LOST Journeys--The Countdown Continues

What do Lost and The Odyssey have in common?

If you watched last Tuesday's rerun of "The Incident," you probably read those informative but annoying blurbs on the bottom of the screen. Now I pride myself on analyzing just about everything on screen on Lost, but I admit that I missed the lines from The Odyssey Jacob wove into a tapestry. Loved the Eye of Horus motif and the allusion to weaving the fates of future castaways, but didn't translate Greek fast enough. So, for once, I'm really glad that I read the episode.

The Odyssey has always fascinated me. I read it as a student. I make my students read it. It's an ancestor text (one of hundreds) for Lost. Desmond's and Penny's story in many ways parallels the life journey of Odysseus and his Penelope. Odysseus struggled with tests, challenges, and frustrations from being stuck on an island for years, just like our Lostaways. All these characters return home only to discover it's not the way they remembered it.

Of all the aspects of "The Incident" to include in those Lost for Dummies blurbs, why were certain lines from The Odyssey highlighted? Why was the emphasis placed on both Romans and Greeks? Do they somehow refer to conflicts between Jacob and the Man in Black? Between Greeks and Romans? Among other ancient warring peoples? We know that some islanders converse in Latin. Did they learn it because it's their leader's first language? Or are these lines just linguistic red herrings to distract us from the many Egyptian hieroglyphs scattered across the island? Are these hints leading us to better understand Season Six? Or are we reading too much into the (sub)text again? A shout out to The Odyssey in one scene can prompt a season's worth of questions about what it might really mean or why The Odyssey has come up yet again in a Lost episode.

Lost's Season Six undoubtedly won't answer all my--or anyone's, everyone's--questions. I'm relieved that Darlton promise character development instead of 16 hours of Q&A. I'd much rather find out what happens to my favorite characters instead of knowing definitively what Smoky is. So if a decade from now I'm still wondering why Jacob wove those particular lines from The Odyssey into a neat little wall hanging, that's OK.

Lost continues to be a journey of discovery and self-discovery for me. In some ways the series has been better than grad school. It not only prodded me to read and re-read literary classics as well as obscurities, but it embroiled me in countless discussions about fate, destiny, and redemption. Lost continues to be an Odyssey, and I am impatient to take one final voyage with the Lostaways. It's time to set sail.