The Monkey's Marginalia No 12, The Mom Edition

Does it make me a bad daughter that I have gotten my own mother interested in S.?  Her answer might vary depending on the day.  She was the origin of the phrase, "Ask not at whom the monkey laughs, he laughs at us."
Because I have been rather busy with the release of the Chapter 10 alternatives, I have been ignoring her emails about S.  I going to remedy that right now by sharing some of the bunny trails she has been following.  I realize that some of these things have already been discussed by the other bloggers, but I'm including her more interesting thoughts here.

1.  The coriolis effect that causes distortion in airplane travel north to south or vice versa is also responsible for causing start of hurricanes which go back to the Poe Maelstrom illustration and the storm in SOT. 

In Bucket class we talked about the meridian and England wanting Greenwich and France wanting Paris. Fascinating fact that two guys, Delambre and McChain actually physically measured distances to determine. They did it by actually measuring and in instances they couldn't, they did it by measuring two sides of a triangle and figuring out. I believe this was in the 1700's. A couple of books were written about this and I think would make good reading. The end result was within only a very few feet of GPS. Different meridians have been used at different times and different maps or charts would use these different ones. Using the meridian at El Hierro would suggest that it was prior to any discovery of islands or lands beyond that western most known point at least before Columbus. But Portugal had a very robust trade and the most advanced maps for at least a good part of this time and each country had their own preferences.

The advent of modern science with standard measures, scientific methods, consistent verbiage (Latin) and categorization started with Francis Bacon and within the next century was put in place so all knowledge could be accessed on an equal basis thus the reason for having only one Meridian.

So, the question I have is whether or not the longitude and latitudes derived would vary or not based upon which chart using a different Meridian was used. Just a thought.

2.  Another story by Poe, a story within a story (like tales told in cave) was derivative of another work but was also used
as the basis for works by other authors.
I was struck by the beginning discussion of the main character who was injured and seeks refuge, sees a painting and reads from a book.

3.  She wonders if the island of El Hierro is the axis mundi and the basis for the obsidian island.  And Poe's work Descent into the Maelstrom mentions a cistern which is a primary feature of the island.  

4. Okay, so in the copy of The Birds (by Aristophanes) we have, on the bottom of page 40 Syracusius is introduced as " the magpie". There is a city in Greece named Syracuse with a lot of history and I found an article which mentioned Syracusan democracy. At one time the country's populations were resettled and split up to maintain the hold of the tyrant rulers. It didn't work.
A Greek myth is the one of Cupid and Psyche. C. S. Lewis wrote a different version of this in Till We Have Faces (Cupid of course is portrayed as an archer and the stories in Ship of Theseus are love stories.

5.  There was a  K R Simmons in Chapter 10 (p418) and though this is spelled differently, I came across a poem titled "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" and it starts with:  

O water, voice of my heart, crying in the same,

All night long crying with a mournful cry

He was also a critic and wrote a book The Symbolist Movement in Literature.  [Also note, Zola (as in Emile Zola) is] Close to Sola - political writer, in critiqued in Symons book. Nominated for Nobel Prize 1901 and 1902.

6.  Okay so following the rabbit, p259 Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Oscar Wilde was buried there.
He wrote Salome in 1891 and there is a note about quarreling with his translator (and lover) Lord Alfred Douglas because of his poor command of French and therefore a bad translation. Does that remind you of anything?   :)
Many dirivative works, one in 2009 by Tale of Tales is a computer game Fatale. And multiple paintings, plays, music contain references (Smashing Pumpkins!?!)
Wilde also wrote Portrait of Dorian Grey which is a derivative of another author - Poe I think. Anyway - ebedee, ebedee, that's all folks (for now). 

7.  Okay, so this is connections again.   They talk about Lewis Looper. This might be a nod to the movie "Looper" which came out about the same time a year before this book.  It deals with a time traveler which "loops". Wells goes back to wells in El Huerro etc. and the picture related to Maelstrom could be a hole or well as well.  But, the main interesting thing is that going back to the thread about Greek gods, the first version of this story was published as "The Chronic Argonauts." And, of course, we know argonauts were archers, Calais and Heracles were both argonauts. 

8. Quote from the 1939 prize winning novel Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck:

"This is the beginning--from "I" to "we". If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I" , and cuts you off forever from the "we"."

The S[traka] book Wineblood's Mine may be relating to Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. In a way you could say that Grapes of Wrath could be a synonym for reaping the reward for actions sewn. The quote could be a very modern observation about the 1% vs we the 99%. 

9.  The viewpoint in the poem is that of Tiresias who was born male, made female, (original manuscript 19 pages), given ability to understand birdsong, died drinking tainted water and wounded by Apollo's arrow.
Quote from Wikipedia:

The text of the poem is followed by several pages of notes, purporting to explain his metaphors, references, and allusions. Some of these notes are helpful in interpreting the poem, but some are arguably even more puzzling, and many of the most opaque passages are left unannotated. The notes were added after Eliot's publisher requested something longer to justify printing The Waste Land in a separate book.Thirty years after publishing the poem with these notes, Eliot expressed his regret at "having sent so many enquirers off on a wild goose chase after Tarot cards and the Holy Grail".

 (And then she added)

• Anyway useful things - Protagonist point of view is that of Tiresias - again
• Quite a few allusions to other authors the first Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
• and Chaucer had written something about the 1381 peasant's revolt.
• I skimmed the tales but found nothing really helpful.
• Refereced RW Emerson's Threnody a poem about his son that died, mentions of birds in poem.
• Allusions to Lincoln's death, various royalty including Ferdinand's death by the black hand, and Shakespear's Ariel's Song from the Tempest which references the drowned Phoenician sailor (Phlebus?) and I will follow that up plus a couple other minor things. 

And a fourth version appears of Chapter 10....

Mystimus, Jillaggie and Osfour have received yet another version of Chapter 10 from our winged benefactor.  They can be found here, here and here.

And now for something completely different or another Chapter 10?

Zort over at SFiles22 has received yet a different version of Chapter 10 which can be found here. Perhaps it be the same feathered friend who delivered one to me?

Another Alternative Chapter 10? Words are a gift to the dead....

I received this from a mysterious "S"tranger via flying courier.  Two other bloggers received the same chapter as well.  They can be found here and here.

Scrutiny, please and confident. 

Warbles of a Different Color?

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

Monkey's Marginalia No 11, The B. Traven edition

1.  Remember Luis Bunuel with the strange movie poster for That Obscure Object of Desire?  I found a direct link to him through B. Traven.  Esperanza Lopez Mateos, who was Traven's translator until her death in 1951, was cousin to Gabriel Figueroa, a well-known cinematographer who worked with Luis Bunuel.  I would like to note here that Bunuel was a contemporary and friend of Salvador Dali and the Spanish poet, Federico Garcia Lorca, who was assassinated in 1936 by Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War.

2.  Time magazine did an article on B. Traven and was able to track down Mateos, Traven's translator a few years before her death.  She pretty much scoffed at the idea that she could be Traven, noting that some of the books would have been written when she was a young girl and that she is guilty of the sin of elaboration, something Traven did not do with his writing.  

3.  In Gabriel Figuerora's autobiography, Memorias, he says his cousin knew Traven to be the illegimate son of Emil Rathenau.  This comes from second hand information from a website, and since there is no translation available, I would appreciate the help of any Spanish speakers who have access to this book to confirm this information. 

4.  Peter Wood's theory is that Traven was Danish explorer and archaeologist, Frans Blum. 

5.  I did come across the website of Terry Priest whose neighbor was Henry Schnautz, one-time body guard to Trotsky.  Perhaps the most interesting thing about Henry was his love affair with Esperanza Lopez Mateos.  Just as interesting on the site is the small book Esperanza wrote and pictures of Trotsky's room (scroll down) after the assassination attempt. 

Please be polite if you choose to engage Mr. Priest, he assures me below that he is not "in game."   I would hate for him to take down all of his wonderful information because one of us was rude.