Friday, 5 June 2020

Limehouse And A Spider's Web

Operation Luna, 21.

The curious spell discussed in recent posts enables Frogmorton and the Matucheks to find Fu Ch'ing's address in London:

"'Here,' [Frogmorton] said. 'A sideway, virtually an alley, in Limehouse.'
[Ginny's] laugh rattled. "'Limehouse? Isn't that ridiculously obvious?'
"'Which may be why he chose it, Dr. Matuchek. I don't know what the building is like, although I would guess an abandoned warehouse or a dubious commercial establishment in that rather decayed district. One can readily learn. At any rate, there he sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them.'" (pp. 191-192)

Compare Sherlock Holmes' description of Moriarty:

He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them
-copied from here. (Scroll down.)

Guion of the Time Patrol compares world-lines to a troubled spider's web (see Not In Our Yet) and an Upanishad compares the Absolute and the universe to a spider and its web:

7. As the spider creates and absorbs, as medicinal plants grow from the earth, as hairs grow from the living person, so this universe proceeds from the immortal.
-copied from here.

Why does Ginny say that Limehouse is obvious? See:

Limehouse: In Popular Culture.

(Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen has Mycroft Holmes believed to be "M," Moriarty as the real M and Fu Manchu unnamed either for copyright reasons or for dramatic effect.)

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

"Obvious" because we (some of us) are supposed to think of Sax Rohmer's stories, opium dens, and sinister Chinese operatives. (Smiles)

Ad astra! Sean