Amnesia's Victorian years

[MrBehemoth]

Daniel is very much a Victorian Englishman, though. His language sees that out, along with his world-view, religion and technological knowledge.

Spoiler below!

"My name is Daniel, I live in London at... at... Mayfair..."

"The faint glow escaped my fingers and began to spark brightly and spirit me away. Unlocking alien memories of spiraling towers, endless deserts, and impossible geometry. The next thing I can remember is the grating sound of stone being lifted. The voices of the Arabs pulling me to safety. And grasped firmly in my hands was the broken pieces of a most peculiar relic."

"You have an "ascending room". Will it take us to the Inner Sanctum?"

"Yes, the Colosseum at Regent's Park has one. It takes you to the gallery where you can view the panorama."

"I knew that it was my purgatory - hellfire made to wash away my sins."

It fits the tradition of gothic horror written in the Victorian era (peppered with a bit of Lovecraft, who emulated and advanced that tradition). Think Dracula (the book) - it has very similar tropes and symbols to TDD. A well-to-do English gentleman finds himself drawn into the old world of eastern Europe, where decay and primitive ways of life symbolise the horror that a "modern" man of the industrial era feels when he faces the supernatural, and behind it all is an evil authority figure who rules part of the ancient eastern world and has designs on the modern western world - a deeply unsettling idea for a Victorian English Christian. He is, after all, from a time and place when the Empire was starting to crumble and religious values were beginning to become irrelevant, which appalls his old fashioned sensibilities and his English conservatism.

I agree with TommyBoyPSP, in as far as there is a literary, symbolic connection. AMFP is opposed to TDD. It strongly emphasises the industrialised setting and the approach of the 20th century, and Mandus's manic attempt to banish the ancient world that so horrified Daniel.

If invited, I will go on about this for hours!