KIM IX -- chapter 5.1: Nine Hundred Pukka Devils

courtesy: dontaylorbookbinder.blogspot.com

Stop reading at: "'Powers of Darkness!' was all that Father Victor could say, as Bennett marched off, with a firm hand on Kim's shoulder."

1. The psychology of prophesies (and I can't help but mentally separate from the red bull those which I believe to be "true" prophesies, on the/my religious front, though these must by necessity be just as subject to this question as any other, as Christianity is as much a mythology as any other religion) interests me, inasmuch as the fulfillment of Kim's father's prophesy is subject upon Kim's interpretation of both the prophesy and the circumstances around him.  We've already seen one instance when perhaps the prophesy had potential to be fulfilled (the red-faced "bullish" horse trader), but as of now Kim has disregarded it.  What would have happened had he believed it the fulfillment of his prophesy back at that point?  Rather, now, the red bull on the green flag, which also happens to be the flag of his father's Irish regiment (the deus is it!), appears, and Kim believes it to be the fulfillment--or, at least, a signpost toward (and, admittedly, this is a much stronger potential fulfillment than the old horse trader!) --the prophecy.  Thoughts?
2. The Royal Loyal Mavericks
3. The Lama: "I have considered the countenance of that priest, and I think he is learned."  Is this possible?
4. Kipling doesn't spend (waste?) any time describing the internal emotional machinations of his characters, and in this case we see little physical evidence of how the discovery makes him feel, beyond Kim's muttering "It certainly was a Red Bull—my Red Bull".  Is there turmoil?
5. An obscure, nearly-impossible, yet potentially humorous cross-textual comparison: Kimball O'Hara, Jr. and the Lama :: Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins.
6. Coincidence???  (the regiment is his father's who and their symbol is his)  --  Regardless, I finally feel a connection to the story (and yes, I'm still so callow a reader that, while not requiring one, a connection is yet highly desirable and influential).

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana XV -- chapter 14: LOCKED AND LOADED

by Gustave Dore'

1. I’ve claimed elsewhere that I hate exposition.  I need to qualify that.  I hate obvious exposition, or poorly-done, contrived and unnatural exposition.  While Eco, clearly a skilled writer, is telling a story throughout these first 13 or 14 chapters, is it not mostly, if not entirely, exposition?  And if it is indeed and essentially all exposition, is it not also fairly obvious and contrived, no matter how artful?  Read my mind (which, at least in this particular case is and with any luck, is at least fairly aligned with yours): why do I find so much enjoyment here that I would, in otherwise similarly contrived and [never so] lengthy expositions, not find, because, honestly--14 chapters of exposition?
2. When the memory finally returns, will it be by effect of one particular trigger alone or the weeks of re-living the past in general or the simple heeling effects of time--or all three?
3. The "Hotel of the Three Roses" becomes another Clarabell's Treasure, as well as, and by the reference "A rose by any other name," another Shakespeare's First Folio.  How do these three things compare to the enigmatic "Mysterious Flames" he's experienced throughout, particularly as none of these three has necessarily sparked such a flame within (at least, in the case of the last of the three, by Yambo's first experience with it at the hands of the mischievous Sibilla)?
4. Maybe a tough question (so it is for me, anyway, as its answer may include the toppling of gods): Is the sudden and coincidental appearance of the First Folio too much--even a cop out?  Sure, Eco sets it up earlier by Sibilla's joke, but does this feel at all artificial--contrived--to you?  Would anyone in Yambo's circumstances also have to stumble upon their own personal version of the First Folio to shock them back to life (and I'm assuming, not remembering as it so happens, that this is indeed the trigger, based upon the event's placement not only at the end of Yambo's Solara efforts, but also at the end of the section)?

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana XIV -- chapter 13: OF DEVILS AND MASONS

While this is my favorite chapter of the book so far, so it contains one of my favorite comparison: that of tapeworms and gall stones to bad poetry, and all its pathetic symptoms and affectations.  Here, though, we have to examine Eco's use of, what he considers as its his own, bad poetry.  The creation and strategic use of intentionally bad poetry is like the now-commonly mentioned (Michael Chabon) generation of intentional coincidences.  A wise student once commented hopefully and pointedly on the poetry I confessed I was writing for a then-current novel.  "I hope you're not trying to write intentionally bad poetry to make it look like a teenager did it," she said.  I admitted that indeed I was not and so assured her with a sincere expression of my insecurity as a poet, (more or less:) "I'm hoping the best poetry I can do can qualify as believably excellent or even just believable teen-poetry."  So I wonder how Eco, certainly an excellent writer, but not necessarily a poet (and so he sagely acknowledges in the end of the chapter in reference to another's poem, "This is beautiful because it is not mine"), approached his poetry attempts, or, as I suspect is the case as with other issues/references in the book, these are autobiographically accurate, and indeed pieces he composed as a precocious teen--that and, well, the poems' apparent and beyond-coincidentally prophetic natures for Yambo's unique future.  For example, bad poetry or not, this is quite telling:

you cannot enter twice

the kingdom of remembrance

and hope to find unspoiled

the unexpected freshness

of the first theft.

1. The poem of "three days before Christmas" interests me, as in subject (a purity in stark contrast to what we know of the adult Yambo) and prediction (the loss of memory) it is particularly prophetic, appropriate (even mysteriously coincidentally so, as already mentioned above), and perhaps directly metaphoric.  It may even offer a potential explanation for why the memory was lost in the first place (accurate as prediction or not, I don't remember).  Thoughts?
2. As there are literal rooms of memory in the house that align with Yambo's segmented memories of his past, all of which are natural divisions--segmentations--of life, and with a particularly sturdy and tall wall set ("to put a final seal on memories I was renouncing") between adolescence and young adulthood, high school and college, so his literal loss of memory builds a wall (even a "satanically masonic" wall) between his present and past.  Sounds like a classic, though thoroughly exaggerated, mid-life crisis.
3. Lila Saba: "saba" is the food for bacteria that create balsamic vinegar.  Consider the various classic metaphors of vinegar, not to mention grapes, as well as the definition of balsam against the mellifluous connection between Lila Saba and Sibilla (additional, of course, to the fact that Lila is a nickname for Sibilla anyway).
4. An affecting little book: "La Vita Nuova."  Beatrice penetrated all sorts of walls that otherwise held everyone else back in Dante's life; so similar to this Lila who is the only one, besides Gianni, who transcends all of Yambo's barriers, consciously and subconsciously--the "relay race across the years."

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana XIII -- chapter 12: BOTH THE TIME and THE PLOT POINTS, THEY "SI GIRANO"

Ming the Merciless

1. If Chabon is right (or, at least, if his ideal carries over to Eco in this case), then the story of Saint Antoninus isn't merely told to characterize the little town.  Thoughts?
2. Superstition, of course, is borne as explanation by the ignorant of an event otherwise unexplained.  Any thoughts on how that applies here with Amalia, and maybe in context of events and information shared to this point?
3. Wretched simoniacs....
4. Of course the folio is Clarabell's treasure (or a foreshadowing thereof), and appropriately so, as he found it where he wasn't looking.  But how will this, if so it does, tie into his memory?  Regardless of the imminent connection, why is Shakespeare's first folio appropriate (and not only in personal terms to Yambo)?  Of course, it's not real.  Is it?
5. "That's my book.  Is it worth it?"
6. The little bottle atop the bookcase: any connection at all to the "Drink Me" bottle of Wonderland (though not by drinking, surely, or literally so, anyway)?
7. Gordon, Ming, and the castor oil.