Oh, what's the mystery?

Root's "death" in WWII was faked for the benefit of his "widow."

Notice the effort made to get the attending doctor to sign the death certificate.

Thanks for the link. Root's "death" always really nagged me but there wre some good ideas there about what's was going on.

Having just finished the book two days ago, I'd say people aren't very careful readers. No controversy here. Move along.

Haven't read the book, but I've read the Bible; Enoch is briefly mentioned in Genesis as part of a lineage leading to Noah. Thing is, everybody else in that lineage is stated to have died at such and such an age; Enoch is glaringly not mentioned to have died.

Some think the "Son of Man" tradition that Jesus claimed (rather than describing himself as the son of God, let alone the Messiah) begins with Enoch.

Edited by author 12-02-2002 12:42 PM
Um... Enoch died at 365 yrs old (Gen 5:23) "And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years"
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/pop...erse=23&version=kjv
... OK after a bit of a re-read, you may have something. Enoch was "taken" by God, but spared death (Hebrews 11:5)

Just finished the book after eight hours solid reading after a 12-hour shift, so bear with me

Thoughts on Enoch:
My guess is that Enoch is either a) immortal or b) has incredible healing technology [any significantly advanced technology will appear to be magic]. At the end of the paperback edition there are excerpts of _Quicksilver_ with Enoch Root as a main character. Has Enoch been repeatedly spared death as the some traditions hold and is this the same character that Stevenson is using?

Another problem though: the major characters have an analog from wwII and the present [waterhouse/waterhouse, Shaftoe/Shaftoe, Glory/America, Comstock/Comstock] or survive to reappear [Randy's mother, Goto Dengo, Wing/Gen. Wing] except: Bong [one of the three survivors of the escape from Golgotha], Julieta Kivistik and son [Gunter Enoch Bobby Kivistik], Bischoff [VMillion Kapitan]. Where did they go? Why were they not important in the late 20th/ early 21st centuries? Or did I just miss their presence?

BTW: Gen MacArthur has some of the qualities of Enoch also: several times he was attacked and just stood there while others ran for cover, seems to have a higher vision of the whole WWII thing...maybe I'm stretching

Anybody know if Komodo dragons, or similar species, inhabit Guadacanal? These animals are large enough to eat cows and have been known to attack multiple humans at once. Marines on the beach would be easy eating.

Also, Enoch is the name of a character in the Gnostic Gospels, Greek Christian myths from around CE 200 that were suppressed by the early Church.

He's a contemporary of Noah who tries to save all human knowledge from the Flood, by building two duplicate libraries, one fireproof and one waterproof. (He doesn't know that the Flood is going to be a flood specifically; he just has a vague premonition of disaster.)

On the appointed day, he has to choose which of the two libraries to take refuge in--and he chooses to hide in the fireproof library. The water sweeps him away, but the second waterproof library stays standing, full of all kinds of forbidden ancient knowledge. Unfortunately, since Noah and his family don't know where it is, it ends up lost forever....

Thousander?