Kevin's Watch

So, Jeremiah grabbed one of his toy cars when he was abducted--a red one.

SRD made the point of mentioning he was still clutching onto it when he was sommonsed to the Land.

Now, the toy car was part of the race-track set Linden got him, but he'd never played with it, and instead, used the track-pieces to construct a model of what appears to be the Arch of Time in his bedroom.

But the car was useless to the track:

...Yet the design would have been useless to its cars. The track through all of its loops and turns and dives formed an elaborate Mobius strip, reversing itself as it traveled so that in time a finger drawn along its route would touch every inch of its surface on both sides.

So, the car-- a useless 'vehicle' for traversing the Arch of Time?

Also the wording is dubious-- "..so that in time a finger drawn..."

If the car is useless, why the whole thing about carrying it to the Land. It's as if Jeremiah knew where Roger was taking him, and he grabbed something that he knew would be useful as a tool where he was going.

Stead wrote:

...Yet the design would have been useless to its cars. The track through all of its loops and turns and dives formed an elaborate Mobius strip, reversing itself as it traveled so that in time a finger drawn along its route would touch every inch of its surface on both sides.

I thought the car was significant when I first read the book but then forgot all about it shortly after Linden entered the Land.

Actually, to be honest I think I skimmed or didn't really pay too much attention to the "reality" chapters, I was so anxious!

Looking back on it now I can't even understand what the above quote means!
This helped out a little:

www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae401.cfm

But I can't comprehend how a child or even an adult could make it out of a race track.

You can make a Mobius easy with a strip of paper, if you twist it where it joins.. If the track was something the car could run on both sides of (the top side and the bottom side) then it could still traverse the track as long as gravity was ignored, but it would end up running both sides of the track in its double-loop.

But how this applies to the "Arch of Time" is still vague.

The Mobius Theory has often been a model for time:


www.cix.co.uk/~antcom/mtl.html Describes this one way.

But it goes into all that hard-to-comprehend Stephen Hawking-type stuff.

I've read a bunch of it, but still can't pretend to comprehend it.


I know it definitely relates to the race-track and the Arch in this story, but the car is baffling.

The artistic depictions I've seen of beings traveling on the Mobius of time are usually symbolic of linear travel. Escher drew ants crawling, but the classic analogy used by Einstein and folks of the 'theoretical physicist" ilk has always been one of trains travelling on a track

So the car could possibly be the 'train' used in these physics analogies, I'm sure there is plenty of writing on the perspective of the traveler, versus the perspective of the outsider. Relativity and all that, says that the true motion of the object can never be defined unless it is in respect to a fixed perspective, and even the fixed perspective is only relative to itself.

It's a big confusing mess, but I'm sure the car is going to be very important.

(ps. go back and read the beginning again. In my view, it was the best part of the book!)

edit-- couple more details. When Roger invades the house, he smashes the tinker-toy castle, but leaves the race-track "Arch of Time" undisturbed in Jeremiah's room. Foul can easily destroy the 'castles' Jeremiah built as a ward to his "domain," but is power does not yet enable him to harm the Arch, paralelling his perdicament in the land.

Also the cars are laying in chaos on the floor while Jeremiah is building the Arch, and then it's complete, Linden puts the choas into order, arranging them "like a display on top of his bureau." This is (could be) analogous to her wielding the Staff of Law in the Land.

If so, only from her imposed 'Law' on the cars, he was able to snatch one of them as he is abducted.

The text says:

On some level, he must have understood his danger.

But his original 'chaotic' placement of the cars, 'in a clutter on the floor' would not have enabled him to 'reach out' and grab one as he was captured..

Only the application of Linden's 'Law" had put the car in a place where it could be gotten when Jeremiah needed it.

In some way, Law knows the future. It knew that the cars would be there when the time came. And Jeremiah snatched one.

My 'guess' at this point is that this is why Jeremiah is with Covenant. Covenant might 'be' the "vehicle" which was placed just where it would be needed by (the Staff of) Law, specifically to be there when Jeremiah (creator?) 'reached out."[/i]

I had a post all written about this, and you beat me to it!

There are 2 (no, 3) reasons why I've been obsessing over this apparently insignicant detail:

1) The fact that Jeremiah fixes on the car in a moment of crisis, whereas before he's seemed oblivious to them, suggests that his mental processes are not necessarily what they appeared to be. This is reinforced by his constructions, which seem to indicate some sort of mental connection with the Land or it's Creator.

2) This is only the second artifact distinct to the real world which has been taken to the Land (distinct as in they have no 'parallel' there, unlike clothing, knives, etc.). The other, Hile Troy's sunglasses, had a very important and clear symbolism. What symbolism could a toy car have?

3) The very fact that it seems to be an insignificant detail - when it comes to SRD's writing, there's no such thing.

I know I'm repeating some of your points, Stead, and I apologise - but I already had this all written out.

Good points, Edge.

2) This is only the second artifact distinct to the real world which has been taken to the Land (distinct as in they have no 'parallel' there, unlike clothing, knives, etc.). The other, Hile Troy's sunglasses, had a very important and clear symbolism. What symbolism could a toy car have?

Although not entirely distinct, Covenant's pocket knife had an important symbolism as well.

Oh, sorry for doing that! See my edit, instead of posting again, I edited in what I thought was important.

S

Stead wrote: [snipped some great thoughts]

Hellfire!
That will keep me thinking for a week of Mondays!
Thanks.

It just hit me: The car represents a caesure. Caesures travel along in time and space -- just as a racecar on a Mobius strip might.

Excellent points, Stead and Aliantha! I wondered about the car but forgot about it as I kept reading.

Aliantha may be on to something.....

aliantha wrote:It just hit me: The car represents a caesure. Caesures travel along in time and space -- just as a racecar on a Mobius strip might.

But there were more than one car and he only took one. And there seem to be many more caesure's than cars.

Perhaps the caesures are ruptures of the track and the car will somehow help traverse them with less difficulty than Linden had.

Creator wrote:

aliantha wrote:It just hit me: The car represents a caesure. Caesures travel along in time and space -- just as a racecar on a Mobius strip might.

But there were more than one car and he only took one. And there seem to be many more caesure's than cars.

Perhaps the caesures are ruptures of the track and the car will somehow help traverse them with less difficulty than Linden had.

I wonder if Donaldson is a Nascar fan.
Maybe we'll see the Creator show up wearing a Dale Earnhardt jacket.

I thought that maybe the car was a sign to Linden. He has never really acknowleged her, or shown her any affection, just as he never acknowleged the cars, even though she really hoped that he's start playing with them. I thought it was a sign to her, saying "hey Mom, don't worry, I'm okay". Remember she nearly cried when she saw that he had it, as any mother probebly would.

What I found interesting, is that Roger was holding on to him, like he "never meant to let him go" (para-phrase). This instantly made me think of the way Vain held onto Findail near the end of WGW.
I've mentioned before, that the son of each Ringweilder being in the Land, and being joined (by the hand anyway) must have extreme signifigance.
.....not to mention the son of Cail, and the son of Sunder.

HLT, please, don't even *joke* about such blasphemy.

Jim

High Lord Tolkien wrote:
....

Maybe we'll see the Creator show up wearing a Dale Earnhardt jacket.

I don't own one!

Creator wrote:

High Lord Tolkien wrote:
....

Maybe we'll see the Creator show up wearing a Dale Earnhardt jacket.

I don't own one!

Well, MAKE one!
You slacker.

Maybe it's going to turn into a real car in the Land. And Thomas is going to be picking up chicks with it.



heh, I don't think it has and real significance apart from the fact that Jeremiah knew in some way what was happening to him. Which implies there really is someone there. so... yeah... it is quite significant...

Maybe Covenent can get the now realsized car working with some Giant technology and have the engine powered by the 5th Ward.
Driving the car, he'll attack the Demondim with spinning orcrest knives and lomillialor arrows shot shot from a crossbow.
Then Ash will.... wait a minute, what are we talking about again?

First Mark Tuvor wrote:
heh, I don't think it has and real significance apart from the fact that Jeremiah knew in some way what was happening to him. Which implies there really is someone there. so... yeah... it is quite significant...

I agree! I think it is merely an indication that Jeremiah does have emotion for Linden (which he doesn't have the capacity to show). That line really wrenched at my heart: I thought "oh, he's reaching out to her". If he *hadn't* been holding the red car I probably wouldn't have been able to appreciate Linden's loss of Jeremiah as much as I did.

This has actually been discussed before. And all those who did, myself included, were fairly well convinced that the car represented a caesure, and that the race track resembled the Arch of Time.

The only question remains: why red?