Saragossa conclusions

This picture is not super relevant, just cool

 I felt a summation of my thoughts of the Manuscript found in Saragossa would be appropriate.  I thought I would get into this book as quickly as I got into the Arabian Nights.  I truly enjoyed the Nights, and the style in which it is written and presented.  Knowing that the styles are similar, I was quite taken aback that I felt I was trudging, as if through mud, to finish the Manuscript.  Once I got to the section I was to present on, however, the story started to really interest me, perhaps because I could tell the end was coming, and as we've spoken about in class, for some reason we all desire closure of some sort.

My biggest shock came when I read that the hermit from the beginning was the Sheikh at the end, and I almost dropped my book! How can people be so deceptive in their presentations of themselves?  But when talking in our group on how we would discuss the final chapters in class, we examined how this is not a new idea.  People playing parts is an aspect of entertainment dating back hundreds of years.  Watching plays, and now watching movies, allows us to enjoy watching people play pa rts.  As far as the lying about it goes, I realized this is not new either, or at least not far from our realm of entertainment.  There's an entire day dedicated in the American calendar for playing pranks on others (April 1), so perhaps it was simply the extensiveness of this charade that really blew my mind.

Also, the talk of mirrors was quite intriguing, and how far the reference went.  There were of course the physical mirrors, through which the cabbalist and Rebecca saw their fated lovers.  But there was also a myriad of dualistic references throughout the novel.  The one that comes to mind the most is the geometer versus the entire story.  He was full of reason and numbers and logic, and insisted that there had to be natural explanations for everything.  Turns out in the end he was correct, but int he heat of the story, he was the odd one out who didn't believe in magic.  The "rational" vs the "mysterious" is a comparison that still plagues us as a society, only in a switched capacity.  Those who believe in magic and the supernatural can generally be deemed as crazy or eccentric, because everyone else has science behind them supporting them in their delusions of reality.

Who is to say who is right and wrong?  Where is the harm in allowing people to guard their own beliefs?  And who is to say that dressing up and playing a part is any less true then being "yourself" and "real life."  The idea of TRUE is entirely overrated.