Mckay's Magazine Review Ship Of Theseus

A short while ago Doug Dorst tweeted these pages from McKay's Magazine.

They contain pages from a review of Ship of Theseus and are from February 1950.

A brief scan of the review shows that the reviewer is not exactly a fan of the book - "a vulgar ouroboros of a novel, filled to bursting with apathy, anomie, and omphaloskepsis." (Yes I did look that last one up !)

The second page has some adverts and other articles and I am going to work my way through them to see if there are any further clues in them. This post will be updated if any new information comes to light, please let us know in the comments, via twitter or email if you think there is anything new in the article or other material.

This is great news for fans of S. as it means to me that there are other things to come, whether this is a gentle push to get us to look further or just part of a planned activity I don't know, but interesting never the less.

Update 1 - I just realized Edsel B Grimshaw, and this review, is referenced on the Eotvos Wheel Website, on the candidates page

@ObFuSc8 also reminded me that this is mentioned in the book - "Chap7 IIRC along with the obituary). Magazine owned by Bouchard/ARP."

Lady Lobster also points out that it is mentioned on page 106 in Eric's margin note.

Update 2 - The WhoIsStraka Wordpress blog has a transcription of the review.

Update 3 - There was a lot of discussion yesterday about the contents of the review and the adverts, I have collated most of it in a Storify list

I think the main points are -

From one of the adverts an address could be the New York Public Library and a search reveals it has books by Václav Straka - (Link from @CFish6) Does anyone live near the library that could call in and take a look at the books to see if anything is hidden within ?

@ObFuSc8 has posted a list of references used for the adverts in the comments below.

@MyTheseus mentioned the "magic burgoo" mentioned in the review and wondered if this points to anything within the book, a search for links and references was started.

@MyTheseus also said "Review mentions 450 pages in SOT, but there are 456. Six pages missing…" - So does than mean the original version of SoT has been extended for our benefit ?

Making Connections

A couple of things were tweeted to us in the last week and I thought they might be of interest.

First of all is something sent by @MyTheseus, who have their own connections to S. with the name and profile picture !

The information sent was about the poster image you can see here and the Etsy store where it came from.

On page 225 in footnote 10 "Fukuzawa Yukichi" is mentioned and it is underlined, probably by Eric. On the Etsy store listing it says "...Boilerplate has recently been optioned by Paramount Studios for a major motion picture to be produced by J.J. Abrams." Doing a search for Boilerplate and J J Abrams shows the news was mostly from 2011, so not exactly a new connection.

I would put this in the Easter Egg category rather than the clue category, but it is a nice thing to find.

Next we have the movie "The Ship of Theseus", I had been aware of this, but @tikirama mentioned a connection to the book which was interesting.

While the name and main theme of the movie is obviously a connection, on page 101 of the book Eric writes about Hollywood versions of the film and then says - "Heard once that an Indian director was trying to do it but haven't heard anything since." Well the Indian director is Anand Gandhi and he did make it happen.

Again I am not linking this to the book in terms of clues, but it is a nice Easter egg to tie us into the real world.

You can read more about the film on IMDB and see the official Facebook page

If you have seen the film why not let us know your thoughts on it and parallels to the book.

S-Files

Little did we know that when we started this blog we would be in the book !

Ok,. the arrow and writing may have been added by us on this occasion, but it is really cool to see our name in there.

Page 323 if you want to look for yourselves.

S. Is Out There

So do you have the book yet ? From what I have read about it everyone is a little confused and delighted at the same time.

My copy has not arrived yet and I can't get one from a store so I will have to rely on all of you for information.

Before getting on to the book, you may wonder why there is a picture of a magpie or, as we learned from the Radio Straka broadcasts, a Straka, on this post.

Well today @RadioStraka was back and posted this picture. Then The Guardian website also posted a picture of the bird in question.

Does this mean that we will get other real world clues or signs ? To paraphrase Radio Staka, Who can say, yes who can say.

Back to the book we don't want to openly post solutions to every mystery right away, especially as we don't know the answers to a lot of them and I suspect we don't even know some of the questions yet. If you want to discuss the book and it's contents please head on over to the discussion post, by clicking the tab at the top of this site or clicking here.

First lets start off gently and list the items that come inserted into the book, not in detail, but just to give a flavor of what you will see. List courtesy of Tess315

Analysing the Transmissions

I intend to try and take a look at the Radio Straka transmissions and try and pull out the relevant facts.

What is relevant may be a difficult thing to ascertain, but lets hope we can find something together.

First of all I want to list all of the references to The Ship Of Theseus book, and collect all page numbers / mentions, I will also list other books written by V M Straka, then I want to list some of the recurring items / numbers, also I will outline the basic subjects of each transmission, and finally anything else of note that doesn't fit into those categories.

If you think something else is significant or something is incorrect please let us know in the comments.

A Glance Inside S.

@TK10815 and @0bFuSc8 let us know via Twitter that the Guardian UK website had posted a short video.

The video is a brief look at an actual copy of the book and the contents, including the written notes and the many inserts that will bring the story to life.

Head on over to http://www.theguardian.com to see the video.

There is also a New York Times article that reviews the contents in more detail.

It does include this piece of information - "There will be a digital e-book and related materials scattered online for obsessive fans, but to get the full 3-D sensory experience, Mr. Abrams recommends the hardback. "

Novel Catchup

I thought it was worth catching up on a few things that have been discussed in comments but we haven't pointed out on the main site.

Firstly something that is slightly confusing at the moment, which may be significant, or may just be a simple mistake is the sticker on the spine of the book.

You can see in the photo to the left from the Amazon website that shows what appears to be a sticker from a library with a dewey decimal classification on it. I don't think anyone has been able to read it fully yet, so that in itself may be a clue.

However pictures on other websites, including the official site http://soonyouwillknow.com do not have this sticker.

So what do we think is this a mistake or a potential clue ?

In the comments of the Cover Story post Tess points out that the original novels subject "Ship of Theseus" is a Greek paradox that raises the question of whether an object which has had all its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object.

It would be remiss of me as a LOST fan if I didn't point out that the philosopher "John Locke" wrote about this paradox.

Finally for now in the comments Just Thinking gave links to the N Y Daily News website and the Coming Soon website which both mention that the novel contains pieces of ephemera such as maps, postcards, letters and photographs which help to illustrate the story that is set around the book.

The mystery is deepening and my interest in reading it has definitely intensified.

Cover Story

Mary Jane has let us know that the Amazon web page has been updated with the cover and synopsis of the novel.

One book. Two readers. A world of mystery, menace, and desire.

A young woman picks up a book left behind by a stranger. Inside it are his margin notes, which reveal a reader entranced by the story and by its mysterious author. She responds with notes of her own, leaving the book for the stranger, and so begins an unlikely conversation that plunges them both into the unknown.

The book: Ship of Theseus, the final novel by a prolific but enigmatic writer named V.M. Straka, in which a man with no past is shanghaied onto a strange ship with a monstrous crew and launched onto a disorienting and perilous journey.

The writer: Straka, the incendiary and secretive subject of one of the world’s greatest mysteries, a revolutionary about whom the world knows nothing apart from the words he wrote and the rumors that swirl around him.

The readers: Jennifer and Eric, a college senior and a disgraced grad student, both facing crucial decisions about who they are, who they might become, and how much they’re willing to trust another person with their passions, hurts, and fears.

S., conceived by filmmaker J. J. Abrams and written by award-winning novelist Doug Dorst, is the chronicle of two readers finding each other in the margins of a book and enmeshing themselves in a deadly struggle between forces they don’t understand, and it is also Abrams and Dorst’s love letter to the written word.

The two other images on this post are from the Barnes & Noble website and give a few more clues.

You can see that the hardcover book comes with a slipcase and inside is seemingly the book entitled "Ship of Theseus" by V.M. Shraka that is mentioned in the synopsis.

So it appears that the book will consist of an original text and notes that expand that text into a second story fitting around the content of the book.

There are a few elements on the cover to explore so please start theorising and discussing in our comments below this post.