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Grail threads in Forrest Gump the novel

Winston Groom’s novel, Forrest Gump
La Clef de Voûte—The Key of the Arch

The following is a modified outline, organized by chapter, of details found in the novel Forrest Gump along with corresponding threads in related material.

Forrest Gump Chapter 1

Forrest moves ten or twelve wheel barrels of dirt all over creation for an elderly man and when he isn't paid an amount he thinks the task is worth, he remarks "What I shoulda done was raised Cain about the low wages, but instead, I took the damn dollar an all I could say was ‘thanks’ or something dumb-soundin like that, an I went down the street, waddin and unwaddin that dollar in my hand, feelin like an idiot."

• The Story of the Grail: The Arthurian tale begins in a forest (a matured Garden of Eden) where a youth encounters knights dressed in full armor for the first time. At first he fears they’re the devil; then he considers them angels before asking one outright if he is God. The boy decides he wants to become a knight himself and Mother becomes distraught as the youth had two older brothers that he never knew, who ventured into the world only to die on their way home.

Forrest says, “Now I know something bout idiots. Probly the only thing I do know bout, but I done read up on em—all the way from that Doy-chee-eveski guy’s idiot, to King Lear’s fool, and Faulkner’s idiot, Benjie, and even ole Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird—now he was a serious idiot. The one I like best tho is ole Lennie in Of Mice and Men. Mos of those writer fellas got it straight—cause their idiots always smarter than people give them credit for.”

• In Reality: Five novels, each with an “idiot” character, unrelated to each other and separate from the gemstone . . . reveal the interconnections of the greater whole as they roll from one to the next with shared details and woven threads. They provide an etching of the map to the grail, “the legend” of the story, within a story.
  
  Source of summaries:Wikipedia.com:
  
  The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Prince Lyov Nikolayevich Myshkin is 27 years old and is as gullible as a person can be; he also possesses all of the qualities that affirm humankind’s greatness. Myshkin suffers from epilepsy and has spent much of his life in an asylum, separated from the world. But he’s been treated with some success in Switzerland and is finally returning to Russia. The Myshkin family line ends with him and a female cousin named Lizaveta. On the train ride to Saint Petersburg, Myshkin meets and befriends two gentlemen, the dark and enamored Rogozhin and a quasi-lawyer name Lebedyev. He arrives as the perfect human being, untainted by a world where sinners abound and money is of primary importance. His character is associated with light while Rogozhin is submerged in darkness, figuratively and literally. Myshkin is likened to Christ; Rogozhin can be perceived as the devil.
  Love arrives in various manifestations. The two men love the same woman, beautiful Nastasya, who has a dwindling reputation having once been kept as a concubine by a wealthy man named Afanasy Ivanovitch. Rogozhin is passionately in love with Nastasya. Myshkin loves her out of pity or what is described as Christian love. Myshkin also tangles with romantic love with Aglaia—the daughter of his cousin—who identifies the prince with the protagonist of a famous Russian poem by Pushkin, “The Poor Knight” because of his extravagantly chivalrous and tragic quest to defend the honor of Nastasya in the face of ridicule and at times contempt. In the end, Rogozhin murders Nastasya and shows her body to Myshkin who has a complete mental breakdown and is once again an “idiot.”
  
  The novel was considered one of the most brilliant achievements of the Russian “Golden Age” of Literature. It was not translated into English until the twentieth century.
  
  King Lear by William Shakespeare: Shakespeare created King Lear based on accounts of a semi-legendary Celtic figure who he is said to have discovered in an edition of The Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande by Raphael Holinshed . . . who himself discovered the story in The Historia Regum Britanniae written by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century . . . which was a translation from an even older book written in the British language. Monmouth’s work captured the Welsh nation from about 1100 b.c. to A.D. 689 and included extensive coverage of the reign of King Arthur. Monmouth dedicated his book to Robert, Earl of Gloucester.
  
  In 1155, Robert Wace wrote Roman de Brut, which was a version of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History . . . translated into French, and dedicated his work to Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of England. The modern day Britannia.com quotes Wace: “I know not if you have heard tell the marvelous gestes and errant deeds related so often to King Arthur. They have been noised about this mighty realm for so great a space that truth has turned to fable and an idle song. Such rhymes are neither bare lies, nor gospel truth. They should not be considered either an idiot’s tale, or given by inspiration. The minstrel has sung his ballad, the storyteller told over his tale so frequently, little by little he has decked and painted, till by reason of his embellishment the truth stands hid in the trappings of the tale. Thus to make a delectable tune to your ear, history goes masking as fable.”
  
  King Lear’s fool has an important role in the first act and then disappears without explanation in the third act. Deeper meaning of the characters and their relationships are garnered by focusing on specific words. The fool’s last line is “And I’ll to bed at noon,” leading many to think that he is to die at the highest point of his life. A popular explanation for the fool’s disappearance is that the actor playing the fool also plays the role of Cordelia. The two characters are never on stage simultaneously. When Cordelia dies in the final scene, King Lear holds her and says, “And my poor fool is hanged,” seemingly supporting the fact that the fool and Cordelia were one and the same.
  
  The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner: The story is about former aristocrats struggling to deal with the dissolution of their family and its reputation. The novel is separated into four distinct parts, each told by a different person. The first part is told by Benjy Compson, a 33-year old man with severe mental handicaps. Benjy’s narrative is dated April 7, 1928 and is characterized by frequent chronological leaps. The second section writes from the point of view of Benjy’s older brother on June 2, 1910, and the events leading up to his suicide. The third section, April 6, 1928, captures the voice of Jason, a cynical younger brother. And the fourth section, written on the 8th of April, one day after Benjy’s entry, introduces a third person omniscient point of view, where the author presents glimpses of thought and deeds of everyone in the family.
  
  Faulkner used different narrative styles including a technique known as stream of consciousness, pioneered by 20th century European novelists James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. It has been said that a simple plot summary cannot adequately describe this novel, as much of its strength lies in its technical achievements and lyrical prose. The name of the novel was taken from Macbeth’s soliloquy in act 5, scene 5 of William Shakespeare’s play:
  
  “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
  creeps in this petty pace from day to day
  to the last syllable of recorded time,
  and all our yesterdays have lighted fools
  the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
  Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
  that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
  and then is heard no more: it is a tale
  told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
  signifying nothing.”
  
  The notion of a tale told by an idiot is obvious in the case of Benjy, but the idea can also be extended to Quentin and Jason who display their own varieties of idiocy. They’re all idiots.
  
  When Faulkner won the Noble Prize in Literature for this novel, he said that people must write from the heart, “universal truths.” Otherwise they signify nothing.
  
  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: The story takes place during three years of the Great Depression in the fictional “tired, old town” of Maycomb, Alabama. Arthur “Boo” Radley is a recluse who never sets foot outside his house; he dominates the imagination of Jem, Scout, and Dill who fantasize about how to get him outside. As time passes, Scout and Jem discover that someone is leaving them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley house. Their father, Atticus, is appointed to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, accused of raping a white woman. The whole family is ridiculed and taunted. Danger is averted when Scout, Jem, and Dill shame an angry mob intent on lynching Robinson, by forcing them to view the situation from Atticus’ and Tom’s point of view. Despite evidence presented during the trial that supports his innocence, Tom Robinson is found guilty. He is shot and killed when he attempts to escape the prison. Bob Ewell, the accusing woman’s father who was humiliated during the trial vows revenge. He attacks Scout and Jem on their way home from school following the Halloween pageant. Jem’s arm is broken, but amid the confusion, someone comes to the children’s rescue and carries him home. Scout realizes that it’s Boo Radley. Bob Ewell was killed in the struggle. Boo asks Scout to walk him home and after he disappears behind the front door of his home, Scout imagines life from Boo’s perspective and regrets that they never repaid him for the gifts he had given them.
  
  Harper Lee grew up in Alabama. Several people and events from her childhood parallel those of the fictional Scout. Lee’s father was an attorney similar to Atticus Finch, who defended two black men accused of murder in 1919. After they were convicted, hanged, and mutilated, he never tried another criminal case. Lee had a brother, who like Jem in the book, was four years older. Their mother was mentally and emotionally absent; a black housekeeper came every day to care for both the home and the children. The character Dill was modeled on Lee’s childhood friend, Truman Capote, who lived with his aunt next door to Lee, each summer. Capote had an incredible imagination and a gift for telling stories. Both he and Lee loved to read. Lee was a scrappy tomboy, quick to fight while Capote was ridiculed for his advanced vocabulary and his lisp. She and Capote would write and act out stories; their friendship grew as each felt alienated from their peers. Down the street there was a family who lived in a house that was boarded up. The son of the family got into trouble with the law and his father kept him at home out of shame for 24 years. He was hidden until virtually forgotten.
  
  Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck: Two migrant field workers arrive at a ranch near Soledad, California during the Great Depression, hoping to “work up a stake.” George Milton is an intelligent and cynical man. Lennie Small is an ironically named man who is not only large in size but has immense physical strength. Lennie is of limited mental abilities and has a tendency to rouse up trouble because of a personal aspiration to tend to rabbits—he likes to stroke soft things. He was accused of attempted rape in the last town after touching a young woman’s dress. At the ranch, dreams appear to be moving closer to reality. But the dream crashes when Lennie accidentally kills the young and attractive wife of Curly, the ranch owner’s son, while trying to stroke her hair. A lynch mob gathers. George, realizing he is doomed to a life of loneliness and despair like all the other migrant workers and wanting to spare Lennie a painful death at the hands of the vengeful and angry Curly, shoots Lennie in the back of his head before the mob can find him and after they had recited their dreams of owning their own land.
  
  In 1937, Steinbeck was quoted by The New York Times: “I was a bindlestiff myself for quite a spell. I worked in the same country that story is laid in. The characters are composites to a certain extent. Lennie was a real person. He’s in an insane asylum in California right now. I worked alongside him for many weeks. He didn’t kill a girl. He killed a ranch foreman. Got sore because the boss had fired his pal and stuck a pitchfork right through his stomach. I hate to tell you how many times I saw him do it. We couldn’t stop him until it was too late.”
  
  In 1938 Steinbeck wrote in his personal journal, “In every bit of honest writing in the world there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme. Try to understand each other."
  
  Throughout Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck emphasizes dreams. George aspires for independence, to be his own boss, to have a homestead, and most importantly to be “somebody.” Lennie aspires to be with George and to quench his fixation on soft objects. Candy aspires to reassert his responsibility lost with the death of his dog, and for security in his old age. Crooks dreams of owning a small homestead where he can express self-respect, acceptance, and security. Curley’s wife dreams to be an actress, to satisfy her desire for fame that was lost when she married Curly.
  
  Fate is felt most heavily as the characters’ aspirations are destroyed as George is unable to protect Lennie. Steinbeck presents this as “something that happened,” which postulates a non-judgmental point of view.
  
  Structured in three acts of two chapters each, Steinbeck intended the writing to be both a novella and a script for a play. He wanted to write a novel that could be played from its lines, or a play that could be read like a novel.
  
  It was originally titled Something That Happened, however, Steinbeck changed the title after reading Robert Burn’s poem, "To a Mouse," which tells of the regret the narrator feels for having destroyed the home of a mouse while plowing the field; it suggests that no plan is fool-proof and no one can ever be completely prepared for what the future brings.

Forrest was named after General Nathan Bedford Forrest who fought in the Civil War.

• In Reality: Nathan Bedford Forrest became the head of his family—the oldest of a dozen children—at age 16 upon the death of his father and had merely six months education. He rose from semi-subsistence to planter status, eventually acquiring substantial property and wealth from his role in the slave trade business. He joined the Civil War as a private and became what is regarded as one of the finest Confederate commanders, famous for his gift of strategy and tactics. He was called the “wizard of the saddle.” After the war, he became one of the initial organizers of the Ku Klux Klan and served as the first Grand Wizard launching a reign of terror against both blacks and white Republicans during the Reconstruction of the South.

Mama is a real fine person; daddy was killed just after Forrest was born and he never knew him. When Forrest was little, Mama kept him inside a lot.

• The Story of the Grail: Perceval’s mother was descended from the best knights of the land. They arrived in the forest when he was not more than two. His father died before he ever got a chance to know him. Mother kept him sequestered from the outside world.

When Forrest is 16, Coach Fellers drives by and stops to ask if he’d ever played football before. Forrest just shakes his head.

• The Story of the Grail: The youth rides into King Arthur's hall and demands that he be made a knight while the king is lost in thought and can't be made to say a single word.

On the first day of high school, Coach Fellers and two assistants take Forrest to the locker room and dress him in a football uniform.

• The Story of the Grail: Yvonet follows Perceval to the gate outside King Arthur’s castle and helps him get dressed in the armor red.

The coaches make Forrest undress and dress again ten or twenty times until he can do it himself.

• The Story of the Grail: Gornemant of Gohort teaches Perceval how to check and spur a steed and when to use a lance and sword. He remounts "three times and three times more."

Forrest narrates: “It’s kind of a long story what all happened nex, but anyway, I begun to play football.”

• The Story of the Grail: Guiromelant says to Gawain: “No storyteller does as well. You are a minstrel I can see and I thought you were telling me you were a knight of some renown, who did some brave deed at the town.”

The coaches teach Forrest defense and have him tackle a big oak tree about fifteen or twenty times until they determine that he has learned something from it.

• The Story of the Grail:
• Perceval’s Cousin appears beneath an oak tree and knows everything there is to know about Perceval.
• Gawain rests beneath an oak tree, visible to maidens watching from a high tower and within earshot of everything that is said.
• Gawain encounters Greoreas under an oak tree and heals him with herbs. The knight comes back to life and recognizes Gawain, then takes his horse to even the score for when Gawain treated him like a dog.

Forrest sits with Jenny in the lunchroom and is joined by another guy who calls Forrest names and pours a carton of milk on Forrest's lap. Forrest runs out of the room and is chased across the practice field.

• The Story of the Grail: On his way to become a knight, Perceval encounters the Maiden in the Tent from whom he steals kisses, takes the emerald ring he sees on her finger, eats warm meat pasties and drinks wine that is reserved for her boyfriend before departing as quickly as he came.

Coach Fellers is watching Forrest run to get away from the lunchroom bully and gets a real peculiar look on his face. He calls out to Forrest, saying he needs to get suited up right away. Coach Fellers comes into the locker room with plays drawn on a sheet of paper—three of them—with instructions for Forrest to memorize them the best he could.

• The Story of the Grail: Gornemant of Gohort trains Perceval in the skills of being a knight and sends him on his way with three rules:
• If he’s fighting with another knight who proves unequal, once he has the upper hand and the other pleads for mercy, then he must show him clemency: don’t slay anyone intentionally.
• Don’t talk too freely for nobody can talk for long before he makes a statement lacking sense or which is rude and gives offense.
• If he finds men or women, orphans or a noble lady who seem in any way distressed, give them help and counsel . . . do your best.

In the springtime, while Forrest is walking home with Jenny, the bully from the lunchroom appears on the path with a stick and starts poking Forrest with it, taunting him with names. This time Forrest decides to fight back. The bully's parents call Forrest’s mother and complain that if her son hurts their son again, they will have him put away.

• The Story of the Grail: Perceval follows a path and encounters a maiden, as miserable as one could be, upon a palfrey that was no more than skin and bone. She warns Perceval to flee as quickly as he can, but he refuses. The Proud Knight of the Moor rides out of the woods like a bolt of thunder and warns Perceval that his end has come because he paused the maiden, stopped to chat, and caused her to fall one step behind. Ever since the day that Perceval stole a kiss and the emerald ring from the Maiden in the Tent, the Proud Knight of the Moor has forced her to wander through the forest and watch as he beheads every knight who says hello. All in revenge of Perceval’s prior actions. The Proud Knight begins to attack but he’s quickly forced to plead for mercy. Perceval sends him to King Arthur’s court as a prisoner but demands that first the maiden be allowed to bath and heal the wounds inflicted upon her and dress in good clean clothes before they travel. The Proud Knight must also confess his wrongs before the ladies of the royal court— and one in particular.

Mama gives Forrest two pairs of socks, a new shirt, and a new suit to wear to the banquet where he is to receive his All State award.

• The Story of the Grail: Before Perceval leaves to become a knight, Mother makes him a coarse hempen shirt, breeches in the Welsh style with hose attached, and a coat of buckskin leather.

Forrest Gump Chapter 2

Forrest is given a baseball autographed by the entire New York Yankees that he treasures like a goldbrick until he tosses it around in the yard one day and a dog grabs it and chews it up.

• The Story of the Grail: Perceval is given an engraved sword by the Fisher King that falls to pieces in a battle.

Mama is seen pulling her hair while weeping and praising the Lord when Forrest flunks his entrance exam for the U.S. military because it means his enlistment will be deferred.

• The Story of the Grail: Gawain comes upon a maiden beneath an oak tree who’s weeping and pulling her hair as she cradles an injured knight. Gawain applies a special herb to the knight’s wounds and assures the maiden that her sweetheart need not fear to die.

On a stormy night, Miss French—a boarder of Mama's—invites Forrest into her room and offers him a piece of divinity. Forrest keeps his eyes closed; he isn't sure exactly what happens, but it gives him a new view of what the future might hold.

• In Reality: Peter Abelard was a famous philosopher and theologian in Paris during the 12th century. He offered to tutor a young prodigy named Heloise and arranged with her uncle and guardian, Canon Fulbert, to become a boarder in their home. Their story is considered one of the most tragic love stories of the 12th century that remains worthy of its reputation in the modern world. Abelard and Heloise fell in love. When Heloise discovered she was pregnant, Abelard stole her away in the night to his sister’s home where she eventually gave birth to a son. It drove her uncle mad with grief. In Historia Calamitatum, Abelard wrote about the decision to get married despite the damage it would do to his reputation as a philosopher: “Her final argument was that it would be dangerous for me to take her back to Paris, and that it would be far sweeter for her to be called my mistress than to be known as my wife; nay, too, that this would be more honourable for me as well. In such case, she said, love alone would hold me to her, and the strength of the marriage chain would not constrain us. Even if we should by chance be parted from time to time, the joy of our meetings would be all the sweeter by reason of its rarity. But when she found that she could not convince me or dissuade me from my folly by these and like arguments, and because she could not bear to offend me, with grievous sighs and tears she made an end of her resistance, saying: ‘Then there is no more left but this, that in our doom the sorrow yet to come shall be no less than the love we two have already known.’ Nor in this, as now the whole world knows, did she lack the spirit of prophecy.”

Forrest Gump Chapter 3

When Forrest arrives at the University of Alabama, the dorm is in a shambles and everything is broken. While he's in his room, the door suddenly "crashes in flat." Coach Bryant sits up in a tower watching. Forrest says he misses Mama and wants to go back home.

• The Story of the Grail: Perceval's arrival at Belrepeire is marked by his observations of the battered town— houses are tumbled down, walls are broken, and the towers are roofless.
• During the battle to defend Blancheflor and her town, the portcullis is dropped, crushing Clamadeu's soldiers on the spot as the nobleman and his advisor watch from a distance.
• After saving the besieged town, Perceval begins to think about Mother who he left in a swoon at the gate and decides he needs to leave and search for the way back home.

Forrest excels in an Intermediate Light class taught by Professor Hooks. The equations are simple to figure out, but he can't understand what anyone is supposed to do with them.

• In Reality: Abelard claimed that he used secular arts which were popular, as a hook, luring his students by the bait of learning to the study of true philosophy. He wrote a book called Sic et Non which listed 156 theological questions or "problems" and provided conflicting viewpoints from reputable sources requiring the reader to form their own belief or opinion. The book was condemned by the Church.

English was something else entirely. Mister Boone had the class begin by writing a short autobiography. It was the most difficult thing Forrest had ever done and he stayed up most of the night putting on paper whatever came to his mind. When the papers were returned, Mister Boone criticized the other students’ autobiographies, but he read Forrest’s out loud and said, “Now here is originality.”

• The Sound and the Fury: Forrest borrowed the technique Faulkner used known as stream of consciousness . . . writing whatever comes to mind.

Forrest’s first collegiate football game was on a Saturday; University of Alabama beat the University of Georgia 35 to 3. He ran a good game and everybody was slapping him on the back till it hurt.

• The Story of the Grail:
  Gawain and the sister of the King of Escavalon come under siege when the townspeople learn “the traitor” is in the tower with her. She shrieks at the crowd “Back, rabble, back, mad dogs, vile peasants!”
• Perceval comes upon knights and women serving penance on Good Friday who educate him on the meaning of the day: “On this day, in verity, Christ was crucified and led his friends all out of hell. The traitor Jews, who should be slain like dogs for putting him upon the cross, established in their hate our great good and their wretched state.”
• In Reality:
  The University of Alabama’s athletic team name is Crimson Tide. It assumes greater meaning with respect to the story as it joins the color red with the ocean tide, both of which are used to identify God’s presence and His Power.
• The University of Georgia team name is the Bulldogs, more commonly referred to as “the Dawgs.”
• Applying numerology to the game score and reducing each to a single digit (35 becomes 3+5=8) translates to a score of 8 to 3.

Forrest Gump Chapter 4

The chapter opens with a statement that there's "a secret thing that Coach Bryant an them done, an nobody supposed to mention it, even to ourselfs." Forrest is being trained to catch a football pass. Coach Bryant tells him it's going to be their "secret weapon", like an "Adam bomb.” “It will come out of nowhere because other teams are going to figure out the ball isn't coming to Forrest and they won't be watching for it to happen.”

• In Reality: Forrest Gump becomes the missing piece needed to resolve the legend of the grail. While it appears that Winston Groom ingeniously plotted the script of the story, this isn't necessarily true. I suspect that even if he did, he was unaware of where this story was heading.

Forrest watches Jenny play in a band at the Student Union. She’s wearing a long dress and playing a guitar. He starts thinking that he might buy some divinity and see if she wants some too.

• In Reality: Abelard wrote love songs for Heloise that became popular among secular crowds.

Jenny’s band is playing music by Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. Forrest joins them on stage and plays his harmonica while Jenny sings "Blowin in the Wind."

• In Reality: "Peter, Paul, and Mary" serves as a double entendre. Within the gemstone novels the names relate to discussions concerning who was supposed to carry Jesus’ teachings into the world.
• The Da Vinci Code: Teabing quotes from various gospels, including the Gospel of Mary Magdalene in which Jesus says it was her role to continue the Church. “Mary Magdalene, not Peter.”
• The Last Templar:
• As he approaches the Vatican, Reilly realizes he didn’t know much about the world’s greatest church other than it included the Sistine Chapel and that beneath it were the bones of Saint Peter, the first pope, who died there after being crucified . . . upside down because he deemed he wasn’t worthy to die in the same manner as Jesus.
• Cardinal Brugnone reminds Reilly, “Think of the words of Saint Paul in First Corinthian: ‘And if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is also in vain.’”
• Vance cites the texts found at Nag Hammadi, among them the Gospel of Mary, in which Mary Magdalene is regarded as a disciple and a leader of a Christian group.
• Forrest Gump: Peter, Paul, and Mary were musicians who performed songs that dealt with social issues of the 1960’s.
• Bob Dylan wrote and recorded “Blowin in the Wind” and “The Times they are a Changin.”
  Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary each recorded their own versions of these same songs.
• Peter, Paul, and Mary recorded a song written by Peter Yarrow called “Day is Done” which included the lyrics "If you take my hand son, all will be well when the day is done."
• Joan Baez wrote and recorded a song called “Sweet Sir Galahad” after hearing stories about her brother-in-all who used to crawl through the window to come into her sister’s bedroom at night.
  In Reality: Galahad was an Arthurian knight who appeared in the Vulgate Cycle of the grail legend, which was written by a group of Cistercian monks. Galahad was conceived in sin, but according to the monk’s rendition, he was the only knight worthy of finding the Holy Grail. He was immune to lust!

Mister Boone returns a paper Forrest had written on Wordsworth, telling him he's wrong about the Romantic Period and should not be referring to Pope and Dryden as turds.

• In Reality:
  William Wordsworth’s personal life shares similarities with Abelard’s. Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who traveled to France when he was 21 and fell in love with Annette Vallon who gave birth to their daughter in 1792. Tensions between Britain and France forced him to return to England alone. He didn't see mother or daughter for nearly 10 ten years, though he wrote poetry about his deep love for both of them. He eventually married four different women in the course of his life.
• Abelard traveled to Paris when he was young to pursue intellectual interests. He is described as an arrogant, handsome, womanizer until he meets Heloise. Abelard and Heloise have a son out of wedlock. Despite their genuine love and subsequent marriage, they become separated as a result of family hostilities. Years pass before they come into contact again, and the romantic love they share is quashed when Abelard insists it must be redirected to a shared love in Christ.
• Alexander Pope wrote the poem "Eloisa to Abelard" which celebrates their tragic love affair. In the poem Heloise begs not for forgiveness of what they did, but for forgetfulness: “No, fly me, fly me, far as pole to pole; Rise Alps between us! And whole oceans roll! Ah, come not, write not, think not once of me, nor share one pang of all I felt for thee.”
• John Dryden was an English poet, born and raised as a Puritan, who wrote a political satire called Absalom and Anchitophel. The poem was an allegory of the biblical story of Absalom’s revolt against his father King David and was used to spur discussions pertaining to modern events. At the time the Monmouth Rebellion was an effort to overthrow England’s king, James II because he was a Roman Catholic; the Popish Plot which was a fictitious conspiracy that gripped England in anti-Catholic hysteria in the 17th century; and the Exclusion Bill Crisis of the same period attempted to exclude all heirs to England’s throne who were Roman Catholic.

Doctor Mills introduces Forrest to his class as an idiot savant—a mind with rare pockets of brilliance. He also mentions that Forrest has the body of Adonis.

• The Last Templar: Konstantine is a Greek savant who can “watch a tree growing and see the harmony of the world, the harmony that God gave us.”
• In Reality: Adonis is a mythological character whose life represents death and rebirth; his tale is contained within the larger spectrum of Greek mythology; a story within a story.

Forrest can complete advanced mathematical equations that stump the normal individual and can pick up complex musical themes with the ease of Liszt or Beethoven. Doctor Mills asks Forrest to play his harmonica for the class and he plays "Puff the Magic Dragon."

• In Reality:
  Franz Liszt was a world famous composer, pianist, and conductor who contributed to the development of the art. Liszt was a benefactor to Richard Wagner, whose final opera Parsifal told the story of a witless fool who sees the suffering of those serving as guardians of the Holy Grail, then wanders into the domain of a magician who has stolen the lance which was used to pierce Jesus during his crucifixion . . . is able to recover it, and finally returns with the lance and heals the wounded king.
• Beethoven's first music teacher was his father. As a teenager he left home and associated with people with close ties to freemasonry who were members of the Order of the Illuminati. When he learned his mother was ill, he returned home and she died shortly thereafter. He had to assume responsibility for his younger siblings.
• Eleanor of Aquitaine came from a family of troubadours. Her father died from food poisoning when she was fifteen and the King of France, Louis VI, was made her guardian. The king himself was in poor health and arranged for her to marry his son. Eleanor became the Queen of France at age 15. She assumed responsibility for her younger sibling(s) who joined her at the royal court. She associated with and had close ties with people who were members of the Order of the Knights Templar; there are external threads that claim she also had ties to the Illuminati.
• "Puff the Magic Dragon" was written by Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow, and recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary. The inspiration for the lyrics came from a poem by Ogden Nash called "Custard the Dragon." At face value the song tells of a dragon that lives forever and a little boy named Jackie Paper who loses interest in the imaginary adventures of childhood. Urban legend associates the lyrics with references to marijuana. Despite a letter written to The New York Times in 1984 that claimed the connection was common knowledge, the authors have repeatedly rejected this interpretation. Yarrow mocked the insinuations by performing his own drug-related re-interpretation of “The Star Spangled Banner” and ended by saying “You can wreck anything with that kind of idiotic analysis.” Paul Stookey recorded a version of the song at the Sydney Opera House in 1976 that included a fictitious trial. The Prosecutor, a snake, accused the song of being about marijuana; Puff and Jackie protested. The judge leaves the case to the jury (the Opera House audience) and says if they will sing along with the song, it will be acquitted. The audience joins in with Stookey and the judge declares the case dismissed.

Forrest says, "Sometimes a man has got to look at the facts."

• In Reality: Details borrowed from real life that are woven into the novel should be followed to their source as they often lead to information that brings greater meaning to the story.
• Observation: Clues that provide instructions for the audience are often embedded within conversations. Interestingly, in Forrest Gump the clues often come after the audience has read beyond the part where they're supposed to pay close attention. In order to grasp the full meaning, we have to turn back and reflect upon what has already happened.

At half-time during the Orange Bowl, Nebraska is ahead 28 to 7. Coach Bryant draws on the board while he talks to Snake, the quarterback, and a few other players. Coach tells Forrest, "This shit has got to stop." Forrest says there's an unfair burden on his shoulders, but figures that's just the way it is sometimes. During the game Snake says, "We're gonna' run the Forrest Series now." He tells Forrest to run out twenty yards and be ready. The score is 28 to 14. Forrest catches the ball 4 or 5 times. Score is 28 to 21. Nebraska puts two fellas to chase after Forrest, leaving Gwinn, the end, with nobody much to chase him around. Weasel gets a field goal and the score is 28 to 24. Snake tells Forrest, "I'm gonna fake a pass to Gwinn, but I'm going to throw the ball to you." Forrest gets the ball and starts running and then all of a sudden is stopped. Next, Snake throws the ball twenty feet over Forrest's head, out of bounds on purpose. Snake is confused and thought it was the third down, when it was the 4th down.

• In Reality: The lineup of the novels are described in terms of a football game. Coach Bryant and Snake work together to establish the game plan. The two fellas that Nebraska lets loose to chase after Forrest are Robert Langdon of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and William Vance from Raymond Khoury’s The Last Templar. Gwin, the end, represents Gawain from The Story of the Grail. Snake throwing the ball twenty feet over Forrest’s head—out of bounds on purpose—suggests there is a reason for doing this. Indeed the relationship between Forrest Gump and the grail legend flew over the entire audience’s head.

Forrest Gump Chapter 5

Coach Bryant calls Forrest into his office to discuss his grades. He begins by saying he can understand how Forrest flunked remedial English, but "it will mystify me to the end of my days" how he got an ‘A’ in Intermediate Light and then an ‘F’ in phys-ed class considering he’d just been named the Most Valuable College Back in the Southeastern Conference.

• The Da Vinci Code: Dan Brown’s novel suggests that we have entered the End of Days.

Forrest's explanation is that “it's a long story” and that he doesn’t want to bore Coach, but "why in hell do I need to know the distance between goalposts on a soccer field anyway?"

• The Da Vinci Code:
• The librarian at King’s College asks Langdon where the verse about “the knight interred by a pope” came from. He says “it’s a long story” and he doesn’t have time to share it.
• Robert Langdon uses examples of sacred measurements found throughout nature as an introduction to his lecture on Religious Symbology.
• The Last Templar: When Tess is asked to share her knowledge about the Templars and their connection to the heist at the Treasures of the Vatican show, she says “It’s a long story.” Reilly tells her, “Keep it at ten thousand feet. If anything looks interesting, we’ll go into it in more detail.”

When Forrest loses his scholarship because of his grades, Coach Bryant claims he expected something like this would happen. All he ever asked was, "Just give me that boy for one season . . .” And they had one hell of a season.

• In Reality: Dan Brown had one hell of a run with The Da Vinci Code.

As Forrest gets ready to leave the University of Alabama, he walks outside and the entire football team is standing there. Snake comes up to him and shakes his hand and apologizes for throwing the ball out-of-bounds. Curtis is in a body brace from the neck down after he bashed down one door too many in the dorm. Bubba offers to help carry Forrest's stuff to the bus depot but Forrest says he'd rather go alone. "Keep in touch," he says. On the way to the station, Forrest passes the Student Union store and glances toward it, but it's not Friday night and Jenny Curran's band isn't playing, so he continues on to catch the bus home.

• The Da Vinci Code: The movie draws to a close as Langdon and Sophie emerge from the lower level of Rosslyn Chapel and are greeted by a crowd of people. Sophie’s grandmother steps forward to introduce herself and the Priory of Sion who came to welcome Sophie home. When Langdon returns to Paris, he ventures out to follow the ARAGO markers and finds himself back at the Louvre, where the novel began.
• The Story of the Grail: When Perceval decides the time has come for him to depart Belrepeire, Blancheflor has all her townspeople beg him to stay but none can convince him. They all come out to say good-bye and thank him for saving them from certain destruction.

When Forrest arrives home, Mama is crying because the Army has already heard he flunked out of school and wants him to report at the Induction Center. When they get there, Mama tells a sergeant she doesn't understand how they can take her boy because he's an idiot. And the sergeant's says, "Well, lady, what do you think all these other people is? Einstein?"

• The Last Templar: Tess claims that when she was growing up, ideas regarding religion and divinity weren’t part of her home life and then when she discovered that Einstein, the smartest guy on the planet didn’t believe in any of that stuff either, that was good enough for her.
• In Reality: Einstein was a non-observant Jew, educated in Catholic schools as a child. He had difficulty with his speech, but was a top student. When he was 10, he was introduced to science, mathematics, and philosophy.
• Einstein’s theories were logical extensions of those provided by Galileo and Isaac Newton.
• Einstein described himself as a deeply religious nonbeliever, recognizing an orderly harmony in the universe, but not a God who concerned himself with fate and the actions of human beings.

At Fort Benning, nobody is smarter than Forrest.

• At the end of the novel, Jenny kisses Forrest good-bye, saying, “Who ain’t an idiot?”

Forrest is put on KP duty. Somebody tells him to make a stew by putting everything in the icebox and pantry together in a pot and bringing it to a boil. It wouldn't matter if it didn't taste good. Forrest can't find a pot big enough to cook for two hundred men, but he sees a big iron thing in the corner that is already hot and filled with water. The sergeant comes into the kitchen to find out where the men’s dinner is and the boiler starts to rumble and shake. When the boiler blows up, the roof flies off, windows break, and doors get torn off their hinges. Everybody is covered with stew.

• The Da Vinci Code: Teabing tells Sophie that she must explode the truth upon the world.
• In Reality: Dan Brown’s novel exploded in popularity around the world.

Forrest is confined to quarters since the boiler blew up. He listens to his former team’s football game against Mississippi on the radio. The score is 38 to 37 until Mississippi scores a touchdown with one minute to go. This time Snake fakes an out-of-bounds pass on the fourth down, but he actually gives the ball to Curtis who runs it in for the winning touchdown. "That will give you some idea of jus how crafty Coach Bryant is. He done already figgered them geeks from Mississippi is so dumb they will assume we is stupid enough to make the same mistake twice."

• The Last Templar: As the Treasures of the Vatican show gets started at the Met, Clive Edmonson walks up behind Tess Chaykin and says, “If you’re still looking for the Holy Grail, I’m going to have to disappoint you, it ain’t here.”
• In Reality:
• Using numerology and reducing the score to single digit values (3+8=11 => 1+1=2) the first score mentioned translates as 2 to 1 . . . perhaps as 2 novels with 1 to go. The score changes with Mississippi’s touchdown becoming 2 to 7. Then with Alabama’s winning touchdown, translates to 8 to 7.
• Clive's statement that the Holy Grail would not be found in The Last Templar was correct, but in truth the novel presents key clues with respect to the legend of the grail and “the winning touchdown.”

Forrest gets sent to Vietnam. They could see the place half a day away because of the humongous cloud of red dust that was hovering over it. The troops are told they need to move out and help another brigade. Lieutenant Hooper says to "saddle up." Forrest is made to carry so much that he says he might as well have been carrying one of those Nebraska corn shuckers around. “But this ain’t no football game.”

• The Last Templar: In a flashback to the Fall of Acre in 1291, the sky bleeds red from the fires raging throughout the city.

It's dusk when the troops are told to go up to a ridge and relieve Charlie Company which is either pinned down by the enemy or has the enemy pinned down, depending on whether you get your news from the Stars and Stripes or just by looking around and seeing for yourself.

• The Last Templar: The novel begins with the statement “The Holy Land is lost.” But this would depend on whether one was hearing the news from Christian Crusaders or from the Saracen’s/Muslims who would have said “The Holy Land is won.”

Forrest Gump Chapter 6

Sergeant Krantz says the men in his company are not there to understand what is going on; they are only supposed to do what they're told.

• The Da Vinci Code: Teabing tells how the millennium has recently passed and with it, the two-thousand year-long astrological Age of Pisces—the fish—has come to an end. The fish is also the sign for Jesus. The Piscean ideal believes that man must be told what to do by higher authorities because he is incapable of thinking for himself.

Caught between two ridges, the sergeant says they need to move the machine gun about 50 yards to the left of a big tree that's in the middle of the saddle and then find a safe place.

• The Last Templar: Tess and Vance are on a diving boat called the Savarona with Sean and DeAngelis in pursuit on a separate ship called the Karadeniz. The Turkish coast guard sends a helicopter out to assist in the “rescue.” The pilot is told to make contact with the dive ship and tell them they’re about to be hit by a storm of biblical proportions. The skipper of the Karadeniz points out that the Savarona doesn’t have many options, “The storms have them boxed in from the north and the south. They can either head east, where we’ve got two patrol boats waiting to pick them up, or they can come west toward us. Either way, we’ve got them.”

Forrest "loses his head" and starts hollering and running for his life.

• The Last Templar: the guard outside the Met is beheaded by one of four horsemen dressed as Templars. The crowd initially claps and cheers wildly until they realize it isn’t a publicity stunt—it is bloody red real. They run for their lives.
• The Story of the Grail: Perceval comes upon a maiden hollering beneath an oak tree, cradling the body of a beheaded knight.

Bubba and Forrest are in the jungle. Bubba has some pralines and divinity that his mama sent him...and that divinity brought back memories.

• The Last Templar: Tess and Sean find themselves in the desert surrounded by mountains and with a crescent moon that seems unnaturally close. Tess begins to rummage through their food supply and comments, “This local guy of yours is a godsend.” She offers a bite to Sean saying “Try these, they’re delicious. I couldn’t get enough of them the last time I was here. It didn’t help that I was pregnant at the time.” They kiss. Sean feels a familiar undertow pulling him to a darker place in his mind. He draws back suggesting they shouldn’t continue. Tess snakes her fingers through his hair and says, “Oh, I beg to differ.” When their lips touch and he pulls away again, she is amazed. “Oh my God. You are serious.”

Forrest says the weeks are going by so slow, it's like time is passing backwards.

• The Da Vinci Code: Sophie needed more time with Langdon. Time to think. Time to sort out this mystery together. Time was running out.
• The Last Templar: Once they reached the maintenance office of the dam, Sean could see a smooth, paved road on the other side. “We could’ve had a comfortable ride here in half the time.”
• In Reality: As time moves forward, astrological ages arrive as if they’re traveling backwards: the Age of Taurus was followed by the Age of Aries, which was followed by the Age of Pisces . . . and the Age of Aquarius.

Forrest writes to his mama. Rather than tell her how it really is and make her cry, he tells her they're having a nice time and everybody in Vietnam is treating them fine. Forrest writes a letter to Jenny in care of mama and asks if she could get it to Jenny's folks with a request to send it to her wherever she is.

• In Reality: Abelard wrote a letter to a friend, sharing the details of personal misfortunes that occurred in his life and how he was continually persecuted. Heloise wrote Abelard back telling him the letter he wrote to a friend had found its way to her and how dear her curiosity cost her. “I met my name a hundred times; I never saw it without fear, some heavy calamity always followed it. I saw yours too, equally unhappy.”

Forrest and Bubba make plans to start a shrimpin business after they get out of the Army.

• The Last Templar: William of Beaujeu hands Aimard a scroll to deliver to the Holy Land in hope that one day it would end the hatred that had caused them and their enemies to be covered in blood.

As bullets are flying, Forrest is thinking, "It is something I simply cannot understand—why in hell is we doin' all this, anyway? Playing football is one thing. But this I do not know why." Bubba was trying to say something, but Forrest couldn't make out what he said. He asked the medic. "Home. He said, home."

• The Da Vinci Code: as Robert Langdon returns to the Louvre at the end of the novel, he reflects on the place he’d visited only days before. “Another lifetime.”
• The Last Templar: Vance moves down the stairs into the burned out church he thinks, “Home. A distant memory. Another life.”

Forrest has no recollection of the moment he was shot in the butt.

• In Reality: Abelard claimed that when he was castrated, the thieves were so quick and came upon him when he was heavy in sleep, that he felt scarcely any pain at all.

Everyone was in awful shape. Forrest found a tree and curled up underneath it and cried. Bubba was gone, shrimp boat was gone. Bubba was the only friend Forrest ever had beside Jenny and he'd messed that up too. If it wasn't for his mama, "I might as well of jus died right there—of ole age or something . . ."

• The Last Templar: In the movie, Tess sits next to Sean as he lay in a coma and through sniffles tells him, “It’s all gone. Bill Vance is gone. The treasure, the Gospel of Jesus, gone. We’ll never know if it was . . . if it was real or false, or what it said.

Forrest Gump Chapter 7

Forrest meets Lt. Dan in the hospital; Lt. Dan is different from other people. He has his own philosophy about why we're fighting the war: maybe we're doing the wrong thing for the right reason or the right thing for the wrong reason. Whatever it is, we aren't doing it right.

Lt. Dan's philosophy is that everything that happens is controlled by natural laws that govern the universe. It's a complicated weave. He sees everything as part of one big scheme and believes if we could figure out where we fit into it and hold our place then things would become a lot clearer.

• The Da Vinci Code: Langdon views the world as a web of profoundly intertwined histories and events. The connections may be invisible, but they are always there, buried just beneath the surface.

The doctor tells Forrest he has the hide of a "rhinoceros."

• In Reality: Abelard was called a rhinoceros indomitus. In medieval times the rhinoceros was thought to be much like the unicorn, with a horn between its eyes that was so sharp, no armor was strong enough to protect oneself from it. It was said that the only way to capture a rhinoceros was through a ruse whereby a virgin would approach it and at the smell of her virginity it would lay down at her feet. A hunter could then kill it.
• Abelard wrote a hymn using the rhinocerous as the symbol for the Apostle Paul.

Forrest is lying on his cot one night and suddenly a thought comes to him. His knows his destiny is to find a pond and grow shrimp. A few days later, Forrest is told that he's been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and for the first time in his life he recognizes the fact that he didn't say something stupid; he kept his big mouth shut. After the army personnel leave, Forrest goes to visit Lt. Dan, but when he arrives the cot is empty, the mattress is folded and Dan is nowhere to be seen. He runs to find an orderly, but none can be found. Finally Forrest comes upon the head nurse who tells him that Lt. Dan has been sent back to the U.S.

• The Story of the Grail: Perceval observes a procession that includes a bleeding lance and a grail, but no matter how much he wants to ask why the lance bleeds or who is served by the grail, he remains silent. He decides he'll wait until morning to ask the questions but when he wakes up everyone in the castle has vanished. He races around the manor house trying to find someone who can tell him where the squires from the evening before might be found. He departs and soon comes upon fresh hoof prints on a path.

Forrest gets a letter from Mama telling him the house burned down and she had no insurance and would be living with the "Little Sisters of the Po."

• In Reality:
• In 1188 a suspicious fire raged through the town of Troyes, destroying many of the homes and cathedrals as well as the palace of the counts of Champagne. Philip, Count of Flanders—who provided Chrétien with a book that became the basis for The Story of the Grail—had taken up residence in Troyes and saw his entire library destroyed. On the same day, four other towns were struck by calamities and each one of these in some way was connected to the court poet . . . or Eleanor of Aquitaine. Robert of Auxerre, a chronicler who lived among the monks at St. Marian’s captured the events and stated, “By the judgment of God, a vast destruction befell those places.”
• Marie, the countess of Champagne, (and Eleanor's daughter) lived in Troyes and spent her last years at the nunnery Fontaines-les-Nones.
• Unrelated to the fire, Eleanor of Aquitaine lived her last years at Fontevraud Abbey.
• Heloise was the abbess of the Paraclete, a monastery established on land that had originally been given to Abelard. The name Paraclete is Greek and translates to the Holy Spirit. It’s used in the New Testament to describe “the Comforter” or “the Counsellor”, “the Advocate.”

Jenny writes and says she knows Forrest is being made to do something against his own will.

• The Da Vinci Code: Bishop Aringarosa counters Fache, “God uses us all.”
• The Last Templar:
• Tess willed her legs forward toward an exit at the museum.
• She willed her legs back to life after Vance shot her with a taser.
• She willed herself to calm down.
• Tess squinted and willed her eyes to focus.
• Very slowly, almost unwillingly, she began to fathom just what she held in her hands. And to realize who had first touched the sheets of parchment, whose hand had written the words.
• Aimard wrote that it was as if God Himself were willing the sea to swallow the Falcon Temple.

Jenny adds a P.S. on the end of her letter saying that she's making a little money on the side playing in a band called “The Cracked Eggs.”

• The Da Vinci Code: Sauniére uses P.S. in a coded message as a double entendre, written moments before he dies with the hope of attracting the attention of his granddaughter, Princess Sophie.
• In Reality: When the movie presentation of The Last Templar premiered on television January 25th, 2009, the degree of the Sun was Aquarius 7 with a corresponding Sabian Symbol, "A Child Born of an Eggshell." Sabian Symbols are story-like expressions assigned to each of the 360 degrees of the zodiac. They're used to provide insights into events according to the positions of the sun, moon, and planets at any given moment.

Lt. Dan leaves a note behind for Forrest. Among other things he says "I sense Forrest, that you are on the verge of something very significant in your life, some change, or event that will move you in a different direction and you must seize the moment and not let it pass." ". . . I believe what I saw was almost a Genesis of our ability as humans to think, to create, to be." Forrest reads the letter over and over but can't understand what Dan is saying so he asks Colonel Gooch to read it and tell him what it means. The Colonel says that it means Forrest shouldn't mess up when the President pins the medal on him.

Forrest Gump Chapter 8

Forrest is told he will be given the royal treatment in Washington D.C. and then meets President Johnson in the Rose Garden.

• In Reality: The Rose Garden at the White House has a central lawn surrounded by flower beds designed in a French style. Among the many varieties of rose bushes planted is one called “King’s Ransom.” The grounds have typically been used for peaceful, unifying meetings between world leaders.
• The “Rose” is the symbol of England’s royalty.
• Eleanor of Aquitaine was Queen of England, one time Queen of France, and literally paid a ransom for the king in 1194 when her son Richard was held captive by Henry VI, the Holy Roman Emperor.

Forrest goes to Washington to play in a ping pong tournament and sees Lt. Dan across the room. Lt. Dan tells Forrest he can do anything he wants and that his destiny is to be the best. Forrest stays for three days and spends his time with Lt. Dan talking about history and philosophy. One day Dan starts talking about Einstein's theory of relativity and the universe and Forrest pulls out paper and shares what he learned in the Intermediate Light class. Their minds connect.

• The Story of the Grail: In the scene "Blood on the Snow," Gawain watches Perceval from across a field and somehow knows the knight might be contemplating a maiden. They connect mentally before they meet face to face and vow to be best friends. The two knights travel with King Arthur's court and celebrate for three days and three nights.

Forrest Gump Chapter 9

On a visit to China for a ping pong tournament, Forrest is taken to a big river where Chairman Mao can be seen standing at the edge. The 80 year old man has taken off his pajamas and is going to attempt to swim across the river by himself. When he gets halfway across, he raises his hand and waves. When Chairman Mao waves for the third time, people realize that he isn't waving in kindness . . . he's drowning. Forrest is the first to reach him and helps lift him out of the water. A few days later, Forrest visits Chairman Mao, who has since dried off and there are plans for a big spread of lunch. Forrest sits next to the Chairman. In the middle of the lunch, the old man leans over and asks Forrest what his thoughts are about the war. His answer brings a smile to the old man's face.

• The Story of the Grail: Perceval comes upon a river that's too wide to cross and where two men appear in a boat. One drops the anchor while the other baits a hook. After exchanging greetings, the nobleman offers Perceval shelter for the night and a warm meal. When Perceval arrives at the Fisher King’s manor house, the old man is already there waiting in a robe. The young knight sits next to him for a multi-course meal.

Forrest Gump Chapter 10

Forrest says "I kep gettin lost."

• The Story of the Grail: Perceval lost his memory of all the events that occurred before, so he remembered God no more. Five years had come and gone, five years spent on strange adventures, dangerous and hard ones too, which he kept seeking in pursuit of knightly fame. Five years in combat and no thought of God once crossed his mind.

Forrest follows Jenny to Harvard University and discovers she’s dating a philosophy student named Rudolph. Actually, she's living with him. When Jenny introduces the two men, Rudolph waves his hand like the Pope does when he blesses people. Rudolph frequently meditates. Jenny makes a little pallet into a bed for Forrest to sleep on. While walking around campus together, they run into the married professor Jenny used to date, Professor Quackenbush. She's still friends with him, but in private she refers to him as a degenerative turd. When the pair get back from their walk, Rudolph is still sitting alone; Forrest asks if the guy can talk. Jenny says "Yes...sooner or later."

• In Reality: Peter Abelard grew up in the town of Le Pallet and left home as a youth in pursuit of wisdom. Heloise was a student of Abelard's and became involved with him while they were both living under her Uncle Fulbert's roof. In the 12th century Abelard was known far and wide as a philosopher and theologian; he lectured at Ste. Geneviève and became the Dean of Philosophy at Notre-Dame in 1115. He became an abbot. At the Council of Sens in 1141, Abelard was condemned by the Church and subsequently sentenced to silence by the Pope.

Prof. Quackenbush invites Forrest to sit in on the course he's teaching called "Role of the Idiot in World Literature." The professor explains that the idiot has played an important role in history and in literature for many years. "The object of having a fool for most writers is to employ the device of the double entendre." The fool can be a fool at the same time the reader can discern a revelation of the greater meaning of his foolishness. Sometimes a great writer would use a fool to provide a twist for the readers' enlightenment.

• In Reality: Great writers and their works that used a fool are listed in the first chapter of Forrest Gump. Following the titles to discover their characters, themes, and the history that surrounds them puts a whole new twist into the role of the novel and the potential of the readers' enlightenment.

Professor Quackenbush’s class is engaged to perform a scene from the play King Lear. Forrest is given a role as the Earl of Gloucester.

• In Reality: The play King Lear by William Shakespeare was remotely connected to The Historia Regum Britanniae written by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century which was dedicated to Robert, Earl of Gloucester.

Mose is the drummer for The Cracked Eggs.

• In Reality: The story of Moses in the Bible includes the burning of a golden calf, a young bull, which marked the transition from the Age of Taurus into the Age of Aries . . . it also marked the beginning of Judaism.

Rudolph leaves Jenny and she rants about men being lazy, irresponsible, selfish, liars. She starts to cry and Forrest comforts her. They spend the night together and Jenny's feelings for Forrest change considerably.

• The Story of the Grail: Blancheflor is the recipient of affection from a man she hates, who has destroyed her town in order to take her. She rants about men and uses tears of persuasion on Perceval the night he arrives in Belrepeire. They sleep mouth to mouth 'til morning.

Forrest Gump Chapter 11

The day of the King Lear play arrives. The scenery depicts a field and a hovel that all the characters run into when a big storm blows in.

• The Story of the Grail: The mighty wind blows across the water on the sea side of Belrepeire.

Mad Tom O'Bedlam was crazy because of issues with his brother, who was a bastard.

• The Story of the Grail: When the queen of the Wondrous Palace inquires whether Gawain has met King Urien and whether he has sons at King Arthur’s court, the knight responds that indeed there are two sons, both called Yvain. The first is nobly born, wise and courteous, the second is only his half brother, and is called “the Bastard.”
• In Reality: As Queen of England, Eleanor of Aquitaine raised one of Henry II's bastard sons who was named the same as their own son Geoffrey.

The girl who plays the fool found shoes that curl up . . . like Arabs wear.

• In Reality: Eleanor of Aquitaine was famous for the fashions she introduced to Europe after her travels in the Middle East.

As the play begins, Professor Quackenbush starts the wind machine while Mad Tom tells a sad story. King Lear asks if Mad Tom's daughters brought him to this point and whether anything can be saved. Forrest lights a torch and enters the hovel; he asks everyone their names. The professor didn't take into consideration that Forrest is 6'6" and the flame on the torch is touching the ceiling of the hovel. Instead of saying his lines according to the script, Mad Tom says, "Watch the torch!" Forrest gets confused because it isn't the line he's expecting and he starts looking in the book to see what should follow. By this time the ceiling is on fire, Mad Tom's wig is also on fire, somebody yells to turn off the wind machine, and the girl playing the fool gets hysterical. Forrest grabs the fool, opens the window and the two jump out, landing in the bushes.

• The Story of the Grail:
• When Perceval leaves the forest to become a knight, his mother tells him that he should not be in the company of someone very long before asking them their name, for in the end, by the name you know the man.
• When Perceval turns to leave King Arthur's hall to retrieve the armor from the Red Knight, a sign of his future greatness is given when a maiden laughs. Kay slaps the maiden and sends her flat upon the ground and kicks the Fool into the fire.
• As Perceval rides out of the castle hall, the maid is crying and the Fool is screaming.
• The scene in which the wind blows across the sea outside Belrepeire occurs later in the story.
  In Reality: The siege of Belrepeire mimics the Siege of Ascalon in 1153 where a strong wind blew and set a tower in the field on fire which then fell into the wall surrounding the city causing a portion of it to collapse. Despite heavy losses, it marked the first victory after the suffering defeat of the Second Crusade.

Mose gives Forrest something to smoke that would expand his horizons and the second set is the best performance of his life.

• The Story of the Grail: Perceval scans the horizons in search of the Fisher King's manor house and is about to give up, when he sees it rising in the valley on a second look.

Forrest is caught in the alley with two young girls. Jenny tells him that men are all alike, just like dogs, and have no respect for anybody.

• The Story of the Grail: Gawain is caught kissing the sister of the king of Escavalon in the tower. The gentleman who finds them says, "Poor, foolish woman, good-for-naught, you've done exactly as you ought." "If a woman did not sin, you could not call her feminine."

Forrest decides that it's time to visit Mama back home and then maybe start up his shrimp business. "And whether I come back or not, I don't know."

• The Story of the Grail: Perceval leaves Belrepeire in search of his Mother and says "I'll come back whether or not she's willing; I won't change my mind."

Forrest Gump Chapter 12 Forrest trains at NASA to go into space with a woman and an ape. Newspapers headlines proclaim "America Launching Odd Messengers Toward Alien Planets."

• The Da Vinci Code: Sister Sandrine’s last words before she was murdered are “Jesus had but one true message.”
• Holy Bible: In John 12:49-50 Jesus is quoted as saying, ”For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.”
• The Last Templar: Tess Chaykin suggests if the Church were just getting started today, with the true story of Jeshua of Nazareth, maybe it would be handled differently. “Maybe we could avoid all the confusing dogma and just do it simply. Look at Islam. They got away with it, barely seven hundred years after the crucifixion. A man came along and said, “There is no god but God, and I am his prophet. Not the Messiah, not the Son of the God, no Father or Holy Spirit, no confusing Trinity–just a messenger of God. That was it. And that was enough.”
• The Story of the Grail: Gawain introduces himself to Perceval as a messenger of the king.

Forrest Gump Chapter 13

From the space capsule, Forrest looks down upon Earth and wonders what Jenny is doing.

• The Last Templar: Amelia Gaines stands at the window of an apartment and looks down into Central Park where she sees two people on horseback, one of whom is having difficulty riding a high-spirited horse after someone on rollerblades whizzed by them. As one who knows how to ride a horse herself, it gets her thinking about the horses used in the heist of the treasures.
  

Forrest Gump Chapter 14

After experiencing mechanical problems in outer space the capsule crash lands in a lake in close proximity to a tribe of cannibals. Sue, the orangutan, confronts a tribesman at the door of the capsule and causes him to keel over, then grabs a bottle of something and splashes the native's face hoping to revive him. The native starts sputtering and spitting and shaking his head. Forrest realizes the bottle Sue used was the one he used to pee in.

• The Story of the Grail: Gawain uses herbs to revive and heal Greoreas under the oak tree and tells the maiden that her sweetheart need not fear to die.

Big Sam claims he was educated in America and apologizes for not having asked their names.

• The Story of the Grail: King Arthur tells Gawain, who is seated to the right of the king, that he encountered the warrior in red the day he came to court and demanded to be made a knight . . . but did not see fit to ask his name.

When Forrest tells him his first name, Big Sam knows exactly who he's named after.

• The Story of the Grail: the tale is half over before we learn the name of the knight in red.
  The name Perceval means “Press on through the valley.”

Big Sam asks where Forrest went to school. Forrest begins to say the University of Alabama but then decides to “play it safe” and tells him he went to Harvard, which wasn’t exactly a lie since he had attended Dr. Quackenbush’s course.

• The Da Vinci Code: Robert Langdon was Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard.

“Ah, Harvard—the old Crimson,” Big Sam says. He begins to laugh and comments that Forrest looks a bit like a Harvard man.

• In Reality: Harvard’s Crimson and Alabama’s Crimson Tide are names that are very similar in nature.

Forrest somehow sensed that trouble was ahead.

• The Da Vinci Code:
• Sister Sandrine felt a chill rise through her flesh with an unexpected sense of apprehension when she placed her bare soles on the cold stone floor of her room. Woman’s intuition?
• Fache’s intuition is described as almost supernatural, as if “God whispers in his ear.”
• Intuition told Robert Langdon that astronomy was not the key to the letters which would unlock the ultimate secret. The five letters would be symbolically fitting and crystal clear, indeed “painfully obvious once it dawned.”
• The Last Templar:
• Nothing about William Vance’s disturbing and convincing arguments was counterintuitive. If anything, what he said made too much sense.
• Tess is in a race to beat Vance to Fonsalis. They have the same information from the same scroll. After that it’s experience, smarts, and gut instinct.
• When Tess was a child she used to think that someone came down out of the sky and whispered in her father’s ear, to tell him where the Cross of Constantine would be found.
• The Story of the Grail:
• Perceval has never heard his name before; when asked what it was, his name suddenly just came to him.
• After hearing his name, Perceval’s cousin knows everything about his life. She tells him that since he failed to ask the proper questions at the Fisher King's manor house, his name is now Perceval the Wretch. Unlucky Perceval.
• Gawain watches Perceval across the snowy field and senses that he is downcast about a lady, ill at ease.

Forrest Gump Chapter 15

Big Sam asks Forrest if he plays chess. He teaches Forrest everything he knows about the game.

• The Da Vinci Code:
• When Sophie was younger, she witnessed a secret ritual. The women were dressed in white with masks and the men in black; they looked like giant chess pieces.
• Remy looks at Silas in the limo, thinking to himself how the monk has no idea what fate has waiting for him . . . and his “bishop is a pawn.”
• The Story of the Grail:
• When Gawain and a maiden come under siege in Escavalon, he grabs a chessboard as his shield and dumps the chessmen upon the floor.
• The maiden takes the chessmen—which are at least ten times the normal size—and hurls them at the angry crowd.
• The Evil Maiden tells Gawain he won a battle that he shouldn’t have, “Your silence would not be more great if you’d been cornered in checkmate!”
• In Reality: Eleanor of Aquitaine was a great fan of chess and an astute strategist.
  

Forrest Gump Chapter 16

Major Fritch, Forrest, and Sue the orangutan are finally rescued by NASA. As they paddle down a river, Major Fritch decides that she had finally found a man who understands her and she decides to stay. She gets out of the boat and is seen walking into the jungle hand-in-hand with her suitor. At the White House, President Nixon asks Forrest about Major Fritch. According to the note card in his hand, she was dragged into the jungle by a cannibal as they were being rescued.

• In Reality: Abelard told his persecutors that they should read the Bible for themselves because there were portions that were not being presented accurately by the Church.

The President asks Forrest if he is interested in buying a watch and he pulls up his sleeve.

• The Da Vinci Code: André Vernet is asked if all the armored truck drivers wear Rolex watches, at which point he rolls up his sleeve and asks the lieutenant if he’s interested in buying it.
  

Forrest Gump Chapter 17

Forrest meets up with Lt. Dan who's living under a garbage bag. "I guess I'm jus waitin to die or somethin." He hands Forrest a few dollars and tell him to run to the liquor store and pick up a couple bottles of Red Dagger wine. Lt. Dan shows all the medals he's kept pinned inside his shirt. "They remind me of somethin," he said. "I'm not quite sure what—the war, of course, but that's just a part of it. I have suffered a loss, Forrest, far greater than my legs. It's my spirit and soul, if you will. There is only a blank there now—medals where my soul used to be." Jenny left for Chicago nearly 5 years before.

• The Story of the Grail: The story tells that Perceval had lost all memory of all events that had occurred before, so he remembered God no more. Five entire years had gone away, five years spend on strange adventures, dangerous and hard ones too, while in pursuit of knightly fame. Five years lost. Je confesses his hermit uncle that he didn't believe in God or love and had done evil deeds.

Forrest asks, "But what about the 'natural laws' that's in charge of everything? What about 'the scheme of things' that we has all got to fit ourself into?" ". . . that's what I've been going by. I been lettin the tide carry me an tryin to do my best. Do the right thing."

Forrest Gump Chapter 20

Forrest gets involved in wrestling and is called “The Dunce.” In a match against a guy known as “The Professor,” Forrest gets tied up in yarn with fancy knots. The Professor bows before the audience like he’s a magician or someone who's performed a special trick.

• The Story of the Grail: Perceval asks how to find the holy man in the forest and is told to watch for every branch and stick which has been knotted and bent, because they were meant to show the way, so nobody would go astray.

Lt. Dan turns to Forrest, "This is a fine state of affairs—getting yourself outsmarted by The Professor."

Jenny leaves behind a letter.

• The Da Vinci Code: Letters serve as double entendres with multiple significant meanings and usages derived from translations, atbash cipher, anagrams, and numeric values.
• King’s College Library has a database from multiple sources including Vatican letters.
• Sophie tells Robert Langdon, “Look at the letters.”
• Saunière used to tell Sophie she was half divine based on the letters in her name.
• Teabing thinks to himself at Westminster Abbey: Only five letters separate me from the Grail.
• The Last Templar:
• Aimard provides two letters to the four remaining survivors of the Falcon Temple to deliver to France.
• A letter was buried along with the astrolabe that explained what happened and where the Templars’ treasure was stored within the ship.
• The FBI was reading old letters and journals to try to identify the location of Fonsalis.
• In Reality:
• Heloise and Abelard Heloise left behind a series of letters that authenticate their role in the legend of the grail.
• Eleanor of Aquitaine left behind letters she'd written to the Pope that reveal her intimate connection to The Story of the Grail.

Forrest Gump Chapter 21

Forrest arrives at a hotel with a huge sign out front that says "Welcome Grandmaster's International Chess Tournament."

• The Da Vinci Code: The American University of Paris proudly presents "An Evening with Robert Langdon."
• The Last Templar: The banner outside New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art announced: TREASURES OF THE VATICAN.

He meets an old man named Mister Tribble in the lobby and the two play chess together. Forrest beats him and the old man says, "I am a former international grand master, and you have just stepped into a game you couldn't possibly have won, and totally annihilated me!"

Forrest Gump Chapter 23

Grand Master Ivan Petrokivitch, who is known as "Honest Ivan" is Forrest's competitor at the international chess tournament.

• The Last Templar: Branko Petrovic was a former cop who’d been fired after dipping into items confiscated during a drug bust. He had been part of NYPD mounted division and provided the horses during the heist of the Vatican Treasures.
• The Idiot: Myshkin's cousin is married to Ivan Fyodorovich Epanchin while Nastasya was once a concubine of Afanasy Ivanovitch.

During the championship match Honest Ivan tries to take Forrest’s rook, but he “seed it” coming.

• The Story of the Grail: The Prologue begins: He little reaps who little sows. The man who wants good harvests strows his seeds on such a kind of field, God grants a hundredfold in yield; on barren ground good seeds but lie until they shrivel up and die. So Chrétien sows, disseminating this story he’s initiating . . .

Forrest sets up The Noah’s Ark Trap.

• The Da Vinci Code: Bishop Aringarosa tell Silas that Noah was also an albino. "Like you, he had skin white like an angel. Consider this. Noah saved all of life on the planet. You are destined for great things."
• The Last Templar: Tess describes her first introduction to Vance not far from the Arafat Anomaly, which some have suggested is Noah’s Ark embedded in ice at 15,300 feet about sea level.

Later he uses The Queen’s Indian Defense.

• The Da Vinci Code: The Priory of Sion believed that the obliteration of the sacred feminine in modern life had caused what the Hopi Native Americans called koyanisquatsi—“life out of balance”—an unstable situation marked by wars, misogynistic societies, and a growing disrespect for Mother Earth.

During the match Forrest uses a few moves he learned from Big Sam in the jungle that "weren't in the book," one of which used his queen as bait.

• In Reality: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of England, has been described as a patron of Chrétien de Troyes; the books of the gemstone suggest she was far more than that and perhaps indeed was the poet herself.

When the time comes for the last move, the crowd is so quiet you can hear a pin drop.

• In Reality: In Louis the Fat’s biography, Suger of Saint-Denis wrote of a bloodless battle in which Eleanor’s father, the Duke of Aquitaine, along with the Dukes and knights from Brittany (Abelard’s homeland) united in a show of military capacity that triumphed over both the Roman Empire and the English King in a single moment: "The pride of her enemies was extinguished, 'the earth fell silent at her sight.'"

Forrest turns red in the face.

• The Da Vinci Code: Sir Leigh Teabing was portly and ruby-faced with bushy red hair and jovial hazel eyes.
• The Last Templar: When Tess discovered Sean gave up beer and wine for Lent, she commented, “Forty days without booze. Wow!” and blushed.
• The Story of the Grail: The goose struck in the neck, left three drops of blood that spread like blushes on the white snow.

Honest Ivan moves his chess piece from square five to square eight and back to square five nine or ten times without taking his hand off of it. Then two or three times more. After Forrest accidentally lets out a humungous fart, Honest Ivan drops the chessman precisely on square eight. In a series of swift moves Forrest snaps up the piece with his knight, grabs two of his pawns, then his queen, and finally the king and exclaims, "Checkmate!"

Observation: Whereas the football game above ends with numerological scores of 8 to 7, the last play of the tournament match describes firmly landing on square 8, marking the beginning of "A New Day."

Forrest Gump Chapter 24

Forrest finally goes home and finds Mama just like he remembered her.

• The Da Vinci Code: Sophie goes home to Rosslyn Chapel and experiences a flow of memories from her childhood; she is reunited with her grandmother.
• The Story of the Grail:
• Perceval moves from scene to scene in search of his Mother until he learns that he left her dead at the gate. He spends the rest of his years wandering aimlessly . . .
• Gawain discovers that the queen of the Wondrous Palace is King Arthur’s mother, which would make her his grandmother. Also the other queen who lives there is his mother who died twenty years before.
• Holy Bible: John 7:33 “Then said Jesus unto them, ‘Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me.’”
  

Forrest goes to visit Bubba's home and Bubba's daddy takes him down by the bayou where a breeze is blowing and the fish are jumping.

• The Story of the Grail: Perceval’s hermit uncle tells him that the grail used to serve the king would never contain salmon, lamprey, or pike.
• In Reality: Heloise once inquired of Abelard why certain types of animals were not included when Adam was asked to name them in Genesis. His response was that fish couldn't raise themselves because they were like reprobates—morally depraved and rejected by God. One would never present "fish" to God.

Bubba's daddy shows Forrest where the salt tide comes in.

• The Da Vinci Code: Job 38:11 was engraved on the stone hidden beneath the Rose Line in Saint-Sulpice. “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.” The verse refers to God’s control over the ocean waves.
• The Last Templar: Tess returns to the beach where she and Sean had been found. She moves along the edge of the tide line as hazy images of the fateful morning come flooding back into her consciousness.

The day arrives for Forrest and Sue to put shrimp in the pond; they have fifty pounds of shrimp in the bait well. They buy five hundred pounds of cottonseed and put one hundred pounds of it in the pond.


Forrest Gump Chapter 26

Lieutenant Dan is supposed to make a speech in Washington and instead steals a Bible from the hotel and reads the whole book of Genesis to the audience. He planned on including a few excerpts from Numbers, but....

• The Da Vinci Code: Genesis tells us that Eve was created from Adam’s rib. Woman became an offshoot of man. And a sinful one at that. Genesis was the beginning of the end for the goddess.
• The Last Templar: Vance provides his understanding of the book of Genesis, focusing on the portion belonging to Abraham that states God had put him on a mission to heal the divisions between men; all mankind was to be part of one human family. “Somehow this lofty message got perverted.” Things only got worse when Jews, Christians, and Muslims started squabbling over who provided the truest version of God’s tradition.
  

Forrest is last seen in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

• The Da Vinci Code: In the novel Robert Langdon is last seen in Paris, stepping over bushes onto hallowed ground. In both the novel and the movie he returns to the Louvre, where the quest began.
• The Last Templar: In the novel, Tess is last seen on the island of Symi with her arms wrapped around Sean telling him she has all she needs. In the novel they return to New York City and rush to be part of the audience at Kim’s martial arts performance. In both the novel and the movie, William Vance is dead.
• The Story of the Grail:
• Perceval is last seen taking communion on Easter Sunday.
• Gawain is last seen handing right spurs and buckling swords to young lords as five hundred new knights are made.
• King Arthur is at Orkney celebrating Pentecost when he faints and everyone rushes to raise him instantly.
• The queen asks Lady Lore what had just happened.
• In Reality:
• Abelard’s last public appearance was at the Council of Sens on the Octave of Pentecost in 1141, where his works were condemned and he was sentenced to silence. When he died in 1142, his body was sent to Heloise and he was buried at the Paraclete.
• Heloise was buried alongside Abelard at the Paraclete in 1163.
• Eleanor of Aquitaine’s last public appearance was in Mirabeau where she was under siege by her grandson Arthur. She sent a messenger to her son John, the king of England, asking that he come to her defense.

I can always look back . . .

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