I realized last night when I was half asleep that I completely neglected to mention the Memory Palace of Simonides in yesterday’s entry on Dantalian no Shoka, which was mentioned as a mental device along with Vedic mathematics. This is really cool, so my neglect must be corrected.

I originally learned about the Memory Palace in my college psychology class (although not by that name) and I can attest first hand that it actually works. It’s a technique that enables you to expand your short term memory. The human brain’s temporary scratch memory is limited to seven things, on average, but you can remember many more. Try this as an experiment. Get a friend to write down a list of twenty objects. Have your friend read the list to you, slowly, saying the name of each object only once. Then repeat the list back to him, in order. How many did you get right?

Most people get around seven right (myself included) if they don’t have some technique for memorizing more.

Here’s how to get all twenty right. Think of a route you travel everyday (for me, it was the route from my dorm room to my first class). Decide on twenty waypoints on that route, and memorize them. Then get your friend to read a different list of objects. As he reads the list, associate each object with the waypoints on your route.

Let’s do an example using my route. First I would get out of bed, then I would go to the closet to get my toothbrush, then I would go past my roommate’s bed, then into the hallway, then to the bathroom, and then to the water fountain. So the first six stops. I’ll pick six random objects that are within my field of view: fan, football, quarter, tissues, mouse, and gravestone (my house for the summer is next to a cemetery, and my nearest neighbor is a corpse). Now let’s associate the objects with the landmarks. You would do this as the list is being read.

1. The fan keeps me cool when I’m sleeping.
2. I store the football in the closet.
3. I’ll steal my roommate’s quarter.
4. I blow my nose with a tissue in the hallway.
5. I flush my mouse down the toilet.
6. I rinse a gravestone in the water fountain.

“Yes” seems to be Dalian’s catchphrase. Am I the only one who thinks the way she pronounces it is hilarious?

This episode did everything wrong. For the first arc, it develops these children who know everything and plan to conquer the world. Huey and Dalian show up to claim their Phantom Book, and the children, although creepy, are happy to hand it over in a rather bizarre anticlimax. For the second half, thieves break into the house to steal a book. Then they get swallowed by a plant in the backyard. It did everything wrong, and yet… I loved this episode. It took every expectation and assumption I had and threw them out the window. Some of them were tossed out for ridiculous reasons (a carnivorous plant that lures its prey with books… come on) but it was a pleasurable experience nonetheless.

The way Dalian’s character has been presented is quite interesting. On one hand, she is extremely similar to Victorique from Gosick— a goth loli with a sweet tooth, who is kind but too embarrassed to show it, and lashes out at people instead. But I feel Dalian is presented much better than Victorique. The only other person Victorique interacted with was Kujo, who had all the personality and resistance to her whims of a wet rag. Dalian, on the other hand, is dealing with Huey, who is actually intelligent and doesn’t let her get away with anything she wants. And with the addition of Huey’s female friend Camilla in this episode, Dalian isn’t the only one doing the manipulating. The way Dalian bullies Huey is more entertaining too: Victorique just kicked Kujo and made him climb stairs, so Dalian spoiling book endings is a marked improvement.

The dialogue is much sharper than Gosick’s as well. Take Dalian’s final line at the end of the episode. “They got exactly what they deserved. Punishment for damaging one of my favorites.” I actually interpreted this the same way Huey did, until Camilla’s look and giggle made me realize that she wasn’t referring to her book. Victorique had many similar lines, but only someone as dense as Kujo wouldn’t realize what she meant.

In terms of references, this episode included Vedic Mathematics, which I had never heard of. Historically, it appears to be a modern day hoax, but presents some interesting tricks for doing mental arithmetic. The Queen of the Night is actually a type of cactus rumored to bloom rarely (a false rumor). Obviously, it doesn’t lure in humans with books and eat them. It’s also a character in the Magic Flute, although I’m not informed enough about this to speculate. The other main reference is the Book of Wisdom, referring to the deuterocanonical book of the same name traditionally attributed to Solomon. I think the book in the story would have been better titled the book of  knowledge, however. The children certainly had plenty of knowledge about the world, but wisdom? Certainly not.

I haven’t read the entirety of the Book of Wisdom, but if it’s anything remotely like Ecclesiastes (which is also in the wisdom tradition and traditionally attributed to Solomon) the message of the book is not “don’t try anything because you’ll fail”. In fact it’s pretty much the opposite.

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

 

I have seen something else under the sun:

The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.

Ecclesiastes 9:7-11