BARD@MIT-XX.ARPA (08/30/85)
From: Bard Bloom <BARD@MIT-XX.ARPA> > I liked this book [The Book of Kells] > as an easy read. I am confused as to the true > involvement of the Book itself. (Slilght Spoiler) I started reading the book at 3:30 a.m., so I don't remember everything. Weren't the monks copying the Book of Kellss, and that copy the one we know of as the Book today? Didn't the hero bring it back to our time, compare it against the original? It didn't seem integral to the plot, but titles have been given for less. (on my desk now, The Left Hand of Darkness and Swann's Way). There are two or three books with titles of the form ``The Book of x'' (or a near-synonym) a year. Someone must think it's neat. > Granted, John was very studied in Gaellic art, of which the >Book was a prime example, and the circles may(?) have been depicted >in the Book. Not in any part I remember, which is a minimal fraction of the whole. I don't remember MacAvoy saying anything about them being in the Book, either. > Also, how did the Book figure into the climax when >John "sings" the Norsemen away? When he thought ``too much Book of Kells?'' I think he was worrying about his sanity, as well he might; that he was in a hallucination induced by too much time on the Book. I thought John left the real book in somewhere safe for the battle. -------