The Peg-leg and the Parrot: ATU's literary game

Sadly, Larsson died at the age of just 50 before his material could be properly edited but the occasional longeur is a price worth paying for the staggering impact of the Trilogy taken as a whole.

Lisbeth Salander is a quite amazing creation.

Enjoy!

...would hazard a guess as 'The Fall of the Roman Empire'...except for the monkeys

blue moon wrote:
...would hazard a guess as 'The Fall of the Roman Empire'...except for the monkeys

You're almost there.

They're not, sensu stricto, monkeys.

..aha...Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ?

blue moon wrote:
..aha...Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ?

blue moon wrote:

Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms?

eddie wrote:Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms?

...John Fowles' "The Magus" ?

blue moon wrote:
...John Fowles' "The Magus" ?

Note figure-of-eight motif above the Magus' head: the intersection point was interpreted by Jung as the point of "individuation", the stage of personality development (as I understand it) at which a person starts being him/herself.

...well that's interesting eddie, in light of all of the concealing masques that are donned in the novel...

I loved this book when I first read it at 17. Still under it's influence about 5 years later I went to London on a one-way ticket and worked in a laundromat for 5 months to save for a bus ticket to Greece. I was caught in a riot in Athens and fled to the first ferry out which was headed for Syros. I stayed there for 6 months.

...I identified with Urfe at the time, and thought life should hold more adventure than mine had.
I discovered Greek myths and legends through The Magus.

I reread that so-influential and motivational book 10 years later and couldn't for the life of me discover a trace of the magic it held on my first reading.

The Magician...on his table are a cup, a sword, a wand and a pentacle (the suits represented in the tarot). I think the idea is that his magic is in the manipulation of these phenomena.

Is it an ouroborus encircling his waist? That would tie-in with a secondary interpretation of the figure-of-eight motif as 'infinity' (both representing that which has no beginning and no ending).
Tarot interpretations are quite tricky because the illustrations vary between decks. Yours is the the 'Rider-Waite' Magician.

blue moon wrote:I reread that so-influential and motivational book 10 years later and couldn't for the life of me discover a trace of the magic it held on my first reading

My own experience precisely.

There are certain books one simply outgrows. I blush to recall it now but I was a huge admirer of The Lord of the Rings well into my 20's.

The shape of the Tarot's Major Arcana is that of a figure-of-eight, with The Fool representing the unformed personality.

eddie wrote:There are certain books one simply outgrows.

...I'm not sure 'outgrows' defines what happens eddie. I think there's a loss of innocence and belief involved as well.

eddie wrote:The shape of the Tarot's Major Arcana is that of a figure-of-eight, with The Fool representing the unformed personality.

...I'm familiar with much Tarot symbolism eddie but I'm not sure what you mean by 'The shape of the Tarot's Major Arcana is that of a figure-of-eight'.

blue moon wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by 'The shape of the Tarot's Major Arcana is that of a figure-of-eight'.

In Jung's view the Major Arcana represent our journey through life, starting and ending with The Fool. The journey is in the shape of a figure-of-eight with the point of intersection at the moment of individuation.

I think John Fowles quotes TS Eliot at one point in The Magus:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot -- "Little Gidding" (the last of his Four Quartets)

...oh eddie what a coincidence (synchronicity?)...I have 'Jung and Tarot: an archetypal journey' by Sallie Nichols on the table beside me!

blue moon wrote:
...oh eddie what a coincidence (synchronicity?)...I have 'Jung and Tarot: an archetypal journey' by Sallie Nichols on the table beside me!

Such things happen to me all the time.

What to make of it all, I've no idea.

Perhaps I should read this again ? I remember tackling it in my teens and not getting very far with it (unsurprisingly, given my age at the time)



The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer.

eddie wrote:Perhaps I should read this again ? I remember tackling it in my teens and not getting very far with it (unsurprisingly, given my age at the time) The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer.

I nosed through it like a bloodhound when I was hunting information on myths and rituals.

eddie wrote:

...The Stones in Venice by John Ruskin?

blue moon wrote:The Stones in Venice by John Ruskin?

No.

I hope I've played fair by posting clues to the subtitle rather than the better known one-word title of this dramatic work.