The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum

Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

There are so many references to this work, some of which I didn’t even catch until reading up on fan sites. Where to begin?

A man named Henry Gale crashes on the island in a hot air balloon. (Ben Linus steals his identity.) Later, Sawyer calls Tom Friendly, one of the Others, “Zeke.” Zeke is one of the farmhands that works for Henry Gale, just as Tom works for Ben.

There is an episode titled “The Man Behind the Curtain” in which Locke calls Ben this and then directly mentions the Wizard of Oz. (As it turns out, the actual powerful being behind the curtain is Jacob, though he, unlike the Wizard, has real powers.) There is also a three-part episode called “There’s No Place Like Home” with flash forwards for Jack, Hurley, Sayid, Sun, Kate, & Aaron.

Then there are also some references to the film, like a character getting crushed and having red shoes sticking out. (In the book, they were silver shoes, not ruby slippers.) But such references don’t really count, so I think I’ll let it go here.

Speaking of shoes, Dorothy uses her shoes and a wish to return home to get back to Kansas. To get back to the Island, Jack thinks he needs his father’s shoes.

On a larger, thematic note, both stories are about people being caught in a storm and thrown into a magical land.

Thoughts:

If I’m honest, I didn’t really care for this book. It wasn’t bad, but with all the hype around both the book and the movie, I was expecting a little bit more. It was written very simplistically, which one would expect from a children’s book, but there was far more “telling” than “showing” in the action. I never really felt engaged or like I was part of the story, just observing from the outside. Dorothy’s emotions especially were told very passively, and even when she did say or do things that would support the purported emotions, it just wasn’t enough to make up for the rest.

Lost: Signs of Life – Frank Thompson

Rating: 4/5

Lost References:

Again, this book took place during the first season of Lost, though it didn’t include the crash like the others did. This one includes the motifs of art, dreams/visions, and ghosts.

Thoughts:

I liked that it actually added to the Island mysteries, as opposed to Endangered Species, which was basically about a jungle adventure. I liked that, unlike the other two books, it actually incorporated the show characters into the actual plot instead of using them as props to frame the scene and convince us we were in Lost. However, it does miss out on the use of original secondary characters on the Island, which Hapka’s works at least tried to do. Besides that, it annoyed me that Jeff spent half his flashback time sleeping around, which I consider especially wasted space because he’s otherwise the most developed and realistic of the three books’ main characters. The most obvious flaw in the book, though, is its serious need for editing. There were many technical errors, like referring Jeff as Jack within the book and Nick on the back cover blurb, of all places. There were times when the author did things like suddenly jump between character perspectives or break from the Island-flashback-Island chapter structure. Then there was the ending. Just like the Return of the King movie, this book suffered from several false endings after the climax. All in all, this book had more promise than the other two character-wise and plot-wise, but it comes across as a very unfinished product.

Lost: Secret Identity – Cathy Hapka

Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

Like the first novella in the series, it’s set in the Lost-universe just after the crash.

Thoughts:

This one is pretty on par with Endangered Species, and again, the author tackles a common Lost theme: secret identities, obviously. Out of curiosity, I did some research on the author and found that she’s written a bunch of books – some of them tie-ins for companies like Disney and Lego, essentially professional fan-fiction. That really is what you get when reading Secret Identity and Endangered Species: good fan-fiction, no more and no less. You can tell the author is in love with all the existing characters, but it does mean that in both books, original characters apart from the main one don’t get much development. But no one reads these things for the literary value, right? Just enjoy them for what they are.

Lost: Endangered Species – Cathy Hapka

Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

This semi-canonical novella is set on the Island immediately following the Oceanic crash (except for the flashbacks, of course).

Thoughts:

The writing seemed amateurish, especially in the unnatural dialogue. However, it did move along at a good pace, and it handled some of the themes that readers would expect in Lost, if in a heavy-handed way. (The main character’s name is Faith, she struggles with self-confidence, she has a secretly violent past, etc. It is also formatted so that the 23 chapters alternate between Faith’s present and her flashbacks.) The big upshot for this book was that it did, in fact, focus on someone other than a member of the show’s main cast. It makes sense, considering how many people were on that flight, and I’m glad those responsible for these tie-in books decided to take that route. So, don’t expect anything deep, but your average Lost fan would probably get some enjoyment out of the experience.

Notes from Underground – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

Ilana has a Cyrillic edition of this book; Hurley finds it after her death. Thematically, it’s about suffering, and it touches on the free will vs. predestination debate. Also, the philosopher Rousseau is referenced (the one Lost’s French woman is named after).

Thoughts:

I’ve read some of Dostoyevsky’s short stories before, but remember enjoying them more than this novella. (I’m afraid I’m just not a fan of existentialism.) As in Notes, he sketched characters so vividly and realistically (flaws and all) that I have to admire him for that. Also as in Notes, he doesn’t always trouble himself with much plot, but that’s easier to get away with in a short story. Here, the first half of the book was taken up with a philosophical essay, and even after that was over, the narrator still did a lot of musing. I think I’ll take a break from Dostoyevsky before diving into The Brothers Karamazov, though I hear it has more of a story line.

The Outsiders – S.E. Hinton

Rating: 4/5

Lost References:

In Lost, Hurley’s friend Johnny tells him, “Stay gold, Ponyboy,” exactly as Johnny of The Outsiders tells the narrator. This in itself is a reference to Robert Frost’s poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” and Johnny means that his friend should try to keep his fresh, innocent way of viewing the world.

Thoughts:

I was dubious at first, as I always am when reading about the gritty side of life. Lots of authors end up going too graphic and over the top. Others glamorize street gangs and make them out to be victimized innocents. I can appreciate the balance that Hinton strikes here. A big part of the book, in fact, emphasizes the fact that there are good and bad deeds being done at all ends of the social spectrum, and even individuals have the capacity for both.

The Pearl – John Steinbeck

Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

One DHARMA station is called the Pearl, and the book is about the curse of wealth, reminiscent of Hurley’s lottery win.

Thoughts:

It’s a novel about all the evil in man. Read it, and it’ll depress you for the rest of the day. But it’ll only depress you for one day, because it’s that short. And there are some truths in it, so if you want to read about a negative but mostly realistic view of humanity, this book would be pretty ideal.

Lord of the Flies – William Golding

Rating: 4/5

Lost References:

There are many similarities here, some big, some trivial.

• PLOT: In both stories, a group of strangers crashes on an island and devolves into violent behavior against each other (though Lord of the Flies is about boys and Lost has men and women and a few kids). Both stories have the characters dividing into factions based on beliefs [LotF – Ralph (civilization) vs. Jack (savagery), Lost – Jack (reason) vs. Locke (faith)… LotF’s Ralph and Lost’s Jack are both initially reluctant leaders], and this leads to a lot of reader/viewer speculation on the nature of man and/or the universe.
• CHARACTERS: Both stories have a character peculiarly connected with his island (LotF – Simon, Lost – Locke). Both have a character whose death is seen as a sacrifice to the Island by another (LotF – Jack on Simon’s death, Lost – Locke on Boone’s death). Both have a parachutist arrive on an island, get stuck in a tree, and get discovered by the castaways (LotF – the paratrooper, Lost – Naomi).
• OTHER: Sawyer and Charlie both mention people acting all “Lord of the Flies.” Both the Island and this book’s island are filled with boar. Hurley finds a boar swarming with flies, and in the book, a boy finds a fly-infested boar head on a stick. Both Islands also have rumors of a monster in the jungle. Both have plot points concerning asthma (LotF – Piggy, Lost – Shannon) and a side story about someone’s glasses (LotF – Piggy, Lost – Sawyer).

Thoughts:

Unfortunately, I had to read this book for three separate classes, and in each of those classes, we analyzed it to DEATH. I actually enjoyed this book the first time through, but now I can’t stand it. It’s actually a well-written story about how people create government and society based on crises. It’s also shares many similarities with Lost, so I wish I’d seen this show before suffering through those classes. At the very least, I could have whipped up a decent paper on comparisons and links between the two. And it really is worth reading… I just don’t want to read it myself right now.

Harry Potter – J.K. Rowling

Rating: 5/5

Lost References:

Hurley, seeing Sawyer in his new glasses, says, “Dude, looks like someone steamrolled Harry Potter.” Book Three, The Prisoner of Azkaban, is also on Jack’s shelf (the one with time travel).

Thoughts:

Since the final movie just came out earlier this month, it’ll be difficult to avoid comparing books to movies. Except the last one. I’m going to see Deathly Hallows Part Two later this week. As far as the books go… they cover a wide scale of quality and a hefty amount of plot, come to that. I guess that means I’ll be dealing in broad strokes.

One through Three were amazing. These three books make up some of the best literature I have ever read, with Prisoner of Azkaban at the peak of excellence. (Oddly, I find this one the worst of the movies, thanks to poor CGI, directing, and acting. Gary Oldman was a great choice for Sirius, being an incredible character actor, but even he couldn’t save this flick.) Then the books started going downhill. Four and five were readable, but they started the trend of door-stopper novels that abandoned concise storytelling and indiscriminately included extraneous scenes and information. Six was pretty bad. I want to forget Seven ever happened. Plot-wise, it lacks creativity (which is disappointing, since creativity was one of Rowling’s strong suits previously. Essentially, the characters, in the middle of their Book-Six-introduced quest to find a bunch of magical artifacts find out that they have to… find more magical artifacts. The resolution was poor, too. Half the cast died random, weightless deaths. Everyone who survived married each other and had kids named for all the dead people.

But even this blight of a book can not make the first three any less wonderful. The mix of serious plots and lighthearted moments, the originality, the flawless pacing, the fact that children in trouble at least consulted adults, the unique characters, and just the writing, all make these three novels worth the reading. In fact, it’s practically worth reading the whole series to find out what happens. Even if you’re disappointed in the end.

Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

Rating: 2/5

Lost References:

Jack refers to the Jungle as the “heart of darkness” when he talks with Kate. Charlie calls Hurley Colonel Kurtz, and Sawyer calls Locke the same. There’s a copy of this book in Via Domus.

Thoughts:

Joseph Conrad has the unhappy talent of making absolutely any circumstance sound dull, no matter how exciting they should naturally be. These circumstances can be anything from action scenes, as in the savage attack on Marlow’s steamer, to the horrific, as in the severed heads posted around Kurtz’s house. If these events can be made uninteresting, anything can.

Besides this, the book had a poor effect on history. In its depiction of British colonialsism, it dehumanized Africans and associated them with the jungle’s darkness. This was an unfortunate and inaccurate image of them that lasted for quite some time, so I can’t appreciate Conrad’s work in a human sense any more than I can in a literary one.