(no subject)

[verbminx]

OK, tonight I am interested in The Voynich Manuscript. It's a one-of-a-kind book worth over $100K and located in a rare books library at Yale University. Nobody knows how old it is, and nobody knows what it says. The manuscript is written in a cipher script (or two) that occurs nowhere else. It's been attributed to Roger Bacon, a thirteenth century astronomer and mystic, but that origin is suspect.

Here's another suspect origin, with an attempt at deciphering the manuscript.

Here is a gallery of pages from the manuscript.

When I was younger I loved mysteries; I read everything I could. Encyclopedia Brown, Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew (but not Hardy Boys), Kay Tracey, Happy Hollisters, Dana Girls, Trixie Belden - you name it, I probably liked and read it. I read every volume of most series... every Holmes story, every Trixie Belden novel, all 56 original Nancy Drew hardcovers plus a decent number of the earlier versions (many of the stories were completely rewritten several times, under the same title, so a version from the early 1930s will be an entirely different story when compared to a version from the 1960s - there were several Trixie novels which had also been entirely rewritten). I was also a little fiend for "learn to be a detective!" books and kits, and books on ciphers and codes.

When I got a little older, I read most of Anne Perry's books up through around the time she started her William Monk series. I occasionally read books by Barbara Michaels / Elizabeth Peters, and by Mary Stewart, but I think by that time I preferred historical fiction (not romance) and some fantasy. I retained my interest in codes and ciphers, but since I've never felt much pull towards math, they quickly became too closely aligned.

So things like the Voynich MS, while seeming a bit spooky to me, also really draw me in and turn my brain up a few notches, insinuating possibilities and connections and intricacies and arcana. I'm not impressed by or interested in new-age esoterica, but alchemy, ciphers, strangeness, unknowability... that's my bag.

Comments

[puissance.livejournal.com]

ha. how fabulous. you should write mysterybooks. oh, that'd be really up there.

[verbminx.livejournal.com]

I used to think about writing mystery novels, but they tend to become so formulaic. that's the problem with any genre.

I wish I had a head for cryptography, though... that math interested me beyond my ability to do problems put in front of me (or in some cases, lack thereof). Math has never been a personal fascination, only a social/educational obligation. =/

The other realm.

[winterking.livejournal.com]

Do not forget. There may be some secrets from ages past that are better left forgotten. As there are similar issues with the discoveries that are being made today.

I find myself interested in similar topics, but there is always that risk, that chance, that you may get yourself in over your head. While I am rational, I believe there are unexplained and mysterious phenomena that can effect our present world.

It is a war between curiousity and caution that makes one want to know what the VS says. Maybe it is one of those texts that is better left alone.

Re: The other realm.

[verbminx.livejournal.com]

I don't think the Voynich is likely to be that dangerous, personally, though it's interesting... but I do agree that there are some things that it's better not to play around with, just in case.

There are other books that are probably better left lost...

it would be interesting if the VMS were a big medieval hoax, though. one of the theories is that it was created by John Dee or his assistant to scam some money from Rudolph, who purchased it a few years after Dee was at his court. I also like the theory that it's gibberish written by an Italian quack to impress clients. Chicanery, performed with a flourish, and hoaxes, can be as interesting as the imitated mysteries.

rosetta stone

[kore.livejournal.com]

that is really interesting.
the pictures in it are really
lovely... do you agree with
'The cipher' page that says it's some sort of religous
manuscript? I find that sort of disappinting. it seems
better unsolved, somehow.

i have a book called 'girl slueth on the couch: psychoanalysis
of nancy drew' & it goes over what changes were made in the books
& how her looks changed from the 30's to the early 90's. plus there
is a chapter called 'virgin goddess' which compares her to diana, &etc.
it's great fun.

Re: rosetta stone

[verbminx.livejournal.com]

I think the cipher page... which I read in its entirety tonight... is not well-written enough to support its theories, and contains much historical vagueness. I suppose I'd like to see the whole book, but since it was written twenty years ago, I'm pretty sure it's been discredited. (Also, I believe a lot of the "Bible Code" stuff was also based on the idea of vowelless consonants - certainly biblical hebrew was written that way - & that attempt at decoding has been pretty much discredited by the cryptography community.) It's really more interesting as a mystery, I think... though from the other things I've read of it in the past day or so & what I know of alchemy, I also think the chances are good that it's some sort of alchemical text.

I should look at the Nancy Drew books. My stepmother worked at a huge used-book store when I was young, and also, she had a tendency to go to a lot of yard sales and junk shops. As a result I had the chance to read a lot of the older Nancys (where ND is so, so retro-glam!) and Dana Girls and so on. She collected them.