What is the meaning of the book Gnomon? Ending of Gnomon explained....

So I've just finished the book Gnomon by Nick Harkaway and people are having trouble understanding the symbolism and the characters (myself included so I've tried to simplify it here).

Obviously, spoilers...

Here is the story re-organised into a timeframe that makes sense

Annie Bekele and Colson create a video game that uses the latest technology and the design assistance of her artistic grandfather.

The government moves to take over their project in the interests of the nation.

Shortly after Annie and Colson are attacked and firebombed in the grandfather's home and they begin to split in their ideology, Colson become more of a fundamentalist believing in the control of the system.

This eventually becomes the System and the Witness, the system being the entire system including the democracy, with the population being requested and required to participate in the democracy, the Witness being the software AI that monitors and supports the system.

The system is imperfect because people can't be trusted to make decisions so the system has an overriding function called Firespine whereby a small comitee of people can directly influence the democracy when the populate makes an emotional and "incorrect" decision. The "correct" decision is typically deteremined by the Witness.


Though she created the System, the Witness and Firespine eventually Annie has a change of heart, the System is fundamentally wrong, people need to be able to make stupid decisions so decides to bring the System down.

The System is too protected and has failsafes so any attempt to stop it will be detected so she turns against the System, then gives herself up for interrogation.

She knows this will give her a direct link into the core of the System, however the system will spot any malicious code so she obfuscates her intentions by spinning up multiple stories in different parts of her mind each containing part of the destructive code the "Desperation Protocol"

The alchemist
The painter
The librarian
Anne Magdelana / Lonnrot / Gnomon

Colson walks in on her interrogation, without her he no longer has access to Firespine so wants her access, but sees the computer is failing to rip her access code out of her.

Ironically the System is unaware of Firespine as it is it's own blindspot so is unaware that it is assisting in attempting to get access to it's own backdoor which undermine's it's own stated purpose.

Colson fabricates an inspector called Neith to try and stitch back together these stories or personalities currently running in her mind like three versions of a software application running on a computer and then she'll be able to

Neith then (though appearing to be viewing Hunters memories in the present) is actually a character injected into Annie's mind. Colson think's that Neith is doing his work and will bring him the key to full access of Firespine but infact Neith absorbs each of Hunter's stories she becomes more like her and eventually turns to Hunter's side.

Looking through Anne's eyes Neith and Hunter together combine the narratives and the the source code is executed against the Witness and the System falls allowing the wonder of "true" democracy to come flooding back.

Annie finally wakes from the interrogation, and Inspector Devana Benedis is sent the files of the interrogation and the proofs of the voting coruption.


Is Neith Real?
No, but she is probably a virtaulization of Inspector Devana Benedis as it is mentioned that her name "appears in various forms" in the interrogation files.


Anne Magdelana / Lonnrot / Gnomon
Anne Magdelana could have been invented or could have existed and was a "victim" of Annie's interrogation of her which  which was one of the things that pushed her to break from the system. The

What is the Chamber of Isis?
The chamber of Isis is the link between the virtual stories, this symbolises a link point where the underlying source code connects together to form the complete Desperation Protocol.

Unpacking of the stories into Neith's mind
The stories are unpacked into Neith's mind as an alalogy of to you reading the story and then thinking about it, and it taking hold and rewriting some parts of your mind. The same goes for Gnomon which takes a person and absorbs it, so you absorb a story and it becomes part of you and you become greater because of it.


Where do Mielikki Neith and Lonnrot go?
The version Mielikki Neith is created by Smith and running in Annie's head (Hunter doesn't exist either) so when Hunter refuses to subsume Mielikki that is one fictional character not subsuming another.

Lonnrot in the story is the outcome of Annie's interrogation of Anna Magdeleana, whether there is a Anna Magdeleana that is real, and whether there is a Lonnrot in the real world is unclear, however *this* Lonnrot is another fictional character.

I think they are left running around in Annie's brain and technically they are both living within a bubble within the Hunter bubble within Annie's brain, hence why Hunter could pull the plug on her surroundings. I think Lonnrot is leading her out of Hunter's little miniworld and up a level.

I think he's drawing parallels to computer virtualization here where traditionally you would have multiple operating systems running on the hardware and can also have those nested so that the nested operating systems think they are "real" and have direct access to the hardware, where they haven't it's all pretend.

I think I've confused myself.



Themes

• One of the points is that when you read a book you execute the "code" of the book, so effectively you have made the characters live in your mind. This is the point that Gnomon makes at the end you have absorbed a bit of him and will always have him.
• What is conciousness and could a conciousness exist separately in your mind if you were able to partition your mind off and give resources to that conciousness.
• A Gnomon is the pointy bit of a sundial, here's a picture notice the link to the shark here.