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.

The Eyes of the Dragon – Stephen King

Rating: 4/5

Lost References:

Ben and Locke talk about Stephen King, and several of the author’s books influenced the Lost creators.

Thoughts:

This book is very different from King’s other books, as it was written for a younger audience, and I have to say… he should do more of this! Stephen King excels at wordcraft as a rule, and this adds to it with a level of innocence that contrasts with the darkness of certain characters and situations. The result was a fun and intelligent fairy tale with the slight drawback of predictability. But then, all fairy tales are predictable, aren’t they?

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.

On the Debuts of the Misses Rachel and Pauline Garcia – Alfred de Musset

Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

Locke draws what he remembers of the writing from the Swan’s blast door on a page with this (French) poem.

Thoughts:

I like what it says about people bickering about the arts when they should just sit back and enjoy them like children do. It may seem like this is the opposite of what I’m doing here, but I’m not arguing with anyone about the books; putting some thought into them doesn’t damage them at all. Unless I think about them too much…For more on this, see Lord of the Flies.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge – Ambrose Bierce

Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

WARNING: MORE THAN USUAL SPOILERS

Locke looks through this book, possibly for loose papers. Also, the majority of the book is part flashback, part flash-sideways. I don’t know if it’s significant that Locke’s the one looking through it because the book’s main character is killed by hanging while Locke himself supposedly dies by hanging (and he would have for real if Ben hadn’t stepped in and strangled him instead).

Thoughts:

Really, everything that there is to say about the book, I said above. It has its plot but little else. No depth. I was a little sad when the character turned out to be dying, but at the same time, I expected it.

Macbeth – William Shakespeare

Rating: 4/5

Lost References:

Question 36 of Locke’s Swan crossword is “Macbeth’s place.” He answers “Iona.” This confused me when I saw it, because I assumed his place was Elsinore (the castle named in the play). Locke’s answer could still be correct, I learned through some research, since Mac Bethad mac Findlaích, king of Scotland, is buried there and Shakespeare’s Macbeth was inspired by him.

Thoughts:

It’s near Halloween, so it’s time for a good ghost story, and this is one of the great ones, filled with ambition, revenge, witches, and plenty of blood and death. It may bother some people, as it does me, that both main characters are killed offstage, but there are reasons for this. For Macbeth’s death, at least, we have to accept the limitations of the stage. He’s beheaded, after all, and this would be technically difficult to carry out. And the play has enough going for it to overlook this point (and the bit where Shakespeare sucks up to King James by implying that he’s descended from Banquo). Macbeth’s as thoughtful as Shakespeare gets but short enough to hold even a modern audience’s attention (it’s his shortest tragedy). And enough of that time is taken up with fighting and with the supernatural that most people should be satisfied. I know I am.

Fans of the mysterious will also love this play because it carries its own superstitions. Never mention the name “Macbeth” inside a theater, unless you want a load of folks mad at you. Supposedly, it brings bad luck and accidents. (Try saying “the Scottish play” or another indirect reference instead.) So, HAPPY HALLOWEEN, And a parting quotation:

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

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.

Julius Caesar – William Shakespeare

Rating: 5/5

Lost References:

Sawyer says “You too, Brutus,” to Locke, a translation of Caesar’s famous “Et tu, Brute” to Brutus. And the sentiment is echoed throughout Lost as everyone double-crosses each other. For one, a character named Caesar is killed by someone he thinks is a friend.

Thoughts:

I wonder why this play’s listed with the tragedies and not the histories. Yes, it’s tragic, but it’s based on real people and events, and I think that trumps it. I understand the man did his research by reading Brutus’s section in Plutarch’s Lives. Having read PL, I can at least confirm that they’re pretty similar, and to my mind, both enjoyable. But of course, Shakespeare’s play has more life and much, much more dialogue. That’s what plays are: mostly dialogue. Anyway, I have to say, I loved this play. Shakespeare does what he does best, and that’s characters. He fleshes out people and their motivations and manages to keep the plot going. If there’s one thing I have to say against the play, the beginning of Act IV does lag a bit. Just after Caesar dies and before everyone gets into the battles, the characters have some down time. Other than that: brilliant. Also, the best interpretation of a Shakespeare character I’ve ever seen is James Mason’s Brutus in the 1953 film of this play.