KIM IV -- chapter 2.2: "The Good-Tempered World"

Start reading at: "'Let thy hair grow long and talk Punjabi,' said the young soldier jestingly to Kim, quoting a Northern proverb. 'That is all that makes a Sikh.' But he did not say this very loud."

"om mani padme hum"

1. How will the Lama know when he's found the River [of the Arrow / of His Healing]?
2. Interesting, Kim's perspective: "The Good-Tempered World."
3. We don't know much yet about Kim's Red Bull, but try comparing what we do know to "Nandi."
4. The relationship between Lama and Kim is, to me, odd.  Kim, supposedly and according to the Lama, and to a degree Kim, is the chela, yet it is the Lama who relies entirely upon Kim, as guide, facilitator, tutor-of-the-world, etcetera.  What is Kim's reliance upon the Lama, and/or how does Kim benefit from the partnership?
5. Well that was fast and easy!  Kim didn't even have to search in order to find the Englishman he sought:  Deus ex Machina or simply a cutting-to-the-chase?
6. Kim's expert delivery and culling of secrets plus the India's British-rule culture of war predict what for Kim?
7. The Lama's quest and his pursuit of it make me think of pilgrimages in general.  Any extended travel abroad, and that only for more than sightseeing-pleasure-seeking, is a sort of pilgrimage, akin to that of the Lama, whether the pilgrim so intends it or not.  Thoughts?
8. Red is (as far as I can discover) considered the color of the rising sun and new beginnings.  Consider this against the color of Kim's bull.
9. What if everyone were "freed from the Wheel of Things" (not according to Kim, though his answer is at least humorous, but according to you)?

Nandi

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana XVI -- chapter 15: IN THE WAKE OF GOD ISSUING FROM THE MACHINE

1. "Maybe I am not dead. If I were, I would feel no worldly passions, no love for my parents or anxiety about the bombings. To die is to remove oneself from the cycle of life and from the beating of one’s heart."  Was he dead and now lives?  Maybe (and this is just me being optimistic, because we still have to gain some additional connection to or by the First Folio) his resurgence--even resurrection--is truly a gift from God, who has emerged from the strange machinations of Yambo's (and Eco's, I think) dirge.
2. By the context of the book, the machine of it, a great shock was required to bring Yambo back from ... whatever you want to call it.  What else, and anything less Deus ex Machina-like than the Folio, could have done it?
3. Am I projecting my own beliefs onto the text, or do Yambo's ruminations (consider the evidence of the soul versus that of the encephalogram) have the true whiff of one wrestling with himself over a religious belief and/or awakening?  It was said, after all, in the last chapter that the boy Yambo was religious.
4. I may not be able to adequately articulate this:  Yambo, before the stroke, was selfish and even dismissive of (1) his past and (2) his loved ones.  Except for the subconscious (maybe that's too kind a word for it) ambition to find his Lila, he was entirely and selfishly only about his immediate "now."  "...may I be granted the gift of fierce selfishness. I live with myself and for myself, and I can remember that which, after my first incident, I had forgotten."  Has the amnesia just been a literal manifestation of what he'd been doing by his negligence as an adult all along, anyway?  Only now after the discovery of the Folio and now powerless within this new fog, everything internal, does he long for his wife and daughters, for a firm grip of and power over the memory and application of his past?
5. (Angelo Bear and his life and death bear a shocking similarity to Toy Story 3.  Just saying.)
6. "It is clear now, in the coma’s silence, that I understand better all that has happened to me. Is this the illumination others achieve when they come to the brink, at which point, like Martin Eden, they understand everything, but as they know, they cease to know? I, who am not yet on the brink, have an advantage over those who die. I understand, I know, and I even remember (now) that I know. Does that make me one of the lucky?"

East of Eden XLI -- chpt41: PREP FOR A BEAN BASH

Reading Questions
Chapter 41.1

1. Interesting the final sentence of this first, short section that claims the Salinas Valley, while a part of the Nation frightened by its "imperceptible" slide toward war, is either oblivious or willfully despondent.  Sound like anyone you know?

Chapter 41.2

1. I think we get the direct parallel to the previous question in just the first three inches or so of text here, when Aron, in utterly willful black-and-white obtuseness, says, "But he lost it."
2. In the conversation between the brothers, there's an amplified sense of Aron's personality.  What's going on in the moment of these lines that emphasizes his character: "I'll help you though college."  "You will?"  "Sure I will."  "Why, I'll go and see the principal right away."  Compare this quickness to that of his judgment on his father.
3. Justify Abra: "I try to talk him out of [his attitude about the lettuce].  Maybe he's enjoying it."  Enjoying it?  Really?
4. Is Lee missing something, or is he content?  (Having finished the chapter, this smacks a bit of Deus Ex Machina; can you show that it's not?)

Chapter 41.3

1. The first paragraph of this section reminds me, perhaps strangely, of Life of Pi.  Will, an animal so unlike that of his perhaps-wilder siblings, enjoys his cage in his little self-crafted zoo.  Why is it (if you thoroughly remember Life of Pi) that he's so content in his "square glass cage," especially (and back to EoE from LoP) in view of the next paragraph contrasting Will to Joe?
2. If Will sees and respects Cal, he sees something of himself in the boy.  What does he see?  Are they so similar?  (This is a much bigger question--especially in view of the next--than it seems.)
3. Why does Will's "fleshy face" contort with memory when Cal admits his fondness for his father?
4. Where is God in this chapter?  Consider the source story.  Is it Adam?  Big, doltish, even simpleton Adam?  Wouldn't that be even a sort of blasphemy?  Cal is winding up to offer his sacrifice.  What is Aron's gift?