So on the plane, Ben was reading the James Joyce novel Ulysses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel))

....The title alludes to Odysseus (Latinised into Ulysses), the hero of Homer's Odyssey......

The name Odysseus has several variants: Olysseus (Ὀλυσσεύς), Oulixeus (Οὐλιξεύς), Oulixes (Οὐλίξης)[4] and he was known as Ulysses in Latin or Ulixes in Roman mythology.

The verb odussomai (oδύσσομαι), meaning "hate",[5] suggests that the name could be rendered as "the one who is wrathful/hated".

that kinda sounds like a certain bug-eyed guy we know, no? :biggrin:

seems an odd choice of reading after getting beat up, difficult to read and long...its also one of the most well-known books of all time, or atleast one that someone who is well-read like been would have come upon already... perhaps he's been saving it for before his death like desmond was

yeah I remember reading it in highschool. It's basically a long surreal story of one man and his day.

Maybe there is something in that this extremely long book only takes place in one day.

or maybe its nothing? =)

Perhaps like Ulysses/Joyce, people will be pondering what the LOST writer(s) meant for years... :biggrin: !

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So on the plane, Ben was reading the James Joyce novel Ulysses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel))

....The title alludes to Odysseus (Latinised into Ulysses), the hero of Homer's Odyssey......

The name Odysseus has several variants: Olysseus (Ὀλυσσεύς), Oulixeus (Οὐλιξεύς), Oulixes (Οὐλίξης)[4] and he was known as Ulysses in Latin or Ulixes in Roman mythology.

The verb odussomai (oδύσσομαι), meaning "hate",[5] suggests that the name could be rendered as "the one who is wrathful/hated".

that kinda sounds like a certain bug-eyed guy we know, no? :biggrin:

Funny, at first I only saw "Odysseus" - which, of course, reminded me of Penelope waiting for Odysseus to return from his long, long, long journey (aka Desmond and Penelope) - but Ulysses is simply, if I remember correctly, the Latin for Odysseus. (English majors, help out here...) And, also, if I recall - Joyce parallels Leopold Bloom's journal to that of Odysseus. I think the fact that Ben is reading Ulysses is VERY RELEVANT to his encounter with Desmond and Penny and what ultimately happened on that boat.

There are so many things to be drawn and paralleled from the book. Perhaps the most pertinent is not the actual content at all. James Joyce declared of Ulysses that he had 'put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality'.

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Funny, at first I only saw "Odysseus" - which, of course, reminded me of Penelope waiting for Odysseus to return from his long, long, long journey (aka Desmond and Penelope) - but Ulysses is simply, if I remember correctly, the Latin for Odysseus. (English majors, help out here...) And, also, if I recall - Joyce parallels Leopold Bloom's journal to that of Odysseus. I think the fact that Ben is reading Ulysses is VERY RELEVANT to his encounter with Desmond and Penny and what ultimately happened on that boat.

Hey there. I got the Penelope/Desmond thing as a parallel to Joyce's Ulysses and Homer's The Odyssey a long time ago, but what's more interesting is this (if you read spoiler theories, you will have seen this, so sorry if it is a repeat to anyone): Finola Flanagan is the actress who portrays Mrs. Hawking. Back to that in a second. In Homer's The Odyssey, Penelope is Odysseus' wife. While he sails around the world, she is at home (sound familiar?), trying to fend off suitors. Joyce's Ulysses is a riff on that story: Molly Bloom is a parallel to Penelope, and Leopold Bloom is a parallel to Odysseus. She waits for him as he wanders the city.

Now back to Finola Flanagan. In a film called James Joyce's Women, Finola Flanagan played Molly Bloom (or, Joyce's version of PENELOPE). A year or more ago, I asked Gregg Nations if Finola Flanagan was chosen because of this connection. He said, perhaps partially, yes. http://forum.thefuselage.com/showthread.php?t=78538

In Lost, of course, we have a Penelope, and a husband (or bf) that sails around trying to prove something to her and himself (as is true of the other texts).

There are a TON of parallels between Ulysses, The Odyssey, and Lost. Tons. And little easter eggs that have to do with James Joyce.

J Wood actually talked about James Joyce and Leopold Bloom and how it relates to Lost a couple weeks ago. Ironic that the book ends up as an easter egg.

Ulysses is one of the hardest and longest reads I've ever encountered. I recently read Time's (I think) 100 best novels of all time and Ulysses was number 1.

Oh, I also wanted to note that Leopold Bloom is actually a Jew, but James Joyce had commented that he was more authentically Irish than most Irish he knew, or something like that. The Jews built a nation out of nothing (Ireland is a nation that had to rebuild after being decimated by English colonization). And also, Alexandria, Egypt was inhabited by many, many Jews. Then there's the Exodus, which of course, was the name (parts 1 and 2) of episodes of the show.