The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien

Rating: 4/5

Lost References:

Desmond packs it up as he’s leaving the DHARMA Swan hatch.

There are a bunch of similarities, but these are the big ones…

• AFTERLIFE/TIME/ETERNITY: Apparently, eternity can be reached through a church in either universe, and it takes people a while to realize that they’re dead.
• BLACK AIR: The book frequently references a (fictional) physicist/philosopher named de Selby who has a lot of crazy theories. One is about “black air” produced by volcanic activity, which creates night. The Island, of course, has its own black smoke problem.
• THE BLACK BOX: (No, not the black box from an airplane.) The main character in the book is questing after this black box throughout the book, while the Losties all have other things that they’re obsessed with. The black box contains omnium, or energy, which can make anything. . It’s a bit like a metaphor Ben gave Locke.
  • Ben: What if I told you that, somewhere on this island, there is a very large box and whatever you imagined, whatever you wanted to be in it when you opened that box, there it would be?
• THE BUNKER: As in the Swan hatch, the novel has a bunker where two men must keep strange equipment closely monitored. As it turns out, they don’t have to; it’s just another guy messing with them, which is one thing that Desmond thinks as he’s pushing the button in the hatch in Lost.
• CRIME: The main character is a robber/murderer, and the majority of the book takes place in a police station or around police, while Lost is packed with cops and criminals.
• NAMES: The main character doesn’t know his name, though he puts some effort into coming up with one. On the Island, there are plenty of aliases going around, and there’s the Man in Black who’s never given a name.

Thoughts:

For a heavily metaphysical book about a murder in hell, this was a surprisingly comfortable read. It’s hard to say more than that, except that I laughed a bit and that I’ll never look at bicycles the same way again.

The Cricket on the Hearth – Charles Dickens

Rating: 2/5

Lost References:

Desmond has read it.

Thoughts:

I don’t mind the occasional domestic novel (Alcott’s Little Women, for example). This one, however, was overly simplistic, even taken by itself and not compared to Dickens’s other works. It does suffer enormously by comparison. For instance, the antagonist experiences an instant, unbelievable transformation from grumpy miser to lonely old man, and the instant change is completely out of the blue, unlike the change in Scrooge from Dickens’s Christmas Carol. If I were to say one good thing about the book, it would be that Dickens continues in his solid command of the English language; he knows how to turn a phrase. But his talents are better displayed elsewhere.

Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

Desmond’s read everything by Dickens.

Thoughts:

As usual, Dickens cleverly connects his storylines. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stand the protagonist and his obsession with the cold and unpleasant girl who was clearly toying with him.

The Odyssey – Homer

Rating: 4/5

Lost References:

Desmond goes on a sea voyage and gets lost for years. When he finally gets back, he marries Penelope, which is the name of the wife Odysseus finally comes home to after his years lost at sea. This book is also in the Lost game Via Domus (which is particularly fitting, since the name translates to “The Way Home”).

Thoughts:

It’s more entertaining than the Iliad, for those of you who read that one and were bored by Homer (even I thought it dragged). For starters, there’s more of a storyline. It’s not just a big, long battle. It’s a string of adventures that take cleverness as well as strength. Though still present and meddling, the gods aren’t as involved as they are in the Iliad, either. I should also mention that the whole style is so different that some scholars speculate that Homer didn’t write it, and I tend to agree with them. (If you’re interested, read up on Robert Graves’s theories.) The one thing I don’t like about the Odyssey book is how Odysseus keeps forgetting about Penelope. Still, it works out in the end.

Above: Left, screencap of Desmond and Penny’s reuinion and right, detail of Odysseus Returns to His Wife Penelope by Isaac Taylor.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories – Salman Rushdie

Rating: 5/5

Lost References:

Desmond reads this book in one of his flash-sideways visions. There are also some plot similarities, which Entertainment Weekly summarizes in this article. They mention, for example, the Black Rock/the Dark Ship (dark ship in jungle) and the Man in Black/Khattam-Shud (shape-shifting evil guy).

Thoughts:

This book has been marketed as a children’s novel, but like the Chronicles of Narnia, it’s one that can be appreciated by almost any age. I admit, I was surprised at how short and how clear this book was… The only Rushdie book I’d read previously was the doorstopper novel Midnight’s Children. But this book, there’s so much to say, I don’t want to say anything. I want you all to read it and appreciate it yourselves.

I also recommend the sequel, Luka and the Fire of Life, an adventure for Haroun’s younger brother. (I was especially happy with its own not-so-subtle media references, such as one to Doctor Who in the time mess.)

Catch-22 – Joseph Heller

Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

Desmond Hume finds a Brazilian Portuguese copy of this book (titled Ardil-22) in the episode “Catch-22.” The title is appropriate for this episode, as it’s centered around Desmond, who was himself quite confused during his brief stint in the military. (His mind was jumping in time. What excuse does Yossarian have for his fragmented storytelling?) The Portuguese book belongs to the multilingual Naomi. It falls out of her bag when her helicopter crashes. (Oh, crashes are pretty common in Catch-22.)

My Thoughts:

I borrowed this book from a friend who is absolutely in love with it. Sorry, Carolyn, I don’t love it as much as you do, but I still enjoyed reading it. Definitely, I enjoyed the clever word play. I was also pretty pleased with Orr by the end, doing all those odd things that turned out to be intentional.

Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens

Rating: 5/5

Lost References:

Desmond plans to read this book before he dies. Penny leaves a letter for him in the back. Later, the two of them own a boat of the same name. It works since a major life event for Desmond is Charlie’s drowning, and in the book, the main character’s major life event is his own supposed drowning.

Thoughts:

Dickens is, in short, a genius. He has an amazing way of weaving a huge cast of fascinating characters and several subplots into one coherent story. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Our Mutual Friend. Not as well known of some of his books, it’s the best of them I’ve read so far. The history of a miser’s death and the dispersing of his fortune is not only a savvy dissection of human character, but it also makes a surprisingly fun story.

Side note… Desmond wants to read this book just before he dies. If his death is imminent, what makes him think he can get all the way through it? It’s pretty thick.