With the season 5 premiere only a couple of days away, the put together a special article about Gregg Nations, the man who puts together “show bible” for Lost:

Enter Mr. Nations, who has now compiled an archive that, were he ever to print it out, might — as he put it in an interview at the Lost production offices on Disney’s Burbank studio lot — give War and Peace a run for its money.

Just how long the entire document is he does not know; he has never printed it out in full, in part because he and his secretive bosses do not want copies falling into the wrong hands. But he has multiple electronic copies, which he keeps in undisclosed locations.

In addition to charting story arcs and tracking characters, Mr. Nations has noted each character’s sojourns on and off the island, mapped the research stations established by the mysterious Dharma Initiative and recorded the appearances and disappearances of polar bears, Smoke Monsters and an unhealthy array of guns.

After the show is over, it would be awesome if someone published this “bible.” Lost is a bit complicated, and for anyone wanting to analyze or write about the show, something like this would be invaluable. . . .

Somewhat full disclosure: I met Gregg a number of years ago when The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien was on the show. We’ve kept in touch ever since, and for a while, did a special Lost radio segment every week on a Top 40 radio station in Normal, IL. (It was kind of like the international literature bits on our local morning news program. Obviously Lost is much more popular than translation, but the way Gregg talks about the show, and drops cryptic hints, was a cut above the morning show norm.)

Although it’s not specifically mentioned in this article, in writing the “Eggtown” episode for last season, he managed to include both Philip K. Dick’s Valis, and Adolfo Bioy Casares’s The Invention of Morel, two perfect “Lost Books.” One of which is a work in translation by one of Argentina’s greatest authors, thus tying this post back into our primary mission. . . . But seriously, it’s cool how pro-literature this show is, and the impact that Lost has had on getting people to read interesting cult (or not-so-cult) books is not to be underestimated. Hell, we sold 15,000 copies of The Third Policeman in the few weeks after it appeared on the show. (And mind you, it was only on screen for like half a second.)

What do you do when you’ve read Jorge Luis Borges’ Collected Fictions so many times that you feel a bit like Funes the Memorious? Or when you’ve thoroughly digested the Argentinean master’s Selected Non-Fictions and even bought his poetry volume? For strung-out Borges aficionados, the perfect answer is Adolfo Bioy Casares, Borges’ literary collaborator and close friend. Bioy Casares knew Borges well enough to write a 1,600-page volume on their friendship and, despite a 15-year age gap, was considered an intellectual peer.

The masterpiece among Bioy Casares’ short, intense novels is The Invention of Morel, a book that won raves from Borges (who placed it alongside Franz Kafka’s The Trial), was called “perfect” by Octavio Paz, and inspired one of French cinema’s most infamous movies, Last Year at Marienbad (1961). Though it was first published in 1940, the book’s continuing relevance was recently proven when it was featured on Lost — a cameo many viewers perceive as a key to that TV show’s plot.

I’m not sure how public this is yet, but New York Review Books (also the publisher of The Invention of Morel and Asleep in the Sun) is planning on publishing Bioy Casares’s diary about Borges as translated by the wonderful Esther Allen. This is going to be a major, major book, although it probably won’t be out for years . . .

And I’d like to reiterate that any and all Lost fans out there really should read this book. Not because it reveals any secrets about the show (although there are some eerie similarities), but because anyone who likes Lost will undoubtedly like this book.

And in the category of odd cosmic coincidences (a staple of Lost), the actress who inspired Adolfo Bioy Casares to write this novel (Louise Brooks, who is pictured on the cover), spent the last three decades of her life right here in Rochester, NY studying film at the George Eastman House . . .