Lost and found: Flann the man
Yesterday's post about the Anthony Burgess review of At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien reminds us of just how ageless the great surrealist's writing is. There was this recent story about how his murder mystery that involves a romance between a man and his bicycle, The Third Policeman, is enjoying a burst of popularity after it was seen briefly on an episode of the cult TV series Lost.
And talking of how Lost exploits arcana such as O'Brien's novel, Dan Hill has a great post up called "Why Lost is genuinely new media." Money quote:
"On the form itself, Lost episodes are famously laden with arcana to pore over, deconstruct and even construct in the first place, such is the collective-imagination-run-wild of the show's fans. For instance, this site which supplies transcripts of the eery 'whispers'; character names are opportunities for anagrams ('Ethan Rom' = 'Other Man'); there are numbers, codes everywhere; hieroglyphics; mystical allusions; references to philosophy (Locke, Rousseau); the constant casual appearance of literary works etc. The embedded puzzles involved will remind some of a certain age of the Masquerade phenomenon ...
Clearly, the writers and producers of Lost have tapped into the yearning for mystery that Dan Brown has so brilliantly exploited. Again, the great Flann O'Brien showed them the way: "Having placed in my mouth sufficient bread for three minutes' chewing, I withdrew my powers of sensual perception and retired into the privacy of my mind, my eyes and face assuming a vacant and preoccupied expression. I reflected on the subject of my spare-time literary activities. One beginning and one ending for a book was a thing I did not agree with." (At Swim-Two-Birds) In an age of many media and global participation by millions who want to have a hand in telling the story, the key to success is many beginnings and many endings.
