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.