[gmw]

Originally Posted by Catlady

There is something early on about why Roger appears to both of them, but Magnus brushes it aside as something they'd need more trips to figure out.

I wondered if Magnus was not necessarily being truthful about his own trips--it seemed that for the most part Dick would report his experiences, and Magnus would say, Wow, same thing happened to me, and enlarge upon it, feed Dick more information, and then Dick's next hallucination would enlarge upon that, etc. Dick had previously spent time in the area, and he might have heard some of the names in discussions with Magnus's parents or neighbors, so the fact that those 14th-century people actually lived wouldn't prove that he wasn't simply hallucinating. Maybe Magnus was experimenting with controlling hallucinations.

I suspect my theory is full of holes, but it's what I was thinking as I read.

No more holes than in the story we read I had similar thoughts ... I didn't really discard them until the end because I thought it was possible that the author might turn around and present an explanation in this light; I even thought Dr Powell might be the intended instrument to do that ... but apparently not.

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Magnus suggested that Roger was the guide, like Virgil for Dante in the first two sections of The Divine Comedy. In a way, Roger seemed to be somehow aware of Dick’s presence.

I agree that the trips are really a nonsense, but I was prepared to suspend disbelief and go along with the story. I don’t demand technical explanations for how something can happen as long as the author makes it work for me.

I find it amusing that I seem to be turning around from the last discussion (Never Let Me Go) and now to be expecting an explanation, but the difference for me in this book is that an explanation was started (the drug causing the trip) which led me to waiting for the rest of it. It wasn't a big problem for me, but I was aware of expecting more explanation this time.

An alternative explanation for "why Roger" might be in the contents of the drug itself. The regular references to the monkey's head etc. made me wonder if it was really a monkey; might the drug have contained some human elements and perhaps those came from a descendent of Roger. (I'm not claiming this makes it any more credible scientifically, just looking for something that might have worked in the story.)

I also find it funny that the trips didn't seem so much like nonsense to me, certainly not while I was reading. And even in retrospect I can imagine someone putting on a Virtual Reality helmet and stumbling around the the countryside experiencing a different story to an external observer. (The drug may have been an imperfect way to achieve this effect, but I am interested in the idea that the effect - now - could be quite real. I think this made me more accepting of the drug as the magic wand needed to explore the idea.)

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

gmw, I found Dr Powell’s appearances perfectly acceptable. In a small area of the country he was probably the only doctor, or perhaps one of only two or three, to be around.

I think his role was somewhat like the person who comes in to return chaos to some semblance of order, as in a Shakespearean tragedy, or more recently, the police officer in the film Fargo - which I found quite Shakespearean in fact.

I found his treatment of Dick in the last chapters all too pat - for someone that did not have a connection with Magnus. But had Powell been hired by Magnus to watch over Dick then his presence would have made more sense to me. Again, it wasn't a big problem for me, just a niggle.

It is possible to suppose that there was indeed a connection between Magnus and Dr Powell, but for some reason Powell chose not to reveal it to Dick (just because Dick is lousy at keeping secrets doesn't mean everyone else it - eg: Willis).