I'm still mulling over my thoughts on the book, but this did catch my attention:
Quote:
Originally Posted by WT Sharpe
Sometimes the allusions hit you over the head. Like the naming of the unfortunate homosexual who hung himself aboard the ship in "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing" (omitted from the movie version) "Rafael" (Raphael).
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WT Sharpe
Which brings up a question: might Rafael have been a earlier incarnation of Robert Frobisher?
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As I think the posters above are alluding to, I don't think Rafael was homosexual, or at least whatever his sexuality may have been was beside the point. He hanged himself because he was continually brutalised and saw no other way out.
That said, when he hanged himself I did wonder the same thing about Robert Frobisher and his suicide. Who were the reincarnates? The easy guess is the protagonist or hero of each story - Adam Ewing / Robert Frobisher / Luisa Rey / Timothy Cavendish / Sonmi 451 / Meronym. I think all had the birthmark except maybe Adam Ewing? So perhaps it was Rafael and not Ewing that was the reincarnate soul of the first story. And, grotesquely, that leads me to wonder if Mitchell is (shockingly, to me) insinuating that Frobisher may be bisexual because of the sodomy he experienced in his past life.