"What's The Use of Stories That Aren't Even True?"

Okay, I'm a geeky sucker for sticking with Lost across 5, now 6, seasons. Then again, what other TV show gets people talking about such important subjects? Case in point, from Entertainment Weekly:

Desmond Hume reads the darndest books. When we first met him in season 2, the moony marooner ran off into the jungle carrying a copy of The Third Policeman, a perversely playful work with a twisted plot that mirrors the most despairing of Lost theories: that our fallen castaways are stuck in an eternal cycle of damnation, their looping hell managed by morally ambiguous enforcers. In ''LA X,'' [the opener for Season 6] Desmond was reading Rushdie's Haroun And The Sea of Stories. Like Policeman, Haroun functions as commentary and critique on storytelling, but otherwise couldn't be more different. The plot concerns a boy who all but curses his father in a moment of despair by saying, cynically, ''What's the use of stories that aren't even true?'' As a consequence, the father becomes heartbroken, and loses his storytelling mojo. Haroun then embarks on a fantastic adventure to save the enchanted ''Ocean of the Steam of Story'' from villains who would corrupt it. By taking that journey and saving that enchanted place, Haroun restores his father's life and power by giving him the tale of his own adventure, which, when told, rouses a hopeless town to rebel against exploitive, oppressive forces. What might Haroun have to say to us about season 6? Mostly, I'm thinking of Jack and his relationship to his father. But more than anything, I'm fascinated by Desmond's progression from the surreal cynicism of Policeman to the redemptive fable of Haroun. I've certainly seen a lot of Policeman in Lost. In season 6, perhaps we'll see more Haroun.

Thanks to Lost, I already have Flannery O'Conner's Everything That Rises Must Converge on my Amazon Wish List. Now I've added Haroun as well. Hopeless, hopeless geek.