Well it's an "empty book of stamps". From what I can remember there are only two instances - comparatively - when stamps were used: to send the letters, parcel, etc. back to himself; and to send the Greek postcard. Eric also says on pg.29, "a postage stamp of control", about his house and how he was slowly acclimating to the world.

The postcard doesn't have a date on it; according to the newspaper article Randle received it "earlier this week", but this talk of stamps makes me wonder when was it sent? Or if Randle was lying about when she received it? (Side-note: I've also only just realized that the Casablanca image is the front of the postcard)

Steven also raises the question about Eric's "blue phase" - blue writing on the ceiling (not in the final novel), the blue envelope, "flapping blue tarpaulin sheets" - which makes him sound like Picasso, with his Blue and Rose Periods. With the all the mentions of TV shows and movies my first thought was about the bluescreen, and then I thought about the Microsoft (Mycroft) Blue Screen of Death and the Source Code on the Orpheus, and finally about the clear blue sea. Blue is also a common color in pens.

It could be a latent memory of Clio's blue dress or of the blue lettering of the title of Clio's guidebook (according to Amazon.com there are 56 mentions of the color blue), Eric unconsciously retreating to something he felt was safe and familiar.

Steven also raises the question: "How is Eric talking about events in the past tense given what we've seen at the end of the story?"

How did you find this? It's hosted on the raw shark site (which is now auto-directing to the forum), but I don't remember there being a way to access it on the old site.

I thought the part where Mycroft and Clio's cancer are mentioned in the same breath. It's never really explicitly stated what kind of cancer she had, but from her rubbing the back of her neck at various points I always just assumed it was brain cancer, lymphoma, or something of that sort. Sort really brought my attention, for the first time, to this kind of connection between Clio and Scout (Clio's cancer vs. Scout's inactive Mycroft Ward data, or whatever you want to call it).

So yeah, it's pretty neat. When was this put together, Steven? It gave off the impression of being more recent than not, but there's no date that I can see.

Oh, and just a small note about the above: there was a small typo near the beginning of that quoted text there ("was" not "way"), but I've corrected it.

As santonio noted in "Fearful Symmetry" the intention seems to be that every aspect of this novel have a positive and a negative:

"Like the Rorschach inkblots, many of the characters and situations present dual aspects that may be interpreted as two distinct but reflective elements (alternately “the view” and “the reflection” mirrored and organized along a central axis or concept), or alternately (and from a different paradigm), may be interpreted as a single whole."