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)