It occurred to me recently that the inserts may point to different things relating to literature and when you find the right connections they start to point back to each other and previously identified connections.
The McKay’s review points to literary criticism, history, and theory. It's no surprise that it would point to one of the most widely discussed texts in modern history.
The Burning Word appears to point to ergodic literature and media, as well as academia and education.
The Uppsala Otto Grahn letter may to point to adaptions, education, theater, and film (and perhaps fictional representations of history).
I am going to start with The Burning Word insert as it was the one that allowed me to see the potential for connections to the book and other inserts.
First is the description of the monastery, "The building was unfinished, with several passageways ending suddenly, sending inattentive walkers falling fifty feet to the rocky ground."
The very structure of this monastery requires significant effort by a visitor to avoid its pitfalls. And in ergodic media, non-trivial effort is required of the reader or player to traverse the work.
The insert mentions Captain Norbert Strunk of the whaler Imperia. Captain and Norbert are references to Norbert Wiener, father of cybernetics and the inspiration for Espen Aarseth's term "cybertext." (While you're at it, take a look at Wiener's picture on wikipedia and tell me what you think of his well-groomed facial hair.) Norbert Wiener also worked on missile guidance systems in WW2 to improve the accuracy of anti-aircraft defenses.
Whaler points to two things and possibly three. Aarseth uses "Moby Dick" as an example to compare other forms of ergodic literature against and analyze. Whaler could also be a sly point to the TV show The Prisoner, which was filmed in Wales, and was arguably the first ergodic tv show. The third potential connection to "whaler" is an ad in the McKay's review.
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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.
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Agnes M. Reeve was a real person and she ran a literary agency with her husband, James Knapp Reeve. It was James who had written an early science fiction novel, The Three Richard Whalens.
Back to the insert at hand. I'm still tracking down "Igorko" but Bratislava is a very real city and the capital of Slovakia. Up until 1919 it was known as Pressburg. It is home to the Primate's (or Primatial) Palace. The square in front of the palace is where this interesting object is found. I'm fairly certain this was found early on, but nobody understood the connections yet.
Paracelsus, who is consider the father of modern toxicology, stayed at the palace for a time. Jorge Luis Borges, who's story, The Garden of Forking Paths is considered one the first pieces of ergodic literature ever written, wrote a story involving alchemy that features Paracelsus as the main character.
John Amos Comenius (or Komensky), a Moravian theologian and philosopher, is considered to be the father of the textbook and one of the earlier supporters of universal (public) education, including higher education. He traveled around quite a bit; and at one point, his house in Lezno, Poland was set on fire by angry Polish partisans. The fire destroyed most of his belongings including his manuscripts and a printing press. It is also another connection back to The Burning Word insert.
He is buried in Naarden, Netherlands. And Naarden has some interesting WW2 connections and a link to a composer Frank Martin. One of the resistance members from Naarden was executed by the Nazis. He was reburied in a cemetery created for Nazi victims located in a park, and there are a total of 422 people buried in the memorial there.
Oh, and Comenius? He was mad about about bees. So much that he even introduced beekeeping to the one of the regions he was living in at the time.
And one last bit about Comenius. He had an assistant by the name of Cyprian Kinner (an Api's Amanuensis, maybe?). Kinner is considered a pioneer of faceted classification. Practical applications of this include library book classification (although to be fair, the Dewey system is not a faceted system).
The bees and Kinner may provide our connection to the old woman on the island in the book.
So perhaps it is not the archer who is relevant, but the trajectories of his arrows.
Dizzy yet? I am.
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