A little story (hope not to boring)

A man says to other - start digging, you will like it. Just try it! The other even reluctant starts digging on the spot. Sometime later he asks himself, what I'm I digging here!? The first man says keep digging till you find sometimes of value. The second man keeps digging out. After a long while (lets say some years) he calls the second man and says to him - I kept digging and I found many things, but I couldn't find what I was looking for! Second man - You mean yet! Keep digging. And he keeps on digging for some more time (lets say another couple of years). He keeps finding things, interesting things like some bits of rock, sometimes a rare species of fossil, he even found a little diamante, and he starts liking what he's doing. After so much digging he starts feeling it is a reason for him. And finding it so he keeps doing it for the rest of his life.

Meanwhile this man had a son, and after the man left this earth, his son seeing what this man was doing so intently, gets curious. He starts exploring this hole on the ground, trying to figure out what to do with it. The first man had long gone himself. But the son seeing the tools of his father try them, out of curiosity and after a while he sees he can dig. So he does it, and does it again and again everyday. The story is quite similar to his father, the difference is mainly in what he finds out while he's digging out.

To make a long story short lets say that some hundred, two hundred, three hundred (who knows!) years after the last descendant of a traditional long family of diggers is born. Guess what will do!? You're right! He goes digging that dam hole on the ground. He digs and digs and digs, he just want to see what he will find. And what he finds is a light, a very tiny light at first that grows bigger the more he digs out the dirt. Finally the light is so big that he feels he can reach it, and he does. He passes through this light and he is on another side, another world. Or is it the same world but upside down!? If you want to know for yourselves, dig!

Hope you found it amusing. Anyway what I wanted to say is that when someone says you to dig but don't tell you where or how, you can end anyway, even in the other side of the world. But seeing it on the other side (of the question not the world) maybe it is all about that, you dig because you like doing it and if you find something of value, so much the better. Keep on digging my friends, let's see what we will find!

"I urge you to dig. Give in to the unknown for a while and ponder the mystery. It’s worth it."  JJ Abrams

First thoughts and some notes

Before beggining bare in mind that I'm still at the middle of the book and I haven't read everything on the net so maybe something will be not news to you and something maybe you found out already. I only wish to share my views of the book so far and if it will be useful for your own search, great! Any comments will be always welcome.

Ok, my thoughts so far. Maybe it’s because I’m a foreigner but I can read most book in English

without much problem. But I must say this book as been difficult to read. Specially the first chapter.

When I started reading it I got immediately lost. Maybe this was the intention of VMS to make us

feel that way!? I would like to have the opinion of a native english speaker on this.


Thoughts on the cover:

A ship inside a spiral. A spiral maybe a black hole (a rabbit hole). It is believed that a passage by a

black hole would bring you to another dimension. Is the ship going trough another dimension!?

After the storm S. finds himself in a entire different place. Could we possibly imagine that he

made a leap into another dimension!? The style used and the thematic seems to change too.

The book that Sola is reading and is mentioned in the text various times is written by a man

named Arquimedes de Sobreiro and its name is Tales of the Archer. S. says the author is

Portuguese. Arquimedes is not a common portuguese name even in the old times as far as I

know. As for Sobreiro it is a common family name. It is also the name of a tree, the oak tree. The

oak tree is famous by its longevity and big branches. So I believe this book of the Archer is

somewhat important to our understanding of the root philosophy subtenant to this book.

Arquimedes was a famous greek philosopher and inventor. There is a document called the

Arquimedes Palimpsest. In this paper it was found some other books written by Arquimedes some

of them interesting to our search: "About the equilibrium of planes"; "About spirals"; and "Measure

of a circle".

As far as I can think the archimedes spiral is an important concept to take in account as we read the

book. There is also another related concept that could be useful in the future for the codes. It is

called the Ulams spiral. It is a spiral invented by a scientist by the name Ulman that is made of

prime numbers. It may be related with some kind of page code or footnote code.

There is also a old deity called the Kolopelli, it is found particularly amount south­american indian

tribes (also some of Mexico tribes). This is a deity of fertility and renewal which can be related with

S. and his story. Also there are some criptogliphs found at some caves in chapter 5 or 6 (can't

remember, but it's the chapter of the caves) and the mysterious tribe K_. Maybe this tribe can be

related with the Kolipolli mitology. Kolipolli criptographs are sometimes found next to spirals.

Those spirals have the meaning of the universe, so of creation and all reality, as far as I know. But it

could also have some symbolic meaning for another dimensions, in this case another states of

consciousness, since the tribes used to practice rituals and magic as is mentioned in the book itself. S.

 also passes for a lot of altered states of consciousness and awareness in his struggle to fight his

amnesia. He even sees some alternate realities as the one of the boy and girl kissing in the harbor,

before the bomb.


Main relationships:

S and Sola; VMS and FXC; Stenfalk and Corbeau; Eric and Jen (so far).

I believe all those couples mean the two opposite energies of the oriental philosophy. They can also

mean the search of one for the other in that the M principle is usually the one initiating the

searching but it is added by the F principle, even if it can change the other way around

sometimes.

It can also mean the writer searching for his muse as someone said before.


Key words until now:

Monkey; Birds; Water


I want to make a list of literary influences in the book (any help welcome):

So far: Kafka, Nabokov, Lovecraft, shades of Saramago(!?), I believe some of Paul Auster.

I will detail about my connections with Paul Auster later, also something about FCX. In the meantime I will try to read a bit more of the book itself.

I found that I can't keep with the back and forward of the margin notes. The problem is not to grasp all meaning as some had said but to go back and forward. It is a chronological problem and not a understanding problem. I just don't like to read about what will happen while I'm still reading what's happening. Anyway, I know it means to be that way, so after chapter four when the second coulors start appearing, I decided to read only text footnote and black/blue margin notes as I go along to the end. Then I will be back and read the margin notes in their chronological order. I belive now it is the best method, but as someone said there are not right methods.

The search beggins!

Started reading the novel S. by Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams, a novel about a man searching for himself and a search for the reader to find some meaning.
I made quick search over the net and found some extra information in the meanings behind the novel but as some of it doesn't correspond with my own views I decided using this place as a repository of my own ideias as well as others. It may be somewhat inconsistent at times as I go along taking notes and sharing my view and observations. It will be more of a note taking book than a finnished work of reshearch.