Mulligan Stew, or It's Burgoo to You, Part 1

The worm turns...

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.  

I also found in researching Burgos, that the word "karst" as in Karst & Sons, the now defunct publishing company (page v), is a part of a geological term called karst topography which is described as the erosion of a layer or layers of bedrock.

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

Enforced Silence, or some thoughts on a mouth sewn shut in history and literature

In Ship of Theseus, S. sails on a ship with sailors whose mouths are sewn shut.  Eventually he joins them and undergoes the procedure himself.  It is a continuous motif in SOT and appears several times. 

Typically a mouth sewn shut is a motif more at home in the horror genre, body modification enthusiasts, and more recently as a form of actual political protest as google brought up several pages of such events. 

Loki may be the first victim of this practice.  Loki had his mouth sewn shut with wire after loosing a bet with some dwarves.  He had wagered his head in the bet (which Loki then lost), but refused to let the dwarves take his head if they couldn't remove his head without leaving his neck intact.  Instead, the dwarves sewed his mouth shut for his slick way with words.  According to wikipedia, this myth is the basis for the logical fallacy "Loki's wager," which "is the unreasonable insistence that a concept cannot be defined, and therefore cannot be discussed." 

The next instance is found in Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes.  The first installment, published in 1605, is considered one of the world's great masterworks.  At one point in the book, Sancho tells Don Quixote, "Senor Don Quixote, give me your worship's blessing and dismissal, for I'd like to go home at once to my wife and children with whom I can at any rate talk and converse as much as I like; for to want me to go through these solitudes day and night and not speak to you when I have a mind is burying me alive. If luck would have it that animals spoke as they did in the days of Guisopete, it would not be so bad, because I could talk to Rocinante about whatever came into my head, and so put up with my ill-fortune; but it is a hard case, and not to be borne with patience, to go seeking adventures all one's life and get nothing but kicks and blanketings, brickbats and punches, and with all this to have to sew up one's mouth without daring to say what is in one's heart, just as if one were dumb."

In 1827, it appears again in the Atheneaum.  The piece is titled Painters-Authoresses-Women, but it is not attributed to any author.  "It was easier to look in the glass than to make a dull canvas shine like a lucid mirror; and, as to talking, Sir Joshua used to say, a painter should sew up his mouth." 

In the Encyclopedia of Superstition, the practice is a symbolic act of protection. 

There are also several mentions of the practice in funerary procedures and in the descriptions of the creation of shrunken heads. 

Perhaps most interesting, I found a reference in the book The Madonna of the Hills by Arthur Guy Empey, American author of pulp fiction and screenplays. 
  "..."The other way is to promise him a pardon in a few months' time if he pleads guilty and keeps his mouth shut.  Then railroad him to Sing Sing for the limit and I can fix it so he never will be heard from.  Do you want to double cross him or are you on the square with him?  
       "I don't give a damn what happens to him," returned Davis, "just so we can sew up his mouth. The sky's the limit. Croak him if necessary.""

edit: corrected image for the Encyclopedia of Superstition.




(edited 7/31/14 for grammar and tags added)