new message between them.

There is a very special kind of feedback loop, though, that does something more that just illuminate paths that might be taken in the future. Sometimes information introduced to an individual – a new truth – forces what we call an epistemological crisis. An epistemological crisis occurs when new information – a new truth – arrives in the feedback loop that challenges everything we already thought we believed to be true, forcing us to rewrite our former story with a new schema.

Most of us who watched Sixth Sense experienced an epistemological crisis. We watched a story unfold and began forming a framework of understanding that story. And then, at the climax, we were presented with a truth that forced us to completely rewrite our understanding of the story we had just witnessed. All the events of the story were exactly the same, but their meaning changed entirely. It was a true Ship of Theseus moment. We had to ask ourselves, is it the same story, even though I just had to replace most if not all the parts of how I built the story in my head with completely new parts that integrated the new truth?

Probably the first story to every penetrate the modern psyche with the idea of epistemological crisis was Hamlet (which has many references in S), by William Shakespeare. As Alisdair MacIntyre explains in Crisis, Narrative, and Science, Hamlet is searching for a true and intelligible narrative that explains the death of his father, but he is overwhelmed with too many possible schematics that can explain it. He then embarks on a quest for the truth. MacIntyre goes on to explain…

When an epistemological crisis is resolved, it is by the construction of a new narrative which enables the agent to understand both how he or she could intelligibly have held his or her original beliefs and how he or she could have been so drastically misled by them. The narrative in terms of which he or she at first understood and ordered experiences is itself made into the subject of an enlarged narrative. The agent has to come to understand how the criteria of truth and understanding must be reformulated. He has to become epis- temologically self-conscious and at a certain point he may have to come to acknowledge two conclusions: The first is that his new forms of understanding may themselves in turn come to be put in question at any time; the second is that, because in such crises the criteria of truth, intelligibility, and rationality may always themselves be put in question – as they are in Hamlet – we are never in a position to claim that now we possess the truth or now we are fully rational. The most we can claim is that this is the best account which anyone has been able to give so far, and that our beliefs about what the marks of a “best account so far” are will themselves change in what are at present unpredictable ways

With all of this in mind, I believe that to follow the monkey is to embark on a journey as readers to identify the feedback loops that lead to epistemological crisis – to discover the new truths that cause us to rewrite our current understanding of S – until, after multiple iterations, we arrive at the best possible account – a true and intelligible narrative. Our Ship of Theseus is undergoing continual changes, sometimes with complete destruction and reconstruction, as we do our best to form the ship that S sees through the spyglass at the end. This is evident to us as S himself witnesses the ship undergo its changes, construction, and deconstruction. It’s also bared before us as S sits down in The Lady‘s cabin to read The Book of S and struggles to understand why it contains schematics for the ship’s construction along with a catalog of its changes.

The changes S’s ship endures are the changes our understanding of S goes through with each new truth we discover. Our schematics for explaining the story are continually changing.

Below is a catalog of the appearances of our monkey and a likely incomplete ilustration of how feedback loops and epistemological crises are hidden before us in plain sight to keep us following. (Keep in mind, all forms of communication between two people involve feedback loops).

The monkey spots S as he walks by the organ grinder and tone-deaf immigrant (8-9)

• The tone-deaf immigrant and barrel organ owner struggle to communicate through their language barrier.
• The barrel organs are ground – organ grinding – turning loops to make sounds.
• The immigrant hides a truth about the money in the monkey’s pocket that will rewrite his peaceful escape.
• The barrel organ owner hides a truth about which stack of money is more valuable.
• The barrel organ owner suspects the truth about the immigrant holding out on him and that he intends to attack the immigrant later to determine the truth that the immigrant is hiding. All of this leads to S seeing the monkey later as he passes out.
• In Fn2, p8, FXC reveals the truth about the note pinned to the monkey that accepted Straka’s award from Bouchard. This new truth requires rewriting the story of what everyone else thought happened before FXC’s reveal.
• The marginalia reveals Jen and Eric attempting to determine the truth about Bouchard and the S organization. The truths are elusive.
• This first time that we see the monkey, he is in a room full of barrel organs. The last time we see the monkey, he is releasing wine from barrels back to the earth.

S spots the monkey as he is about to pass out after being drugged and says Run, monkey. Run. (24-25)

• S is obducted while attempting to communicate with Sola and arrive at truths that will help him successfully construct the narrative of his life – his identity.
• Two life-long pursuits are born in S: Sola and The Archer’s Tales.
• The Archer’s Tales – an archer uses literal feedback loops (the bull’s-eye target) to readjust his aim with the feedback he receives from the previous shot.
• The drug makes it impossible for S to understand communications.
• In the pocket of the monkey’s tattered red coat is money (truth) that would serve as a feedback loop to the suspicions of the barrel organ owner. The barrel organ owner’s sons are chasing the feedback they need, and S encourages the monkey to keep running. We, the readers, are chasing feedback to help us understand S. But that monkey is running ahead of us, with S’s encouragement, and therein lies the game we are all playing right now.

The monkey is rescued from the ghost ship and come’s aboard the xebec (54-56).

• The feedback loop we long to know – is this the same monkey?
• Maelstrom mentions the monkey. Maelstrom’s name means mill stream. A mill stream is a special diversion of water to drive a waterwheel – loops of water. Maelstrom once says that all I means t’ steer the ship. The word cybernetics means, literally, the one who steers.
• S undergoes a brief epistemological crisis. He thinks the monkey is a baby for a moment, his heart sinking, and then he looks closer and realizes the truth.
• Eric’s pencilled marginalia suggests the monkey is an iteration of S. To iterate is to repeat. A loop.
• The insert in these pages is a telegram from Straka to Karst & Sons with new information – a feedback loop to the publishers. FXC is to take over henceforth as translator. Fn6, p55 references a Spider Prince and the marginalia has a drawn spider web. Spiders create their webs with loops.

The monkey flees the approaching waterspouts and goes down the hatch (62).

• S’s vision of the waterspouts has a mysterious feedback loop (that we don’t yet understand) to Sola in the tavern drinking her drink. In the present, the monkey runs “down the hatch” – is this a deliberate connection?
• The ship is destroyed by the waterspouts, but S survives. Here we have a metaphor for our schema of understanding being destroyed and later reconstructed after we undergo new experiences.
• In the marginalia – Eric’s uncle doesn’t know the truth of why Eric backed out of the trip on the boat.
• Jen writes that she knew something Eric said earlier here wasn’t the whole story. So it needs to be rewritten.

S spots the monkey on the resurrected xebec after his leap from the cave (200-201).

• S undergoes a much larger epistemological crisis the moment he sees the ship: how is the ship all put back together? So soon? But it’s different now, but still the same ship.
• S started in the water after leaving the ship and emerged in B__. Now he leaps from the cave and returns to water, where he once again finds the ship – one large loop.
• The monkey is swinging loops in the halyard.
• The postcard insert here presents us with a feedback loop inducing another important epistemological crisis: Not only is FXC alive – but Eric FOUND HER. FXC will give many new insights (feedback loops) to S to aid him in the story. Her words, her letters, and eventually her personal copy of the alternate ending to “S” that help Eric and Jen rewrite their narrative tha they are piecing together about FXC and Straka, about S and Sola.

S hears the monkey laugh after Maelstrom explains to S that he will willingly return from El H__ after he disembarks (219-220)

• There is a feedback loop and epistemological crisis symbolized in S’s round trip to El H__. Before he leaves, he cannot possibly imagine returning, but Maelstrom explains that he will and you’ll be ‘hap to. It turns out to be true, but only after S experiences what he does in El H__ and sees why.
• In Fn6, p219, a new truth (reinforced by Eric’s notes) explains confusion caused in Straka’s communications.
• Maelstrom takes S’s nail, telling him not to deface the ship. S insists that the truth of the story about the nail and his carving is not defacing.
• S struggles to rewrite the story of what is going on with his life when Maelstrom informs him that Vevoda “cogs yer venin.” This new truth is disturbing to S.
• Jen secures a meeting with Ilsa but is concerned that she won’t understand the truth.
• In the marginalia we witness several discussions of nended truth: what happened in Havana and when MacInnes left S.

The monkey runs circles around the female sailor (266-267)

• S and the woman struggle to communicate.
• The woman and the monkey struggle to communicate.
• The monkey is running around the pouting sailor in loops.
• S seeks Maelstrom: the one who speaks, the one whose name evokes thoughts of looping water, and who steers the ship (cybernetics).
• We have an epistemological crisis in understanding whether or not the pouting sailor is also The Lady of Obsidian Island? And if she is, how?

The monkey is sitting on top of a barrel in the middle of the deck tossing pieces of ship biscuit into the wind. (272)

• A barrel is made up of wooden loops formed by a cooper. Corbeau’s father was a cooper (123).
• The crew is struggling understand Maelstrom’s communications. They pause, waiting to be sure they heard correctly. After the feedback loop is complete, they change their plans and head for Obsidian Island.
• Whistles operate on the principle of feedback loops to create sound.
• Lewis Looper is mentioned in the Fn on p270 as al this happens.
• In the marginalia, we witness the very first mention of Eric/Jen having met in person. A brand new feedback loop is introduced.
• Jen mentions a specific feedback loop that creates one of her own epistemological crises: she runs into her old college roommate and discovers that she was much more like her than she thought, but Jacob distracted her from noticing.

The monkey is sitting on top of the ghost-ship boy as S becomes part o’ the tradition. (297)

• We see a crystal clear feedback loop and epistemological crisis for many. Maelstrom and his crew have one when they find S down in the orlop writing.“‘Ah, hell,’ Maelstrom seems to be saying, ‘it dint ness t’go li’ this.’ But now it does.” New information rewrites the story. S once hated the idea of even thinking of becoming on of the crew, and now he finds himself becoming one. Everything rewritten.
• S’s lips are sewn together with loops of black thread.
• The pouting sailor who was the one in the last monkey sighting with the mop, and may very well be The Lady of Obsidian Island, provides the fishhook with a snarl to Maelstrom, who sews S’s lips.
• In the marginalia we find several small instances of feedback loops.

The monkey shrieks as Vevoda’s planes make the first actual entrance into the apparently hidden world of the ship at sea. (338)

• Now that Vevoda’s planes have penetrated where ships like us were formered safe, the direction of the story must change. S gets his wish to go to The Territory after all.
• Jen finds out her sister and Jacob are the reason Mom and Dad are coming for a visit. This new information enrages her.

On his way to assassinate the governor, S dreams that he is paddling in the stern of a steel canoe. In the bow, with a monkey on her back, is Sola. (341)

• S struggles to communicate with Anca and Waqar.
• S is in the middle of a loop between leaving the ship to find the Governor (cybernetics), realizing who the Governor is, and returning to the ship to find it destroyed.
• Eric circles Nemec and writes discrepancy with original manuscript. This new information changes the story that Straka wrote. FXC changed the original to Nemec to reflect the new truth of who the traitor actually was.

Anca tells S to follow the monkey to find the governor, which turns out to be a symbol carved into a tree that leads him to the path. As S contemplates what it means to follow the monkey, he remarks to himself, Of course there is a monkey. There is always a monkey. Near the end of the path, S hears a howler monkey cry out in the distance. (352-353)

• S, upon hearing birdsong that seems out of place, loops back through the thought of his friends when he catalogs the sounds (a Merlin, an Oystercatcher, a Raven, and a Magpie Tanager).
• The monkey leads S to the biggest epistemological crisis of his life: the governor is Pfeifer. S has gone from the man who would risk his life to save Pfeifer to the man who would choose to end his life. Who S thought he was change in this loop from cave to hilltop. As he runs to escape the rifle of the guard, a magpie dies from a bullet wound. This and the destruction of the ship force S to rewrite his own narrative – he is who he is because of his actions, not because of his past that he does not remember. A man is no more and no less than the story of his passion and deeds (see insert on page 361).

When S is finally with Sola after his solace in the Winter City, he returns to the ship with her. There he finds the monkey, which seems much older now, curled up asleep. It awakens and makes a noise before returning to sleep. (401)

• S completes the loop between the ship’s destruction, his time in the Winter City, and returning with Sola.
• The ship is reconstructed. The monkey still alive. We don’t know yet but Maelstrom’s spyglass is underneath the blanket where S sees him sleep.
• Jen completes the feedback loop with Jacob over his “betrayal” in involving her sister/parents.
• Another Santorini man occurs, changing the story of whether the S is still active and the enemy is still in pursuit.

In the climax, the monkey is darting among the wine barrels, pulling out the bungs and draining the black wine. (452-454)

• The feedback loop of the wine being “recycled” – settled.
• S has a positive epistemological crisis with a feedback loop. After he feels the voices in his head go silent and settled when the wine in the barrels is released back into the earth and recycled, he no longer wishes to destroy his enemy. He rewrites the ending.
• We hear the squeal of feedback from Edvar Vevoda VI’s microphone as he is apparently shot and dies on stage – while presenting truth to the crowd in an unscripted speech. Draw near, gentlemen, draw near, do not miss any of these words for this is Truth and it is a miraculous thing (445).
• This is where FXC takes over with her version of the ending – where she rewrites the narrative based on her perceived truth. Jen says on p455 See. This whole final sequence was hers. From the monkey’s appearance on.
• In the marginalia, there are discussions about the temperature of the apartment in Prague. They mention how cold it is, which hearkens back to page 447 when they talk about the thermostat – one of the most basic cybernetic systems with a feedback loop.
• In the marginalia, we are presented with the unfinished narrative of what happened at the planetarium before Jen and Eric left the country for Prague.

S envisions how he will obtain Maelstrom’s spyglass from its hiding place in the chart room – under the blankets where the monkey sleeps and under the table from where Maelstrom examined his maps for feedback from the red color changes. (455-456)

• The spyglass reveals another ship. The way things can and will be when the full truth is finally clear. Maelstrom often studied the maps, acted on the feedback loop of growing redness, and looking through the spyglass for more feedback.
• Eric/Jen discuss how they now know FXC’s alt version started from the monkey’s appearance on.
• Eric thinks FXC’s ending is ambiguous. Jen disagrees.
• We now have the question of whether or not Jen/Eric are ok. OK is scratched out and we have the copy of their book.

Straka’s Original Ending

• The monkey uses a raw piece of substance to release the wine from the barrels. The sounds are loud.
• The monkey might as well be one with S.
• The monkey kills Vevoda with the piece of substance.
• The story ends from the perspective of the monkey. It knows Vevoda is dead. It knows S is transparent – and knows that S is unaware of this. It feels like there is something essential about the man that it has failed to understand. We are left with the search for the truth of understanding what essential something will help us rewrite the narrative, discover S’s name, understand Eric and Jen’s story, find out what really happened in Havana, whether Straka lived, etc.

Where do we go from here? We continue to follow the monkey – to search for those hidden truths that help us rewrite our current understanding of the story so that we can create the most true and intelligible narrative that we can.

Your Feedback

There are countless other examples of feedback loops, needed truths, and epistemological crises in S that either provide seed for thought in advancing the quest or illustrate the follow the monkey principle. Please leave your feedback in the comments section. Here are a few examples to get us started…

• The first time S finds himself on the ship and wanders around to gain a sense of where – and what – he is, Jen writes in the margins that she has discovered a new truth: that FXC is a woman. Eric writes this changes everything (29).
• In the chapter, The Drifting Twins, S watches in horror as the constellations drift in such a way that the stars no longer have meaning. New meaning must be made. New narratives created.
• When S discovers the truth of the bomb in B, in advance of its detonation, this feedback forces him to abandon his quest to follow Sola and return to his newfound friends and explain the truth. Despite this, the townsfolk believe the newspaper accounts that these very same people who tried to stop the bomb are actually responsible for it. This false narrative, created by Vevoda and given momentum by fear, changes the story and makes our friends fugitives fleeing for their lives.
• What begins at the water shall end there, and what ends there shall once more begin. This is a good way of describing a cybernetic system.
• What else do you see?

What Begins at the Water

Tags

F.X. Caldeira, Follow the Monkey, FXC, sound wave, VM Straka, VMS, wave, wave theory

P26. When S first realizes he has been “stolen from land and deposited on water”, we read his perceptions of “fluid transverse and longitudinal sways”. Transverse and longitudinal are the two ways that waves travel. Sound waves can travel as either. This is literally the physics of sound. In the alternate ending to Chapter 10, S thinks the physics of sound finally cooperates.

P352. As Anca writes follow the monkey, Jen’s corresponding note is sound advice.

P194. As S and Corbeau navigate the S-curve in the caves of the K–, they can hear the rumble of ocean waves growing louder.

Robert Hooke, who has come up in S-research before, was the first to propose that light existed as a wave.  He was also the first to look at cork (sobreiro) under a microscope and discover biological cells.

The Coriolis Effect produces waves in the ocean.

On p221, as S rides a rowboat to El H–, the boat catches a modest wave and S finds himself feeling glorious, even telling the rower I enjoyed that.

P225 mentions that the “time travel” is occurring is as if S accelerated through it, as if carried along on the crest of a wave.

P84. Wave comes from the same root word as weave. Compare to FXC’s choice of Serge as the made-up name choice in the footnote. Serge is a specific weave. On p18: wend is also a form of wave/weave. When S is in the tavern stealing glances at Sola, “he watches as the drops of water fall from him onto the uneven floor and wend along it in a rivulet, snaking over and around and between the warped boards.”  This is also the same page where the drunken sailor says ’S the truth.

p408. Here we see sound waves weaving together: “But then— and he feels the change—it is as if a piano chord, struck in a vast concert hall, has been allowed to ring and decay, and even as the chord itself fades, some of its overtones continue to hum with life in all that space, and those tones are joined by notes from bowed strings that rise, coalesce, weave together in unexpected harmonies, carry the piece along with them in new directions, and when he follows them, he can see the Château and its grounds resolve in his mind.”

The stitches in the sailors mouths are a wave/weave.

Maelstrom’s beard is full and wavy as the hairs swirl together and random weaves.

The bicycle basket that we as readers are instructed to watch closely is homemade by the rider’s father. The only way a metal bicycle basket can be made is by weaving the metal (p103).

Tufting is an ancient weaving technique. Our capuchin monkey friend is tufted.

On page 414, the only marginalia is Jen asking Eric Please tell me she died peacefully and Eric responding In her sleep. Spending the last few days getting things in order…

The etymology of the word order has at its roots the idea of a row of threads aligned properly, and also the base ordiri – which means “to begin to weave.”

A wave in the water begins there and ends there. It does not travel outside of the water. What begins at the water shall end there, and what ends there shall once more begin.  

Waves in the water formed by something dropped in the center produce ripples, which look much like the cover of our favorite book Ship of Theseus. (Thanks, @abramsfan)

If all this is not enough, the letter S is itself in the shape of a wave.

So what does all this mean?

A wave literally is a Ship of Theseus – the wave is still the wave even when it travels through a medium and is formed by completely different particles.

The wave metaphor falls in line with The Tradition. “Different story. Same tradition.” (p404) The tradition is a wave that travels through each generation, carrying with it the essence of a common meaning in the same way, but in different manifestations. Is it the same story? Think monomyth where all stories have the same basic truths communicated through the oral and then written word. Each story, though completely “different”, is a manifestation of the same wave used in a previous story.

They are all simply playing their roles in humankind’s oldest, simplest, truest story. (p173)

For example, when S sees the S symbol on a building named CENTRAL POWER in the middle of B– (p100), he witnesses a man taking possession of a bomb that will forever change S’s life. In “real life”, you and I are witnesses to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand (a member of the CENTRAL POWERS) and the beginning of World War 1.

It’s the same basic story, but with a different setting, different characters/plot/etc.

J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst have said that “‘S’ is a love letter to the written word.” It appears to be a story that retells all other stories – a story of good versus evil, and the men and women who fight to overcome it and find love in the process.  V.M. Straka and F.X. Caldera fighting Bouchard. Eric and Jen fighting Moody. S and Sola fighting Vevoda.

There is more to the wave theory here, to be sure. This is just what begins at the water…

What do you think?

Location, Location, Location

Tags

Calais, Doug Dorst, Follow the Monkey, identity, JJ Abrams, location, V.M. Straka, VM Straka

S spends his life trying to locate himself.

• “Follow the monkey” (p352)
• “Keep going. Keep paddling and you’ll find yourself.” (p337)
• “Int na time f’excursin allwheres jus’ so y’ can solve y’self.” (p337)
• Upon discovering the very first S symbol at the tavern, S thinks This is where he’s supposed to be. (p14)
• “We’ve ‘structs. To take y’. “Take me where?” “No where.” (p33)
• “He – this alleged S – has no control over who or where or why he is.” (p34)
• “The ship has docked at a decrepit-looking pier on a small, gray island that looks to be the very definition of Nowhere.” It is here – Nowhere – where S meets The Lady, reads The Book of S, and learns that he has choices, even when he thinks he does not.

Much of the book is focused on locating someone or some thing.

• CEASE EFFORTS TO LOCATE ME (V. M. Straka, telegram insert, p54-55)
• “Tell us where they are. Tell us where they are.” (p73)
• “If Straka is dead, then where is his body?” (p xiii)
• “Where’s the man with the scar?” (p33)
• “Y’ ought be more heedin where y’put y’spires.” (p55)
• “WHERE ARE THE ZAPADI THREE?” (p75)
• At the location of the second S symbol in the book, as S is looking for Sola, he thinks Where did she go? (p100)
• “Without intuition, the world becomes a flat place, a stunted place. A place where change is impossible.” (p117)
• “Every story comes from somewhere.” (p149)
• “Dive, stroke, rise. Where is she?” (p199)
• Just before S receives the valise that changes his life, Ostrero asks Where is Abdim? (p244)
• Corbeau searched her entire life for the location of the caves of the K–, but did not find them until she was with S.
• The location of the storehouse in El H– was a secret, until Agent #26 discovered it. (p314)
• The Winter City’s location is a mystery. (p380)
• The location of the pirate Juan Blas Covarrubias’ richest cache of treasure is a tantalizing mystery. (p410)
• Vevoda’s location is too difficult for S to foresee in his writings in the orlop, and he realizes that he will not find Vevoda until he descends into the dark maze himself. (p412)
• Vevoda and his Agents spend their lives trying to locate S and kill him.
• The location of B–, G–, El H–, and the city with the Old Quarter where S begins his journey are all still mysteries.
• The EOTVOS Wheel reveals messages when you correctly determine and order various locations.
• The Obsidian Island’s location is a mystery. It’s not on maps. It’s referred to as Nowhere. (p397)
• At the third appearance of the S symbol in the book, S asks Corbeau to try and remember where she may have seen the symbol before. She finally remembers – It was on Stenfalk’s valise. (p192-195)
• The 57 photographs that S receives in the valise have the numbers of each agent, along with dates and locations of where they were spotted and perhaps involved in wrongdoing (p261-262). S then spends his years planning and locating these agents to assassinate them.
• The location of Vevoda’s chateau is a mystery until a woman dies after providing a map to the estate in the south of France in the foothills of the Pyrenees. (p402)
• The location of the Bouchard estate is a mystery, but Filomela Caldeira outs Bouchard with the map to Vevoda’s chateau, pinpointing both as the same (see margin notes p312 “Nobody seems to have realized she outed them” and p402).
• FXC reveals her location to a hopefully-still-living-S in the Chapter 10 cipher as Marau, Brazil.
• When Eric Husch finds FXC still alive and “impossibly old” he writes on a postcard to Jen I FOUND HER. (p201) This hearkens back to Archimedes when he shouted Eureka (or “I found it”).
• S uncovers a plaque that shows where Archimedes de Sobreiro fell in 1625. (p386-387)
• The first time S gets close enough to Sola to touch her, it is in the flat where Archimedes de Sobreiro lived – and died. (p390)
• When S asks Sola how he managed to find her in the Winter City she said simply, “It was the only place left.” (p391)
• S “exerts this influence from an estate located in the principality of Rumor” (p316). FXC mentions in the footnote that the original working title for Ship of Theseus was Principality of Rumor.
• Several time there is a reference to the hunters: the detectives who hunt our friends as they escape from B– and then into the caves. In reference to this hunt the text says of our friends: They are all simply playing their roles in humankind’s oldest, simplest, truest story (p173). The Lady on Obsidian Island mentions that The hunters are close and closing in. They’ve found us on the waters. S then intuits that Maelstrom’s bleeding map shows this and The Lady confirms it (p288).
• As S approaches The Territory with Anca and Waqar, he notices the symbols etched into the hillside (p344).  He asks what they mean, and to his surprise Anca responds, “Our stories. Who we are and how we are here.”  Later, on p350, S notices the S-symbol, partially destroyed. S himself is a story that explains who we are and how we are here.
• S spends much of his time hoping to locate a copy of The Archer’s Tales. 
• As the margin notes on p431 explain, It all goes back to Calais. Straka’s entire life is somehow defined by what happened there in the 1912 massacre.

The footnote on p415 is the most telling of all.

Straka’s phrasing here is no accident; though the characters have a map to the Vévoda estate, they still must view the location through the fog. As the essayist Norman Bergen discussed in the third volume of his Spinning Compass series, there is a powerful human need to locate evil—that is, to contain it by assigning it a specific, bounded place (in some cases, a particular person)—even though this is impossible. The boundaries of evil, Bergen argued, are blurry and porous, if they can be said to exist at all.

This continued emphasis on location, coupled with the overt emphasis on identity, exposes the possible purpose of the S-collective’s methods.

Secrecy must be total, or all is lost. (Marginalia, p187)

The S knew that if the author of the subversive books were known, Bouchard and others could then target that person and pursue him/her and eradicate the threat. But if the author’s identity were unknown, and his location kept secret, then Bouchard would forever be lost, chasing an unknown, moving target.

Straka was lost, too, for a time. His life was defined by a location – what happened there.

It all goes back to Calais. (Marginalia, p431)

Straka experienced that “powerful human need to locate evil” – and once he located it in Bouchard and his cohorts, he spent his days thinking he would never be happy again unless he eradicated the evil he had identified and located. S’s life parallels Bouchard’s with Vevoda. And it all culminates with the discovery of the location of the chateau and with the location of Vevoda himself within the cellars.

Perhaps the point is that trying to physically locate evil only serves to misdirect S’s life. S has choices, though he thinks he does not (p287). And the xebec’s condition reflects the result of those choices. The condition of the xebec worsens only as S reacts to the evil that has befallen him with the continued pursuit of agents and Vevoda himself.

It is only when S let’s go of his pursuit of Vevoda and leaves the location he so desperately wanted to find – and leaves Vevoda alive and well – that S sees…

Not a ghost ship, no; she is a ship with flags flying and sailors working on deck, sails trimmed and humming in the wind, a glorious wake churning out behind her, and what looks like two people standing on the quarterdeck and sharing the wheel. (p456)

Is it a coincidence that the very last sentence of the book has 57 words? And that S spent so much of his life trying to locate and assassinate 57 people? Perhaps not…

He can’t see their faces through the glass, can’t really see much about them at all, but he slides the glass closed and tells Sola that the ship is one of theirs, and as for the identities of the two people at the wheel, well, both Sola and he will let their imaginations fill in their features.

 

Transparent Man

Tags

Alternative Ending, Doug Dorst, Follow the Monkey, JJ Abrams, SERIN, transparent man, V.M. Straka, VM Straka

In the alternative ending of Chapter 10 for Ship of Theseus, when the point of view shifts to the monkey, S is referred to as the transparent man. Rather than spoil the mystery with my own musings, I leave you to focus on the following: a portion of p376 from “S” and a portion of the alternative ending – particularly the portions that I have highlighted in green. I encourage you to comment with theories or questions as to what these connections might mean.

Follow the Monkey and You’ll Find Yourself

Tags

Catherwood Cup, Corbeau, Doug Dorst, Follow the Monkey, Frederick Catherwood, Howler Monkey, JJ Abrams, magpie, Ostrero, Stenfalk, V.M. Straka, VM Straka

On p352 in Ship of Theseus, Anca tells S to Follow the monkey. Jen Heyward circles these words and writes sound advice. Shortly thereafter (p353), S finds knife-cuts in bark that suggest a grinning simian face. It marks the beginning of a path up the hill that is narrow and overgrown, more implied than there.

Keeping in mind Jen’s possible play on words (sound advice), we next see S cataloguing the sounds he hears along the implied path marked by the monkey carving. The first sound he hears is a howler monkey. The next set of sounds he mentions are rodents and insects along the ground. The final set are birds, specifically four birds: a merlin, a crow, an oystercatcher, an a magpie tanager (corresponding to Stenfalk, Corbeau, Ostrero, and S).

There is something very important here. It starts with the sound of a howler monkey and ends with clear allusions to our four main characters – all along the trail that S found while following Anca’s advice to follow the monkey. And, in a larger sense, S is following what Sola told him in the margins of his writing in the orlop that foretold this very trip: Keep going. Keep paddling and you’ll find yourself (p337).

Why use the howler monkey here? Here is a thought. In Mayan culture, there is a howler monkey god. The one shown in the picture of the statue above is in the ruins of Copán. These ruins received an explorer named Frederick Catherwood sometime before 1841. In the Daily Pronghorn article about the Lake Cormorant Boathouse, the Catherwood Cup sailing award is presented in 1949 to PSU’s men’s sailing team.

The howler monkey gods – there are often two of them – have been depicted on Classic vases in the act of writing books (while stereotypically holding an ink nap) and carving human heads. Together, these two activities may have constituted a metaphor for the creation of mankind, with the book containing the birth signs and the head the life principle or ‘soul.’ Variously described as wind gods and, more recently, as ‘were-monkeys’ and ritual clowns, these statues may actually represent howler monkeys in their quality of musicians.

Notice that the howler monkey gods are shown writing books, holding ink naps, and serve as a metaphor for the creation of mankind. And the monkey doesn’t make its first appearance in “S.” No. J.J. Abrams has the monkey in Felicity, ALIAS, LOST, and Fringe. See for yourself and follow the monkey through the works of JJ Abrams.

Is it possible that the reason the howler monkey is included in “S” at this critical moment to hearken back to this same symbolism? Writing. Ink. Creation. Soul. Music.

And if it is, what does it actually mean for we readers to follow the monkey? If we do, will we find the answers we seek? Will we find ourselves? What do you think?

The Daily Pronghorn – Standefer Hall Closed

Tags

Erich Husch, Fern Ruck, Fiona Kirk, Flood, Follow the Monkey, Ilsa Dirks, Jennifer Heyward, Max Funderburke, monkey dance, S. Opice Tance, Standefer Hall, T. Wright Moody, The Daily Pronghorn

VANDAL STRIKES ENGLISH DEPARTMENT DURING BREAK

Fiona Kirk
Editor in Chief

Standefer Hall will be closed for the first week of the semester due to extensive flooding on the two lower floors, which occurred during the winter break. The flooding was apparently caused by vandalism to water fixtures and pipes throughout the building.

“We suspect that a heavy, blunt instrument was used,” said PSU police lieutenant Tommy Crompton. “Like a sledgehammer, maybe, or a cinder block or brick or that sort of heavy instrument. We have not found this instrument in or near the building and suspect that the perpetrator carried it away with him [sic] or her person.”

Floors, walls, office furniture and electrical equipment, including computers, suffered the most extensive water damage. Books, file cabinets, and stacks of paper were also ruined. Most severely affected were graduate students in English, who share space in offices on the ground floor. “This sucks,” said fourth-year Ph.D. student Max Funderburke. “I lost like six months’ worth of work.” Ilsa Dirks, a third-year Ph.D. student, complained that the blue books from her students’ final exams last semester had been “turned to pulp.”

According to Lt. Compton, the vandal likely had a key to the building, as there were no signs of forced entry. No alarms were triggered. Video surveillance in the building has been nonoperational for several months, he said, due to a dispute with a contractor, but will come back on line soon. Damages were worsened by the fact that the flood went unreported for nearly 24 hours, owing to reduced campus security patrols due to the provost’s budget cuts. While there were some signs of “tagging,” police  do not suspect gang activity or any of the university’s fraternities.

English professor T. Wright Moody  told the Pronghorn, “this is the action of someone who has no respect for the university’s mission, for learning, or for scholarly research and no regard for others who are engaged in such activities. It is a sophomoric act of destruction, the product of an unenlightened, and perhaps even diseased, mind.”

PSU Provost Fern Ruck sought to assure the university community that the water damage will be fully repaired within the week and that they should not fear any health risks from mold or other residual effects of the flooding. “The cold weather kept many things from growing,” she said.

Any students or staff with information leading to the crime should contact Lt. Compton at extension 8-2351.

Classes scheduled to meet in Standefer have been relocated to other buildings around campus. A list of these changes appears on page 9 of this issue. Professors will be occupying temporary office space in Mahaffey Hall and in the basement of the Agriculture Building, both on the south side of the Quad.

Straka’s Original Ending for Ship of Theseus

Tags

Corbeau, Doug Dorst, Follow the Monkey, JJ Abrams, Khatef Zelh, S, Ship of Theseus, Sola, V.M. Straka, Vevoda, VM Straka

ICYMI: Straka’s original ending for Ship of Theseus may have been found. http://t.co/TJGFZ9JyRJ

— Doug Dorst (@dougdorst) July 9, 2014

The following is a transcription of Straka’s original ending for Ship of Theseus, so thought, as tweeted by author Doug Dorst himself.

The ending replaces everything in the original Ship of Theseus from the third word of the second line of p451 forward.

destroyed. But it must circulate. It must not be contained. And Vévoda is the one who contains it. Thus the task remains. When he and Sola have completed it, they will ascend these corridors and reemerge into the world. There may be Agents waiting, but there will be more workers, and they will all carry axes and chisels and any other implements they can use to destroy these barrels and let the black wine- 

He sniffs: a rank smell cutting through the olfactory fog of blue-black and earth. He recognizes it at the very moment he feels the tug on his trouser leg. The monkey, somehow, looks to be in much more vigorous health, and from its toothless mouth comes a vocalization of a sort that S. has never heard from it, free from taunt or condescension or irritation. It sounds-and here, S. wonders if the air in the cellars is fogging his mind-as if the monkey is mimicking the run of notes in S’s last whistle-call to Sola.

The monkey raises one hand, showing S. a jagged chunk of dark-gray rock, turning it back and forth as if it expects the light from the naked bulb ahead of them to catch one of its facets and make it gleam. When S. whispers, “I don’t understand,” the monkey darts ahead to the next barrel and beats the rock against its face, circling the bung. The sounds are loud, sharp, and echoing; everyone in the cellars will hear, has already heard. S. lurches toward the monkey, grabs at it, but catches only a tuft of fur which comes away in his hand. Then, with surprising strength and dexterity, the monkey wrenches out the loosened bung and sets the black wine spilling, arcing out into the path where it splatters and puddles on the packed earth. The smell swirling around him is…holy. The spirit inhabits. He hears a faint, euphonious hum of voices and stills himself to listen more closely. And the blue-black sheen on the surface of the puddles-this, this is the precious thing that has caught the light. He holds out a cupped hand, to taste-

Sola’s distress call, and a masculine shout. Which came first? How long has he been wavering drunkenly? How long has he been still?

This is the choice he makes: he runs forward, deeper into the cellars, toward her. He leaves behind the monkey, who darts to the next barrel. The reports of rock on oak begin anew.

He stumbles when the path suddenly dips, cracks his shoulder against a barrel chime, and sprawls, skinning the ground with knee, chin, and palm. His first thought is of Pfeifer, of being immobilized, unable to continue, unable to save himself or anyone else, but he is able to stand. From the murk of somewhere comes a cough, a gurgle. The monkey, no doubt tasting the fruit of its work. S. hobbles, walks, then runs. No broken bones. Pain and nothing more. And the pain awakens him more fully to what he should have understood more fully a long time ago: more important than thwarting Vévoda, more important than precious story and its circulation of truth, is Sola. What is most important to him is Sola. His story.

Does she know this already? She must.

One note from her whistle, but one that he only recognizes as the first syllable of a longer call. Without the rest, its meaning is unclear.

He calls back, one note, to acknowledge. I hear you. Implied, he hopes, is: I am coming. I will be there shortly. Do whatever you must do to stay safe. He can no longer conceal his position, anyway, not with the monkey’s noise, and what matters is his message, his reaching across the murky distance to her.

Deeper into the twisted descent there are voices, several male, and hers. Forward, while somewhere behind him, somewhere in the cellars where, too, this light cannot reach, the monkey destroys and, S. imagines, prances drunkenly through its destruction.

Vévoda regards his guests, deposed monarchs who with his help will reassume their rule within the year. A husband and wife. Frivolous people, but well capitalized, and they appear to be enjoying themselves amid this unexpectedly dramatic scene. They have not before experienced such a direct challenge, physical threat. Neither has he, of course, but his Agents have, which is what matters. This first impression has left him ambivalent. 

The woman sips while her husband helps the Agent complete the arrangements. “You’ve quite a collection,” she says.

“The wine attracts them,” Vévoda says. They raise glasses to each other, celebrating their understanding. 

The husband rises, blots at his vest with a handkerchief. Mops his forehead. Frowns at the blue-black streak that comes away.

The Agent straightens his hat. The resistance had knocked it a degree off true. The next time the whistle blows, Vévoda nods to him, sends him off to do his work.

The voices now sound conversational. Silence would have concerned him, but to hear their calm is terrifying. The sound of an Agent approaching is merely annoying, as it requires his stillness. He crouches in the shadow of a barrel in the darkest part of the passage, midway between the light at one end and the light at the other. These are the footsteps of a man who walks unafraid, who is certain he will have the best of any opposition he encounters. S. withdraws his knife from its sheath. He wishes the Agent would quicken his pace. Sola is all that matters.

His nose fills with the rich, rank smell of unwashed fur soaked in blue-black. He turns his head and finds the monkey there, at eye level. It opens its mouth but makes no sound, as if it knows better. Its breath, despite the wine coating its mouth, is the foul smell of decay. But here in the shadows the monkey sits, and S. has little choice but to sit silently beside it and listen to those voices ahead. Where is the rage, the sound of confrontation and struggle? Or even of triumph?

The Agent strides past them, in duster and fedora. He is a young man, tall and athletic, all confidence and jutting jaw. What he lacks is care, and S. dispatches him before the Agent even knew he was in danger.

As the man’s body trembles into its last, as life slips into earth, S. does nothing but wipe his blade. In the next moment, the Agent is nothing, and S. remains-what? A fury? A purpose? A fitting end?

S. moves on.

Through the dark: a scatter of whistled notes, as if they were flung carelessly into a wind. It’s not a signal he understands. It’s not their language.

The rightful princess laughs quietly to herself. What fun it is, to be full of the loveliest of wines and tootling away like a canary!

But their host suddenly appears put out. He is a delightful little man, immaculate of dress, and with that perfect white Charlie-why, the tips of the mustache fairly wink at her when he offers that sly smile! He is their host, and as such his discomfiture is, to be perfectly frank about the whole thing, more than a bit inconsiderate. She hopes it will not worsen and become rude. She does not want to like the man so. He will be extraordinarily helpful to them, and she would not like to feel indebted to a rude person. And now-a pretty pistol in his hand! Waving about!

“Dear me,” she says quietly to her husband. “Where did he come by that?”

Her husband does not respond. She ought not have expected him to. He hasn’t looked away from the rack since he finished helping the Agent in that most exciting business. It’s understandable, she supposes, but it’s still a bit rude, even for him.

Forward.

The monkey runs along with him, so closely as to be nearly underfoot, but they never tangle, never even touch. The two of them might well be one.

They make errors as they follow the voice-it’s now just one voice, and S. is certain it’s Vévoda’s. They follow pathways that run to dead ends, hesitate at forks before choosing incorrectly and having to double back. S. resents the monkey for not having a more finely-tuned animal sense of direction. He imagines-even as he runs, even as he strains to fix the voice’s location-the life he and Sola might find waiting when they return to the surface, the wine spilled, their work complete. He pictures them boarding the ship to soft-spoken expressions of admiration from the crew, paddling out through the pirate’s passage, and letting the wind send them freely skimming over the seas. He stills this vision in the most perfect of settings: an orange sky, just shy of dusk; a sturdy warm breeze filling the sails; their wake whitening to the water behind them, ever and always marking where they have been but need never go again. This is what awaits, if they can find her in time.

But in stilling the vision, he has corrupted it: standing on that imagined ship with her, dread swells within him. The sun, the wind, each other-none of it can beat back the dread that rises when he realizes that these waters are heavily mined. He knows this, somehow, knows that it is folly to pretend they are safe, that they are anything but doomed. It won’t be long before they hit one. The deftest of pilots could not steer them through. These devices, one of which saved his life an age ago, will kill him, and it will kill him at the very moment at which he most wants to live.

Their host cocks the pistol. Such a potent but discreet little weapon! His rudeness aside, it’s all quite thrilling.

The physics of sound cooperates, finally, and when the sound of the cocked hammer reaches S.’s ears, he knows precisely where the sound came from. He can see, ahead, the path splitting into a T; when he and the monkey turn the corner to the left, they will find the man holding the pistol. It is too late, and he is too close, to bother with stealth. His advantage will be in his speed, in his ferocity, in his absolute need to find her. The monkey screeches, it sounds like a war whoop. S. tightens his damp grip on the knife, and they turn the corner.

S. sees the pistol, waving erratically as it is brandished; he notes four wine barrels arranged haphazardly in one corner, startles at how well-lit the room is, intuits that the room is a rectangle and that he and Vévoda-this white-haired and white-bearded and anxious and tiny man-are facing each other at its only point of entry or exit. He hurls himself at this man with a firearm, noting two other people in the room and a dumbwaiter on the far wall and knowing that if Vévoda manages to get off a shot, the bullet will miss him because Vévoda has no training and little nerve; he makes weapons but has never had cause to use them.

It is not until the pistol fires and pain rakes his collarbone that he realizes what his instantaneous reconnoitering did not reveal. Where is she?

The bullet sails beyond, carrying his skin and blood. It ricochets off an earthen wall, punches through a barrel, and comes to rest in the liquid inside. 

The knife slides from his grip. It clatters across the floor, a surface of smooth, polished stone.

The pistol does the same.

They collapse as one, S. above and Vévoda pinned below. Close, closer as the small frame struggles beneath him, a pain rippling through his trunk and into the incandescent room. S. hears a furious growl issue from someone’s throat, though he cannot tell if it is Vévoda’s or his own.

The monkey appears beside them, shrieking, raising itself up with the rock in its hand. S. sees clearly the animal’s face, its small proud chin extending, its simple mouth wide, all the force in its body ready to spring. Time pitches forward as the monkey brings the rock down at them. S. turns his head and hears the sounds of rock against bone, and bone giving way. Once, twice, several times more. On and on.

S. rolls himself aside, wipes his face, waits for his breath to return.

Sola. He has not seen her and he has not heard her because she is no longer there. They will not ascend to sunlight together, they will not board the ship together. He will never have cause to dread where mines might lurk in the water; he will never have the fortune of concern.

He stands, sways. There are paintings on the walls here. There is a low table set with a decanter and crystal. Across the room, there is a woman in a purple gown, tugging at the hand of the man beside her.

“Well,” the woman says. “I hope you’re not…” She does not finish.

S. stares, slow to understand what she means. She yanks the man along with her, marching him past S. and the monkey and the remains of Vévoda. She is wearing Sola’s whistle about her neck, yet S. cannot think of a reason to stop them, and so they vanish into the cellar maze. He moves himself toward the space where they had been, in front of the barrel rack, because he sees now that it is not all empty. The rack cradles three bodies, each lying face up, each with feet to the wall and heads tilted back over the rim. Gravity arches the throats. The faces are swirled and spattered and streaked in blue-black. On the smooth stone are spatters and streams and the fine settled particles of a blue-black mist. On an adjacent wall, a spray of blue-black, patterned like a shotgun blast. He knows-without even registering the servant’s costume-that the body closest to it is Sola’s.

Black wine is still dripping from her mouth. Her lips are still wet.

The voices rise again, double him over, but he straightens and moves closer, one hand clamped over the wound on his shoulder. The faces are too darkly inked for him to make out the features until he stands close. Sola. Khatef-Zelh, still young, unchanged from when he met her in El-H___. Corbeau, as she was on the wharf, in the hills, in the cave, in midair. And now, he sees, a fourth body, tiny, nestled between the girl and Corbeau: an infant. The baby from the Territory, he feverishly decides, though it’s difficult to say.

Sola should not be here. None of them should be here. But they are here, and it is because he failed them. All of them.

The noise in his head: all the voices of all the cities, all the scream and static from the skies over the sea, all the thunder of bombs falling to earth. All the noise of this life of failures, a life that was never even his own to begin with.

 

You toss your rock away, watch it bounce and spin across the floor. You stretch your stiff limbs. The stove-in man’s eyes are open, but you ignore this. You know when a thing is dead. Why would you even think to gaze into a dead eye?

Across the room the transparent man raises his hands and presses them over his ears as the wound on his shoulder bleeds freely. He shakes. He shakes so hard you can see a thousand man-shaped outlines within him flutter and blur. He drops to one knee, to the other, to the ground.

Your senses are acute-you are made of senses-and from across the room you can hear the voices in his head. So many voices, desperate, raging, pained, hopeless, and all of them are his own.

A thousand outlines flutter, but the man is still. His clothing is blood and black wine. You call out and he does not move. 

His stillness unsettles you. Why sit with the dead?

It occurs to you for the first time that this man has never known that he is transparent. But why should it have occurred to you? How could any creature fail to understand such a fundamental thing about itself? You met the transparent man long ago, and that has always been what he is.

But as you watch him, slumped, the thousand outlines fluttering, you can sense the space inside him darkening, thickening.

You are old. You have seen everything. You have not seen this.

The man now has only two wants. His scent carries them to you. He wants to pick up the knife and carve a strange shape into the stove-in man’s face, or maybe into the pale, white-furred skin of his belly, but he does not want that enough to do it. His second want is to strike a match. This alarms you. You are soaked in black wine, and you understand doom. It is instinctive.

You stretch again, then approach. Poke the man with your finger. Screech in his ear. Stand, you tell him. Move. He does not know your language but he knows its meaning. Move. Stand. Walk, because this is what must be done. You do not stay underground with the dead. You ascend, you emerge, you breathe. Then you find your way to the water. Where there is water there is a ship, so that is where you go.

You pinch his skin. Swat his face. You grab the arm that is not bleeding and tug. Walk, you man, walk.

But he does not move, stand, walk, and so you sit, you still yourself, and you think. You wonder if, all this time, there has been something essential about him you have failed to understand.

 

Who Is The Lady on Obsidian Island?

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…

Reconnecting with Ourselves in “S”

Tags

Doug Dorst, Eric Husch, Filomela Caldeira, Follow the Monkey, Jennifer Heyward, JJ Abrams, S, The Glass Bead Game, The Great Synthesis, V.M. Straka, VM Straka

The definition of hell is a place where nothing connects with nothing. – T.S. Eliot

The book of “S.” is about connections. Eric and Jen connect in the margins of a dusty old library book. S. and Sola connect in Ship of Theseus. Filomena Caldeira longs to connect to V.M. Straka in person.  We, the readers, are attempting to connect all of the puzzle pieces hidden within the text into a picturesque whole.

Within “S.,” however, we find forces attempting to break those connections. FXC fails to connect with VMS at the San Sebastian Hotel in Havana, Cuba. Vevoda disconnects the Zapadi Three from their community, and continues throughout the story to wield a sword of disconnection in many lives. S. is disconnected from his very self…

More than anything, he wants to see something familiar, something that connects him, however tenuously, to the world he must have known before he lost his memory, his identity, himself. (p46)

In every story, the antagonist has a specific mission. In “S.,” Vevoda’s purpose is ostensibly to grow rich by selling a new kind of weapon and to protect his interests at all costs. But the deeper story here is that Vevoda’s purpose is to sever connections.

Let’s examine some specific scenes in the book that vividly illustrate Vevoda’s ill will in this manor.

We are told in “S.” to follow the monkey. When we first see the monkey, he is connected to the organ grinder by a thin piece of rope “knotted through the organ grinder’s belt loop” (p8). The next time we see him, he is now disconnected from his master and running away from the organ owner’s dim-witted sons “trailing a rope that slaps softly over the street-stones” (p25). This happens as S. is being shanghaied – his first disconnection from Sola – and carried to a ship. His last thought before passing out is Run, monkey. Run.

In The Emersion of “S” (Chapter 3), just after the bomb has gone off on the wharf in B__, S. lies on the ground and appears to experience a flashback (p106-108). After attempting to connect on the wharf there with a girl…

They’re speaking to each other, the boy angling himself toward her, the girl taking a half-step back, keeping distance between them, which surprises S., because isn’t the point of scenes like this that the two people—two bodies, two souls—come together?”

After the failed connection, the boy despondently loads his pockets with weights and prepares to throw himself into the sea.

In Down, and Out (Chapter 5), we see Vevoda’s brown-duster detectives advancing on the fleeing party that includes S., Corbeau, Stenfalk, Ostrero, and Pfeifer. Ostrero and Stenfalk meet their demise at the hands of the detectives, and Pfeifer points out the severed connections that result…

Don’t pretend you don’t see it. She’s gone. It’s what happens. You love, then you lose, then you die. Even if you survive, you die. Think about Ostrero: couldn’t stand to be without his wife and kids. Lost his nerve. And now her. She’s not who she was this morning. Never will be. (p183)

Ostrero, while trying to reconnect with his family, is disconnected from them forever. Corbeau, upon losing her connection to her lover, Stenfalk, will never be the same.

As S., Corbeau, and Pfeifer make their way through the cave to escape the detectives, they come across the painted drawings of the K—.  The drawings seem to go in chronological order as they go deeper. The story the drawings tell is one of a unified people with a strong spiritual faith. These drawings of unity and faith grow stronger and richer as the three go deeper until they climax on p184 with this drawing…

On the wall opposite him, S. notices some thing different—a set of symbols that looks like a numbering system. It’s a ledger of some sort, perhaps, fitting into the space between two figures who are both looking at it as if it were a solid thing.

Immediately following this drawing of symbols that seem to connect two people-paintings who stare directly at it, everything changes.

The walls look different now; the lines and colors are as precise as any S. has seen, but the images aren’t as dense. Fewer hands at work, perhaps—fewer people willing to walk this far into the caverns to paint. But the narrative is changing, too; the tribe seems to be splitting into factions. One group of figures is drawn carefully, lithe and graceful; the others look dashed-off, blocky and rough, with much less detail. The two groups now hunt separately. The two groups face off again and again in some sort of tribal meeting. After a while, S. notices another, more subtle difference: the bird-wolf spirits now appear only rarely, and even when they do, they are high above the human action, made small with distance.

The K— become a disconnected people – disconnected from each other and from their once spiritual journey. The paintings thin out beyond this point.

Shortly afterword, Pfeifer’s injury forces him to disconnect from the other two. He remains behind to face the detectives.

The remainder of the chapter brings the connection between S. and Corbeau into sharp focus.

After S. descends through an opening in the floor of the cave, Corbeau slips and falls, landing in his arms. At this precise moment, S. sees that familiar symbol painted on the wall of the cave. They then work together, physically tracing out an S as they navigate an S-curve and arrive at an opening in the cave high above the water.

It is here that they hold hands in a very physical connection. And when they do, Vevoda’s detectives mock this connection with the words That’s so sweet. And then, as S. and Corbeau leap from the cave with hands clasped, they are separated by death as the bullets miss S. but fail to miss Corbeau (p197).

That’s so sweet punctuates the separation that occurs even while the two fugitives remain attached in a fervent grip.

Rewind to p130-131, when S. and Corbeau first hold hands. Jen comments in the margins That’s sweet, punctuating her connection to Eric, who admits leaving an S symbol on the cafe bulletin board to say hi. And these margin notes are written as “Corbeau tightens her grip on his hand.” It is at the precise moment that S. notices his infamous symbol not only once, but twice as a mirror image, etched in a design in the shutters in the home where they have hidden.

Here the two S.’s face each other

Here we have the story of the connection between S. and Corbeau beginning with clasped hands and That’s sweet and S.‘s recognition of two S. symbols in the shutters. And their connection ends with clasped hands, That’s so sweet, and a single S. symbol on the cave wall seen moments before as S. holds Corbeau in his arms.

Throughout “S.,” Vevoda continues to break connections. His business is war – the very definition of global disconnection. And toward the end of the book, as S. himself has chosen this path of violence in retaliation against Vevoda, he sees something very important.

He is riding in a boat on his way to commit the assassination of Nemec, whom we later discover is actually Pfeifer, from the cave. As he does, he notices that Vevoda has destroyed the hills and the ancient symbols etched on their sides in order to harvest the substance of war. And one of those symbols, only partially destroyed, burns its way into S.‘s mind.

The S. itself is broken. Disconnected. Missing a piece of itself. Unrecognizable unless you already know what the whole should look like.

This is the state of S. in this moment. He, too, is broken and disconnected – missing a piece of his very self – symbolized by the death of the magpie as he runs from the palace guards.

S. remains broken and disconnected more than ever during his stay in the Winter City of Chapter 9. Here he is unable to communicate with anyone, even though they are all around him. No one can connect with anyone – it is T.S. Eliot’s very definition of hell.

This is the evil antagonist of “S.” – separation, disconnection, brokenness – hell itself.

The only way to restore what is broken is to find connection. S. must find Sola. He must find himself and return from his own path of violence and disconnection. This must be where the story leads us.

And it does…

If we are to find the underlying clues that lead us to the richest cache of treasure found in the book, we must make connections. It is only then that we may solve the mystery, find ourselves, unite with others, and rediscover the spiritual side of ourselves that we have lost.

Thoughts on Chapter 1: What Begins, What Ends

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Art of the Fugue, Bach, Doug Dorst, Follow the Monkey, JJ Abrams, The Archer's Tales, V.M. Straka, VM Straka

 What begins at the water shall end there, and what ends there shall once more begin.

There is a thematic similarity between the S.‘s opening walk to the tavern and the entire story in Ship of Theseus. Like a musical fugue, the introductory theme is played in a single voice, and then the rest of the piece is built around that theme.

S. passes a woman attempting to straighten a sign advertising ROOMS. (p4-6)

It is noted that this is a city of ancient and flawed geometries. This scene correlates to S‘s disorientation beginning with his awakening on the streets of the Old Quarter, his struggle to understand his identity, his capture and “imprisonment” aboard the ship, the floating stars above and the “drifting twins,” and the waterspout storm that destroys the ship and leads him to the city of B—.

This scene would cover two chapters:

1. What Begins, What Ends
2. The Drifting Twins.

S. passes the barrel organ owner and the immigrant grinder in their distrustful exchange. (p7-10)

We see that this is a city of ancient and flawed arithmetics. We discover that the barrel organ man cheats the immigrant once in the dividing of profits, and again when he plans to send his “slow-witted but strong-armed sons” to attack the immigrant, grind his wrist bones to dust, and steal back even more. Then they will chase the monkey, attempt to sell it, and eventually try to kill it – but the monkey will escape.

This scene mirrors S.‘s arrival at the city of B— and his eventual flight from Vevoda’s men. The uneven exchange between the organ grinder and organ owner is a metaphor for strike between Vevoda and the factory workers.  The violence against the immigrant represents the bomb that goes off on the wharf. Vevoda’s detectives are mirrored in the barrel organ owner’s sons, and both men pursue an innocent bystander with hostile intentions – but both monkey and S. manage to escape. Run, monkey, run.

This section covers three chapters:

1. The Emersion of S.
2. Agent X
3. Down and Out

S. passes the three boys who are throwing bricks and rocks at the streetlights, destroying the light. (p10-12)

S. at first does not know what is happening up ahead. He hears the bricks and rocks plocking on the street in three groups of three. He sees that the street before him is shrouded in darkness. Finally, he catches up with the boys and they hide in the shadows. As S. passes, they re-emerge and put out yet another light. Later, when he arrives at the tavern, he notices that it is lit by only a single intact streetlight, which highlights the symbol “S.“

This scene serves as a metaphor for S.’s life plunging into darkness as he runs from Vevoda and makes the conscious choice to become an vengeful assassin. The boys in the shadows are the Agents of Vevoda, and they hide from him because he represents the end of their “fun.” It is only S.‘s presence in the book that give momentary pause to the activities of the Agents of Vevoda as he pursues them and kills them, but it isn’t permanent. More emerge, and the light continues to lose its battle with darkness. Even S. himself is enshrouded in darkness as he pursues this unholy path.

Compare this quote from Chapter 1 regarding the three boys throwing rocks (p11)…

Struggling to stifle the giddy laughter of transgression, they wait for him to pass.

…to this quote from The Interlude regarding Agents #9 and #41 (p322)…

this is what they know: the Boss’s name (Vévoda, they whisper to each other, with the giddy thrill of transgression) is being broadcast over a shortwave frequency and linked to all sorts of malfeasance and treachery.

This section covers these chapters and the Interlude:

1. A Sleeping Dog
2. The Obsidian Island
3. The Territory
4. Toccata and Fugue in Real Time
5. The Territory

S. passes the harbormaster, who is upset that S. does not acknowledge his greeting. (p12-14)

The harbormaster looks through his spyglass and apparently sees S‘s soon-to-be ship entering the harbor, but he does not recognize it because it seems so surreal. He shrugs and heads home to his mother. He walks on the glass of the broken streetlights and struggles to understand who would do such things. He passes S. and offers a greeting, but is ignored, sending him into a disgruntled walk home.

This represents S‘s time in the Winter City, where everyone is in the same city but no one can see or talk to each other. Each lives in crowded isolation. Note that the harbormaster could see S‘s ship in the distance, just as S‘s ship waited in the distance off the shore of the Winter City outside the ice. The harbormaster’s desire for “comradeship and civility, the friendly hello, the small talk of a shared city” reflect S‘s own longing for the same as he spends his time in an arctic purgatory.

This section covers most of the chapter Birds of Negative Space – until S. connects with Sola.

S. sees the “S.” symbol for the first time and meets Sola in the Tavern (p14-23)

S. arrives at the tavern and notes the “S.” symbol for the first time, revealed by a lone, unbroken streetlight. He senses it means something and enters the tavern. After longing for someone to recognize him, he sees Sola looking at him. He approaches her, sees her reading The Archer’s Tales, and sits down with her. Here, for the first time, he begins to feel a sense of identity.

This scene is a metaphor for S‘s finally connecting with Sola – first at the end of Birds of Negative Space and then on through the end of the book in the final chapter, Ships of Theseus. Note that S. sees Sola reading the book The Archer’s Tales by Arquimedes de Sobreiro. At the end of Birds of Negative Space, Sola meets S. in the very apartment where Sobreiro lived – and died. She helps S. understand that he is connected to Sobreiro. “Different stories. Same tradition.”It is S.’s connection to Sola that gives him his sense of identity. Rather than continue to pursue the dark path of assassination and violence, he finds enlightenment. He sees himself, lit by that lone light. He is S. He gives up his path and leaves Vevoda alive. The two of them return to the ship (the ship that in the Obsidian Island book of “S.” has Sobreiro visible in the hull of every drawning of S.‘s ship).

Now they are together and now things make sense.

This section covers the last half of Birds of Negative Space as well as the entire chapter Ships of Theseus.

Concluding Thoughts

This organization of the book lends more strength to the idea that the book Ship of Theseus is crafted in the manner of a musical fugue. And V.M. Straka, like J.S. Bach, has included riddles, ciphers, and puzzles for us to solve as the music plays.

The Card from Jean Bernard Desjardins

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Amarante Durand, Doug Dorst, Follow the Monkey, Jean Bernard Desjardins, JJ Abrams, Paris Meridian, Rose LIne, S, Signe Rabe, St. Vincent, The Glass Bead Game, VM Straka

A person is no more and no less
than the story of his passion and deeds.
V.M. Straka

The card pictured above is found between pages 360 and 361. 361=19-squared. The card already struck me as significant. The numerology only adds weight to that.

Important things happen on p361.

1. Erich Husch reveals that Jean Bernard Desjardins married Signe Rabe in Carcassonne on 12/1/1952. The Church of St. Vincent in Carcassonne is on the Paris Meridian – the Rose Line. Did the wedding take place in this church on the Rose Line?
2. Jen Heyward reveals that Signe Rabe was born on 11/4/1930 in Perpignan. The Perpignan economy is heavily dependent on the cork oak tree (quercus suber), also known as Sobreiro.
3. The popular German Carcassonne board game is played by making connections with random tiles in such a way that roads connect to roads, fields connect to fields, and cities connect to cities. In the margins Eric connects Perpignan to Carcassonne, and Signe Rabe to Amarante Durand. This takes us back to the Glass Bead Game concept.
4. We find in the text that Pfeifer, also known as Governor Nemec, has married a girl named Molyb, short for Molybdena. The atomic number for the element molybdenum is 42. We later discover that Molybdena’s sisters all have names that point to elements and lead to the substance. In LOST, 42 means the meaning of life, as it does in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Compare this meaning to the quote on the card.
5. Pfeifer is explaining to S that his life is really the sum of his choices (my paraphrase). This points back to the sentiment in the card.
6. S. followed the monkey on the bank, carved into the tree, as instructed by Anca, to find the governor. His encounter with Pfeifer is a direct result of him following the monkey.
7. There is the contrast of the man on the card holding a bird and standing amidst roses and the man Pfeifer/Nemec lying in the roses with the green fly on his nose. Roses are always important symbols to JJ. Abrams and in literature in general. They typically symbolize life, perfection, ultimate meaning, etc.

Who is Edsel B. Grimshaw?

Tags

Doug Dorst, Follow the Monkey, JJ Abrams, V.M. Straka

Edsel B. Grimshaw is the writer of a scathing review of Ship of Theseus in 1950. He is mentioned in the marginalia by Eric Husch on p18 and p106 as hating a particular scene – the same scene mentioned in the review. The review itself is part of a post-production clue tweeted by author Doug Dorst on December 19.

Why the name Grimshaw? Here are a few ideas.

A grimshaw is a conundrum in chess that occurs when two black pieces mutually interfere with each other to block a checkmate by white.

A real-world grimshaw appears to occur in Ship of Theseus on p453 in the climax. As Vévoda attempts to aim his pistol at the monkey (who is draining the wine barrels by removing the bungs), the following scene occurs.

One of Vévoda’s guests chases the monkey—pointlessly, as the monkey never lets him get close, and the primary effect of his pursuit is to interfere with the raging Vévoda’s sight lines.

Shortly afterward, Vévoda is “checkmated” by S and Sola.

I’m not sure of the point of this, but it seems to me there is an emphasis on evil stumbling over itself before being defeated. Or  are we simply being reminded that in the battle between good and evil, good does not defeat the evil one by killing him – only by placing him in a position where he has no moves left?

There is also a connection to Gödel, Escher, Bach. Note that Edsel B. Grimshaw’s initials are EBG. These are the same initials of a fictitious author mentioned in Gödel, Escher, Bach known as Egbert B. Gebstadter.

It seems that the name Edsel B. Grimshaw (EBG) is a play on Douglas Hofstadter’s fictional character to get us thinking about the Eternal Golden Brain (EGB)  in Gödel, Escher, Bach (GEB).

Follow the Monkey

Tags

Doug Dorst, Follow the Monkey, JJ Abrams, VM Straka

One of the many hints in S suggests that we follow the monkey (352), with Jen Hewyard circling Anca’s words and adding the comment Sound advice. Here are my thoughts where the monkey leads us. We begin with a catalog of monkey sightings…

1. Filomela refers to the proverbial million monkeys (ix) immediately following a mention of Covarrubias.
2. The organ grinder’s capuchin monkey, tied to the organ grinder by a thin piece of rope, is a silent witness to an unscrupulous business transaction and the target of later retribution. (8-9)
3. The monkey is now attempting escape from the retribution foretold in #2. S notices this just before passing out after being shanghaied. S mutters, Run, monkey. Run. (24-25)
4. A monkey (the same monkey?) is found wrapped like a baby in the arms of a nearly-starved sailor aboard a two-masted ship that S‘s xebec comes alongside. The monkey comes aboard and attempts to get comfortable. (54-56)
5. The monkey jumps down the hatch as the waterspouts approach. (62)
6. S recalls the “two monkeys” he has come across while attempting to describe what he remembers to Ostrero. S says, Animals don’t seem to like me much. (87-88)
7. After S’s miraculous escape from Vevoda’s Detectives in the cave and the loss of Corbeau, S swims out of the line of fire and discovers to his amazement that the ship destroyed by the waterspouts has somehow resurrected. As he gazes in astonishment at this sight, S notices the monkey shrieking and swinging in the halyard. (200-201)
8. After threatening Maelstrom and demanding to be let off the ship, S gets a stern lecture and a promise that after his short visit on land, he will be happy to return to the ship. As he ponders this, he hears the monkey laugh. (219-220)
9. In Fn4, FXC references the Bouchard monkey. (263)
10. The female sailor with the pouting mouth appears to be trying to teach the monkey to mop the deck. The monkey is having none of it. The monkey is jabbering and running circles around the sailor. S attempts to communicate to the sailor, but she does not respond, and finally walks away. The monkey leaves a puddle of urine on the deck that she has just mopped. (266-267)
11. The monkey is sitting on top of a barrel in the middle of the deck tossing pieces of ship biscuit into the wind. It is at this same time the Maelstrom realizes that Vevoda’s planes are close by, and he orders a sudden change of course. FXC also references the Bouchard monkey in Fn11, and Straka says in his own words that that monkey is now on his back. (272)
12. The monkey is sitting on top of the ghost-ship boy as S becomes part o’ the tradition. (297)
13. The monkey shrieks as Vevoda’s planes make the first actual entrance into the apparently hidden world of the ship at sea. (338)
14. On his way to assassinate the governor, S dreams that he is paddling in the stern of a steel canoe. In the bow, with a monkey on her back, is Sola. (341)
15. Anca tells S to follow the monkey to find the governor, which turns out to be a symbol carved into a tree that leads him to the path. As S contemplates what it means to follow the monkey, he remarks to himself, Of course there is a monkey. There is always a monkey. Near the end of the path, S hears a howler monkey cry out in the distance. (352-353)
16. S hides the valise in the hollowed trunk of a dying possumwood (p353). Another name for the possumwood tree is the monkey-no-climb.
17. In the torrent of words section, one of the scenes mentioned is an insane parade of monkeys. (380-381)
    
18. When S is finally with Sola after his solace in the Winter City, he returns to the ship with her. There he finds the monkey, which seems much older now, curled up asleep. It awakens and makes a noise before returning to sleep. (401)
19. In the climax, the monkey is darting among the wine barrels, pulling out the bungs and draining the black wine. (452-454)
20. At the end, S envisions how he will obtain Maelstrom’s spyglass from its hiding place in the chart room – under the blankets where the monkey sleeps.

The last image of the monkey seems tantalizing – the hidden spyglass lay beneath the monkey.

What does it mean to follow the monkey?

Chapter 1, What Begins, What Ends serves as a prologue to the overall story, and the organ grinder’s monkey serves as a symbol to this story.

The monkey is tied down to a low-paying job, literally, with a rope. He is targeted for attack by the organ rental agency because the organ grinder was “stealing” funds. And yet it is the organ rental agency that has already stolen funds and now uses its resources to inflict great harm to both grinder and monkey. Near the end of the chapter, both S and monkey are in danger, and S roots for the monkey to escape.

Vevoda is like the organ rental agency – he does unscrupulous business and inflicts bodily harm on those who get in his way. The monkey is an innocent bystander on the run, just like S.

Before descending into the depths of where the monkey leads next, I suggest you read my post Carl Jung and “S” to get your mind oriented.

V.M. Straka’s Ship of Theseus is a Jungian journey into the collective unconscious. Or, as the Blue Man Group calls it, Rock Concert Movement #237.  Perhaps the monkey as a symbol for the collective unconscious came from this famous story of the 100 Monkeys.

The monkey is one of many symbols in the book that help us understand what is going on in S‘s unconscious mind – and ultimately ours. And since S does not realize he has descended into his unconscious, the symbols around him seem foreign with a life of their own, but they serve to help us understand S more deeply.

As you follow the monkey in the story, he (like S) is a passenger on the xebec after some unknown tragedy at sea occurs. He tries to find his place on the ship, but cannot communicate with the sailors. He does not work with the rest of the crew. The monkey jumps down the hatch when the waterspout approaches, illustrating S‘s own fear. S himself does not go down the hatch – the monkey is a metaphor for his feelings. These are the obvious parallels.

Some parallels are difficult to understand, such as when S and the monkey are seemingly at odds with one another. This represents the unconscious struggles we have with our very selves in certain situations. For example, the monkey is shrieking and swinging in the halyard apparently having fun while S is stupefied that the ship even exists. The monkey swings back and forth over the ship, as do S‘s eyes wander in wonderment at the vessel. The monkey shrieks as he swings, indicating the shouts of amazement that S feels inside over his astonishment.

One of the most interesting monkey encounters is as S attempts to communicate with the pouting female sailor. The monkey encircles the sailor, jabbering away as if to taunt her for having her mouth stitched shut. At the same time, S approaches the sailor and “jabbers away” as well, attempting to get her to communicate. She seems to have one mission – to mop the deck. She wanted the monkey to help, but he doesn’t. In fact, he leaves a puddle of urine on it after she has cleaned it. This is representative of what S does with the sailor. She has one purpose – to clean the ship with mop and holystone. She, another symbol of his unconscious, is trying to help S understand himself by cleaning away what obscures. But he doesn’t understand. And his failure to understand sends her away in a huff. He has urinated on her work.

When S dreams that the monkey is on Sola’s back, still and peaceful – this represents the work Sola is trying to accomplish. She, too, wants S. to understand himself. Know thyself, she seems to say in all of her encounters with S.

As S “follows the monkey” (finding the path to the governor’s residence), it is here that he begins to truly understand himself. He finds the path of the monkey, but where does it lead him? Pfeifer. The enemy without has now become the enemy within one of S’s innermost circles at one point in his life. Has S, like Pfeifer, become the very man he set out to destroy? Has his quest for good led him to be just as evil as Vevoda – killing those that stand in his way? It seems so, because just as S decides to go ahead and kill Pfeifer, a shot rings out and kills a Magpie as he flees. The European Magpie, self-aware and colored black and white. Two players, two sides. One is light. One is dark. (Ok, that’s from LOST, but the same concept is at work here.) The monkey has led us to this deep, internal struggle between good and evil that exists deep in the unconscious of S – and of you and I.

And finally, in the climax, we see that rather than kill a thousand people and murder Vevoda, S merely has the heir to the throne drink just enough avis veritatas (bird of truth) to be honest with himself and the crowd. Vevoda is left alive, and the monkey does overcomes evil with S‘s newfound truth: evil is drained of its power when S. ceases to fight it on its own terms. Do not overcome evil with evil, but overcome evil with good as the good book says.

In the end, when S has finally realized this truth and internalized it deep in his unconscious, he is finally able to see himself clearly. He finds the spyglass, underneath the sleeping monkey’s perch, and is able to see a new ship – reconstructed and ready to sail the high seas with Sola by his side.

Who is Sola? Well, that’s another post…

Mystimus

P.S. Jen Heyward makes a comment on p455, near the end…

See? This whole final sequence was hers from the monkey’s appearance on.

Eric and Jen are now apparently have the original VMS manuscript for Ship of Theseus. It appears FXC changed the ending from the monkey’s appearance on (Straka’s version gave Jen nightmares – p452). Meaning? That FXC was trying to convince VMS (if he was still alive) and his readers that there is a better way. We are all dying to know that Straka’s version is, I’m sure. But that is the point – which ending will we write in our own lives for similar struggles? What will we decide for ourSelves?