Kubrick's 2001: A Triple Allegory (Hardcover)

The mind boggling detail with which Mr. Wheat turns over every stone in the search for alligorical meaning is almost overwhelming. He creates a strong logical argument for his premise that the film is actually telling an unprecidented four stories (the surface story, plus three alligorical stories) simultaneously.

My only problem with the book (which kept me from giving it a full five stars) is that sometimes the arguments get divided too finely. Having some knowledge myself of the turbulent and volitile manner in which the film was made, I really have trouble believing that Kubrick had everything wrapped that tightly with that sort of intricacy for the entire film. Example: Wheat says that the bug-like appearance of the moon bus, with its multiple pontoon feet, symbolizes a millipede, or "thousand feet" in latin. This, he says, represents Menelaus's "fleet of a thousand ships" with which he left to rescue Helen in Troy. I know that the Moon Bus design underwent significant evolution during production (the feet were originally catipillar-like belts)and it only became the version we see on the screen very late in pre-production.

That said, this is still an astounding work. My frustration comes in that I do not posess Mr. Wheat's powers of analysis and observation. Everything fits into his logical framework, and when I come across something, like my example above, that seems like he's gone too far, I can't dispute it logically. I would highly reccomend this book for anyone still curious as to "what it all means."

But his analyses are a very unfortunate combination of the inaccurate, the simplistic and the unsupportable.

He claims that "chapter 21 in _The Odyssey_ is titled 'The Great Bow." The Odyssey doesn't have chapters or titles above them. He bases his conclusion that the octahedrons floating in the stargate are alien life forms (a reasonable claim, to be sure) on an interview of Steven Wolfram by David Stork. Stork says "Actually, the octahedra were Kubrick and Clarke's extraterrestials - sort of escorts bringing Dave through the stargate." Wheat, then writes "The crucial point here is that Stork refers to the aliens as _escorts_. Here we have the plural of the very word Homer put in Odysseus's mouth when Odysseus said to the Phaeacians, 'I have secured your _escort_." Last I checked, Homer wrote in archaic Greek. Wheat bases his interpretation on the choices of the translator rather than the text of the ostensible allegorical source.

He writes, "We see, then, that 'the infinite' is God. And 'beyond the infinite' means beyond God - after God, after God's death. Kubrick is alluding to the death of God. And who is it that has just died? Hal. Conclusion: Hal... is God."

He writes, "it is indeed plausible that HEYWOOD R. FLOYD encodes Helen as HE, wooden worse as WOOD, and Troy as OY. But what about that Y between HE and WOOD. And what about the R, F, L, and D? Consider these answers. Y is Spanish for 'and.' R, F, and L, in turn, are in ReFLect. And D could stand for downfall, demise, death, doom, or destruction, of which the first - downfall - best fits 'the fall of Troy.' When you put all the pieces together, Heywood R. Floyd inflates to Helen and Wooden Horse Reflect Troy's Downfall."

Wheat has undeniable insights into Kubrick's film, but they are overwhelmed by the unconvincing character of his argumentation. One of the best sections in the book is a detailed dismantling of a psychoanalytic reading by Geduld. Wheat does his most interesting and complicated work here, and for those pages alone I would reccomend this book.

Of the three allegories that Wheat finds in the narrative, there is considerable and very interesting work on at least two, _The Odyssey_ and Zarathustra, that Wheat seems unfamiliar with. Admittedly, I have not seen them delved into in such detail, but much of that detail weakens rather than strengthens the correspondences simply because Wheat seems to throw in every scrap of comment or anagram that he thinks of or finds.

Overall, this should not be your first book on Kubrick. That honour needs to belong either to Michel Ciment's book _Kubrick_ or to Nelson's _Inside a Film Artist's Maze_. Nevertheless, the ground churned over by Wheat is not at rest, and the allegories he discovers remain a realm for further inquiry.