The Hegirascope is a collection of a couple hundred lexia that are linked between one another in many different ways. For each lexia (page), there are four links that accompany it. Each of these links link to another different lexia than one you’ve seen before — most likely. I stumbled upon three lexias that were able to be linked in a triangle. Just by randomly clicking one of the four given links on each lexia, after three pages, I was able to get back to the one I started at.
The first lexia that I have decided to start with is the one titled, “Catalog of Dreams #401.” I think that the author of this particular lexia is trying to illustrate a scene for us as the readers. The author describes the scenery of what is being presented by saying, “Here mesas, cacti, clouds, krazy hanging rocks are all left blank. There is just this rock which is red.” With the description the author gave, I picture in my head a dessert-type setting, except without any color — other than this red rock. The next paragraph then mentions that the rock isn’t only red, it is, “ruby, copper, gold, magenta, molasses, rust, ochre, burnt sienna, black and white and red.” Besides the black and white, the other colors are shades or tints of red – a color that can be closely associated with the dessert. A sunsent amidst the dessert is what I picture when I read this lexia.
From this lexia I clicked on a link called “rock.” The link took me to a lexia called “Education.” Education presents itself through the first person style of writing. It is about – I’m assuming what is a young man of about my age — talking about his educational experiences so far in his life. It takes place back in 1953 when he/she went to Esther Williams College to persue an adjutants degree. An adjutent is defined as a helper; it seems to be a pretty strange thing to major in. The narrator talks about how he met Lord Perfidious and they would drink tea and share atomic secrets. Taken literally, considering the era, they could have been sharing real secrets about maybe what they knew of atomic weapons. When thinking about how this links to the previous lexia — Catalog of Dreams #401 — I first noticed the opening line of Education where it states, “In 1953, at the age of three paving stones and a large piece of quartzite…” The obvious mention of paving stones and quartzite links to the red rock mentioned in the previous lexia. After thinking about this a little more in depth, however, I considered the colors mentioned in the Catalog of Dreams #401 — ruby, copper, gold, magenta, molasses, rust, ochre, burnt sienna … and red — and thought of those as colors of destruction, perhaps at the hands of an atomic bomb? Also, haven’t nuclear testings taken place in the dessert?
As I have gone through these lexias, I tried to click on the link that seemed to be what the author was talking about in that certain lexia. After the Education lexia, I clicked on the link called “schooling.” This took me to a lexia titled “Your Agent Called.” This one is written in what seems to be the second-person narrative. If I were to guess at what this is about — as I said, they all are rather obscure — I would suggest the stock market. The narrator mentions that a financial fugitive acquired the Hannah-Barbera cartoon library for ¥800 trillion. At the end of this lexia, the narrator suggests that one should buy Dotsex at ¥1,400 because research – which you are now privvy to — has proven that sexual stimulation will cure Alzheimer’s in some patients. After reading through this one a few times and studying it, I still find it difficult to find a concrete link between the two. As I mentioned above, an Adjutant is a helper, or an aid — like a secretary. You can argue here that the link between the two is that scientific research is being conducted year-round at the price of hundreds of millions of dollars to help and aid those who are ill. This third lexia talks about the cure of Alzheimer’s as sexual stimulation and that it is a proven cure for those who suffer.
The word Hegira refers to a flight to a more hospitable place. The word scope insights the act of narrowing down a search or focusing tightly on something. So hegirascope to me means the act of deeply looking at something with the intent of the main focus getting better or becoming what you want it to become. This relates to these excerpts from the lexias because these lexias can be taken almost any way you want. They can be molded down into whatever the reader thinks – to an extent of course. Just through some critical thinking, I was able to come up with reasons why I thought these three lexias linked together. There is no definite ending or sense of closure here. An interpretive strategy that can be applied to this is the text as a kaleidoscope strategy. The kaleidoscope is constantly changing with any iota of change. In a way, this is like the Calvino novel because you can pretty much interpret your own ending for all ten of those stories as well as the three lexias here.
