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Living Lost: Why We're All Stuck on the Island
Miracles, viruses, plane crashes and acts of terror perpetrated by a group of Others. This is the perplexing and radical world created by J.J. Abrams in his hit television show, LOST. Joley Wood, with wit and insight, explores the shows quirky details, and argues for an idea as weird as the show That weOre all stuck on the island.
- GenresNonfictionPop Culture
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 7, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 27, 2011
This book is not entirely what I was expecting. When I was out looking for books on Lost because I was sure I was missing out on some of the more subtle aspects of the show. I kind of wanted something that would help bring me up to speed on all the elements that Lost tends to include. This book has a lot of those elements, but it is also so much more than that.
Rather than just being an abridged overview of Lost "Living Lost" is also an extensive social commentary about elements that may or may not be used as an influence for Lost. Much of what J. Wood goes over is merely conjecture, thus it is likely just a coincidence. However, he touched upon the fact that the producers seem to be reading the forums that the fans go on, because he's noticing a bit of a feedback loop between theories fans have and elements in the show. I thought this was incredibly brilliant. While I'm really interested in Lost, my experience with the show is sort of in a vacuum, consisting of just myself and the show. Lost incorporates many other methods and elements to keep fans interested and I miss out on a lot of these. I feel this book was excellent in getting me somewhat acquainted with aspects I may have missed.
This book mainly covers aspects found in the first and second season, so concepts concerning terrorism are constantly revisited. J. Wood draws many parallels to the 9/11 plane crashes in the U.S. and the following era that is the War on Terror. He suggests that Lost is directly influenced by these real world elements and I don't think he's very far off the mark. As the saying goes "art imitates life". I do wish J. Wood would write another book for the later seasons, because I feel the scientific elements of the island are getting quite a lot more treatment. Not to mention the metaphysical elements are also being heavily emphasized. I would love to read J. Wood's commentary on these later seasons.
"Living Lost" is a relatively quick book to read through, but the volume of information it contains is quite impressive. The latter half of the book is merely a character overview and gives the reader a brief description of all the characters we've encountered thus far. It would probably be rather boring for someone who watches Lost closely, but I read it anyway, just to see if there was anything I missed out on. When it came to these things, there wasn't much for me in here. The one element that was kind of annoying was the poor character sketches. I'm not sure who did those pictures, but they would've been better off hiring a sketch artist at the very least. My girlfriend is an illustration major and her abilities are leagues ahead of whoever drew these.
I actually think this book has a lot of merit for fans of Lost. It gives a great overview of elements someone may have missed out on in the first viewing. Also it closely discusses some links that were harder to see within the seasons. I found this book utterly fascinating and I would recommend it to any Lost fan.
Rather than just being an abridged overview of Lost "Living Lost" is also an extensive social commentary about elements that may or may not be used as an influence for Lost. Much of what J. Wood goes over is merely conjecture, thus it is likely just a coincidence. However, he touched upon the fact that the producers seem to be reading the forums that the fans go on, because he's noticing a bit of a feedback loop between theories fans have and elements in the show. I thought this was incredibly brilliant. While I'm really interested in Lost, my experience with the show is sort of in a vacuum, consisting of just myself and the show. Lost incorporates many other methods and elements to keep fans interested and I miss out on a lot of these. I feel this book was excellent in getting me somewhat acquainted with aspects I may have missed.
This book mainly covers aspects found in the first and second season, so concepts concerning terrorism are constantly revisited. J. Wood draws many parallels to the 9/11 plane crashes in the U.S. and the following era that is the War on Terror. He suggests that Lost is directly influenced by these real world elements and I don't think he's very far off the mark. As the saying goes "art imitates life". I do wish J. Wood would write another book for the later seasons, because I feel the scientific elements of the island are getting quite a lot more treatment. Not to mention the metaphysical elements are also being heavily emphasized. I would love to read J. Wood's commentary on these later seasons.
"Living Lost" is a relatively quick book to read through, but the volume of information it contains is quite impressive. The latter half of the book is merely a character overview and gives the reader a brief description of all the characters we've encountered thus far. It would probably be rather boring for someone who watches Lost closely, but I read it anyway, just to see if there was anything I missed out on. When it came to these things, there wasn't much for me in here. The one element that was kind of annoying was the poor character sketches. I'm not sure who did those pictures, but they would've been better off hiring a sketch artist at the very least. My girlfriend is an illustration major and her abilities are leagues ahead of whoever drew these.
I actually think this book has a lot of merit for fans of Lost. It gives a great overview of elements someone may have missed out on in the first viewing. Also it closely discusses some links that were harder to see within the seasons. I found this book utterly fascinating and I would recommend it to any Lost fan.
October 1, 2008
Obviously only fans of Lost need bother, but Wood is so incisive and so ridiculously over-educated in literary/philosophy but without writing in an impenetrable fashion that this is difficult to skip for someone who enjoys the writing on the show.
December 29, 2009
This book delves into the literary and philosophical references on Lost. The author goes off on tangents at times but it's a good read overall. It only covers up to the first six episodes of season three but it's a good recap in preparation for the upcoming final season.
August 21, 2007
J. Wood writes a blog about LOST for Powells.com in Portland. Check it out.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews