Lost Literature Display

Sometimes I really love my job.

Where else would I get to indulge my love of a TV show, have fun with books, and help build a tent out of bamboo poles and twisties?

I've blogged before about the TV show Lost, and we recently put together a huge exhibit at my library called "Lost Literature." I wrote an article about it for the college's website and publications. I'm going to reproduce it here because I thought you'd enjoy it--and because I'm too lazy to write another version. Enjoy!




A few months ago, Macon State College’s Assistant Librarian Felicia Haywood had a fairly simple idea for a library display that would highlight a number of books in the collection. That simple idea grew into the library’s largest display to date—an exhibit that snakes around the entire second floor and includes a full-sized boat, a tent constructed of bamboo poles, and a smoke monster.

And books, of course. Books as diverse as The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Wizard of Oz, and Bad Twin. “All these titles are from the library’s collection,” says Haywood, “but they have something else in common. They also play a part in the popular ABC-TV Show Lost—along with many other titles covering a spectrum of time periods and genres.”

Lost follows the plight of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, which crashes onto a mysterious island and leaves them stranded—but not alone.

The island is just packed with mysteries, including a colony of people they call “The Others,” a monster that appears to be made of smoke, and a man in a hatch who swears he’s fending off an apocalypse by punching numbers into a computer.

If you’ve watched Lost (or heard your friends talk about it), you’ll know the show is a mind-bending puzzle. Through events on the island and flashbacks to the characters’ earlier lives, we discover that the Flight 815 survivors have intriguing connections to one another. Were they brought to the island for a reason?

As Haywood says, “Tiny bits of information turn out to provide important clues later on, so when a character is shown reading a particular book at a particular time, it’s probably important.”

And the literary clues abound! The survivors of Flight 815 read books to pass the time. The Others have a book club. The Hatch where Desmond holds the apocalypse at bay has a library.

Characters quote from books. Writers reference them in episode titles and character names. Sometimes story lines seem to follow famous plots.

In a strange twist of life imitating art, there’s even one Flight 815 passenger who wrote a novel called Bad Twin—which was later published in the real world, and added to the library's collection. The popular character Sawyer was seen reading the manuscript for Bad Twin in an early episode. If you’re interested in it, you can find it in the exhibit at Sawyer’s tent, along with his reading chair, Oceanic Airlines water bottles and blankets.

You can also see a replica of his bizarre reading glasses, patched together from two pairs salvaged from the wreckage.

“My original idea,” says Haywood, “was to draw attention to some classic library books. And also to the second floor of the Library. Even a couple of years after the library’s renovation, some folks don’t seem to be aware that the library now occupies two floors. Since a couple of us at the Library are Lost fans, the idea sort of snowballed. But what better way to get patrons to check out the upstairs than to provide them a recreation of the Survivors’ beach camp, Dharma stations, and even a model of the infamous Smoke Monster!”

“We’ve left clues everywhere to celebrate Lost’s homage to literature. If you’re a newbie to the show, you may just find yourself getting drawn into its world. If you’re a fan, see if you can make the connections.”

There are also plans for events, contests, and give-aways in connection with the exhibit, so watch out for more details.

“And if you find a book that you like,” says Haywood, “feel free to bring it to the desk and check it out—even if it’s the Stephen King book under the polar bear’s paw.”

You can see lots more photos at our Flickr site.

The Flickr photos and all the good pics above were taken by Felicia. The ones that have poor lighting or are blurry were taken by yours truly!

Why Does It Work: Lost?

As I've mentioned before, I didn't start watching the TV show Lost until recently. Kristi had been wanting me to watch so I could discuss it with her but I figured I had missed too much to jump in late. I knew enough about the show to know that the plot is very complicated.

Then Kristi played dirty. She gave me season one for Christmas, knowing I would be hooked. And I was. When I reached the cliffhanger ending of that season, I had to rush out and find the next, and so on until I was caught up with everyone else and able to watch last week's season five finale along with the rest of the world.

In fact, since Kristi's now in a time zone three hours earlier than me, I saw the finale before she did! A friend said I should text her and tease her by saying I was going to tell the ending and spoil it for her--but make up something really outrageous instead of telling the truth. Trouble is, you can't make up anything more outrageous than the show itself. That story just gets weirder and wilder as it goes.

So why do so many ordinary people seem to love it, to be totally addicted to it? As a writer, I really want to figure this out. Here are just some of the puzzling, writing-rule-breaking characteristics of the show.

Flashbacks!
Anyone who's been writing long enough to get their first critique knows that flashbacks are a no-no. I've heard them called the instant mark of amateur writing, because they break into the flow of the action and take you out of the story. Yet, not only is Lost built around flashbacks, but those flashes at times seem to intentionally jerk you out of an exciting, climactic moment.

If you haven't watched the show, you probably at least know it's about a group of survivors of a plane that crashed onto a mysterious island. Each week, the episode flashes back to one character's earlier life in brief episodes that punctuate the events taking place on the island.

The island is fraught with intrigue and dangers--from mysterious forces, wild animals, other people who were already on the island. One of our protagonists might be attacked by someone with a knife, and in the middle of that action we'll be jerked back to his previous life as he sits calmly on the couch having a conversation with his mother.

And then there are the flash forwards. At some point, the brief scenes of the characters' previous lives give way to episodes from the future, about their lives after the island. When this first starts happening, you aren't necessarily aware whether it's future or past. In one of the most bizarre turns I've ever seen, during the action on the island, there are flashes about two of the characters, a married couple. The woman is in the hospital giving birth and her husband is rushing around, trying to get to the hospital, so you of course think this is all the same event--flashing forward to their having a child after the island. At the end of the show you discover that they were in two totally different time periods. The husband's scenes were a flashback and the wife's a flash forward!

Descent into Geekery!
Then there's the fact that we started out with a story that seemed a little mysterious, but still...it was going to be about a group of survivors, their relationships, and their attempts to get back to civilization, right? We've all seen it before, from Swiss Family Robinson and Robinson Crusoe to Cast Away with Tom Hanks.

Turns out that's not what the show is like at all, and in the last couple of seasons it took a turn into what I have heard called "sci-fi geekery," complete with time travel and strange magnetic field "incidents" and the like. I'm particularly interested in these developments because an agent at a conference told me that one of my books wouldn't work because of a similar development. He said that readers can't start off feeling they're reading about suspense or even about ghosts or the supernatural and then be taken off into science fiction developments. And yet, Lost is one of the most popular things out there. Are TV audiences more flexible than readers? Was the agent wrong? Or are people giving up on Lost after these developments, too?

This brings me back to my original question. Why does this show work?

I have several humble theories. One is that people love a mystery, and I'm not speaking here of the who-dun-it kind, like who killed Colonel Mustard in the library with a wrench. I'm talking about the big, eternal kind of mysteries. What lies beyond our ordinary sight? Do we have free will or are we doomed to fate? Is there some sort of battle between good and evil that we're caught up in, whether we can see it or not?

I think that's why the flashbacks--and forwards--fly. It's generally in those scenes that you make a sudden realization about some of those questions. Where something completely unexpected is revealed about the characters' connections, or decisions that led them to the island, or events that make it appear they're all being manipulated by an unseen hand. So in some ways, that calm flashback may be more exciting than the knife fight it interrupts.

The amazing season finale last week felt almost Biblical. We discovered that two entities have been warring over the island, and whether people can be allowed to live there, for centuries. One seems to be benevolent and good and on the side of the humans. The other is jealous of the good one and longs to overthrow him, and we discover he's been deceiving and using the people on the island in this attempt. In fact, he has sometimes pretended to be the good one when he appears to them and gives them instructions. Sound vaguely familiar?

The fact that the developments, and even the story-telling techniques, are so unusual makes everything fresh and surprising. It's like a ride on a roller coaster, where any minute you may be jerked around a corner or feel the bottom drop out of your stomach as you slowly crest a hill and then plunge. You hang onto every conversation, every development with a smile on your face because you know that any minute something totally unexpected will occur.

Also, oddly enough, I think it's important that we know there's a definite ending coming. There is an actual story and a plan and a purpose, which will be revealed. I can't stand those shows where people wander around in search of a goal (like getting off the island) year after year with no end in sight, and have totally unconnected episodes and adventures.

My pastor even mentioned this in a sermon a few months ago--the fact that Lost's ratings had started to sag but when it was announced that they would definitely finish up the story and end the show at a certain time, the ratings went back up. My pastor was connecting this to the fact that people grow weary and discouraged when there appears to be no purpose, no goal. But we know the end of our story, of God's story, so we should be encouraged.

So what about all of you? Do you watch it? Love it? Hate it? Did you give up on it when it seemed to change direction? Did you see the season five finale? I'd love to hear what you think.

Cat Imagination, Part II

Wendy yearns for Narnia

"I've got to get back! I'm a Queen there!"

If you're looking for Part I of this post, it's over on my other blog. A few weeks ago, I told how my cat, Wendy, either has a rich life of the imagination or is going completely insane. I'm still not sure of the answer, but let me catch you up on the latest.

First of all, she's developed an obsession for the TV show, Lost. I avoided that dread condition myself for years by refusing to watch the show, but Kristi was devious. She gave me season 1 for Christmas, and of course after watching season 1 I had to go out and get season 2, and so on, and so on. During one of the early episodes, the characters went down a hatch and into a tunnel. The scene was dark with flashlight beams bouncing all over the screen. Wendy bounded to the end of the bed and stared, enraptured, with her little head bobbing to follow the action.

After that, she was as hooked as all those folks you work or go to school with. I'm not making this up. Wendy generally ignores TV, but when Lost is on, she hunkers down on the chair or footstool and drinks it in.

One night, I pulled up a recent episode on the computer. She had curled up on my lap as she often does when I'm computing, but when the Lost episode loaded, she sprang up and started yipping in excitement. She climbed onto the keyboard and appeared to be trying to jump through the screen and onto the island. (If she had actually been in a Lost episode, it probably would have worked.) I had to pull her off the keyboard about three times and try to calm her down.

All this is nothing compared to her addiction to shadows. In the other post, I talked about her cute habit of watching shadow puppets on one particular wall. Now she follows me around the house just so she can lunge at my shadow. If I'm in one spot, she plops down and watches the movements on the opposite wall. I hardly ever see my cat's face anymore. She always has her back to me.

In the "Narnia" pictures at the top of the post, Wendy was actually watching shadows. The interesting thing to me was that, for ages, she was totally uninterested in what was making the shadows. She fixated on the silhouette of my wiggling fingers on the door, but when I tried to get her attention and get her to actually play with my hands, she wasn't interested. Right back to the shadows.

We've mentioned how a great book or a great movie can create a longing in us for Heaven or for God. That the fiction can provide road signs to the Real Thing behind the allegory. Watching Wendy, I was reminded that those of us with fertile imaginations need to be careful not to get so absorbed in the shadows that we forget the Real Thing.

When I get "lost" in a story, I need to make sure it's drawing me to God, not pulling me away from him. I don't need to sit with my back toward God, caught up in my own little world, and ignore the truth.

Wendy eventually did turn around and decide to come play with me. And we had a great time.

Of course, she still watches shadows. And I figure that's okay, as long as she doesn't forget I'm there.