Niedersachsen – Englisch:
Moon PalaceEnglisch
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SUMMARY
Chapter One
The opening paragraph puts the novel in a nutshell: all the major events and characters in the life of Marco Stanley Fogg are mentioned, so that the suspense shifts from the ‘what …?’ to the ‘how …?’
“It was the summer that men first walked on the moon” is the opening sentence, the summer being that of 1969. Hoever the second paragraph leads the reader back again to an earlier year: 1965, when Marco moves to New York to study at Columbia University. He quickly briefly sums up th events that take place before he finally (p. 8, l. 46) starts to recount his life’s story from what one might consider to be the beginning – his earliest childhood memories.
His mother, Emily Fogg, was knocked down by a bus and killed when he was very young, and it was his uncle, Victor Fogg, who brought him up in Chicago. Uncle Victor is a clarinetist who started off by playing in the best orchestras and ended up playing up odd gigs in a small combo. He initiates Marco into the worlds of baseball and of books, stories and films. When Victor marries a widow, Dora Shamsky, Marco has a hard time dealing with the couple’s rows and spends his last three school years at a boarding school. Finally, Victor sets off on a tour through the West with his new band, the Moon Men, while Marco heads off to New York. Before they part Victor gives Marco 1492 books packed into 76 cartons, which formed the furniture in Marco’s apartment.
On his first evening in the apartment he notices the Moon Palace sign of the Chinese restaurant and feels that the apartment is filled with meaning as the words Moon remind him of his uncle’s band, the Moon Men.
However, Victor’s bands soon split up and he ends up selling encyclopedias before dying of a heart failure – a devastating blow to Marco who has lost his last link to his family as well as someone he loved.
Despite his deteriorating financial situation, Marco continues to study for his college degree and refuses to look for a way out of his financially weak situation.
As a way of mourning the death of his uncle, Marco starts to read the books his uncle has left him indiscriminately, thereby acquiring a vast but rather arbitrary literary knowledge, before gradually selling the books off. With his funds reduced to nothing, Marco undergoes a process of physical and spiritual transformation: as his room becomes progressively emptier, Marco gradually disconnects himself from the world (his telephone is disconnected, he stops eating in restaurants), while opening himself to new spiritual spaces. He starts to lose weight.
He watches the moon landing, which strikes him as a violation, and the Moon Palace sign, which leads his mind to associate various elements from his life.
In a state of total physical exhaustion he tries to contact his only friend, Zimmer, but finds instead a group of young people gathered around a breakfast table. Among them is a girl, Kitty Wu. The two feel strangely attracted to each other. After gorging himself on food, Marco wants to pay back his hosts by recounting journeys to the moon by human beings that had supposedly taken place before the moon landing of 1969. When he is about to leave, Kitty unexpectedly kisses Marco good-bye.
Unable to pay his rent any longer, his eviction notice arrives, and finally Marco is forced to leave the apartment and prepare for a life on the streets.
Chapter Two
After recounting his rescue by Kitty Wu and Zimmer right at the beginning of the chapter, Marco then tells us about his wanderings through New York with all the coincidental occurrences and improbable situations that he encounters.
He wanders the streets of New York, heading south away from the area around Columbia University. He discovers a $10 bill on the pavement and interprets this as meaning that all will turn out well for him, so he treats himself to a good meal. He then goes to a movie theater, which is full of homeless people. The movie being showed is Around the World in 80 Days, which reminds him of his uncle. At first he sees this as being good luck, but then he reflects on his situation and realises how miserable he is.
His moods continue to change – his spirits are up one minute and down the next, according to his experiences or memories.
He is fearful of sleeping on the streets, where he might be attacked, is repulsed by the idea of staying in a flophouse, and realises that he could not sleep in the subway, and so he turns his back on the city and discovers that Central Park is an ideal place for his roamings, especially at night when he finds shelter under bushes and later in a cave.
He discovers that Central Park offers him refuge, because unlike on the streets, people allow you a certain kind of freedom to act as you wish. Whereas he is forced to see himself as others see him on the streets, he can return to his inner life in the Park. Moreover, people help him by giving him food and allowing him to participate in a ball game.
During the day he looks for food, meets people, keeps up with political events and sports news, and thus leads a ‘busy’ life full of variety, in which chance seems to decide his moves and experiences. He is basically at ease with himself and the world.
A change for the worse occurs when, following a storm, Marco gets some kind of fever. In the end he is completely exhausted, famished, but too weak to move or eat and finally lapses into delirious visions about the Moon Palace sign and Indians in Manhattan before being miraculously found by his friends. When he sees Kitty, he calls her Pocahontas. Zimmer just calls him ‘a dumb bastard’.
Chapter Three
Zimmer takes care of Marco during his period of convalescence and shares his small apartment and funds with him.
Marco discovers by chance that he is due to report to the drafts commission. Physically and mentally unprepared, he submits to the examination and tries to explain his present state of poor health and extreme frailty to the army psychiatrist. Rated unfit for military service, Marco is spared further political investigation.
Gradually Marco becomes his former self again and learns from Zimmer that Kitty Wu’s feelings for him go beyond those of mere pity. Zimmer informs him of Kitty’s life story: she too is an orphan and has lived through an odyssey of political exiles, moving from China to Taiwan and Tokyo and finally to America. So, when Kitty comes to see him again, he responds to her with passion. They become lovers and from then on, life gains a new quality for Marco. She makes him feel confident and comfortable. He is now ready to stand on his own two feet again and finds a job as a live-in companion to an old man in a wheelchair.
Chapter Four
Thomas Effing, Marco’s new employer, turns out to be a blind, despotic and rude man, unpredictable in his moods, with often disgusting manners. At the same time he possesses a keen intellect and a broad general knowledge, and he is capable of displaying sympathy for others. While pushing Effing in his wheelchair through the streets of upper Manhattan, Marco is asked to describe the visible world to Effing; this becomes an intellectual exercise and challenge for Marco, who gradually learns to convey the essence of things around him with words. It is also Marco’s job to read to Effing from his large library. From books they turn to newspapers, especially the obituaries
It becomes clear that Effing wants Marco to write down the story of his life, or rather that of his life as Julian Barber, his former identity. Born into a rich family in New York, Barber had embarked on a successful career as a painter. Before getting started on the actual story, Effing sends Marco on a journey to the Brooklyn Museum, where he is to study a specific painting by Blakelock called “Moonlight” a moonlit landscape with an Indian encampment, which Marco comes to see as a memorial for a bygone period in American history.
Effing begins the narration of Julian Barber. As a young painter he is attracted to the scenery of Long Island, acknowledging an artistic kinship with romantic painters like Blakelock and Thomas Moran, but he is also familiar with other important artists and artistic movements in New York at the beginning of the century. Moreover, he is fascinated by the inventor Nicola Tesla, who seems to represent the progressive spirit of the time. He first saw him at the Columbia Exposition in 1893, and then again when Tesla built a laboratory in Shoreham, near to where the Barbers lived.
Barber’s marriage to Elizabeth Wheeler results in failure and to get away from her, he sets off on an artistic expedition to the West, accompanied by a young geologist, Edward Byrne. Barber is fascinated by the landscape of the West. However, their guide, with whom they have a very difficult relationship, leads them into a dangerous area in the mountains. Byrne’s horse loses its footing and falls down the rocky slope, leaving Bryne seriously injured. The guide abandons them and Byrne dies three days later. Barber is completely alone and believes he is about to go crazy.
Chapter Five
With his supplies gone, Barber’s condition is next to hopeless, when he discovers a cave at the top of a cliff. To his surprise he finds the interior fully equipped with supplies; a dead man, who has been killed, is lying in the bed. He decides to adopt the dead man’s identity and lives in the cave. A period of deep happiness and extraordinary artistic productivity begins. He starts to paint again and becomes immersed in his work, covering all his canvases and, when they run out, his furniture and then the cave walls.
He is soon visited by an Indian, George Ugly-Mouth, who takes him for the dead man. He finds out that the dead man had been involved with a gang of outlaws called the Gresham brothers, whose return is only a matter of time. When they do finally come, Barber ambushes them and kills them in cold blood. In their saddle-bags he finds a large amount of money. He leaves the cave and begins a new life as Thomas Effing in San Francisco; by investing the money wisely he soon becomes very rich. He leads a life of luxury, yet cannot enjoy it for fear of having his identity revealed by someone from the past. Feelings of guilt become so strong that he seeks oblivion in opium, women and gambling. One night he is attacked by an unknown assailant and loses the use of his legs. He sees his fate as a kind of punishment and decides to move to Paris, where he meets Pavel Shum. They move to the USA just before the outbreak of World War II. The remaining years of his life seem uninteresting to Effing.
Once Effing has finished his story, Marco draws up three versions of Effing’s, a short one for the newspapers, a longer one for an art magazine, and finally the longest and fullest account. Effing presents him with three books by Solomon Barber, a historian, who turns out to be Effing’s son. His existence was only discovered by Effing by chance. Marco is to send the long version of the obituary to Barber after Effing’s death, the date of which is set by Effing himself for May 12th.
During the remaining two months of his life Effing and Marco distribute a total of $20,000 in cash to total strangers. The idea is to return the Greshams’ money to the people. One of the characters they meet is Orlando, who presents Effing with the frame of an umbrella. On the last night on which they are to hand out the money, Effing takes the umbrella and exposes himself to the rain, catches pneumonia and finally dies on the predestined day. His ashes are scattered over the Hudson River and Marco is left with an inheritance of $7,000
Chapter Six
Marco and Kitty move into a flat in Chinatown and experience a period of extreme happiness living together. The newspapers and periodicals turn down Effing’s obituaries, but Solomon Barber responds to Marco’s letter and comes to meet him in New York. A man of immense obesity, Barber soon wins Marco’s friendship through his intelligence and politeness.
We learn that Barber had been a history professor at Emily Fogg’s college in Oldburn, Ohio, but was dismissed when he and Emily were found in bed together. He never knew that Emily gave birth to his son as she refused to see him again. He continued teaching at various minor Midwestern colleges, where he was well-liked by his students. His attempts to contact Emily again were rebutted, first by Emily herself, then by Uncle Victor, who feared losing custody of his nephew. Solomon’s own childhood had been an unhappy one, with his mother being mentally unstable and his father believed dead. At the age of 17 he wrote a novel, Kepler’s Blood, which reveals the effect the lack of knowledge about his father had on the young boy. Upon his mother’s death he learns from his Aunt Clara that his birth had been the cause of his mother’s mental instability.
When Marco meets Barber again some months later, the latter is on leave from his college and is living in New York. He wants Marco and Kitty to join him on an excursion to Utah to find Effing’s cave. However, Kitty finds out that she is pregnant, and decides to have an abortion. Marco cannot accept her decision and leaves her.
Chapter Seven
Marco moves in with Solomon Barber, but cannot get over his separation from Kitty. Barber makes several unsuccessful attempts to reconcile the two but fails and finally persuades Marco to go on an expedition to the West with him to look for Effing’s cave. They first drive to Chicago, where Marco wants to visit the graves of his mother and uncle. Barber breaks down in tears beside Emily Fogg’s grave, and Marco begins to realize who his father is. His immediate reactions are so hostile that Barber backs away and falls into an open grave. Seriously injured, Barber is taken to hospital, where he spends his last two months. An intimate relationship then develops between the two men, and Barber tells him the story of his life (which is told in Chapter Six).
After Barber’s death Marco buries him next to his mother and sets out on the planned trip in search of Effing’s cave alone. He is as impressed as his grandfather was with the immense emptiness of the landscape of the West. However, he learns that the area where the cave must have been was flooded many years earlier to create the artificial Lake Powell. He hires a boat and cruises along the lake, but when he returns to his car, he finds that it and most of his money have been stolen. Angry and disillusioned, he starts walking and continues for the next three months until he reaches the Pacific coast, where he feels the sand on his feet and watches the moon rise and take its place in the darkness.
The Moon in Moon Palace
The moon occurs in many places in the novel. Here we have gathered all the references to the moon and attempted to give a short explanation of the role of the moon as it occurs. The moon never attains one single meaning but changes in its significance.
The setting
The first sentence of the novel tells us of the setting.
It was the summer that men first walked on the moon.
(p. 7, l. 1)
Framing the story
The first sentence and the last sentence both refer to the moon. So the moon frames the random events of the story, while the description of the painting Moonlight occurs in the middle of the novel.
It was the summer that men first walked on the moon.
(p. 7, l. 1)
Then the moon came up from behind the hills. It was a full moon, as round and yellow as a burning stone. I kept my eyes on it as it rose into the night sky, not turning away until it had found its place in the darkness.
(p. 302, ll. 11–14)
Moonlight the painting
(cf. p. 138, ll. 36 – p. 141, l. 4
Uncle Victor:
His Uncle Victor plays in bands which have names connected to the moon. Uncle Victor serves as Marco’s link to something larger than himself (cf. p. 8, l. 39), as a point of orientation.
When I moved in with him in February of 1958, he was giving lessons to beginning clarinet students and playing for Howie Dunn’s Moonlight Moods, a small combo that made the usual rounds of weddings, confirmations, and graduation parties.
(p. 11, ll. 50–54)
They called themselves the Moon Men now, and most of their songs were original numbers.
(p. 18, ll. 2–3)
Baseball is one of the passions shared by Uncle Victor and Marco.
That was the year of Early Wynn and the go-go Sox, of Wally Moon and his moon-shot home runs.
(p. 14, ll. 26–27)
Lost Fatherhood
Uncle Victor (who belongs to Marco’s mother’s family) is related to the moon, whereas Marco’s real father is Sol (sun), whose absence in his life is keenly felt.
The moon would block the sun, and at that point I would vanish. I would be dead broke, a flotsam of flesh and bone without a farthing to my name.
(p. 28, ll. 5–
He possessed a great stone of a head, Barber found, a mythological head, and as he stood there looking at himself in the mirror, it seemed right to him that the vast globe of his body should now have a moon to go with it.
(p. 240, ll. 35)
He secretly loved it when the young girls mooned around him
(p. 242, ll. 35–36)
Barber was particularly fond of the two Blakelocks in the dining room (a moonlight canvas on the eastern wall and a view of an Indian encampment on the southern)
(p. 250, ll. 26–2
Barber writes about Harriot, the explorer and scientist.
Did you know that Harriot was the first man to look at the moon through a telescope?
(p. 194, ll. 5–6)
In Kepler’s Blood the moon plays an important role as the source of human life, but also as the connection between Sol’s father (who disappeared in the West, which looks like the moon) and his need for parenthood.
Long ago, according to the legends they told him, their ancestors had lived on the moon.
(p. 252, ll. 31–32)
For nowhere in the world, Kepler thought, does the earth look more like the moon than it does here.
(p. 255, ll. 56–57)
Without uttering another word, he wraps himself in his ceremonial garments and fasts for three days, at which point his spirit flies out of his body and travels to the moon, the place where the souls of the Humans dwell after death.
(p. 257, ll. 65ff.)
He [Jocomin] takes on the name of Jack Moon
(p. 258, l. 10)
Moon Palace and meals
Moon Palace is the Chinese restaurant where he eats important meals (his last proper meal while living in his flat; the transition from his old life and new life with Effing [when he also finds the fortune cookie]; the meal on the night Effing dies).
Struggling to get a grip on my emotions, I went out and splurged on a meal at the Moon Palace
(p. 50, ll. 3–4)
Zimmer collected the money from his friend a few days later, and that night Kitty and I joined him for a meal at the Moon Palace
(p. 100, ll. 15–16)
I went out to dinner with Kitty at the Moon Palace, and afterward we took in one of the movies on the double bill at the Thalia (I remember it as Ashes and Diamonds, but I could be wrong). Normally, I would have taken Kitty back to her dormitory at that point, but I had a bad feeling about Effing
(p. 219, ll. 45–49)
Interconnections/Association
The moon plays a role in Marco’s need to relate everything together, and his search for orientation and meaning. There is no chance or coincidence, therefore everything is linked.
I was looking down at Broadway, the smallest, most abbreviated portion of Broadway, and the remarkable thing was that the entire area of what I could see was filled up by a neon sign, a vivid torch of pink and blue letters that spelled out the words MOON PALACE.
(p. 23, ll. 54–5
MOON PALACE. I immediately thought of Uncle Victor and his band, and in that first, irrational moment, my fears lost their hold on me. I had never experienced anything so sudden and absolute. A bare and grubby room had been transformed into a site of inwardness, an intersection point of strange omens and mysterious, arbitrary events. I went on staring at the Moon Palace sign, and little by little I understood that I had come to the right place, that this small apartment was indeed where I was meant to live.
(p. 23, ll. 62ff.)
Every now and then, I would plant myself between the two windows, and watch the Moon Palace sign. Even that was enjoyable, and it always seemed to generate a series of interesting thoughts. Those thoughts are somewhat obscure to me now – clusters of wild associations, a rambling circuit of reveries – but at the time I felt they were terribly significant. Perhaps the word moon had changed for me after I saw men wandering around its surface. Perhaps I was struck by the coincidence of having met a man named Neil Armstrong in Boise, Idaho, and then watching a man by the same name fly off into outer space. Perhaps I was simply delirious with hunger, and the lights of the sign had transfixed me. I can’t be sure of any of it, but the fact was that the words Moon Palace began to haunt my mind with all the mastery and fascination of an oracle. Everything was mixed up in it at once: Uncle Victor and China, rocket ships and music, Marco Polo and the American West. I would look out at the sign and start to think about electricity. That would lead me to the blackout during my freshman year, which in turn would lead me to the baseball games played at Wrigley Field, which would then lead me back to Uncle Victor and the memorial candles burning on my windowsill. One thought kept giving way to another, spiraling into ever larger masses of connectedness. The idea of voyaging into the unknown, for example, and the parallels between Columbus and the astronauts. The discovery of America as a failure to reach China; Chinese food and my empty stomach; thought, as in food for thought, and the head as a palace of dreams. I would think: the Apollo Project; Apollo, the god of music; Uncle Victor and the Moon Men traveling out West. I would think: the West; the war against the Indians; the war in Vietnam, once called Indochina. I would think: weapons, bombs, explosions; nuclear clouds in the deserts of Utah and Nevada; and then I would ask myself – why does the American West look so much like the landscape of the moon? It went on and on like that, and the more I opened myself to these secret correspondences, the closer I felt to understanding some fundamental truth about the world. I was going mad, perhaps, but I nevertheless felt a tremendous power surging through me, a gnostic joy that penetrated deep into the heart of things. Then, very suddenly, as suddenly as I had gained this power, I lost it. I had been living inside my thoughts for three or four days, and one morning I woke up and found that I was somewhere else: back in the world of fragments, back in the world of hunger and bare white walls. I struggled to recapture the equilibrium of the previous days, but I couldn’t do it. The world was pressing down on me again, and I could barely catch my breath.
(p. 39, ll. 46ff.)
I took the little volume home with me and started to read it. Several pages into the text, I came across the same sentence that I had found in my fortune cookie at the Moon Palace almost a year before. “The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.” I still had the slip of paper in my wallet, and it jolted me to learn that these words had been written by Tesla, the same man who had been so important to Effing. The synchronicity of these events seemed fraught with significance, but it was difficult for me to grasp precisely how. It was as though I could hear my destiny calling out to me, but each time I tried to listen to it, it turned out to be talking in a language I didn’t understand. Had some worker in a Chinese fortune cookie factory been reading Tesla’s book? It seemed implausible, and yet even if he had, why was I the person at our table who had chosen the cookie with that particular message in it? I couldn’t help feeling unsettled by what had happened.
(p. 231, ll. 52–66)
One day, however, I drove farther afield than usual, going past Monument Valley to the Navaho trading post at Oljeto. The word meant “moon in the water,” which was enough to attract me in itself, but someone in Bluff had told me that the people who ran the trading post, a Mr. and Mrs. Smith, knew as much about the history of the country as anyone else for miles around.
(p. 299, ll. 54–60)
Time
The moon is, according to the fortune cookie, ‘the future’, but can also be the past and present.
The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future
(p. 100, ll. 32–33)
The moon would block the sun, and at that point I would vanish. I would be dead broke, a flotsam of flesh and bone without a farthing to my name.
(p. 28, ll. 5–
Here Blakelock’s moon represents loss (or the past), just as the painting Moonlight represents a lost world.
After I looked at five or six of them, they gradually began to separate themselves from their surroundings, and I was no longer able to see them as moons. They became holes in the canvas, apertures of whiteness looking out onto another world. Blakelock’s eye, perhaps. A blank circle suspended in space, gazing down at things that were no longer there.
(p. 142, ll. 19–24)
Moonlight the painting
(cf. p. 138, ll. 36 – p. 141, l. 4
Moon landings
The moon was the female goddess of love and lunacy. Whereas the moon landings represent human progress, they are also an indication of man being lost (searching outside his abode) or continual search (the Western frontier, the founding and exploration of America).
As chance would have it, I took the last ones up to Chandler on the same day the astronauts landed on the moon. I received a little more than nine dollars from the sale, and as I walked back down Broadway afterward, I decided to stop in at Quinn’s Bar and Grill, a small local hangout that stood on the southeast corner of 108th Street. The weather was extremely hot that day, and there didn’t seem to be any harm in splurging on a couple of ten-cent beers. I sat on a stool at the bar next to three or four of the regulars, enjoying the dim lights and the coolness of the air conditioning. The big color television set was on, glowing eerily over the bottles of rye and bourbon, and that was how I happened to witness the event. I saw the two padded figures take their first steps in that airless world, bouncing like toys over the landscape, driving a golf cart through the dust, planting a flag in the eye of what had once been the goddess of love and lunacy. Radiant Diana, I thought, image of all that is dark within us. Then the president spoke. In a solemn, deadpan voice, he declared this to be the greatest event since the creation of man. The old-timers at the bar laughed when they heard this, and I believe I managed to crack a smile or two myself. But for all the absurdity of that remark, there was one thing no one could challenge: since the day he was expelled from Paradise, Adam had never been this far from home.
(p. 38, ll. 11–12)
Someone started talking about the moon landing, and then someone else declared that it had never really happened. […] I calmly asserted that not only had last month’s moon landing been genuine, it was by no means the first time it had happened. Men had been going to the moon for hundreds of years …
(p. 44, ll. 26ff.)
You send people to the moon, something’s gotta give.
(p. 53, ll. 45–46)
another moon landing
(p. 68, l. 9)
Orientation
A man can’t know where he is on the earth except in relation to the moon or a star.
(p. 155, ll. 58–60)
Think about as little as you can – nothing, if possible – and if that’s too much to ask, then think about your eyes and the extraordinary power you possess to see the world. Imagine what would happen to you if you couldn’t see it. Imagine yourself looking at something under the various lights that make the world visible to us: sunlight, moonlight, electric light, candlelight, neon light.
(p. 136, ll. 8–14)
It also signifies lack of orientation (although one can interpret this as being Marco’s way of searching for himself)
“You’re a dreamer, boy,” he said. “Your mind is on the moon, and from the looks of things, it’s never going to be anywhere else. You have no ambitions, you don’t give a damn about money, and you’re too much of a philosopher to have any feeling for art. What am I going to do with you? You need someone to look after you, to make sure you have food in your belly and a bit of cash in your pocket. Once I’m gone, you’ll be right back where you started.”
“I admit it’s strange, but I think I might be suited for it. Libraries aren’t in the real world, after all. They’re places apart, sanctuaries of pure thought. In that way, I can go on living on the moon for the rest of my life.”
(p. 215, ll. 66ff.)
When Marco lives in Central Park, there is no moon.
There was no moon in the sky that night, not a single star. Before I remembered to take the knife out of my pocket, I was fast asleep.
(p. 61, ll. 54–55)
Once, I remember, I saw the Moon Palace sign in front of me, more vivid than it had ever been in life. The pink and blue neon letters were so large that the whole sky was filled with their brightness. Then, suddenly, the letters disappeared, and only the two os from the word Moon were left. I saw myself dangling from one of them, struggling to hang on like an acrobat who had botched a dangerous stunt. Then I was slithering around it like a tiny worm, and then I wasn’t there anymore. The two os had turned into eyes, gigantic human eyes that were looking down at me with scorn and impatience. They kept on staring at me, and after a while I became convinced that they were the eyes of God.
(p. 74, ll. 60ff.)
At the end of the novel he finds himself, as the moon has found its place in the darkness.
Then the moon came up from behind the hills. It was a full moon, as round and yellow as a burning stone. I kept my eyes on it as it rose into the night sky, not turning away until it had found its place in the darkness.
(p. 302, ll. 11–14)
Transformation
Julian Barber transforms into Effing in Utah, which is like the moon,. Marco too in the West loses everything and has to walk to the coast, where he watches the moon take its position. He finds his identity, and realises how important it is to have a point of orientation, just like the man looking for his position on the earth. But for Blakelock the moon is centre of his lost world.
There was no moon that night, and the sky was brilliant with stars. Every once in a while, he could hear the muffled remnant of a laugh, but that was the extent of it. Then, periodically, the Greshams started coming out of the cave
(p. 179, ll. 43–47)
For nowhere in the world, Kepler thought, does the earth look more like the moon than it does here.
(p. 255, ll. 56–57)
A man can’t know where he is on the earth except in relation to the moon or a star.
(p. 155, ll. 58–60)
Then the moon came up from behind the hills. It was a full moon, as round and yellow as a burning stone. I kept my eyes on it as it rose into the night sky, not turning away until it had found its place in the darkness.
(p. 302, ll. 11–14)
The Western frontier
The West is compared to the moon; it is where Americans found their freedom and shaped their new identity. Marco finds himself at the very edge of the Western frontier, the Pacific Ocean.
For nowhere in the world, Kepler thought, does the earth look more like the moon than it does here.
(p. 255, ll. 56–57)
There was no moon that night, and the sky was brilliant with stars. Every once in a while, he could hear the muffled remnant of a laugh, but that was the extent of it. Then, periodically, the Greshams started coming out of the cave
(p. 179, ll. 43–47)
Then the moon came up from behind the hills. It was a full moon, as round and yellow as a burning stone. I kept my eyes on it as it rose into the night sky, not turning away until it had found its place in the darkness.
(p. 302, ll. 11–14)
Technological progress
The moon through Tesla is seen as representing technological progress and the belief in the future (which proves illusory), but nevertheless humans make it to the moon (or do they? and why is there so much literature about people going to the moon?)
I took the little volume home with me and started to read it. Several pages into the text, I came across the same sentence that I had found in my fortune cookie at the Moon Palace almost a year before. “The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.” I still had the slip of paper in my wallet, and it jolted me to learn that these words had been written by Tesla, the same man who had been so important to Effing. The synchronicity of these events seemed fraught with significance, but it was difficult for me to grasp precisely how. It was as though I could hear my destiny calling out to me, but each time I tried to listen to it, it turned out to be talking in a language I didn’t understand. Had some worker in a Chinese fortune cookie factory been reading Tesla’s book? It seemed implausible, and yet even if he had, why was I the person at our table who had chosen the cookie with that particular message in it? I couldn’t help feeling unsettled by what had happened.
(p. 231, ll. 52–66)
As chance would have it, I took the last ones up to Chandler on the same day the astronauts landed on the moon. I received a little more than nine dollars from the sale, and as I walked back down Broadway afterward, I decided to stop in at Quinn’s Bar and Grill, a small local hangout that stood on the southeast corner of 108th Street. The weather was extremely hot that day, and there didn’t seem to be any harm in splurging on a couple of ten-cent beers. I sat on a stool at the bar next to three or four of the regulars, enjoying the dim lights and the coolness of the air conditioning. The big color television set was on, glowing eerily over the bottles of rye and bourbon, and that was how I happened to witness the event. I saw the two padded figures take their first steps in that airless world, bouncing like toys over the landscape, driving a golf cart through the dust, planting a flag in the eye of what had once been the goddess of love and lunacy. Radiant Diana, I thought, image of all that is dark within us. Then the president spoke. In a solemn, deadpan voice, he declared this to be the greatest event since the creation of man. The old-timers at the bar laughed when they heard this, and I believe I managed to crack a smile or two myself. But for all the absurdity of that remark, there was one thing no one could challenge: since the day he was expelled from Paradise, Adam had never been this far from home.
(p. 38, ll. 11–12)
Someone started talking about the moon landing, and then someone else declared that it had never really happened. […] I calmly asserted that not only had last month’s moon landing been genuine, it was by no means the first time it had happened. Men had been going to the moon for hundreds of years …
(p. 44, ll. 26ff.)
You send people to the moon, something’s gotta give.
(p. 53, ll. 45–46)
another moon landing
(p. 68, l. 9)
Pictorial/dramatic moments
The moon watches over characters.
Once, I remember, I saw the Moon Palace sign in front of me, more vivid than it had ever been in life. The pink and blue neon letters were so large that the whole sky was filled with their brightness. Then, suddenly, the letters disappeared, and only the two os from the word Moon were left. I saw myself dangling from one of them, struggling to hang on like an acrobat who had botched a dangerous stunt. Then I was slithering around it like a tiny worm, and then I wasn’t there anymore. The two os had turned into eyes, gigantic human eyes that were looking down at me with scorn and impatience. They kept on staring at me, and after a while I became convinced that they were the eyes of God.
(p. 75, ll. 61ff.)
There was no moon that night, and the sky was brilliant with stars. Every once in a while, he could hear the muffled remnant of a laugh, but that was the extent of it. Then, periodically, the Greshams started coming out of the cave
(p. 179, ll. 43–47)
A full moon is poised dramatically in the sky for the last scene.
(p. 259, l. 57) It is interesting to note that the moon is poised in a dramatic and meaningful way in the final scene of Moon Palace just as in Kepler’s Blood.
he suddenly sees a coyote standing with its silhouette against the moon.
(p. 259, ll. 61–62)
Art
Blakelock uses the moon as a symbol in many of his works.
Moonlight the painting
(cf. p. 138, ll. 36 – p. 141, l. 4
After I looked at five or six of them, they gradually began to separate themselves from their surroundings, and I was no longer able to see them as moons. They became holes in the canvas, apertures of whiteness looking out onto another world. Blakelock’s eye, perhaps. A blank circle suspended in space, gazing down at things that were no longer there.
(p. 142, ll. 19–24)
Barber was particularly fond of the two Blakelocks in the dining room (a moonlight canvas on the eastern wall and a view of an Indian encampment on the southern)
(p. 250, ll. 26–2
Marco the narrator finds it difficult to find the words to express what he sees.
In actual terms, it was no more than two or three inches, but considering how many accidents and losses could occur along the way, it might just as well have been a journey from the earth to the moon.
(p. 124, ll. 17–20)
hoffe damit konntet ihr was anfangen
Die Informationen stammen von www.learnetix.de/moonpalace, dort könnt ihr euch mit dem code hinten aus dem buch einloggen und alle möglichen informationen downloaden. die meisten kann ich leider hier aufgrund ihres formates nicht hochladen
hier die allerwichtigsten sachen: (zahlreiche ergänzungen siehe www.learnetix.de/moonpalace)
SUMMARY
Chapter One
The opening paragraph puts the novel in a nutshell: all the major events and characters in the life of Marco Stanley Fogg are mentioned, so that the suspense shifts from the ‘what …?’ to the ‘how …?’
“It was the summer that men first walked on the moon” is the opening sentence, the summer being that of 1969. Hoever the second paragraph leads the reader back again to an earlier year: 1965, when Marco moves to New York to study at Columbia University. He quickly briefly sums up th events that take place before he finally (p. 8, l. 46) starts to recount his life’s story from what one might consider to be the beginning – his earliest childhood memories.
His mother, Emily Fogg, was knocked down by a bus and killed when he was very young, and it was his uncle, Victor Fogg, who brought him up in Chicago. Uncle Victor is a clarinetist who started off by playing in the best orchestras and ended up playing up odd gigs in a small combo. He initiates Marco into the worlds of baseball and of books, stories and films. When Victor marries a widow, Dora Shamsky, Marco has a hard time dealing with the couple’s rows and spends his last three school years at a boarding school. Finally, Victor sets off on a tour through the West with his new band, the Moon Men, while Marco heads off to New York. Before they part Victor gives Marco 1492 books packed into 76 cartons, which formed the furniture in Marco’s apartment.
On his first evening in the apartment he notices the Moon Palace sign of the Chinese restaurant and feels that the apartment is filled with meaning as the words Moon remind him of his uncle’s band, the Moon Men.
However, Victor’s bands soon split up and he ends up selling encyclopedias before dying of a heart failure – a devastating blow to Marco who has lost his last link to his family as well as someone he loved.
Despite his deteriorating financial situation, Marco continues to study for his college degree and refuses to look for a way out of his financially weak situation.
As a way of mourning the death of his uncle, Marco starts to read the books his uncle has left him indiscriminately, thereby acquiring a vast but rather arbitrary literary knowledge, before gradually selling the books off. With his funds reduced to nothing, Marco undergoes a process of physical and spiritual transformation: as his room becomes progressively emptier, Marco gradually disconnects himself from the world (his telephone is disconnected, he stops eating in restaurants), while opening himself to new spiritual spaces. He starts to lose weight.
He watches the moon landing, which strikes him as a violation, and the Moon Palace sign, which leads his mind to associate various elements from his life.
In a state of total physical exhaustion he tries to contact his only friend, Zimmer, but finds instead a group of young people gathered around a breakfast table. Among them is a girl, Kitty Wu. The two feel strangely attracted to each other. After gorging himself on food, Marco wants to pay back his hosts by recounting journeys to the moon by human beings that had supposedly taken place before the moon landing of 1969. When he is about to leave, Kitty unexpectedly kisses Marco good-bye.
Unable to pay his rent any longer, his eviction notice arrives, and finally Marco is forced to leave the apartment and prepare for a life on the streets.
Chapter Two
After recounting his rescue by Kitty Wu and Zimmer right at the beginning of the chapter, Marco then tells us about his wanderings through New York with all the coincidental occurrences and improbable situations that he encounters.
He wanders the streets of New York, heading south away from the area around Columbia University. He discovers a $10 bill on the pavement and interprets this as meaning that all will turn out well for him, so he treats himself to a good meal. He then goes to a movie theater, which is full of homeless people. The movie being showed is Around the World in 80 Days, which reminds him of his uncle. At first he sees this as being good luck, but then he reflects on his situation and realises how miserable he is.
His moods continue to change – his spirits are up one minute and down the next, according to his experiences or memories.
He is fearful of sleeping on the streets, where he might be attacked, is repulsed by the idea of staying in a flophouse, and realises that he could not sleep in the subway, and so he turns his back on the city and discovers that Central Park is an ideal place for his roamings, especially at night when he finds shelter under bushes and later in a cave.
He discovers that Central Park offers him refuge, because unlike on the streets, people allow you a certain kind of freedom to act as you wish. Whereas he is forced to see himself as others see him on the streets, he can return to his inner life in the Park. Moreover, people help him by giving him food and allowing him to participate in a ball game.
During the day he looks for food, meets people, keeps up with political events and sports news, and thus leads a ‘busy’ life full of variety, in which chance seems to decide his moves and experiences. He is basically at ease with himself and the world.
A change for the worse occurs when, following a storm, Marco gets some kind of fever. In the end he is completely exhausted, famished, but too weak to move or eat and finally lapses into delirious visions about the Moon Palace sign and Indians in Manhattan before being miraculously found by his friends. When he sees Kitty, he calls her Pocahontas. Zimmer just calls him ‘a dumb bastard’.
Chapter Three
Zimmer takes care of Marco during his period of convalescence and shares his small apartment and funds with him.
Marco discovers by chance that he is due to report to the drafts commission. Physically and mentally unprepared, he submits to the examination and tries to explain his present state of poor health and extreme frailty to the army psychiatrist. Rated unfit for military service, Marco is spared further political investigation.
Gradually Marco becomes his former self again and learns from Zimmer that Kitty Wu’s feelings for him go beyond those of mere pity. Zimmer informs him of Kitty’s life story: she too is an orphan and has lived through an odyssey of political exiles, moving from China to Taiwan and Tokyo and finally to America. So, when Kitty comes to see him again, he responds to her with passion. They become lovers and from then on, life gains a new quality for Marco. She makes him feel confident and comfortable. He is now ready to stand on his own two feet again and finds a job as a live-in companion to an old man in a wheelchair.
Chapter Four
Thomas Effing, Marco’s new employer, turns out to be a blind, despotic and rude man, unpredictable in his moods, with often disgusting manners. At the same time he possesses a keen intellect and a broad general knowledge, and he is capable of displaying sympathy for others. While pushing Effing in his wheelchair through the streets of upper Manhattan, Marco is asked to describe the visible world to Effing; this becomes an intellectual exercise and challenge for Marco, who gradually learns to convey the essence of things around him with words. It is also Marco’s job to read to Effing from his large library. From books they turn to newspapers, especially the obituaries
It becomes clear that Effing wants Marco to write down the story of his life, or rather that of his life as Julian Barber, his former identity. Born into a rich family in New York, Barber had embarked on a successful career as a painter. Before getting started on the actual story, Effing sends Marco on a journey to the Brooklyn Museum, where he is to study a specific painting by Blakelock called “Moonlight” a moonlit landscape with an Indian encampment, which Marco comes to see as a memorial for a bygone period in American history.
Effing begins the narration of Julian Barber. As a young painter he is attracted to the scenery of Long Island, acknowledging an artistic kinship with romantic painters like Blakelock and Thomas Moran, but he is also familiar with other important artists and artistic movements in New York at the beginning of the century. Moreover, he is fascinated by the inventor Nicola Tesla, who seems to represent the progressive spirit of the time. He first saw him at the Columbia Exposition in 1893, and then again when Tesla built a laboratory in Shoreham, near to where the Barbers lived.
Barber’s marriage to Elizabeth Wheeler results in failure and to get away from her, he sets off on an artistic expedition to the West, accompanied by a young geologist, Edward Byrne. Barber is fascinated by the landscape of the West. However, their guide, with whom they have a very difficult relationship, leads them into a dangerous area in the mountains. Byrne’s horse loses its footing and falls down the rocky slope, leaving Bryne seriously injured. The guide abandons them and Byrne dies three days later. Barber is completely alone and believes he is about to go crazy.
Chapter Five
With his supplies gone, Barber’s condition is next to hopeless, when he discovers a cave at the top of a cliff. To his surprise he finds the interior fully equipped with supplies; a dead man, who has been killed, is lying in the bed. He decides to adopt the dead man’s identity and lives in the cave. A period of deep happiness and extraordinary artistic productivity begins. He starts to paint again and becomes immersed in his work, covering all his canvases and, when they run out, his furniture and then the cave walls.
He is soon visited by an Indian, George Ugly-Mouth, who takes him for the dead man. He finds out that the dead man had been involved with a gang of outlaws called the Gresham brothers, whose return is only a matter of time. When they do finally come, Barber ambushes them and kills them in cold blood. In their saddle-bags he finds a large amount of money. He leaves the cave and begins a new life as Thomas Effing in San Francisco; by investing the money wisely he soon becomes very rich. He leads a life of luxury, yet cannot enjoy it for fear of having his identity revealed by someone from the past. Feelings of guilt become so strong that he seeks oblivion in opium, women and gambling. One night he is attacked by an unknown assailant and loses the use of his legs. He sees his fate as a kind of punishment and decides to move to Paris, where he meets Pavel Shum. They move to the USA just before the outbreak of World War II. The remaining years of his life seem uninteresting to Effing.
Once Effing has finished his story, Marco draws up three versions of Effing’s, a short one for the newspapers, a longer one for an art magazine, and finally the longest and fullest account. Effing presents him with three books by Solomon Barber, a historian, who turns out to be Effing’s son. His existence was only discovered by Effing by chance. Marco is to send the long version of the obituary to Barber after Effing’s death, the date of which is set by Effing himself for May 12th.
During the remaining two months of his life Effing and Marco distribute a total of $20,000 in cash to total strangers. The idea is to return the Greshams’ money to the people. One of the characters they meet is Orlando, who presents Effing with the frame of an umbrella. On the last night on which they are to hand out the money, Effing takes the umbrella and exposes himself to the rain, catches pneumonia and finally dies on the predestined day. His ashes are scattered over the Hudson River and Marco is left with an inheritance of $7,000
Chapter Six
Marco and Kitty move into a flat in Chinatown and experience a period of extreme happiness living together. The newspapers and periodicals turn down Effing’s obituaries, but Solomon Barber responds to Marco’s letter and comes to meet him in New York. A man of immense obesity, Barber soon wins Marco’s friendship through his intelligence and politeness.
We learn that Barber had been a history professor at Emily Fogg’s college in Oldburn, Ohio, but was dismissed when he and Emily were found in bed together. He never knew that Emily gave birth to his son as she refused to see him again. He continued teaching at various minor Midwestern colleges, where he was well-liked by his students. His attempts to contact Emily again were rebutted, first by Emily herself, then by Uncle Victor, who feared losing custody of his nephew. Solomon’s own childhood had been an unhappy one, with his mother being mentally unstable and his father believed dead. At the age of 17 he wrote a novel, Kepler’s Blood, which reveals the effect the lack of knowledge about his father had on the young boy. Upon his mother’s death he learns from his Aunt Clara that his birth had been the cause of his mother’s mental instability.
When Marco meets Barber again some months later, the latter is on leave from his college and is living in New York. He wants Marco and Kitty to join him on an excursion to Utah to find Effing’s cave. However, Kitty finds out that she is pregnant, and decides to have an abortion. Marco cannot accept her decision and leaves her.
Chapter Seven
Marco moves in with Solomon Barber, but cannot get over his separation from Kitty. Barber makes several unsuccessful attempts to reconcile the two but fails and finally persuades Marco to go on an expedition to the West with him to look for Effing’s cave. They first drive to Chicago, where Marco wants to visit the graves of his mother and uncle. Barber breaks down in tears beside Emily Fogg’s grave, and Marco begins to realize who his father is. His immediate reactions are so hostile that Barber backs away and falls into an open grave. Seriously injured, Barber is taken to hospital, where he spends his last two months. An intimate relationship then develops between the two men, and Barber tells him the story of his life (which is told in Chapter Six).
After Barber’s death Marco buries him next to his mother and sets out on the planned trip in search of Effing’s cave alone. He is as impressed as his grandfather was with the immense emptiness of the landscape of the West. However, he learns that the area where the cave must have been was flooded many years earlier to create the artificial Lake Powell. He hires a boat and cruises along the lake, but when he returns to his car, he finds that it and most of his money have been stolen. Angry and disillusioned, he starts walking and continues for the next three months until he reaches the Pacific coast, where he feels the sand on his feet and watches the moon rise and take its place in the darkness.
The Moon in Moon Palace
The moon occurs in many places in the novel. Here we have gathered all the references to the moon and attempted to give a short explanation of the role of the moon as it occurs. The moon never attains one single meaning but changes in its significance.
The setting
The first sentence of the novel tells us of the setting.
It was the summer that men first walked on the moon.
(p. 7, l. 1)
Framing the story
The first sentence and the last sentence both refer to the moon. So the moon frames the random events of the story, while the description of the painting Moonlight occurs in the middle of the novel.
It was the summer that men first walked on the moon.
(p. 7, l. 1)
Then the moon came up from behind the hills. It was a full moon, as round and yellow as a burning stone. I kept my eyes on it as it rose into the night sky, not turning away until it had found its place in the darkness.
(p. 302, ll. 11–14)
Moonlight the painting
(cf. p. 138, ll. 36 – p. 141, l. 4
Uncle Victor:
His Uncle Victor plays in bands which have names connected to the moon. Uncle Victor serves as Marco’s link to something larger than himself (cf. p. 8, l. 39), as a point of orientation.
When I moved in with him in February of 1958, he was giving lessons to beginning clarinet students and playing for Howie Dunn’s Moonlight Moods, a small combo that made the usual rounds of weddings, confirmations, and graduation parties.
(p. 11, ll. 50–54)
They called themselves the Moon Men now, and most of their songs were original numbers.
(p. 18, ll. 2–3)
Baseball is one of the passions shared by Uncle Victor and Marco.
That was the year of Early Wynn and the go-go Sox, of Wally Moon and his moon-shot home runs.
(p. 14, ll. 26–27)
Lost Fatherhood
Uncle Victor (who belongs to Marco’s mother’s family) is related to the moon, whereas Marco’s real father is Sol (sun), whose absence in his life is keenly felt.
The moon would block the sun, and at that point I would vanish. I would be dead broke, a flotsam of flesh and bone without a farthing to my name.
(p. 28, ll. 5–
He possessed a great stone of a head, Barber found, a mythological head, and as he stood there looking at himself in the mirror, it seemed right to him that the vast globe of his body should now have a moon to go with it.
(p. 240, ll. 35)
He secretly loved it when the young girls mooned around him
(p. 242, ll. 35–36)
Barber was particularly fond of the two Blakelocks in the dining room (a moonlight canvas on the eastern wall and a view of an Indian encampment on the southern)
(p. 250, ll. 26–2
Barber writes about Harriot, the explorer and scientist.
Did you know that Harriot was the first man to look at the moon through a telescope?
(p. 194, ll. 5–6)
In Kepler’s Blood the moon plays an important role as the source of human life, but also as the connection between Sol’s father (who disappeared in the West, which looks like the moon) and his need for parenthood.
Long ago, according to the legends they told him, their ancestors had lived on the moon.
(p. 252, ll. 31–32)
For nowhere in the world, Kepler thought, does the earth look more like the moon than it does here.
(p. 255, ll. 56–57)
Without uttering another word, he wraps himself in his ceremonial garments and fasts for three days, at which point his spirit flies out of his body and travels to the moon, the place where the souls of the Humans dwell after death.
(p. 257, ll. 65ff.)
He [Jocomin] takes on the name of Jack Moon
(p. 258, l. 10)
Moon Palace and meals
Moon Palace is the Chinese restaurant where he eats important meals (his last proper meal while living in his flat; the transition from his old life and new life with Effing [when he also finds the fortune cookie]; the meal on the night Effing dies).
Struggling to get a grip on my emotions, I went out and splurged on a meal at the Moon Palace
(p. 50, ll. 3–4)
Zimmer collected the money from his friend a few days later, and that night Kitty and I joined him for a meal at the Moon Palace
(p. 100, ll. 15–16)
I went out to dinner with Kitty at the Moon Palace, and afterward we took in one of the movies on the double bill at the Thalia (I remember it as Ashes and Diamonds, but I could be wrong). Normally, I would have taken Kitty back to her dormitory at that point, but I had a bad feeling about Effing
(p. 219, ll. 45–49)
Interconnections/Association
The moon plays a role in Marco’s need to relate everything together, and his search for orientation and meaning. There is no chance or coincidence, therefore everything is linked.
I was looking down at Broadway, the smallest, most abbreviated portion of Broadway, and the remarkable thing was that the entire area of what I could see was filled up by a neon sign, a vivid torch of pink and blue letters that spelled out the words MOON PALACE.
(p. 23, ll. 54–5
MOON PALACE. I immediately thought of Uncle Victor and his band, and in that first, irrational moment, my fears lost their hold on me. I had never experienced anything so sudden and absolute. A bare and grubby room had been transformed into a site of inwardness, an intersection point of strange omens and mysterious, arbitrary events. I went on staring at the Moon Palace sign, and little by little I understood that I had come to the right place, that this small apartment was indeed where I was meant to live.
(p. 23, ll. 62ff.)
Every now and then, I would plant myself between the two windows, and watch the Moon Palace sign. Even that was enjoyable, and it always seemed to generate a series of interesting thoughts. Those thoughts are somewhat obscure to me now – clusters of wild associations, a rambling circuit of reveries – but at the time I felt they were terribly significant. Perhaps the word moon had changed for me after I saw men wandering around its surface. Perhaps I was struck by the coincidence of having met a man named Neil Armstrong in Boise, Idaho, and then watching a man by the same name fly off into outer space. Perhaps I was simply delirious with hunger, and the lights of the sign had transfixed me. I can’t be sure of any of it, but the fact was that the words Moon Palace began to haunt my mind with all the mastery and fascination of an oracle. Everything was mixed up in it at once: Uncle Victor and China, rocket ships and music, Marco Polo and the American West. I would look out at the sign and start to think about electricity. That would lead me to the blackout during my freshman year, which in turn would lead me to the baseball games played at Wrigley Field, which would then lead me back to Uncle Victor and the memorial candles burning on my windowsill. One thought kept giving way to another, spiraling into ever larger masses of connectedness. The idea of voyaging into the unknown, for example, and the parallels between Columbus and the astronauts. The discovery of America as a failure to reach China; Chinese food and my empty stomach; thought, as in food for thought, and the head as a palace of dreams. I would think: the Apollo Project; Apollo, the god of music; Uncle Victor and the Moon Men traveling out West. I would think: the West; the war against the Indians; the war in Vietnam, once called Indochina. I would think: weapons, bombs, explosions; nuclear clouds in the deserts of Utah and Nevada; and then I would ask myself – why does the American West look so much like the landscape of the moon? It went on and on like that, and the more I opened myself to these secret correspondences, the closer I felt to understanding some fundamental truth about the world. I was going mad, perhaps, but I nevertheless felt a tremendous power surging through me, a gnostic joy that penetrated deep into the heart of things. Then, very suddenly, as suddenly as I had gained this power, I lost it. I had been living inside my thoughts for three or four days, and one morning I woke up and found that I was somewhere else: back in the world of fragments, back in the world of hunger and bare white walls. I struggled to recapture the equilibrium of the previous days, but I couldn’t do it. The world was pressing down on me again, and I could barely catch my breath.
(p. 39, ll. 46ff.)
I took the little volume home with me and started to read it. Several pages into the text, I came across the same sentence that I had found in my fortune cookie at the Moon Palace almost a year before. “The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.” I still had the slip of paper in my wallet, and it jolted me to learn that these words had been written by Tesla, the same man who had been so important to Effing. The synchronicity of these events seemed fraught with significance, but it was difficult for me to grasp precisely how. It was as though I could hear my destiny calling out to me, but each time I tried to listen to it, it turned out to be talking in a language I didn’t understand. Had some worker in a Chinese fortune cookie factory been reading Tesla’s book? It seemed implausible, and yet even if he had, why was I the person at our table who had chosen the cookie with that particular message in it? I couldn’t help feeling unsettled by what had happened.
(p. 231, ll. 52–66)
One day, however, I drove farther afield than usual, going past Monument Valley to the Navaho trading post at Oljeto. The word meant “moon in the water,” which was enough to attract me in itself, but someone in Bluff had told me that the people who ran the trading post, a Mr. and Mrs. Smith, knew as much about the history of the country as anyone else for miles around.
(p. 299, ll. 54–60)
Time
The moon is, according to the fortune cookie, ‘the future’, but can also be the past and present.
The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future
(p. 100, ll. 32–33)
The moon would block the sun, and at that point I would vanish. I would be dead broke, a flotsam of flesh and bone without a farthing to my name.
(p. 28, ll. 5–
Here Blakelock’s moon represents loss (or the past), just as the painting Moonlight represents a lost world.
After I looked at five or six of them, they gradually began to separate themselves from their surroundings, and I was no longer able to see them as moons. They became holes in the canvas, apertures of whiteness looking out onto another world. Blakelock’s eye, perhaps. A blank circle suspended in space, gazing down at things that were no longer there.
(p. 142, ll. 19–24)
Moonlight the painting
(cf. p. 138, ll. 36 – p. 141, l. 4
Moon landings
The moon was the female goddess of love and lunacy. Whereas the moon landings represent human progress, they are also an indication of man being lost (searching outside his abode) or continual search (the Western frontier, the founding and exploration of America).
As chance would have it, I took the last ones up to Chandler on the same day the astronauts landed on the moon. I received a little more than nine dollars from the sale, and as I walked back down Broadway afterward, I decided to stop in at Quinn’s Bar and Grill, a small local hangout that stood on the southeast corner of 108th Street. The weather was extremely hot that day, and there didn’t seem to be any harm in splurging on a couple of ten-cent beers. I sat on a stool at the bar next to three or four of the regulars, enjoying the dim lights and the coolness of the air conditioning. The big color television set was on, glowing eerily over the bottles of rye and bourbon, and that was how I happened to witness the event. I saw the two padded figures take their first steps in that airless world, bouncing like toys over the landscape, driving a golf cart through the dust, planting a flag in the eye of what had once been the goddess of love and lunacy. Radiant Diana, I thought, image of all that is dark within us. Then the president spoke. In a solemn, deadpan voice, he declared this to be the greatest event since the creation of man. The old-timers at the bar laughed when they heard this, and I believe I managed to crack a smile or two myself. But for all the absurdity of that remark, there was one thing no one could challenge: since the day he was expelled from Paradise, Adam had never been this far from home.
(p. 38, ll. 11–12)
Someone started talking about the moon landing, and then someone else declared that it had never really happened. […] I calmly asserted that not only had last month’s moon landing been genuine, it was by no means the first time it had happened. Men had been going to the moon for hundreds of years …
(p. 44, ll. 26ff.)
You send people to the moon, something’s gotta give.
(p. 53, ll. 45–46)
another moon landing
(p. 68, l. 9)
Orientation
A man can’t know where he is on the earth except in relation to the moon or a star.
(p. 155, ll. 58–60)
Think about as little as you can – nothing, if possible – and if that’s too much to ask, then think about your eyes and the extraordinary power you possess to see the world. Imagine what would happen to you if you couldn’t see it. Imagine yourself looking at something under the various lights that make the world visible to us: sunlight, moonlight, electric light, candlelight, neon light.
(p. 136, ll. 8–14)
It also signifies lack of orientation (although one can interpret this as being Marco’s way of searching for himself)
“You’re a dreamer, boy,” he said. “Your mind is on the moon, and from the looks of things, it’s never going to be anywhere else. You have no ambitions, you don’t give a damn about money, and you’re too much of a philosopher to have any feeling for art. What am I going to do with you? You need someone to look after you, to make sure you have food in your belly and a bit of cash in your pocket. Once I’m gone, you’ll be right back where you started.”
“I admit it’s strange, but I think I might be suited for it. Libraries aren’t in the real world, after all. They’re places apart, sanctuaries of pure thought. In that way, I can go on living on the moon for the rest of my life.”
(p. 215, ll. 66ff.)
When Marco lives in Central Park, there is no moon.
There was no moon in the sky that night, not a single star. Before I remembered to take the knife out of my pocket, I was fast asleep.
(p. 61, ll. 54–55)
Once, I remember, I saw the Moon Palace sign in front of me, more vivid than it had ever been in life. The pink and blue neon letters were so large that the whole sky was filled with their brightness. Then, suddenly, the letters disappeared, and only the two os from the word Moon were left. I saw myself dangling from one of them, struggling to hang on like an acrobat who had botched a dangerous stunt. Then I was slithering around it like a tiny worm, and then I wasn’t there anymore. The two os had turned into eyes, gigantic human eyes that were looking down at me with scorn and impatience. They kept on staring at me, and after a while I became convinced that they were the eyes of God.
(p. 74, ll. 60ff.)
At the end of the novel he finds himself, as the moon has found its place in the darkness.
Then the moon came up from behind the hills. It was a full moon, as round and yellow as a burning stone. I kept my eyes on it as it rose into the night sky, not turning away until it had found its place in the darkness.
(p. 302, ll. 11–14)
Transformation
Julian Barber transforms into Effing in Utah, which is like the moon,. Marco too in the West loses everything and has to walk to the coast, where he watches the moon take its position. He finds his identity, and realises how important it is to have a point of orientation, just like the man looking for his position on the earth. But for Blakelock the moon is centre of his lost world.
There was no moon that night, and the sky was brilliant with stars. Every once in a while, he could hear the muffled remnant of a laugh, but that was the extent of it. Then, periodically, the Greshams started coming out of the cave
(p. 179, ll. 43–47)
For nowhere in the world, Kepler thought, does the earth look more like the moon than it does here.
(p. 255, ll. 56–57)
A man can’t know where he is on the earth except in relation to the moon or a star.
(p. 155, ll. 58–60)
Then the moon came up from behind the hills. It was a full moon, as round and yellow as a burning stone. I kept my eyes on it as it rose into the night sky, not turning away until it had found its place in the darkness.
(p. 302, ll. 11–14)
The Western frontier
The West is compared to the moon; it is where Americans found their freedom and shaped their new identity. Marco finds himself at the very edge of the Western frontier, the Pacific Ocean.
For nowhere in the world, Kepler thought, does the earth look more like the moon than it does here.
(p. 255, ll. 56–57)
There was no moon that night, and the sky was brilliant with stars. Every once in a while, he could hear the muffled remnant of a laugh, but that was the extent of it. Then, periodically, the Greshams started coming out of the cave
(p. 179, ll. 43–47)
Then the moon came up from behind the hills. It was a full moon, as round and yellow as a burning stone. I kept my eyes on it as it rose into the night sky, not turning away until it had found its place in the darkness.
(p. 302, ll. 11–14)
Technological progress
The moon through Tesla is seen as representing technological progress and the belief in the future (which proves illusory), but nevertheless humans make it to the moon (or do they? and why is there so much literature about people going to the moon?)
I took the little volume home with me and started to read it. Several pages into the text, I came across the same sentence that I had found in my fortune cookie at the Moon Palace almost a year before. “The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.” I still had the slip of paper in my wallet, and it jolted me to learn that these words had been written by Tesla, the same man who had been so important to Effing. The synchronicity of these events seemed fraught with significance, but it was difficult for me to grasp precisely how. It was as though I could hear my destiny calling out to me, but each time I tried to listen to it, it turned out to be talking in a language I didn’t understand. Had some worker in a Chinese fortune cookie factory been reading Tesla’s book? It seemed implausible, and yet even if he had, why was I the person at our table who had chosen the cookie with that particular message in it? I couldn’t help feeling unsettled by what had happened.
(p. 231, ll. 52–66)
As chance would have it, I took the last ones up to Chandler on the same day the astronauts landed on the moon. I received a little more than nine dollars from the sale, and as I walked back down Broadway afterward, I decided to stop in at Quinn’s Bar and Grill, a small local hangout that stood on the southeast corner of 108th Street. The weather was extremely hot that day, and there didn’t seem to be any harm in splurging on a couple of ten-cent beers. I sat on a stool at the bar next to three or four of the regulars, enjoying the dim lights and the coolness of the air conditioning. The big color television set was on, glowing eerily over the bottles of rye and bourbon, and that was how I happened to witness the event. I saw the two padded figures take their first steps in that airless world, bouncing like toys over the landscape, driving a golf cart through the dust, planting a flag in the eye of what had once been the goddess of love and lunacy. Radiant Diana, I thought, image of all that is dark within us. Then the president spoke. In a solemn, deadpan voice, he declared this to be the greatest event since the creation of man. The old-timers at the bar laughed when they heard this, and I believe I managed to crack a smile or two myself. But for all the absurdity of that remark, there was one thing no one could challenge: since the day he was expelled from Paradise, Adam had never been this far from home.
(p. 38, ll. 11–12)
Someone started talking about the moon landing, and then someone else declared that it had never really happened. […] I calmly asserted that not only had last month’s moon landing been genuine, it was by no means the first time it had happened. Men had been going to the moon for hundreds of years …
(p. 44, ll. 26ff.)
You send people to the moon, something’s gotta give.
(p. 53, ll. 45–46)
another moon landing
(p. 68, l. 9)
Pictorial/dramatic moments
The moon watches over characters.
Once, I remember, I saw the Moon Palace sign in front of me, more vivid than it had ever been in life. The pink and blue neon letters were so large that the whole sky was filled with their brightness. Then, suddenly, the letters disappeared, and only the two os from the word Moon were left. I saw myself dangling from one of them, struggling to hang on like an acrobat who had botched a dangerous stunt. Then I was slithering around it like a tiny worm, and then I wasn’t there anymore. The two os had turned into eyes, gigantic human eyes that were looking down at me with scorn and impatience. They kept on staring at me, and after a while I became convinced that they were the eyes of God.
(p. 75, ll. 61ff.)
There was no moon that night, and the sky was brilliant with stars. Every once in a while, he could hear the muffled remnant of a laugh, but that was the extent of it. Then, periodically, the Greshams started coming out of the cave
(p. 179, ll. 43–47)
A full moon is poised dramatically in the sky for the last scene.
(p. 259, l. 57) It is interesting to note that the moon is poised in a dramatic and meaningful way in the final scene of Moon Palace just as in Kepler’s Blood.
he suddenly sees a coyote standing with its silhouette against the moon.
(p. 259, ll. 61–62)
Art
Blakelock uses the moon as a symbol in many of his works.
Moonlight the painting
(cf. p. 138, ll. 36 – p. 141, l. 4
After I looked at five or six of them, they gradually began to separate themselves from their surroundings, and I was no longer able to see them as moons. They became holes in the canvas, apertures of whiteness looking out onto another world. Blakelock’s eye, perhaps. A blank circle suspended in space, gazing down at things that were no longer there.
(p. 142, ll. 19–24)
Barber was particularly fond of the two Blakelocks in the dining room (a moonlight canvas on the eastern wall and a view of an Indian encampment on the southern)
(p. 250, ll. 26–2
Marco the narrator finds it difficult to find the words to express what he sees.
In actual terms, it was no more than two or three inches, but considering how many accidents and losses could occur along the way, it might just as well have been a journey from the earth to the moon.
(p. 124, ll. 17–20)
hoffe damit konntet ihr was anfangen
__________________Wer lernt, verliert!
PS: die Raucher-Smileys sind unbeabsichtigt 
an dieser Stelle Raucherpause einlegen 
an dieser Stelle Raucherpause einlegen __________________Wer lernt, verliert!
