Re: New Voynich Stuff

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gabriel suggests:

    > The Book of Sand
    > The library of Babel
    > The Congress

I have read only the Library of Babel, and I second Gabriel's
recommendation. (The LoB is a short tale; in the same anthology there
were a few other interesting ones --- I recall one on the lost culture
of Tlön, Ubar, and O(U?)rbis Tertius, and another on the guy who made
his life project to rewrite Don Quijote, using exactly the same words
as the original but with a completely different meaning.)

Myself, I would recommend Stanislaw Lem's "His Master's Voice".
Although it is a "slow" and sometimes boring book, the plot is sooo
much like the VMS affair...

Another marginally relevant tale by Lem is "Gigamesh" [sic], part of
"A Perfect Vacuum", a collection of prefaces for imaginary books.
(I believe that there you will learn also about the three classes of
geniuses; and the VMs author may well have been a Genius of the First
Class.)

By the way, yesternight when I got home (something I still do
occasionally) I randomly opened Martin Gardner's "The Unexpected
Hanging" and started reading about Flatland at page 143. On page 145
there was an addendum on George Boole's "remarkable daughters",
including a certain Ethel Lillian who married a Polish[sic]-American
book dealer, W. Voynich, and wrote an anti-Catholic novel that was
very popular in the USSR and China, etc.

Yes folks. Considering that that was probably the only occurence of
"Voynich" in all the books I have at home, it is obvious that we are
dangerously playing with a powerful Evil Force --- or at least a Quite
Annoying one.

But, after all, the Millenium is only a couple of months away...

All the best,

--stolfi 8-)

PS. It is quite ironic that Gardner would mention W. Voynich 
in that book of mathematical puzzles, and not say a single
word about the VMs, "the world's most mysterious" puzzle.