Monkey's Marginalia No 17

Once again, I've collected enough random bits for another Monkey's Marginalia.

image from wikipedia.org 

1.  Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces was first published in 1949.  Before Campbell wrote the work that became an inspiration for the likes of George Lucas, he had written A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake in 1944, which, in part, was prompted by Campbell's finding parallels between Finnegans Wake and Thornton Wilder's play, The Skin of Our Teeth.  Originally Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson had written two articles for The Saturday Review about the Wilder play and Joyce's book.  The articles were originally published December 19, 1942 and February 13, 1943.
But back to Hero with a Thousand Faces.  Copyrighted by the Bollingen Foundation (which was named after the house of C.G. Jung, Bollingen Tower), the book was published by Meridian Books in 1955 which was a division of The World Publishing Company.  The Meridian edition comes with a volume number M22 with a cover designed by Alvin Lustig.  I found his covers for Summer and Smoke, The Great Gatsby, and Siddhartha in tune with the midcentury (20th century) design echoed in Ship of Theseus cover.

2.  The alternate version of chapter 10 found on Jen Heyward's tumblr blog reminded me of the Joseph Campbell book in this excerpt:

3.  Meridian Books published some other interesting titles such as: 

• Codes and Ciphers, 1939
• Secret Societies: Their Origin, History and Ultimate Fate, 1939

Additional titles from Meridian Books can be found through a Worldcat search and through the website on Lustig's work (link above).

4.  The Bollingen Foundation was set up by Paul Mellon initially to disseminate the works of Carl Jung; his wife was a great admirer of Jung.  It expanded to award fellowships to writers, artists and scientists; and it awared an annual prize for poetry.  In 1949, a firestorm errupted with the foundation when the prize was given to Ezra Pound.  The public in 1949 was well aware of Pound's political leanings and the poet, Robert Hillyer wrote a scathing rebuke of Jung, the Bollingen Foundation and Pound in the Saturday Review of Literature, as did Fredric Wertham, a pyschologist who was well known in the 1950s for his crusade against comic books, although later researchers would accuse him of cherry-picking picking his data to prove his theories.  In 1950, the prize was awarded to Wallace Stevens, but the damage was done.  The Bollingen Foundation became inactive in 1968.

5,  The Bollingen Foundation, in its initial focus to print the works of Carl Jung and disseminate them, published a large number of books before it was shuttered.  The I Ching and a second volume of essays regarding the I Ching were Bollingen series numbers 19.1 and 19.2.  Series 20 was the work of Carl Jung; volume20.19 in the series was the bibliography of Jung's written works. Series number 22 was a book of essays called The Science of Mythology.  Series number 42 was The Origins and History of Consciousness by Erich Neumann which prominently featured an ouroboros on the cover in early editions. 

The Ledger of Readerly Transactions

(note: This is part 3 of a series about digging into the deeper mysteries of S.)

I was queued to read Pale Fire by Nabokov at the recommendation of friend who is a retired high school literature teacher.   Then S. happened.

It's a clever text in that there are readers who will be content with the story at the surface; and there will be readers desiring to delve into its mysteries.  Either approach is possible and completely viable.  The choice that the reader is going to make is based on the interactions they will personally have with S.  No two readers are going to have the same experience.  The proliferation of blogs for this one book is a ready example of several different approaches a single reader may take.

S. is a book lover's nirvana, but the text can be unsettling and frustrating when too many synchronicities in the real world, perhaps with a touch of apophenia, make it best to step away from the text for a brief period; or when you've hit a dead end and aren't even sure you want to start anew.  I can say unequivocally that both have happened to me.

I started this blog originally to really keep track of my own thoughts.  As a result of this blog, I've had fabulous email correspondences with other readers and bloggers of S.  I've waffled several times over my enthusiastic embrace of Borges' short story The Aleph, first thinking perhaps I was too enthusiastic.  I now wonder that perhaps I was not enthusiastic enough. And quite disturbing and awesome are the times a book or another link seem to fall from the sky into my eager hand; such was the day The Gulag Archipelago showed up in a local used bookstore on the very day I had just discovered it via the internet.

I hope that my personal experiences illustrate that these are the kinds of transactions with the world that literature creates.

The Power 15 ad in the McKay's review of Ship of Theseus published by Rose & Blatt Publishing is a pretty bold reference.  Most references in S. aren't so easily found; the reader must have some familiarity with the text and the references in order to begin sussing out the clues, hints and threads the author has so cleverly hidden.

Rose & Blatt is a reference to Louise Rosenblatt, who in the 1920's met Gertrude Stein and Robert Penn Warren in Paris.  During World War 2, she work for the war department analyzing reports from or about German-occupied France.

Most importantly, to us as readers, she first advanced her transactional theory of literature in the 1930s which is considered a reader-response literary theory.  To Rosenblatt, every reader is going to have a different interaction with any given text because no two people are going to be identical in experiences and temperament.

Readers aren't just readers.  They are authors and bloggers, philosophers and professors, journalists and editors.  Each person will have a unique experience with the text they have chosen to read.

Hero with a Thousand Faces is well-documented as being a primary source for inspiration for George Lucas and his film Star Wars.  The Invention of Morel is reputed to be an inspiration for the game Myst.

These interactions are dynamic.  How often has a good book stayed in your thoughts after you've finished reading it?  Text may be panned by critics, lauded as a great new scientific theory, adapted into movies and plays, or used as a political weapon.  Authors wouldn't write pastiches or mash-ups if they weren't readers of other texts by other authors.  The opportunities for engagement with the written word are endless.

Perhaps this is what Doug Dorst wants us seekers to keep in mind as we continue to dive even deeper.

The Snot Brake, 1919, Corbeau/Durand, Ashes and Wednesdays

The Charlie Chaplin moustache sported by Vevoda (along with his Van Dyke beard) can be classified as one of those nagging things that bug me until I can't stand it anymore and ask the google.

The moustache sported by Chaplin is also known as a toothbrush moustache, and apparently was sported by several individuals in the early 20th century as a alternative to the more complicated and traditional moustache styles that required way more upkeep, included waxing and perfuming.  It should be noted that Adolph Hitler had a toothbrush, although because his was much shorter horizontally, Hitler's moustache could be better classified as a variation of the tootbrush, known as a snot brake, from the German rotzbremse. (I will never look at a moustache without thinking of that term again!) Hitler incidentally was a fan of Chaplin's movies, but by all accounts, Hitler's  'stache was not inspired by Chaplin.

Yeah, yeah... I know.  What does this have at all to do with Corbeau/Durand and Ash Wednesday?

To paraphrase a well known author, blogs are a lazy machine in which the reader must do some of the work.  You'll get there.

Oh yes, the toothbrush moustache, I came across a German who was pretty much a cipher during the Nazi Party years, but he was known to have sported the infamous configuration of facial hair below the nose called the toothbrush.  Soldier and activist, Waldemar Pabst was a supporter of far-right causes and was a staunch enemy of all things communist.  He is very well known for his counter-revolutionary activities in the years following World War 1 and for his directorship of Rheinmetall AG (auto parts and military tech) before World War 2.  Despite his warm support of Hitler early on, he did not became a Nazi Party apparatchik.

In 1919, Pabst was busy dishing out reprisals for the Spartacist uprising that had occurred early-to-mid January that same year.  (Hitler also adopted his trademark moustache late in 1919.)  These reprisals took the form of executions ordered by Pabst.  One of those executions was that of the Marxist, Rosa Luxemburg who was shot and whose body was thrown into Berlin's Landwehr Canal.  Her birthday, March 5, was the date assigned to Ash Wedneday in 1919.

Her friend and companion in 1919, Paul Levi, survived the reprisals, became critical of the Bolsheviks and in the 1920's attacked several prominent Nazis in left-wing publications.  In 1930, he died from his injuries when he fell out of his fifth-floor window delirious from pneumonia.  (Ash Wednesday again fell on March 5 in 1930).

The year 1919, the execution, emmersion, the defenestration, Ash Wednesday, the pneumonia, the relationship between Levi and Luxemburg all echo in S. to some degree.  I've stated before my belief that Durand, Ekstrom, et al. are composites, but perhaps I'm flogging the horse at this point.  Oh, stew.

Digging Deeper into S.: Part 2 - The Importance of a Bubbling Cauldron

(This series assumes that you have read the book, have started your own inquiries, and would like to delve deeper into the text to find the hidden.  Many of the things discussed here shouldn't be a complete surprise to ongoing seekers, but if you are new, you might want to start here, first.) 

In the first post of this series, I talked about layers. For this second post, I have adapted the two posts I wrote on Burgoo.  



The Mckay's review of Ship of Theseus calls the book "a vulgar ouroboros of a novel."  Ourobos, the snake that eats its own tail. According to wikipedia,

The Ouroboros often symbolize self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things such as the phoenix which operate in cycles that begin anew as soon as they end. It can also represent the idea of primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting from the beginning with such force or qualities it cannot be extinguished. While first emerging in Ancient Egypt, the Ouroboros has been important in religious and mythological symbolism, but has also been frequently used in alchemical illustrations, where it symbolizes the circular nature of the alchemist's opus. It is also often associated with Gnosticism, and Hermeticism.

Based on what I have found, I suspect that almost everything in S. is a "ship of Theseus."  An unreliable narrator with subterfuge in mind and a reclusive author; both of whom seek to encrypt and misdirect.  The people, the dates, most footnotes appear to be composites of real and literary references and individuals with some intentional misdirection and fictions thrown in to obscure and muddy the waters.

Palimpsests, archaeological strata, literary references that don't quite make sense; pastiches, layers and composites join in to obscure.

The archaeological strata of literature...

That snake that eats its own tale can be a metaphor for literature that takes what came before.  Whether we like it or not, much of what is written, painted or discussed is based in part on something that came previously.  That's not to say the work can't be original and engaging, but it can't exist without history.  Works like Tristram Shandy, The King in Yellow, Finnegans Wake, Ready Player One, The Waste Land and now S. all owe a debt to history.

It's a literary genealogy that Tolkien referred to as the "cauldron of story." Sterne was inspired by Rabelais, Locke, Pope and Swift and their influence is well documented.  The King in Yellow owes a debt to Ambrose Bierce from whom Chambers appropriated Carcosa.  These works went on to inspire the likes of Lovecraft, Goethe, Marx and many, many others.  And it continues to this day, as Mystimus discovered with the Glass Bead Game.

Prehistoric pastiches...

Juan Blas Covarubbias, the Portuguese pirate is fictional. Yet the name Covarubbias is not, nor does it originate from Portugual, but Spain.   It comes from Burgos Province and some of the surrounding areas to describe the red caves found in that area; many of these same caves feature prehistoric art. Don Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, amateur archaeologist, discovered the Altamira cave on his property in nearby Cantabria (which used to be part of Burgos and was in 1590), but it was his young daughter who spotted the drawings on the ceiling.  Cueva de La Pasiega, also in Cantabria has sanctuaries or galleries of cave paintings from different ages not unlike the cave S and Corbeau escape through.  It was officially discovered when researchers were told by villagers in the area of its existence 1911.

The city Burgos of Spain, and located in the province of the same name, has two interesting looking museums, one for books and a museum on evolution (following the monkey, perhaps?).  Both opened in 2010, so it's possible that DD knew of their existence while he was writing S., or it could just be a happy accident.

The Hemingway hodgepodge

I know I've touched on Hemingway before; Hemingway is one of the handful of real persons identified in S.  In Footnote 2, F.X. Caldeira describes Ernest Hemingway, though originally an admirer, as one of "Straka's harshest critics."    In 1935, Hemingway was reputed to have given a interview to Le Monde stating his high regard for Straka.  There is no way that Le Monde could have interviewed him in 1935 since Le Monde didn't exist until 1944.  Le Monde started on December 19, 1944 using the same building, machines and masthead of its predecessor, the most circulated paper in France, Le Temps, which shut down after the liberation of France under accusations of Nazi collaboration.

David Burke, author of Writers in Paris called A Moveable Feast a hatchet job on the people Hemingway once associated with, not unlike the mythical A Swindle of Cowbirds by Guthrie MacInnes. And as Malcolm Cowley noted to the Paris Review:

"Hemingway had the bad habit of never forgiving anyone for giving him a hand up."

It is known that Hemingway could be spiteful.  I've talked about Dos Passos before, whose friend Jose Robles was most likely assassinated during the KGB purges that took place during the Spanish Civil War.

Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson, T.S. Eliot, among others, became targets for his spiteful behavior.  Hemingway's book, The Torrents of Spring was a parody of Anderson's Dark Laughter. Stein subsequently chided Hemingway for his rough treatment of Anderson in the parody.

Also interesting is the coded reference to the loss of Straka's valise which mirrors an incident in Hemingway's own life.  Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, accidently lost a satchel full of his writings on a train in Europe.  Hemingway was deeply upset with the loss and there has been much speculation that given Hemingway's personality, it was something he ultimately couldn't forgive.

The theft of the valise is also mirrored in Robert Ludlums, The Scarlatti Inheritance.  In Ludlum's book, the briefcase is stolen directly from Grand Central Station and the owner is subsequently poisoned by a distinguished looking, but unknown assassin in a gentlemen's club in New York.

In case you missed my earlier posts about John Dos Passos, his break from Hemingway occurred due to the murder of Dos Passos' friend, Jose Robles.  Robles was Spanish and was the one who introduced Dos Passos to bull fighting, who in turn, introduced Hemingway to the spectacle.  It was Robles who introduced Dos Passos to Spanish culture; and it was Robles who noted that the culture was static, unchanging, and stagnating.

Robles' death galvanized something in Dos Passos and marked the beginning of his political reversal into conservative politics.  Dos Passos began to understand that revolution meant nothing without civil liberties, and that communism as administered by the Russians only replaced one form of repression with another.  Dos Passos was understandably distraught from Roble's disappearance and when he sought help from Hemingway, was labelled a traitor to the communist cause by Hemingway and Gellhorn who felt that Robles was a fascist spy.

In page 6 of Ship of Theseus, Eric and Jen discuss the death of Amarante Durand, supposedly shot by the fascists during the Spanish Civil War after being thrown from a roof.  Dos Passos, Hemingway and Gellhorn are mentioned in the marginalia as having knowledge of the murder.  It is hinted that Dos Passos knew the full details of Durand's death.  It's likely though, that Dos Passos never knew the full details of Roble's murder during his lifetime.  According to the author Stephen Koch, Robles was killed because as a translator for the Soviets, he knew too much about their activities.

The Spanish Civil War is discussed again later in the marginalia by Eric and Jen, but the timelines are off from the actual events.  Page 186 discusses the events again and mentions an October 1937, photo from the Hotel Florida in Madrid.  From my research, I know that Robles disappeared in early 1937.  Dos Passos left Spain in May 1937 with Liston Oak, saving Oak's life in the process.  Hemingway and Dos Passos were both on their way back to the states later that month.   And before Dos Passos left, he had an interesting and engaging conversation with the young man later known by his pen name, George Orwell, who had been on the front lines.  Hemingway was a known admirer of Orwell, but it's very possible that the feeling was not mutual.   Hemingway seemed to have a knack for self-deception and confabulation.   Stephen Koch notes in The Breaking Point:

"He [Orwell] was not unduly impressed by the power of language to intoxicate.  It was a little too close to the original sin of language: the power to lie.  His supreme test for seriousness in any writer was whether she or he knew how to undo a lie." 

Also, it is mentioned in the marginalia on page 186 that Hemingway made a pass at Durand and she punched him out.  Interestingly, I can't find any record of a woman punching Hemingway, although several men had the opportunity throughout the years, including the poet, Charles Wallace Stevens.  Hemingway did return to Spain with Gellhorn a few months later and finished his play, The Fifth Column, in December 1937.

And Hemingway's perception of the war is distorted in For Whom the Bell Tolls according to Arturo Barea, who himself lived through the events in Spain (via The New Yorker),

“I find myself awkwardly alone in the conviction that, as a novel about Spaniards and their war, it is unreal and, in the last analysis, deeply untruthful.”

The Guardian reported that Hemingway was a failed KGB spy according to Stalin-era archives.   Hemingway was a volatile braggart who Gellhorn called "...the biggest liar since Munchausen."

Dates are off, perceptions are skewed, at times MacInnes seems to be analog for Hemingway with his A Swindle of Cowbirds, as is Amarante Durand for Jose Robles.  But then MacInnes is listed separately from Hemingway and in his own context, and seems to include echoes of Ford Madox Ford and Ezra Pound with their love lives.  The timing for Amarante Durand's murder is off from the death of Jose Robles, who was a translator, professor, and revolutionary.  Robles was from the Spanish aristocracy, but Durand was French.  And there was the conversation that Mystimus and I had regarding Vonnegut.

And so we go back to burgoo.  As we fall and rise through the layers like a game of snakes and ladders, people, events, books, and places get mixed up, combined into a "mish-mashia" of words.

It should be no surprise then, that at some point, amazon.com added another genre classification to S. The genre classification added was "mash-up."  Typically a mash-up takes a book in the public domain (so the author does not need to worry about potential copyright issues) and adds his own writing to create a plot (usually) involving vampires, zombies, werewolves, and/or monsters).  It's not apparent, thought, that Dorst has taken a single book for his mash-up as everything seems to be a composite, a mix of layers, a stew of several texts and historical events.  Do the clues that Dorst himself has given, 19 and 42 having any bearing here?  Perhaps, but even I'm still not sure.

You must fall and rise and be puzzled.  You will hit dead ends; you may find something that we bloggers have missed.  Don't be afraid to dive deep into the cauldron of story awhile to see what might be found.

Part 2: Spinning Compasses, Associations of Evil and Three Volumes, Footnote 1, page 415

In Footnote 1, page 415:

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.

Part One discussed Montagu Norman's complicit involvement in the Nazi theft of Czechoslovakian gold in the days leading up to British entry into World War 2.  He is certainly the reference in the name "Norman Bergen."  It was Norman's actions in support of the Nazis that proved "the boundaries of evil...blurry and porous..."

So who or what does Bergen in "Norman Bergen" reference.  The clue is again found in the footnote,

...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)...

The "specific, bounded" place is the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp founded by the Nazis in 1940 in northern Germany.  In this instance, however, the apparent human "need to locate evil" needs little help in doing so.  Bergen-Belsen is the camp where Anne Frank and the Czech author, Josef Capek lost their lives.  Also of note, Jews from Salonika accused certain members of their community of being Nazi collaborators during the Rosenberg Commission.  In a lawsuit filed by the Salonika Jews, Bergen-Belsen was allegedly the camp where the collaborators were sent to live in relative safety for betraying their community to the Nazis.

It was an evil, filthy place, a hell on Earth.

The extensive documentation, filmed footage, and photographic evidence made at Bergen-Belsen made it clear to the world the extent of the atrocities committed by the Nazis.  The British military ordered the location to be made into a permanent memorial, but the site languished until 1960 when the German government began a series of upgrades to improve the site.  Permanent buildings were erected and in the 1980s a permanent scientific staff was put in place.  Changes and improvements continue through to the present day.

It's not a stretch then, that the Nazi symbol, the swastika, is the "Spinning Compass" referred to in the footnote above.  It's hard to imagine that there was a time that the swastika was not associated with an ultimate evil as embodied by the Nazis under Hitler.  Prior to the swastika's adoption by the Nazis, the swastika was a popular symbol and often represented good luck; it was a common lucky charm for airplane pilots in the early days of manned flight.  It's origins trace back to ancient history and several cultures; it is symbol found all over the world. One possible interpretation is that the swastika is a symbolic representation of the sun.
The reference to three volumes would then be a reference to the three empires of Germany, an idea conceived by conservative German author, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, from one of his novels.  The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and The German Empire of 1871-1918 being the First and Second Empires.  The Third Reich (or Drittes Reich) was the term famously used as a label for Nazi Germany under Hitler's control to add legitimacy to their power by trying to place it in a historical context of past German influence and power.  By 1939, the Nazis had banned the use of term, Drittes Reich, in Germany and had provided several alternatives for the German press and government to use.

Part 1: Stolen Czech Gold & The British Banker, Footnote 1, page 415

In Footnote 1, page 415:

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.

The direct actions of one man may have increased the length of a World War by years.  It stems from his direct involvement in the disposition of Czech gold that physically resided in accounts in the United Kingdom in 1939.

This man wasn't a general, prime minister or spy; he was Montagu Norman (the Norman in "Norman Bergen"), the Governor of the Bank of England.  Norman was a known eccentric, his temper tantrums were legend, he was known for dodging journalists, and had a penchant for long cruises under the name Professor Clarence Walker.  Quirks and all, in 1939, he was one of the most powerful men in the world, having been one of a handful who had rewritten monetary policy after the first world war and created a system of central banks.  And through him I was able to link items in the footnote above to events, places, and players during World War 2.

Directors from the Czech national bank had transferred the country's gold to the Bank of England via the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in the 1930s before Germany's successful invasion in 1939.  The Germans, having completed a successful invasion and anxious to use the gold to fuel their war machine ordered the directors to transfer the money back with two transfer requests.

Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England since 1920, honored the first order and transferred over five million pounds sterling from the BIS Czech account to a BIS Reichsbank account held at the Bank of England.  After news of the transfer was leaked, Norman told the British government that the Bank could not have possibly known who the owners were due to the international banking protocols followed by the BIS.  This was a lie, as the governor of the French national bank had personally asked Norman to join with France in refusing any transfer of Czech gold to the Nazis until the next BIS board meeting as a protest to current BIS leadership.  If the French were reasonably certain as to the ownership of the BIS accounts, Norman probably was, too.  The call from the French came the same day the transfer was requested and subsequently completed by Norman. The second request, which asked for the transfer of gold held in accounts directly owned by the national bank of Czechoslovakia at the Bank of England to a BIS gold account appeared to have been attempted by Norman.  Because the originating account was not affiliated with the BIS, the British government could successfully block the attempted transfer from taking place.  The Chancellor of the Exchequer had issued an order effectively blocking the transfer of all Czechoslovakia assets.

I realize it might be a bit confusing how the British could block one transfer from occurring, but not both. It's because the BIS is a unique and independent financial institution protected by international treaties.
The BIS was founded in 1930, initially to facilitate the war reparations owed by Germany and in successive years become an international organization and bank for central banks.  As such, the BIS was and is subject to different rules, which allowed Norman to complete transfers between BIS managed accounts.  In fact, it is this justification that the Bank of England gives in its official history of this period.

...comments by the chancellor to the House of Commons in June 1939, when he stated that Law Officers had advised him that the British government was precluded by protocols from preventing the BoE from obeying instructions given to it by the BIS to transfer the gold.

 Even more unfortunate, the very international treaties protecting the BIS and its neutrality probably made it an attractive target for the Germans.  Between 1933 and 1945, powerful Germans were on the board; Nazi Party members, industrialists and bankers, all of them movers and shakers.

During the war the BIS proclaimed that it was neutral, a view supported by the Bank of England. In fact the BIS was so entwined with the Nazi economy that it helped keep the Third Reich in business. It carried out foreign exchange deals for the Reichsbank; it accepted looted Nazi gold; it recognised the puppet regimes installed in occupied countries, which, together with the Third Reich, soon controlled the majority of the bank’s shares.

...Indeed, the BIS was so useful for the Nazis that Emil Puhl, the vice-president of the Reichsbank and BIS director, referred to the BIS as the Reichsbank’s only “foreign branch.

Despite the uproar caused by the original transfer, Norman again transferred gold worth 860,000 pounds sterling to the Nazis in June of 1939 and sold about half that gold on behalf of the German government.  No wonder allegations of BIS complicity in Nazi looting occurred after the war.  After the war the decision was made to liquidate BIS, but the order was rescinded in 1948 as the BIS became one of the tools necessary to rebuild a Europe devastated by the war.

So was Norman a Nazi sympathizer or a man trying to create a scenario in which central banks ran the world?  From the information available online, I suspect the truth is a little more complex.

(image from the Bank of England archives)

In 2013, the Bank of England made the unpublished bank history for World War 2 available online, although Norman's role in the theft had been long suspected.  According to the history, Norman was primarily concerned with maintaining the neutrality accorded to BIS.

The bank [led by Montagu Norman] was wedded to a view of international finance and central bank co-operation. It was too concerned about maintaining London's status as an international financial centre – and clung to the need to maintain sterling's convertibility long after it was wise to continue with this policy.

Initially the whole purpose of the BIS was to facilitate war reparation payments owed by Germany under the Treaty of Versailles (which was registered on October 21, 1919 by the way).  Germany's seizure of the Czechoslovakian gold to fund a war machine ran contrary to the original intent of the BIS.

Norman continued to emphasize the neutrality of the BIS to British officials, but the documents online in the Bank of England archive make it very clear the bank was reasonably certain as to the ownership of the accounts involved in the Czech gold theft.   It is clear that Norman felt he had done nothing wrong and even cited the 1930 Hague Rules and the 1936 Brussels Protocols to British officials as he fought  for transactions relating to the BIS.

But it isn't clear if member banks through the BIS had any obligation to fulfill German requests as Germany had clearly broken international law; Germany had violated the 1938 Treaty of Munich by invading the remaining portion of Czechoslovakia and previously violated the Treaty of Versailles through rearmament in 1935.

Norman was equally contemptuous of British attempts to block BIS transactions involving Germany.  Later in 1939, he attempted two more transfers, after the U.K. had declared war with Germany, both of which were successfully blocked by the British authorities.

Norman's Nazi sympathies are a little more tenuous.  His primary exposure to Germany was through his friend and colleague to Hjalmar Schacht, former president of the Reichsbank, and initial Hitler supporter, who was the architect of the German economy under Hitler.  Early in Hitler's rise, Norman had even made enthusiatic comments about his friend and Hitler, calling them both "bulwarks" of Germany.  But Schacht quickly broke with Hitler over Nazi plans for rearmament and violence against Jews, by 1937 all his influence was gone.  In January 1939, Norman had come to Germany for the christening of Schacht's grandson, who was also to become Norman's godson.  That same month, Schacht was dismissed from the Reichsbank by Hitler.  Schacht was already involved in the fringes of the German Resistance, he'd been in contact with various individuals since 1934.  In 1941, Schacht was imprisoned, and was eventually sent to Dachau and Tyrol.  Of the five (yes, I said five) Germans involved with the BIS and/or the Reichsbank, he was the only one acquitted at Nuremberg.

It also possible that Norman's motives were a little more prosaic and his actions were an attempt to shore up the British banking system.

Monty Norman and the leading merchant banks in the City were up to their necks in helping to prop up the German financial system. The Germans owed a lot of money to British banks.

By giving to gold to the Nazis, Norman had ensured that Germany would continue to fulfill its debt obligations to the British banks at least for a time.  It also possible that Norman, in continuing to transact business for Germany, was trying to hedge his bets in the event of a German invasion of England.  I find it highly likely he was playing odds with several scenarios to ensure his continued influence within the central banks and the BIS regardless of outcomes of the war.

One of the most powerful men of the early 20th century has faded into obscurity.  He retired from the Bank of England in 1944 and died in 1950.  Although known to British authorities, his possible involvement in shady dealings with the Germans did not come to light publicly until later in the last century.  The BIS, in response to questions of Nazi activities involving the BIS, opened the majority of its archives to researchers in 1998, but it was not until the Bank of England release of documents that his true role in events became known in 2013.

Significantly, shortly before the revelations of Norman's involvement with the stolen gold came to light, his portrait had already been removed from the Bank of England's boardroom.  What is clear, that in his tunnel vision to maintain the important influence of the central banks and the BIS, he played a direct part in prolonging a war that contributed to the suffering and deaths of millions.

Digging Deeper into S.: Part 1 - Karstian Strategies

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like a snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then, a soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice,

In fair round belly, with a good capon lined,

With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws, and modern instances,

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

-William Shakespeare, As You Like It

I'm intending this to be the first in a series of blog posts.  I know my blog has been a pretty random collection of ideas, insights, and research that might be a little intimidating for newcomers who are ready to explore further.  My intent is to keep this mostly spoiler-free in that the conclusions made here have already been discussed either on this blog or elsewhere on the internet.  My hope is that this series can provide a framework that you, the reader can use as a jumping off point to delve into deeper mysteries.

1. There are many layers in S.  The book itself gives us clues to this conclusion.

• Caldeira tells us that Straka dreams in the archaeological strata of history
• Karst & Son, the defunct publishing house of previous Straka novels, is also a reference to geological formations comprised of layers of bedrock and erosion. 
• Throughout the course of the book, several characters are defenestrated.  Defenestration is a favorite technique that Bouchard uses to deal with his enemies, but it is also a metaphor for falling through layers.  In order to reach the ground, one must fall through stories.  
• Filomela herself encourages Jen and Eric to be happy and falling. 
• The book S. is comprised of layers.  The text, the footnotes, the inserts, and the marginal notes between Jen and Eric all add layers to the whole. 
• As Mystimus points out, the target used in archery is a series of layered concentric circles. 

2.  There have been things found in the layers using the clues given to us, as readers. 

• JJ Abrams found The Cry of the Halidon in an airport and it sparked the concept for S.  It's no coincidence then, that the first appearance of S_. with his amnesia bears a striking resemblance to that of the fictional character, Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity.  
• And imagine my surprise when I discovered that some of the locations of the wine vintages identified as part of Vevoda's cellar can also be found in Ludlum's books.  
• The Scarlatti Inheritance, another Ludlum book, contains an incident where a briefcase is stolen from Grand Central Station.  The person who placed it in the locker is subsequently poisoned with a doctored cocktail by an unidentified gentleman. 
• Hemingway also had a valise full of his writings lost or stolen at a train station in France. 
• There seem to be other books layered into S.  I'm pretty confident that I've found a few.  I'm just as confident that my fellow blogger of all thing related to Straka, Mystimus, has found some, too.
• And there appears to be a layer of hidden narratives that correspond to real places and historical events which I talk about here.

Consider then how layers work in literature, history, and places.  Cities are often built on the rubble of older cities; layers in soil can be used an indicator of age, as can fossils.  History is not the chronological progression of unrelated events, but a chain of causality.  Literature doesn't exist in a vacuum; T.S. Eliot borrowed freely from earlier works for his masterpiece, The Waste Land, and I've read of another author who used excerpts from about 50 texts for one passage of one novel. 

Why is it important that S. seems to be a book built on layers? What exactly do those layers comprise of?  Are the characters found within the novel themselves composites; made up of layers of other real and fictional persons?  

These are some of things I've thought about.  Perhaps you will want to think about these things, too.  Also be aware that I've not discussed everything I know or think that I know. Whatever happens, don't be afraid to ask questions, to look for connections and to seek the unknown.  Who knows, you may find something I've missed.  I wish you good fortune and the fairest of winds in your explorations.  Happy sailing! 

Monkey's Marginalia No 16

In which Lewis, perhaps, begins to Looper back around....

1. The Three Richard Whalens

I was able to locate Agnes M. Reeve from one of the classified ads I transcribed.
The transcribed ad:

THE OLDEST WRITERS' SERVICE
Literary Agent, established 35 years. Manuscripts criticized, revised, typed, marketed. Special attention to Book manuscripts. Poetry. Catalogue on request.
AGNES M. REEVE,
Dept. B. Franklin, O.

She really was a literary agent out of Franklin, Ohio, but with her husband, James Knapp Reeve.  Asking the google, it turns out he was an author of a few fiction and non-fiction books, including the book, The Three Richard Whalens.

The connections continue uninterrupted to an author named Richard F. Whalen who wrote a book in the 1990s about the Shakespeare authorship question.


2.  Louise Rosenblatt
Readers may remember that I had found Rosenblatt through another ad in the McKay's Magazine review.  Rosenblatt is best known for her transactional theory of literature.  It occurred to me today in a rare flash of insight that it doesn't just apply to us, as readers of S.  It also applies to the history of literature and the ongoing discussion/distillation surrounding different works that can continue long after their initial publication.

3.  The Quincunx with a Maltese falcon thrown in for good measure.  Mix well.

• Thomas Edison is reputed to have a tattoo of a quincunx on his forearm.  
• I found a repeating quincunx pattern at the original memorial to Gavrilo Princip.  Unfortunately, the memorial no longer exists, but a picture from the 1980s clearly shows the pattern. It's the third picture down from the top in the blog post.  In case you need further proof, this site shows a picture of the start of the pattern from the front.  Again, you will need to scroll down to view. 
• The book Ill Met by Moonlight by W. Stanley Moss mentions a few books that Moss had with him. In his possession he had something written by Sir Thomas Browne.  Browne was a polymath from the 17th century and one of his known works is The Garden of Cyrus, or the Quincunciall Lozenge.  According to wikipedia, its pretty dense stuff and deals with a number of topics relating to the number five, including hermeticism.  I took a look at it, and just from the bit of latin that he quotes untranslated, I'm sure this book is not for the faint of heart, even if it so happens that there are five of you. He did, however, write a few other tomes which may be more accessible to readers who may find themselves with a lingering curiosity over Sir Browne.   
• The term MacGuffin was popularized by Alfred Hitchcock, but it has existed as a plot device for much longer.  The Maltese Falcon, is notable for its use of the titular falcon as a MacGuffin.  In relation to S.,  perhaps just as significant is Sam Spade's investigation of the death of his partner, Miles Archer.  The falcon's initial importance is emphasized by this text from the opening of the film: 

In 1539 the Knight Templars of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels—but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day —

• Falcons do have a very real association with the island of Malta.  The Knights of Malta are a religious order with a long history.  They were also known as the Knights Hospitaller, the Hospitallers, Order of Hospitallers, Knights of Saint John and Order of Saint John.  Established during the Crusades, the modern day continuation of the order is found in Rome as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. During their history, they did have an established presence in Malta by paying tribute to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.  The tribute was a single falcon presented to the emperor's representative in Siciliy annually on All Saints day.  
• Another interesting component of the religious order is one of their religious symbols, the Maltese cross. The four arms of the cross are v-shaped with two points on each arm, making for a total of eight points on the cross.  I do wonder if the cross could be a kind of "double quincunx."  Instead of side by side, simply superimpose one quincunx over the other and rotate slightly.  One of the possible patterns would look very much like the Maltese cross. 

(8/21/14 edit for grammar)

Hidden Narratives

This is my drawing of something I found following the clues given in the McKay's review.  You've probably come to the conclusion that it bears a resemblance to the book cover of S.  I will tell you that it can be found at one of the locales discussed in the book or by the blogs and that it exists in the real world.  It is a real object and it can be found in a public space.  And you will know what it is once you find it, but you must know where to look.

(edit #2, 8/13/14, I will note that I used tracing paper to draw the symbol since doing it freehand would have taken me a lot longer.  The symbol above is a fairly accurate representation of the symbol found on the object, but I didn't include the shape of the object itself to obscure its origins further.  I will reiterate that I found it through the Mckay's Magazine review and that it points to a real historical figure.  Research the person and it shouldn't be long before you make the right connections.)

edit:  If you want to discuss, please email me at rabbitholes19@gmail.com.  Any comments with spoilers will be deleted as I don't want to ruin the mystery for those who would prefer to seek out the truth on their own.

The Valise, Rearranged; or More Fun and Games with Anagrams

The valise threads prominently about the narrative of S. as though it is a character itself.  It occurred that perhaps the valise rearranged present some new threads to follow.  But the word "valise" presents a challenge as it doesn't easily rearrange itself to obvious alternatives.  As I was working on this post, I wondered if it could also be a reference to Philip K. Dick (do a little research and you should be able to find the connection on your own, it won't be difficult).
In any case, valise does rearrange to "savile" which is the name of a street in London, Savile Row and the Savile Club, a gentlemen's club, also of London, founded in 1856.   Wikipedia helpfully included a list of notable members.  A few of those members I have discussed in prior blog posts. This list here is not complete, so I strongly urge you to explore the list at wikipedia.

• Remember C.P. Snow?  He is the author of The Light and the Dark, which was the closest I've come to a reference ad for the McKay's Magazine review that included the ad for The Light by Stefan Tate.  Snow was also a member of the Inklings, the literary club of C. S. Lewis and his circle. 
  

• A large number of notable composers.
• Leo Abse
• William Alwyn
• Richard Arnell
• Malcolm Arnold
• Arthur Benjamin
• Edward Elgar, well known for his Enigma Variations 

• J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan and The Little White Bird.
• Max Beerbohm, known for his parodies and caricatures.  One of his better known works is Zuleika Dobson. 
• Humphrey Berkley, politician and reformer.  Also known for sending out several prank letters to high ranking members of society. 
• Sidney Bernstein, media baron, known for founding Granada TV. 
• Malcolm Bradbury, historian and author. 
• John Browne, former chief executive of BP Oil. 
• Charlie Chaplin was an honorary member, briefly. 
• Erskine Childers, author of what is considered the first spy novel, The Riddle of the Sands. 
• Sidney Colvin, art and literary critic.  He was close friends with Edward Fitzgerald, translator of The Rubayat of Omar Khayyam. 
• Mandell Creighton, historian and married to suffragette, Louise Creighton. 
• Bernard Crick, political theorist, who created the Orwell Lecture Series and later, the Orwell Prize.  His first wife Joyce Crick, was the translator for Thomas Mann and Sigmund Freud. 
• Valentine Dyall, character actor.  In a parody on BBC radio, he played "the man in gray" due to an unfortunate incident at a cut rate dry cleaner. 
• John Le Carre, spy novelist.
• H. G. Wells, science fiction author.
• W. B. Yeats, poet. 

Straka Obituary Transcription from Jen Heyward's Tumblr Blog

V. M. Straka
The writer V. M. Straka died last Wednesday in Havana Cuba according to authorities.  A prolific and controversial novelist, he published eighteen novels, most notably Miracle at Braxenholm (1911), The Santana March (1922), and Wineblood's Mine (1939), and most infamously Washington & Greene, which was banned in the United States and the United Kingdom shortly after publication in 1929 because of its seditious themes and its slanderous attacks on public figures.

It is almost universally agreed that "V. M. Straka" was a pseudonym, and no verifiable facts about the writer's life have ever come to light.  (Theories about his identity have abounded for decades.  Just last month, the biographer of the late Canadian adventurer C. F. J. Wallingford claimed that his subject led a double life as the gadfly novelist.)  Straka shunned all contact with the public; he gave no interviews or lectures, and appears to have had no friendships or even contact with others in his profession.  His longtime publisher, Karst & Son, has never provided any biographical details.

Most critics believe that Straka's best-known books were successful more their leftist outrages than for their literary quality.  Proof of this can be found in his final two books - the impenetrable Coriolis and the saccharine Winged Shoes of Emido[sic]Alves in which the writer largely dispensed with his dogmatic political stances and attempted to win readers with more conventionally pleasing themes.  Both with ignominious failures, critically and comercially[sic], and it was well understood that Straka's most successful and most interesting years were behind him.

Police in Havana say Straka was the victim of a violent attack in the hotel room in which he was staying.  Fittingly, he had registered there under a pseudonym.

It is, of course, impossible to discuss what sort of man Straka was without knowing which man Straka was.  Still, a writer's work is a likely indicator of his temperament and tendencies; in Straka's case, one might reasonably conclude that he was a thoroughly disagreeable, socially inept, inconsiderate of anyone's needs but his own, strident in his poorly-informed opinions, and given to unhealthy habits and associations - in short, the sort of man whose demise will grieve only the handful of readers who remain interested in consuming his stories - not anyone whose life had in any way intersected with his.

It is unknown whether Straka left a family or a literary executor.  Karst & Son has issued any comments on the death.

(photo of obit can be found here.)

Monkey's Marginalia No 15

1.  Unpopular Ford models & the McKay's review

Edsel B. Grimshaw is a direct reference to 3 (or 4) unpopular Ford Models.

• Ford Edsel-models falling under the Edsel marque (1958-1960)
• Ford Model B (1904-1906, 1932-34)
• Ford Pinto (1971-1980) The reference to the Pinto comes from Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co.

The Ford Motor Co. was obviously established by Henry Ford, who used the assembly lines and fair wages for his own employees to make the automobile affordable for the middle class.  He also used most of his vast personal wealth to create the Ford Foundation.  As with several historical figures, sometimes their works are a mixed bag; Ford was also known for his anti-union activities, and as the author of some anti-semitic pamphlets. 

Also of note is the Mercury(!) brand or marque sold under the Ford Motor Co. umbrella.  The Pinto was sold as the rebadged Mercury Bobcat in Canada and the U.S. 

2.  Possible design for the obsidian pieces? 

3.  Arquimedes des Sobreiro is a corkscrew...

The Greek Archimedes invented a form of water pump called the Archimedes screw.  Sobreiro means cork tree.   Playing around with the words a little, I got corkscrew and water tree (a plant found in Australia). 

4.  The first two words (not titles) of the last 4 sections of the book rearrange to say "there is a man shrouded in the territory."

McKay's ads transcribed from the Edsel B. Grimshaw review

THE OLDEST WRITERS' SERVICE

Literary Agent, established 35 years. Manuscripts criticized, revised, typed, marketed. Special attention to Book manuscripts. Poetry. Catalogue on request.

AGNES M. REEVE,

Dept. B. Franklin, O.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LAURENCE ROBERTS, LITERARY AGENT

STORIES, NOVELS, ARTICLES, BOOKS MARKETED.

Highly recommended for publication of fiction and non-fiction. Editorially recognized advice, recommendations, editing, for revision, sales, publication. Un-established writers assisted. Write for information before sending manuscripts.

3 West 42^nd St., New York City

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LITERARY AGENTS 29 YEARS

We sell short stories, articles, books, radio scripts, plays. Verse also considered. Constructive criticism for new writers. Personal representation for established authors. Editing, revision. For information and references,

E. Madison Ave. at 4 St., New York, NY

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BOOKS LOCATED PROMPTLY

All subjects, out-of-print, rare, etc. Special items for collectors acquired. New books at publishers' prices postpaid.

19 Hopedale Street, ALLSTON 34(?), BOSTON, MASS.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BOOKFINDERS

Unusual, hard-to-find, out-of-print books at reasonable prices. Send your wants. Institutional lists accepted. Fast thorough(?) service. No obligation.

Box 1884-H(?) LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ATHEIST BOOKS

22-page catalogue free. SEEKER CO.,

8 Park Row, New York, N. Y.

No. :--UNUSUAL LITERARY ITEMS

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WE PUBLISH

-print and distribute your manuscript in pamphlet or book form. Send for free folder.

PAMPHLET DISTRIBUTING CO., 11(?) W. 5 St., N.Y.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just the book for Lenten Reading

THE LIGHT

by

STEFAN TATE

At all bookstores......$3.95

Two Shoes Publishing

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OUT-OF-PRINT and HARD-TO-FIND

books supplied: also genealogies; Incomplete sets completed: magazine back numbers supplied, etc. All subjects, all languages. Send us your list of book-wants ---no obligation. We report quickly. Lowest prices.

LIBRARY SERVICE

17 WEST 48th(?) Street, Dept. H., New York, N.Y.

P.S. We also BUY old books and magazines.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daring, vivid, exciting!

MOONLIGHT

By JOSHUA LEE

Thrilling intrigue in the remaining “nights” of the war. Enemies change allegiances in the guise of darkness. A diabolical tale of about the worse in men before the dawn of a new world order.

“...a story about the war within a war.”

-MICHAEL GRUBE, Sentient.

“A must read in moonlight or daylight.”

-BENJAMIN JAMES, Examine.

At all bookstores MACMILLAN

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“WHO ARE THE MASTERS OF POWER?'

ANDREW SILVER authority on the changing social-political geography of our post-war world, identifies 15 persons who cradle the specter of power that will dictate unwritten rules and boundaries. He foresees an arms race between East and West. A cold war fought under the guise of regional, post-colonial conflicts. A chilling question arises. Will preventing the end of the world mean sacrificing the lives of thousands?

THE POWER 15

ROSE & BLATT

Publishing

at bookstores $3.50

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monkey's Marginalia, No 14

1. I am pleased to point out that Terry Priest has updated his great resource on all things Traven with some of his notes on S. and a comparison of of the two reclusive authors, Straka and Traven.

2. Geekyzen pointed out to me in the comments of an earlier post that another blogger has mentioned Stephen King in relation to S.  I am feeling a bit sheepish as I forgot all about it until after I had written my post on King.

3. I have found marginalia notes to support the alternate ending found on the Jen Heyward's tumblr blog.

• Filomela gives a sealed envelope to Eric and Jen.  According to Arturo, Filomela was given the envelope by a Frenchman (Desjardins, probably) in the 1970s and although it was in her possession, she never opened it.  (marginalia, pp. 422 & 452)
• Eric's note in pencil noting the shifting point of view from S to Vevoda VI.  Jen adds a coment about the monkey's vantage point. (marginalia, p. 343)  
• Jen also notes that this version gives her nightmares: "All those women..." which is a reference to S finding the three women dead along with a baby in Vevoda's cellar.  (marginalia, p. 452)
• Jen notes that the naval mines are not included in ending of the print book, and Eric notes that Filomela probably didn't know that Straka was going to include them. (marginalia, p. 455) 

4.  More fun and games with anagrams. The printing on the back of the photo of the mysterious arch can anagram to a number of things. Oh, btw, the arch is a blind arch as its purpose is decorative and is not supporting anything.  The wording on the back of the photo reads:  This paper manufactured by Spectra Photo.

• pirate treasure map
• suspect s estate map phony bouchard paris fr
• the postcards are not ciphers
• arch coordinates are by a sea (remaining letters PRMUFUCTPHT) 

5. And there may be a possible transposition cipher in Chapter 5, Down, and Out.  I put both paragraphs on a grid and left off the last part of the second paragraph which allows both pieces of text to fit on a 18x18 square.  Instead of putting the paragraphs on top of each other, I turned them so they are facing each other; because when you hold hands, it's the palms of the hands that face each other and touch.   As the number of characters in both text strings are divisible (50 & 49 characters) and therefore can fit onto a grid, they are good candidates for some sort of transposition cipher. 

AUREETKTEUNIEINEDWTETAYSHGOHOTHSPDAEOEMTEWHCBLTWAP

BTENHODHMMOHKGOHIOTYTEITEUEYEHUIDIDFLISOVAKOEGMEA

(8/17/14, edited for grammar and tags added)

The Nazca King

I had left off with a teaser about how I thought Stephen King might be the Nazca king as mentioned in the previous Monkey's Marginalia.  I enjoy King's writing, but I've never really been a fan of horror, so I gleened what I could off of what I remembered and from the internet. If there are any King fans out there who can add to this list, I will be happy to include your contributions (and give you credit).

1. My mom pointed out that 19 is a very important number in King's Tower series.  Wikipedia says the the series was inspired by Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came; and the character Roland Deschain was inspired by the Clint Eastwood character, "the man with no name."  Even the Michael Whelan illustration for the Dark Tower bears a striking resemblance to Eastwood.   The primary antagonist of the series is the Crimson King, aka, Lord of Spiders.  His purpose is to tear down the foundations of the dark tower to destroy the existing worlds so he can rule the resulting chaos, not unlike Vevoda, who seeks to control the narrative so that he can rule the world by hiding his true intent. 

2.  King does use other authors for inspiration and real events for his stories.  Ray Bradbury, Robert Browning, Richard Matheson, Joseph Payne Brennan, and many others have inspired King.  It was an anthology of H.P. Lovecraft that inspired him to become a writer of horror fiction.

3.  According to the Eotvos Wheel website:

The Nineteenth Prince of Spiders (c. 400 A.D.), allegedly an important religious and political leader from the third phase of the Nazca civilization. (N. b.: The Nazca lived in what is present-day Peru and are known for their creation of mysterious geoglyphs that extend over long stretches of desert ground.) According to Straka, Prince of Spiders, a 1951 book by the American clairvoyant/amateur archaeologist/Straka enthusiast Sullivan Dunn, this Nazca prince was his society’s “keeper of narrative” and has continued to deliver stories, Muse-like, to writers throughout the world and throughout the ages. Dunn speculated that the prince’s transcendent powers may have stemmed from a connection to a wise and culturally-advanced race of extraterrestrials, though he noted, helpfully, that he had not yet unearthed conclusive proof of this. Dunn’s disciples, though much fewer in number today, are still extant (and vocal) in the world of amateur Straka sleuthing. 

King wrote the introduction for the 400th issue of Batman (DC Comics).  DC Comics was at one point known as Adventure Comics before the name evolved to what it is today.  We already know 19 is important to Stephen King, but as far as I can tell 51 might be a reference to his 51st book appearing in print, 11/22/63, which could also be another potential vintage for Vevoda's cellar.
The name Sullivan Dunn can be related to William Dunn, who purchased the film rights for Pet Semetary with King; and possibly to William Sullivan who appears in three short stories of King's, or Timothy Robert Sullivan, author, (from Bangor, Maine) who has appeared as Oberon in Ill Met by Moonlight, and adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. (Just a reminder that Ill Met by Moonlight is one of the reference ads used as inspiration in the McKay's review.)

4.  The Shining.  King hated Kubrick's adaptation of novel, even though it is considered by many to be a masterpiece.  Perhaps just as interesting is Kubrick's own copy of The Shining, which he used for reference when making the film.

Look familiar? (image from openculture.org)

5.  The monster in It takes the form of a spider. Stephen King's father was born in Peru, Indiana and the Nazca lived in what is now the country of Peru.  This involves world play, but King was the surname of Stephen King's father, so in essence, King is a king (from is his surname) and a prince (as he is the son of a "king").  

(8/17/14 edits for grammar and tags added)

Another package recieved from our fine feathered friends...

Since June 6 is the anniversary of Straka's death, it seemed fitting to release another version of Chapter 10 from Ship of Theseus at midnight, Havanna, Cuba time.  Hope you all enjoy these alternate versions as much as I have.

The Monky's Marginalia, No 13

Once again, I've collected enough bits and pieces to create a new edition of The Monkey's Marginalia.


1.  Ever wonder why "follow the monkey" sounds so familiar?  It might be due to its similarity to the phrase, "follow the money,' which was popularized in the film, All the President's Men about the Watergate Scandal.

2. Amritsar, India (as in A Hundred Aprils in Amritsar) was the site of a massacre April 13, 1919 and may be a reference in itself to the century-long control over India held by the East India Company before control was turned over to the British crown and/or the almost century-long rule of India by the British Crown.

3.  Geekyzen was on the right path with the morse code from the whoisstraka.com website, but I think her error was in adding too many dashes.  I only added a dash when there was a space under a corresponding dot at the end of the lines of what we think is the encrypted message to get this:  dot dash dot dash dash dash dot dash dash dot dash dash dot dash dash dot dot dash dot dash dash dot dash dot dot dot dash dot dash dash dot dash dash dot dash dash dot dot dot dash dot dash dot dot.

The only translation that I could get to work was: ROW AN MEET AT A STATE MAN INNE or ROW AN MEET AT A STATE MAN IN NE (New England).  I think it's a reference to George Washington at the Delaware River.  Washington would have been a "state man" in his support for the colonies' independence from British rule.  At the time of Washington's crossing, the war was not going well for the colonies.  The revolutionary forces were seriously demoralized from a series of crushing defeats by the British who had more men and better equipment.  Washington's subsequent victories on the other side of the Delaware turned the tide for the American Revolution.  There is also also an inn at the spot where Washington crossed which is known today as the Washington Crossing Inn, which makes sense; we know Dorst likes his layers.

One of the images on the website says, "safety in numbers won't keep you dry."  According to one of the soldiers who crossed the Delaware with Washington, "It blew a hurricane."  Facing rain, sleet and snow during the crossing, the revolutionaries were cold and wet having reached the other side.

4. Zorro first appeared in print in 1919 in The Curse of Capistrano. Written by pulp fiction author and screenwriter Johnston McCulley, who wrote under several pseudonyms, it was originally written as a one-off story.  It was the silent movie version that prompted to McCulley to write additional Zorro novellas and short stories, causing some discontinuity problems with the original story and those following after.

 Zorro is a composite of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Robin Hood, several real-life bandits, perhaps a guy named Lampton and maybe even a penny dreadful version of Spring Heel'd Jack, who instead of terrorizing London like he does in other versions, he is a nobleman/vigilante.   Also interesting as some of these guys were real criminals, but the Scarlet Pimpernel was a a nobleman saving French nobility during the Reign of Terror; so their purposes and intents changed over time.

McCulley, creator of Zorro,  also wrote a story featuring a bad guy known as the Spider. Many of McCulley's stories were printed in the The Argosy magazine founded by Frank Munsey.  Several of his authors used pseudonyms and he was known to completely retool/rename his magazines, sometimes overnight.

5.  Jorge Luis Borges continues to be fruitful in subtler ways.  I bought an anthology he edited and one of the stories, Enoch Soames, features a "black wine" that is connected to a Mephistopheles-type character.  I should note that Enoch Soames in the story wears a grey oil-cloth cloak and a black hat described as "clerical."

6.  I suspect that Stephen King is the Nazca king.  More to come.

I am Straka...?

The Desjardins letter has always bugged me.  So I took another stab using word counts of 9 and 10 to equal 19 and using the words that fell in between.  I had to move one sentence to near the end ("scrutiny, please and confident" I think was the hint to move the sentence) and one count actually came to 20 (Perhaps because the message was written with some urgency as Desjardins may have already been murdered?).  I'm fairly confident this is the message:

"I am Straka and sure the moment when you contact me for clarity, I will be this careful."    

I dropped the letter into a spreadsheet to show the counts.  Also note that the words in the close of the letter "stay careful" rhyme with playfair, as in the cipher.

I should also note, that I have gotten some interesting anagrams from taking the first and last letters of each line from the body of the letter.  Mystery, MCrinitus, Curious and Bury are all anagrams that come from these letters, but attempts to try to decipher a message using a rail fence have been unsuccessful.  Since some of the lines contained the same letter at beginning and end it seems the play fair cipher is not viable here for a solution, but I'll be the first to admit I'm not good with ciphers.  So if anyone has thoughts on a possible cipher solution, please speak up!

Mulligan Stew, or It's All Burgoo to You, Part 2

The Hemingway hodgepodge

I know I've touched on Hemingway before; Hemingway is one of the handful of real persons identified in S.  In Footnote 2, F.X. Caldeira describes Ernest Hemingway, though originally an admirer, as one of "Straka's harshest critics."    In 1935, Hemingway was reputed to have given a interview to Le Monde stating his high regard for Straka.  There is no way that Le Monde could have interviewed him in 1935 since Le Monde didn't exist until 1944.  Le Monde started on December 19, 1944 using the same building, machines and masthead of its predecessor, the most circulated paper in France, Le Temps, which shut down after the liberation of France under accusations of Nazi collaboration.

It is known that Hemingway could be spiteful.  I've talked about Dos Passos before, whose friend Jose Robles was most likely assassinated during the KGB purges that took place during the Spanish Civil War.  David Burke, author of Writers in Paris called A Moveable Feast a hatchet job on the people he once associated with, not unlike the mythical A Swindle of Cowbirds by Guthrie MacInnes. And as Malcolm Cowley noted to the Paris Review:

"Hemingway had the bad habit of never forgiving anyone for giving him a hand up."

Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson, T.S. Eliot, among others, became targets for his spiteful behavior.

Also interesting is the coded reference to the loss of Straka's valise which mirrors an incident in Hemingway's own life.  Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, accidently lost a satchel full of his writings on a train in Europe.  Hemingway was deeply upset with the loss and there has been much speculation that given Hemingway's personality, it was something he ultimately couldn't forgive.

In case you missed my earlier posts about John Dos Passos, his break from Hemingway occurred due to the murder of Dos Passos' friend, Jose Robles.  Robles was Spanish and was the one who introduced Dos Passos to bull fighting, who in turn, introduced Hemingway to the spectacle.  It was Robles who introduced Dos Passos to Spanish culture; and it was Robles who noted that the culture was static, unchanging, and stagnating.

Robles' death galvanized something in Dos Passos and marked the beginning of his political reversal into conservative politics.  Dos Passos began to understand that revolution meant nothing without civil liberties, and that communism as administered by the Russians only replaced one form of repression with another.  Dos Passos was understandably distraught from Roble's disappearance and when he sought help from Hemingway, was labelled a traitor to the communist cause by Hemingway and Gellhorn who felt that Robles was a fascist spy.

In page 6 of Ship of Theseus, Eric and Jen discuss the death of Amarante Durand, supposedly shot by the fascists during the Spanish Civil War after being thrown from a roof.  Dos Passos, Hemingway and Gellhorn are mentioned in the marginalia as having knowledge of the murder.  It is hinted that Dos Passos knew the full details of Durand's death.  It's likely though, that Dos Passos never knew the full details of Roble's murder during his lifetime.  According to the author Stephen Koch, Robles was killed because as a translator for the Soviets, he knew too much about their activities.

The Spanish Civil War is discussed again later in the marginalia by Eric and Jen, but the timelines are off from the actual events.  Page 186 discusses the events again and mentions an October 1937, photo from the Hotel Florida in Madrid.  From my research, I know that Robles disappeared in early 1937.  Dos Passos left Spain in May 1937 with Liston Oak, saving Oak's life in the process.  Hemingway and Dos Passos were both on their way back to the states later that month.   And before Dos Passos left, he had an interesting and engaging conversation with the young man later known by his pen name, George Orwell, who had been on the front lines.  Hemingway was a known admirer of Orwell, but it's very possible that the feeling was not mutual.   Hemingway seemed to have a knack for self-deception and confabulation.   Stephen Koch notes in The Breaking Point:

"He [Orwell] was not unduly impressed by the power of language to intoxicate.  It was a little too close to the original sin of language: the power to lie.  His supreme test for seriousness in any writer was whether she or he knew how to undo a lie." 

Also, it is mentioned in the marginalia on page 186 that Hemingway made a pass at Durand and she punched him out.  Interestingly, I can't find any record of a woman punching Hemingway, although several men had the opportunity throughout the years, including the poet, Charles Wallace Stevens.  Hemingway did return to Spain with Gellhorn a few months later and finished his play, The Fifth Column, in December 1937.

And Hemingway's perception of the war is distorted in For Whom the Bell Tolls according to Arturo Barea, who himself lived through the events in Spain (via The New Yorker),

“I find myself awkwardly alone in the conviction that, as a novel about Spaniards and their war, it is unreal and, in the last analysis, deeply untruthful.”

And The Guardian reported that Hemingway was a failed KGB spy according to Stalin-era archives.   Hemingway was a volatile braggart who Gellhorn called "...the biggest liar since Munchausen."

Dates are off, perceptions are skewed, at times MacInnes seems to be analog for Hemingway with his A Swindle of Cowbirds, as is Amarante Durand for Jose Robles.  But then MacInnes is listed separately from Hemingway and in his own context, and seems to include echoes of Ford Madox Ford and Ezra Pound with their love lives.  The timing for Amarante Durand's murder is off from Jose Robles, who was a translator, professor, and revolutionary.  Robles was from the Spanish aristocracy, but Durand was French.  And there was the conversation that Mystimus and I had regarding Vonnegut.

And so we go back to burgoo.   Even the theme of defenestration that appears in S. seems to be an allusion to layers, as the victims fall several stories, are they really falling through different books and/or authors?