Twelve Projects for 2009

Dec27

Last year instead of resolutions, I thought in terms of projects, lots of projects that I wanted to complete in 2008. I wouldn’t say I was any more or less successful with my projects than most people are with resolutions, but I like the tradition anyway and plan to to continue it this year. So here are my twelve projects for 2009, with evaluations of how I did on some of the same projects in 2008.

1. BIble Reading Project. Last year’s BIble reading project was a qualified success. I didn’t read every day, and I didn’t study the books and passages I chose as intensely as I wanted, but I did read and study some. This year’s BIble reading plan is the same as last year’s: choose a book or part of a book of the BIble for each month of the year, read it daily, and study it using some good study tools. Take notes in my Bible and maybe this year in a journal, too. The selections for this year:

January: II Samuel 1-8 Last year I read and studied I Samuel, so II Samuel seems to be next.
February: I Thessalonians
March: II Samuel 9-16
April: II Thessalonians
May: II Samuel 17-24
June: I Timothy
July: Joel
August: II TImothy
September: Amos
October: Titus
November: Psalms 1-5
December: Psalms 6-10

2. Pulitzer Project. This one will have to be a repeat from last year since I read only one of the books on my list, The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty. I didn’t review it because I didn’t really care for it much.

3. My Newbery Project for last year was also something of a bust. I think I got stuck because the winners for 1925 and 1926 were both story collections, and I don’t like story collections. I may skip the storybooks and get back on track this year.

4. My Madeleine L’Engle Project also failed to get off the ground last year. I think I just have so many good books to read, and not enough time. Anyway, this is another one I want to try again this year.

5. Operation Clean House. I figure if I take a room or area of the house and concentrate on that section each month, I might get somewhere with the de-cluttering and cleaning. Maybe.
January: My closet and dressing area.
February: The rest of my bedroom.
March: Front hallway and entryway.
April: Living Room.
May: Kitchen.
June: Laundry room.
July: Half of the gameroom.
August: The other half of the gameroom.
September: Front bathroom.
October: Z-baby’s bedrooom.
November: Karate Kid’s bedroom.
December: Sit back and enjoy my reorganized home?
I might even, if I’m brave enough, post before and after pictures to keep myself motivated.

6. LOST Reading Project. I really want to get back to this project this year.

7. The U.S. Presidents Reading Project has a list of all of the U.S. presidents and suggested reading selections (non-fiction) for each one. The challenge is to read one biography of each one. I would really like to start this project this year.

8. American History Project. In conjunction with the U.S. Presidents Reading Project, I’ll be teaching American history at home and at co-op next school year. So I’m working on planning a high school level literature/history class for co-op and condensing the Sonlight third and fourth grade curriculum suggestions for American history into one year for my little girls.

9. Poetry Project: I would like to get my urchins memorizing and reading poetry. I would like to read and memorize poetry. I would like to have more Poetry Parties.

10. Prayer Project. I need to spend some daily concentrated time in prayer and meditation. My plan is to pray and read my Bible before I get on the computer each day so that I can bathe all these projects and all my children and my husband in prayer.

11. Book Club Project. I’m really, really, truly starting my book club this year. We’re having our first meeting to discuss the books for the year this afternoon. If any of you are interested in participating (virtually), email me at sherryDOTearlyATgmailDOTcom, and I’ll send you the details. I’ll also be posting the book club selections for each month of 2009 here at Semicolon soon.

12. VIdeo Project. Engineer Husband and I are s-l-o-w-l-y watching the series Band of Brothers at night after the urchins are asleep. After we finish those videos, we’re planning to watch the HBO adaptation of David McCullough’s biography of John Adams, recommended here.

Bonus Project: I’ll keep blogging, the Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, and I’ll keep you all updated on all my projects for 2009.

LOST Rehash: There’s No Place Like Home

May16

Unstuck in Time

The Wizard of Oz again. Ben is still the Man Behind the Curtain; only now he’s come out and given himself up, a sacrifice so that Locke can move the island. But we know that Ben doesn’t get killed because he’s been directing the opposition to Widmore, again from behind the scenes. So, if I’ve got the time thing right all the flashbacks/flashforwards this season have been counting down to this homecoming episode. The farthest forward in time we’ve gone is the final episode last season when Jack told Kate they had to go back to the island. All the flashes for this season have happened in between the rescue that’s taking place this week and two weeks from now and that finale last season.

I’m getting “unstuck in time.” I think maybe when Locke moves the island, he moves it not only in space but also in time. So everyone who has anything to do with the Island, for whom maybe the Island is a “constant”, is now unstuck and drifting. I’m hoping Daniel Faraday doesn’t become unstuck and dead. Sun had a very poignant look on her face when she took the baby and left Jin and Desmond in that cabin full of explosives. How do she and the baby escape —without Jin? And why does she say that Jin didn’t survive the plane crash instead of saying that he died in the water or on the island?

Alice and The White Rabbit

Twins and mirrors and half siblings are big themes in LOST. Jack and Claire are half siblings; Boone and Shannon were half siblings, too. Didn’t Walt have a baby brother, or am I imagining that? Locke and Ben aren’t twins or siblings, but they are sharing more and more characteristics and history: a mom named Emily who leaves the scene soon after their birth, a “calling” to the island, deadbeat dads, a tendency to manipulate people and force them to do things. We’re not only back to Oz; we’re also back to Wonderland with all the rabbits’ feet and the superstition to go with it. See comments here.

Of Tibet, Dharma, and Creeping Syncretism

Oh, and in relation to Locke and his “specialness” in last week’s episode, I thought this tidbit was fascinating from J. Wood’s LOST commentary at PowellsBook.blog:

Two years after Thubten Gyatso (The Dalai Lama) died, his corpse still lying in-state, his head strangely changed positions, and was found facing northeast rather than south. So the monks headed northeast, and after some other signs and omens, they came across little Lhamo Thondup and gave him a particular test: They showed him a number of items, some of which belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama. If the boy recognized the items as his, that would be evidence that the Dalai Lama had been reborn. When they showed the boy the collection of items, he immediately claimed that items belonging to Thubten Gyatso were his, and that’s how Lhamo Thondup became Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. That’s just what the ageless Richard Alpert did with young John Locke.

So do the Dharma people believe in reincarnation? They do act and talk kind of Eastern mystic-like with all the “Namaste” and discovering hidden talents in special children. And Richard was angry because . . . Locke was supposed to go to the island way back when, but he flunked the test out of stubbornness? Did the universe/island self-correct by using Ben instead?

So if all of this story hinges on some Eastern religious metaphysical explanation, I’m going to be disappointed because, let’s face it, I’m not Buddhist or Hindu or even Taoist. And I don’t believe Truth lies there any more than it lies in the fearful superstition of Hurley and his mom. And I won’t like it if there’s a scientific explanation for everything either, although that would be better. So far the writers have been good at keeping their options open and playing one belief system against another (Man of Science, Man of Faith) with Eko and Rose and Claire and Charlie to some extent representing the Christian worldview, but they’re going to have to come to some conclusions someday. They can’t all be right, can they?

Best lines of the evening:

Ben to Locke: Haven’t you learned yet that I always have a plan?

Hurley’s mom: Jesus Christ is NOT a weapon!

Sawyer to Jack: You don’t get to die alone!

Thanks for indulging my rambling thoughts. What are you thinking about LOST these days?

LOST Rehash: The Shape of Things To Come

Apr25

What I asked:
Why can’t Ben kill Widmore, or vice-versa?

What rules (whose rules) did Widmore violate when his henchman killed Alex? These people live by rules?

Where is Penelope now, and why wouldn’t Ben be able to find her? Is Desmond with her?

Who killed the doctor? And could it be that the doctor really is fine, back on the boat in the past? But the “time warp” made it seem like the Boat People are lying? And made Faraday try to lie?

Why is Ben so attached to Alex since he really isn’t her dad? He doesn’t seem to care about anyone else. Why Alex? Because he raised her? Did he really steal her from Rousseau? Why? Why were Ben’s people taking children in the first place? To replace the surplus population?

And what’s going on at that “temple” with Little Richard and the rest of Ben’s people? And the kids they stole?

How does Ben end up in the Sahara? What is that “thang” Ben used to take out the Bedouins? Whatever it is, he knows how to use it, and it’s lethal.

Wasn’t C.S. Lewis in the desert of Tunisia when we first met her? I can’t remember what it was she found there. Something with a Dharma logo?

Who is Jacob, and why do Ben and Locke have to pay him a visit? Yeah, I know, so that Jacob can tell them what to do next. Why? Why is Hurley the only one who can find Jacob’s cabin now?

Is Locke a total dork? Answer: yes.

Why can’t Widmore find the island in 2005? He seems to have done so once; why not again?

Why did They kill Nadia? What did she have to do with anything? Maybe Ben had her killed just to get Sayid on his team. Ben has an evil smile.

What will happen to my now-favorite characters: Miles, Daniel Faraday, and C.S. Lewis? Oh, I hope, hope, hope, nobody kills them. Even if Faraday is a bad liar.

What I liked:
Bernard knows Morse code. I like Bernard and Rose. I may be the only one who does, but I have a soft spot for both of them.

Sawyer and Hurley playing RISK. Who won that game? I guess it was interrupted.

Hurley’s taking the servant-leadership position again. “Guys, just put down the guns.”

Sawyer’s an old softie. “If you harm one hair on that curly head . . .” I think we can expect Sawyer to do something really cold and self-centered soon just to balance out the the mush. ‘Cause he’s Sawyer, and he can’t allow anyone to think he’s going soft.

Moriarty? Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis, an arch-criminal, head of vast crime syndicate. That’s Ben. (Kerouac also has a character named Dean Moriarty in his book, On the Road, but I prefer A. Conan Doyle’s Moriarty.) However, if we’re going to have to choose between being on Ben’s side or Widmore’s side, I say, “A plague on both their houses.”

Predictions:
Jack will not die of appendicitis.

Claire will die soon. She’s acting kind of like a zombie lately, anyway.

Desmond and Penny will not be reunited because Desmond doesn’t have very good luck.

Sawyer and Locke will fight a civil war over control of the island as soon as The Oceanic Six leave, however they leave.

Faraday and Hurley ought to become friends, but they might kill Faraday off. Which would be sad. Because I like him almost as much as I like Hurley.

I’m glad LOST is back.

Winter Haven by Athol Dickson

Apr4

I’m sorry to say that I didn’t think this book, the third novel I’ve read and enjoyed by Mr. Dickson, was as good as either River Rising (Semicolon review here) or The Cure (Semicolon review here). Of course, I put River Rising on my list of the Best Novels of All Time, and I’ve raved about it over and over. So, the pressure to live up to its predecessors was intense. The dialogue in this latest novel felt forced and stilted, and the plot reminded me of a Gothic romance: a dashing older man with a dilapidated mansion and secrets to keep, dark and eerie events and characters, hints of violence and horror in the past, the question of whether Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome can be trusted. Add in an insecure and frightened heroine and a madwoman, and it’s all been done before, better, in Jane Eyre or Rebecca. Your mileage may vary, but if you haven’t read River Rising, by all means, drop everything and hie thee to the nearest bookstore or library and grab a copy.

Still, I did like the setting of Winter Haven on an isolated island off the coast of Maine. What are the advantages of setting a novel (or play) on an island, particularly an island with limited or no access to the outside world. It’s like LOST. (Winter Haven has time issues and a polar bear, too—like LOST. No, I am not obsessed with LOST.)

In an island setting, you, the author, can limit your cast of characters, and you can make The Island a metaphor for the Earth itself or for a community. Or you can further isolate your protagonist by making him a castaway on a deserted island as in Robinson Crusoe or the Tom Hanks movie Castaway. What does solitude and the lack of relationship and human companionship do to a man, or a woman? How does he survive alone? Or you can have a group of castaways forced to associate and build a new society, for better or for worse: The Swiss Famiy Robinson (utopian) or Lord of the Flies (very dystopian).

Let’s build a list of island stories:

Books:

The Odyssey by Homer. (Odysseus travels from one island to another and gets trapped on Calypso’s island home.)
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss.
The Tempest by William Shakespeare.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
Hawaii by James Michener.
Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie.
A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie.
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhyss.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. (island-hopping)
The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells.
Mysterious Island by Jules Verne.
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell.
The Cay by Theodore Taylor.
Island by Aldous Huxley.
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Pitcairn’s Island by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. ( A sequel to Mutiny on the Bounty)

Film
Gilligan’s Island (TV series from my misspent youth)
Fantasy Island (ditto)
Key Largo
South Pacific
Cast Away
LOST (TV series from my misspent middle age)

Romesh Geneskera’s Top Ten Island Books

Anyone have additional suggestions in the category of Good Stories with Island Settings?

LOST Rehash: The Beginning of the End

Jan31

Lost

Poster

Buy at AllPosters.com

SPOILERS ————–SPOILERS ————– SPOILERS———– SPOILERS

The Oceanic Six: Jack, Kate, Hurley, Claire, Sun, and Jin (with Baby Aaron as a bonus). Or maybe Sawyer instead of Jin.
Why? Because Desmond saw Claire get on the helicopter and because Sun will die if she doesn’t have the baby off island. And Jin wouldn’t let her go without him. But maybe Jin gets left behind somehow, and Sawyer, who’s always looking out for number one, gets himself rescued.

The Secret Jack doesn’t want Hurley to tell: The six who were rescued told their rescuers that they were the only survivors left on the island, that there was no one else still living on the island. They did this to protect the others who escaped and/or didn’t want to leave.

New questions:

How do the Six get isolated from the others and rescued with the rest left behind?

What kind of trouble are the people left on the island having, and how can Jack and Crew help if they go back?

Is Penny still looking for Desmond?

Who was the guy who came to see Hurley in the mental hospital, and why does he want to know about survivors left on the island?

WHY does Jack think he should grow a beard?

Did Hurley’s dad spend all of his money while Hurley was gone?

And I’m still wondering, who is the someone Kate has to get back to when she meets Jack at the airport?

I’m looking forward to the episodes that we get for this fourth season, and I hope that we get all sixteen promised episodes before too long a wait.

Shannon’s LOST post.

Bill’s LOST post at Thinklings.

J. Wood’s LOST post for this week. This guy does the best literary analysis of LOST that I’ve seen anywhere.

LOST Reading Project: Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

Aug21

From the introduction (Penguin Classics edition) to Our Mutual Friend:

Most of the life in Dickens’s last completed novel tends to a state of suspended animation. Nothing seems certainly dead nor entirely alive.”

Well, if that motif doesn’t relate to the TV series LOST . . . Fans have been trying to decide whether the survivors of Oceanic Flight are alive or dead or someplace in-between ever since the series began.

p. 130 I’ve discovered a new word, and a very useful one at that: Podsnappery.

. . . The world got up at eight, shaved close at a quarter-past, breakfasted at nine, went to the City at ten, came home at half-past five, and dined at seven. . . . As a so eminently respectable man, Mr. Podsnap was sensible of its being required of him to take Providence under his protection. Consequently, he always knew exactly what Providence meant. . . . And it was very remarkable (and must have been very comfortable) that what Providence meant, was invariably what Mr. Podsnap meant.
These may be said to have been the articles of a faith and school which the present chapter takes the liberty of calling, after its representative man, Podsnappery.”

Having read a little over half of the book, I would now say that it’s not so much about suspended animation as it is about pretending to be dead or the advantages of playing dead and changing identities. One of the main characters is a man who allows everyone around him to believe he is drowned, takes on an alternate identity, and lives a life of observation as he watches to see the effect of his death on those he leaves behind. Two young ladies find a hideaway on a rooftop to escape the hard realities of their poverty-stricken lives. One of the young ladies, Jenny, feels as if she were dead when she’s up high above the city on the rooftop:

‘How do you feel when you are dead?’ asked Fledgeby, much perplexed.

‘Oh, so tranquil!’ cried the little creature, smiling. ‘Oh, so peaceful and so thankful! And you hear the people who are alive, crying, and working, and calling to one another down in the close dark streets, and you seem to pity them so! And such a chain has fallen from you, and such a strange good sorrowful happiness comes upon you!'”

Is this feeling of escape from the real world exactly what Jack and maybe some of his cohorts miss in the last episode of LOST Season Three? They’ve escaped death-in-life on the island and now they wish they could go back and again be above or outside of the real world.

Other characters in the book run away to their own hiding places, in the world but hidden away: Lizzie Hexam and Betty Higgins to the country, the Boffins hide themselves in their Bower, the incessant London fog hides everyone and everything. Many of the Losties are also escaping or hiding from the real world: certainly Kate and Sawyer, Shannon and Sayid, Claire and Charlie are hiding , running away from something or someone in their past. LOST Island is a great sanctuary, but as Season Three ended, their cover had been blown.

Some other obvious connections between LOST, the TV series, and Our Mutual Friend are: lots of strained father-daughter relationships (Kate, Penelope Widmore, Lizzie Hexam, Sun, Jenny Wren, Pleasant Riderhood), the effect of the sudden aquisition of great wealth (Hurley, Mr. Boffin), a profusion of peculiar characters whose stories intertwine (everybody in both stories).

I’ll write some more thoughts when I finish the book. I just thought that those of you who are missing LOST might like something to ponder, and a book recommendation, too. I’m enjoying the eccentric characters in Our Mutual Friend, and I would suggest that Desmond read it sooner rather than later. Wanting a certain book to be the last one you read before your death is all poetic and romantic-sounding, but the plan has some practical difficulties. How do you decide when death is imminent but far enough away to give you time to finish a Dickens tome before it’s too late?

Author Steven Berlin Johnson on LOST Season Two and Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend.

Lostpedia on Our Mutual Friend.

LOST Reading Project: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Jul18

Ambiguity. Spectres, ghosts, and apparitions. Good versus evil. Children captured by Others. Illicit or unrequited passion. Incipient insanity.

These are some of the elements that The Turn of the Screw shares with the TV series LOST. In a season two episode (Orientation), Desmond tells Jack and Locke that the DHARMA Initiative orientation film is on the shelf behind The Turn of the Screw. As anyone who’s been watching the show for a while knows, the books that are featured or mentioned are there for a purpose. James’s ghost story, The Turn of the Screw shares quite a bit in common with LOST.

First and last, there’s the ambiguity. I read James’s story to the tragic end, and my first thought was, “I don’t get it.” I re-read some sections and became even more confused. I wondered whether the narrator was at all trustworthy, whether she was sane, whether the ghosts were real or imaginary. (LOST fans: do those questions sound familiar?) The “screw” of the narrative does turn around and around, presenting a different view of the events in the story with each turn.

Ghosts appear —or are they real? Are the appearances in LOST real, or do they only appear to those who see them as some sort of aberrant psychological experience? Lots of dead people have appeared in LOST to various of the survivors: Jack’s dad, Yemi, Ben’s mother, Boone, Ana-Lucia. Are these messengers from beyond the grave evil or good? Then, there’s Hurley’s imaginary friend who leads him to the edge, both literally and figuratively, almost exactly the same thing that happens to the governess narrator in The Turn of the Screw.

The two children in The Turn of the Screw are also ambiguous characters. They may or may not be innocent children. They may be influenced by the evil spirits that the governess sees. According to the governess, the spirits are trying to capture the children and lead them to the pit of hell. In LOST, there’s a similar motif of Evil Others who capture children and do something to them or with them. Or the Others may not be evil at all.

The governess who narrates James’s story, who is the only one who says she sees the evil apparitions, admits from the beginning that she is in love with her employer, a shadowy figure whose main concern is that he not be bothered. Is she making up all the supernatural events in the story to impress her employer? To get his attention? Are the LOST characters also trying to get or to escape attention?

Are they all mad? Is the island imaginary or does it exist in another parallel universe? Do the ghosts that the governess sees exist in a parallel universe, or is she simply psychologically disturbed?

James leaves the ending to his story deliberately ambiguous. I certainly hope the writers and producers of LOST don’t do the same. From a review in Life magazine, 1898 by reviewer “Koch”:

Henry James does it in a way to raise goose-flesh! He creates the atmosphere of the tale with those slow, deliberate phrases which seem fitted only to differentiate the odors of rare flowers. Seldom does he make a direct assertion, but qualifies and negatives and double negatives, and then throws in a handful of adverbs, until the image floats away on a verbal smoke. But while the image lasts, it is, artistically, a thing of beauty. When he seems to be vague, he is by elimination, creating an effect of terror, of unimaginable horrors.”

What effects are the LOST writers producing as they turn the screw around and around from one season to the next? Are the LOST characters headed on a downward spiral into madness and death, or are they moving toward a resolution of their emotional and psychological dilemmas as they redeem themselves through suffering on the island?

We’re back to unresolved ambiguity —so far.

LOST Reading: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

Jun20

I’ve heard of Ambrose Bierce’s short story, but I don’t remember ever reading it. According to Wikipedia, “Kurt Vonnegut referred to ‘Occurrence’ in his book A Man Without a Country as one of the greatest works of American literature, and called anyone who hadn’t read it a ‘twerp’.”

I guess I just escaped twerpdom, thanks to LOST. In the second season episode entitled The Long Con, “Locke is shown holding this book (Occurrence) upside down, in the Swan, flipping through the pages as if he’s trying to find loose papers between them.” So, getting overly-analytical as I’m prone to do, I wonder what Occurrence has to do with LOST? (If you haven’t read the short story, there are spoilers ahead.)

In Bierce’s story, Peyton Farquhar is a Confederate sympathizer who falls into a Union trap and tries to burn down a bridge, Owl Creek Bridge. He’s about to be hanged from said bridge and in the brief interval between drop and death, he imagines that the rope breaks, he escapes, swims downriver, and returns to his home. Alas, the return home is only a figment of his imagination, and at the end of the story, Farquhar is dead; “his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of Owl Creek Bridge.”

Bierce plays with Time in this story just as the writers of LOST play with Time and Space in their story. There’s also a possible analogy between Peyton Farquhar’s supposed escape from death and the near-miraculous escape of the LOST survivors. (People don’t usually survive in a plane that breaks in half in mid-air and falls from the sky.) Are they really dead, as Naomi indicated when she said that the plane had been found and the passengers mourned? Maybe they’re caught somewhere between the final moments of life and death, and the Island itself is just an illusion? In the story, Farquhar imagines an alternate series of events in which he escapes the noose, escapes the bullets of the Union soldiers, and returns home to his wife, and the reader is conned into thinking that the escape is real. It feels real in the story; the circumstances surrounding Farquhar’s escape are described vividly.

So, is LOST a “long con”? I don’t really think so, but if we find out at the end that everyone’s really dead, that the entire six seasons were only a brief imaginary interval, a great many viewers are going to be unhappy. People don’t like being swindled, even by such a handsome devil as Sawyer/James/Josh Holloway.

“Doubtless, despite his sufferings, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene—perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have travelled the entire night. . . . As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon—then all is darkness and silence!”

Lostpedia on An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

Read Bierce’s story here.

More information about Semicolon’s LOST Reading project.

LOST books

Jun6

James Brush at Coyote Mercury has been reading the books referenced on the TV series LOST. An interesting reading experiment. What if you deliberately concocted a TV series or a movie that would spur the American public to read more books? That stir curiosity through literary references embedded in a story? I’m not talking Oprah’s Book Club or Reading Rainbow, although both of those are creditable efforts.

Has any TV series stirred more curiosity than LOST? (Dallas: Who shot JR?) I wonder if the books featured on LOST have risen in Amazon rank or in total sales and popularity since being shown or mentioned on a LOST episode?

Lostpedia says that the following books have been mentioned or shown or alluded to in LOST episodes:

After All These Years by Susan Isaacs.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume.

Bad Twin by Gary Troup.

Bible, especially the book of Exodus and the 23rd Psalm.

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Carrie by Stephen King.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

Dirty Work by Stuart Woods.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

Hindsight by Peter Wright.

I Ching

Island by Aldous Huxley.

Julius Caesar by William Shakepeare.

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.

Lancelot by Walker Percy.

Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabakov.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

The Moon Pool by A. Merritt.
The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne.

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce.

The Odyssey by Homer.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens.

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton.

Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien.

Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

Watership Down Richard Adams.

The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle.

Other books that seem to be related to LOST;

The Stand by Stephen King. Damon Lindelof has said that Stephen King’s novels, especially The Stand are an influence on LOST.

On Writing also by Stephen King. James writes about this writing reference book in relation to LOST at Coyote Mercury.

Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B.F. Skinner. The Dharma Initiative is said to be partially inspired by the work of behaviorist B.F. Skinner.

Lost Horizon by James Hilton. In the season 3 finale, Through the Looking Glass, Jack acts like a man who is trying to return to Shangri-La, the utopian paradise in the Himalayas where people never (?) die. This fictional cmmunity was the creation of of author James Hilton. LOST Island was no Shangri-La, but perhaps the two places have some features in common: prolonged life for some inhabitants and difficult entrances and exits.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

“Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?”

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!”

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I tried reading this famous novel a few months ago, but I suppose I quit before I got to the good part.

Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.

I’m definitely going to try to read and review some of these this summer —along with all my other reading projects.

LOST Names

May31

There’s no LOST (TV series) until 2008, and some of us are going through withdrawal. I have a few LOST posts saved up or planned for posting on Wednesday or Thursday —when I was posting my LOST Rehash, an analysis of the most recent episode. Maybe I can get through this dearth of LOST with a little help from my (blog) friends. 🙂

The names of the characters on the TV series LOST seem to have been chosen with an eye to symbolism and significance. I’m sure with all the LOST fanatics out there someone has done quite a bit more work than I have on this subject, but I think it’s fascinating to see what I can come up with on my own. I do a little LOST reading at Thinklings, where the guys live-blog the program almost every Wednesday, and at Powell’s where J. Wood, who is I’m sure some famous guy that I should know all about but don’t, blogs about the previous night’s episode on Thursdays. He particularly notes the symbols and literary allusions in the program. So, some of these guys probably have contributed to the ideas here, but otherwise I thunk it all up myself. And I may be reading way too much into the names or be way off base. But I’m having fun.

Jack Shephard: Jack does become the shepherd of these lost sheep survivors. He’s also forced to become, not just a doctor, but a jack-of-all-trades, doing whatever needs to be done to ensure the survival of the Losties. Jack’s father is Christian Shephard, but his father doesn’t live up to his name. In one recent episode, Jack said the only thing his father ever taught him how to do was drink. Nevertheless, Jack is the Christian “shepherd” that the LOST survivors need, in spite of his self-described lack of faith, and he seems to be able to do whatever needs to be done from carpentry to ping-pong to shooting a gun to negotiating a hostage release. Somebody must have taught him to be a shepherd and a doctor in spite of his father, or maybe his father wasn’t all bad after all. Now in the light of the third season finale, I think Jack’s going to shepherd the Losties all back to the island.

James Ford “Sawyer”: A sawyer is a wood worker, but Sawyer isn’t James’s real name. And Sawyer isn’t much of a worker of any kind. He stole his name from the con man that caused his parents’ deaths, and he became the con man that he hated. His real name “James Ford” sounds like a typical Southern good ol’ boy name, just who Sawyer pretends to be. But no one ever calls him Jim or Jimmy, do they? Not even in his back-story.

Katherine “Kate” Austen: Not much connection with the only Austen that comes to mind, Jane Austen. I guess Kate is attracted to both a “bad guy,” Sawyer, and a “good guy,” Jack, just like Elizabeth Bennett is attracted to Wickham and to the distant Mr. Darcy. Jack’s a little distant, too, got some pride going there.

Boone Carlyle: The LOST writers like philosophers’ names. Carlyle wrote a book called Heroes and Hero Worship, and of course, Boone had a bad case of hero worship with Locke. Boone also wanted to be a hero, but that didn’t work out too well.

Shannon Rutherford: Shannon sounds like a cheerleader name, and sure enough she’s a self-absorbed cheerleader type. Poor little rich girl.

Sayid Jarrah

Michael Dawson: What happened to Michael anyway? Part of his name is “son,” and of course, Michael’s overriding concern was his son.

Walt Lloyd (Dawson)

Vincent, the dog: What happened to Vincent? Is he still on the beach?

Claire Littleton: Claire’s almost a Madonna figure, but her name is Claire, not Mary. I am reminded of Clare of Assissi, who founded the female counterpart to St. Francis’s Franciscans.

Baby Aaron: Aaron was Moses’s older brother in the Bible, the spokesman for the speech impaired leader of the Exodus. Is Aaron the forerunner of Sun’s baby, and will Sun’s baby be the Moses who will lead them out of bondage, off the island?

Charles Hieronymus “Charlie” Pace: Hieronymous Bosch was the guy who did all those wierd pictures, like the one I’ve posted here. It looks like bad drug trip, doesn’t it? But it’s called The Garden of Earthly Delights. What kind of mother would name her son Hieronymus, even as a middle name. Then, too, Charlie is just a “good-time Charlie,” always following, along for the ride, out to have a good time. Until the final episode. Then we find out there’s more to Charlie than meets the eye.

Hugo “Hurley” Reyes: Hugo is, obviously, huge. He’s also the King, the richest man on the island, the luckiest, the wisest. I think Hurley is the Wise Fool whose backstage managing has done as much if not more to save the LOST survivors as Jack’s more up-front leadership. Hurley’s the king in disguise, alway managing things behind the scenes, always cutting through the complicated bull with a salient statement of common sense —or a van in overdrive.

John Locke: Locke was another philosopher. He wrote stuff that influenced the founding fathers of the American Revolution. He was an Enlightenment kind of guy, big on reason, but John Locke sees himself as a “man of faith.”

Jin-Soo Kwon

Sun-Soo Kwon

Danielle Rousseau: Another philosopher name. She lives in the wild, like Rouseau advocated. She’s untamed, a child of the jungle.

Eko Tunde

Juliet Burke: Juliet, as in Romeo and Juliet? Burke is another philosopher, but I don’t know anything about him.

Benjamin Linus: Benjamin means “Son of my Right Hand,” changed from Ben-oni, Son of my Sorrow because the Biblical Benjamin’s mother, Rachel, died giving birth to him. Benjamin was Joseph’s younger brother in the Bible; he caused his mother Rachel’s death in childbirth. Ben says he was born on the island; at least he’s lived there most of his life. Yet now the Island people can’t give birth, and the mothers die, too. Ben’s mother died, and he somehow survived. Linus reminds me of lying, something at which Ben is quite adept despite his protestations to the contrary. Linus is also the Charlie Brown character, and Ben resembles him with his beady eyes, glasses, and diminutive stature. No security blanket, though, that I can see.

Mikhail Bakunin: Mikhail Bakunin was a philosopher also, an anarchist philosopher. The name could relate to Island Mikhail’s fondness for guns, violence, grenades and shooting at people. Island Mikhail seems like a bit of an anarchist, a wild card at the very least.

Ana-Lucia Cortez

Desmond David Hume: Hume was a Scottish philosopher. He was a skeptic, and Desmond’s an ex-monk who thinks he’s being led/tested by a Higher Power. Desmond is something of a mystic; he has visions.

Alex Rousseau or Linus: Alexandra. She has a Russian princess name, or is it French like Danielle? Alex is a sort of a rebellious princess. She’s probably not Ben’s daughter, but she doesn’t know who she is.

Nikki Fernandez

Paolo

Rose Henderson Nadler

Bernard Nadler: He’s kind of like a St. Bernard, isn’t he? Faithful, bumbling, and loveable.

Elizabeth “Libby”

Penelope Widmore: Obviously, she plays Penelope to Desmond’s Odysseus. She’s waiting for him to come back from his trip around the world. But she’s a bit more proactive than the classical Penelope, looking for the lost Desmond rather than weaving and unweaving.

Naomi Dorrit: I’ve never read Little Dorrit by Dickens, but surely her last name is a reference to that book.

Jacob: Jacob in the Bible is a twin (Esau’s twin), a conniver and con artist; the name means “supplanter.” Is Jacob someone’s twin? Has he supplanted someone to become the dictator on the island?

Semicolon

Books we must have though we lack bread.

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