This page brought up two main ideas that I want to explore: the ship reference at the bottom and then the other letters on the other books.

S. comments that what he saw on the first page of the book he picked up was an “earlier version of” the ship “on which [he’s] been held” (290).  This quote connects well into a discussion about the title of the book.  The title, Ship of Theseus, alludes to the Ship of Theseus paradox.  The paradox discusses how if we have a ship, and we change one board, it is still the same ship.  Thus, if we continue to slowly change boards, it will always be the same ship, even until it’s a whole new set of boards.  S seems to buy into this idea in the sense that he see’s his ship as having multiple versions.  Even after his ship has been completely destroyed, it has not changed completely.  This could be a symbol for how S. is himself: he doesn’t have any of his old memories, but he still has to be the same person.

In regards to the letters on the ship, none of them seem to have any large significance.  Each letter, Psi, Che, Aleph, is a real letter from a real alphabet, but I can not find any strong ties between the letters.  However, since each letter is on the spine of a book, similar to the book with the “S.” Straka could be saying something about how this happens to other people.  Perhaps those other novels are similar stories and they tell us that S. is not that unique, but we are just wrapped up in his book.  Ultimately I think it could be explaining how when we back up and look at the world as a whole, this one story is very minute.