(urth) The Land Across Discussion (Spoilers!)

[Vasa Curcin]

Some interesting ideas here, in particular about possession. It certainly seems as if it is a common condition in the book - note that Grafton is exhibiting almost narcoleptic tendencies, nodding off at most inoportune moments. There are occasional hints that there is something else going on - when he is drifting off to sleep next to Naala, he is worried that he may grab her pistol and shoot her. Is he aware that someone else is present in his body? Also, at their first meeting, Volitain recommends he sees a priest, Papa Zenon, who, as we find out later, specialises in possession. 

There may also be a clue in the name. Graf is the German word for Count. Given Dracula's presence in the book, this can hardly be a coincidence. Is Grafton possessed by Dracula? Or is The Leader actually Dracula under yet another guise and Grafton his descendant? The idea of him being the true ruler of the country would resonate well with Wolfe's afterword: when democracy fails, possible reference to the communist regime, dictators are ushered in. It also bears close resemblance to the philosophy of the Cult of Light.

Still stumped regarding the girl with the red pen. Unless she is a red herring. Boom boom.

V.

On 18 Dec 2013, at 13:13, urth-request at lists.urth.net wrote:

> Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2013 10:17:25 +0000 (GMT)
> From: Auspex Rex <auspexrex at icloud.com>
> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Subject: Re: (urth) The Land Across Discussion (Spoilers!)
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> 
> I'm about 80% through my second reading of TLA and I have some other observances and questions that I'm interested in hearing others' thoughts on.
> 
> The Invisible Leader
> First, as far as I can so far determine, until the end when they all meet in Leader's mountain house, when Grafton sees Leader, no one else does. Or they pretend not to. And when others see Leader, Grafton does not. From Chapter 9, "Free Almost", when Grafton is being taken from the prison to the warehouse:
> 
> 'Every once ina while our driver said something. He was not talking to me or to the screws on each side of me'
> 
> later:
> 
> 'After I had listened awhile I got the idea that our driver was talking to somebody sitting next to him who was too short for his head to show over the back of the seat. Either that, or he was invisible.'
> 
> This, along with the custom of police leaving the front passenger seat unoccupied, really has me stumped.
> 
> Home Possession
> I'm fairly sure someone or something or multiple things are possessed, but I'm not sure how it all works. I started thinking how people go into homes and 'possess' them the way a spirit might go into a person, which got me thinking about how in TLA the streets are not named, but houses are (The Willows, for example). I think that Martya and Kleon's house may be named Nuts due to the nut trees they have. From Chapter 9:
> 
> 'But thinking "Nuts!" reminded me that there were those nut trees all around Martya's house. They had nut trees ...'
> 
> And later, in the final chapter, Grafton feels as if he's become the house for a moment, or a part of it:
> 
> 'Martya was on her knees blowing them out before I understood that she and Volitain were inside me somehow, and it was Volitain who had told me to blow them out.
> 
> Here is what I think. I think that he and Martya were really there, but I could not see them. The only Volitain and Martya I could see (the Volitain and Martya I thought I saw) were my idea of Volitain and Martya. Does that make any sense? Either that, or I was spread out all over the room somehow.'
> 
> No, Grafton, that does not make any sense. Not me anyhow. Anyone have any idea what's happening here, seems like a pretty big clue. Is Grafton a time ghost, is he possessing the house or vice versa?
> 
> Is the hand Yelena's?
> I feel as though the hand might be Yelena's, which would require some time weirdness and/or Grafton's sketchy narration. In the book, I believe the hand first appears when it runs over Martya's foot (like a rat) in The Willows. This is before the dead woman is removed from behind the mirror. But the sort of fetal position of the corpse is such that it might not be obvious that one of her hands is missing. We have a another dead woman in the story, Yelena. And the descriptions of Yelena, the corpse, and the ghost attached to the hand are compatible, with the possible exception being that the ghost is described as tall while Yelena is not. I'm stretching here, but some possible clues are here in Chapter 15, "Revisiting":
> 
> '"... she said, "I would die standing, if I could. Take my hand."
> 
> I did.
> 
> "You are good man. I meet you so late. There are so few good men."'
> 
> Grafton prays after she dies. Later Papa Iason says of the hand that "prayers of the righteous might free such spirits, or at least assist them in gaining their freedom". Later when talking about the incident with Papa Zenon and Naala, Grafton says he held her hand while she died. The hand seems friendly to Grafton, jealous perhaps of Naala, and hateful of Ferenc Narkatsos. Also the distinct mention of her body position as she dies is strange. Grafton assists her in going from a laying position to sitting up, closer to the fetal position of the dead girl in the house. At Magos X's house when he sees the ghost girl 'just for half a second maybe', she is described as 'a tall girl with long hair and a good face'.?
> 
> Multiple Version of People
> I think there may be a case of multiple versions of the same people in TLA. Is Leader just an older Grafton? Is Russ just an older Papa Iason. There is a religion in TLA built around keeping things the same, which may help describe why so much of the country seems outdated, but maybe there are multiple time tracks overlapping in TLA. We have a train that appears to go from a modern style to a steam engine, for example. Lots of seeming fathers and sons, as I've mentioned. Possibly some time tracks move slower than others, like the conveyer belts in the first chapter.
> 
> We have two people who pull out magnifying glasses from a drawer to look at the hand. Maybe no big deal, but it feels a little too much like a clue to me. I mean, it's a big magnifying glass, sort of a universal symbol for a clue. The archbishop and Volitain. The first time we have a magnifying glass in the book Volitain is using it to look at Grafton's bee stings. The next time, the archbishop pulls out a magnifying glass to examine the hand. Finally, Voltain uses a magnifying glass to examine the hand. Note that Papa Zenon does not require a magnifying glass to read the tattoos on the hand when Grafton shows it to him.
> 
> Grafton jokes about Butch and Aegis being the same guy until he meets them both in the same room.
> 
> The raw-boned, dark-haired lady who wears black and white polka-dot in one scene and quickly, it seems, changes to black and red stripes with a different hair-do.
> 
> So Many Questions
> What was Ferenc Narkotsos talking about when he said "She wouldn't sign. Everything I say to her, it is still no. She wants the police."
> 
> The chapter Getting Ahead, in which Grafton possibly lifts the shrunken head from the Narkotsos' shop, and Butch's severed head is tossed into Naala's apartment, got me thinking about The Land Across. The Land, A Cross? I don't know.
> 
> Russ told Grafton about Rosalee's aunt Lily who lived with her disabled husband. Then there's The Lily & The Civet shop(s). I don't believe we ever see Abderos Narkotsos, Ferenc's father, but perhaps he is Rosalee's purported uncle. Of course, the story Russ tells Grafton doesn't exactly stand up to Grafton's later theories about how and when Russ got into the country.
> 
> When Grafton is following the dark man in the woods with three wolves, the man stops and points and the wolves run off and kill something or someone. There's a little scream. Who did they kill?
> 
> I don't even know exactly where to begin with the dark man with fire in his eyes (who I assume is Vlad), Magos X, and the girl with the red pen.
> 
> 
> Any thoughts are appreciated,
> Jeff

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