From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
identity recursion
For the literal recurrence of Leif and Katita across Smith's works, see Recurrence and instruments of return.
For the structure of repetition in the novel, see Eternal recurrence / breaking the cycle.
Identity recursion is the reading that characters in Beach Surgery—and across C. W. Smith's wider oeuvre—are not distinct individuals but transmigrating patterns. Rather than resolving into a final self, Leif and Katita recur, renamed and resituated, across the novel, adaptations, and Smith's other works (Saltando, Pugil, Fellow Disjecta, etc.).
The mechanism is visible in the novel itself: the mechanic and the police officer are the same person, distinguished only by context and Leif's doubled vision. This is not a plot twist but a structural principle—identity slips under the weight of the cycle. Smith's explicit statement in Pastoral Scanlines that "Leif" is an anagram of "Life" and Katita is synthesized from his wife's features confirms this: they are not characters but instruments—recursion engines.
Fandom divides on whether recursion means freedom (endless variation, refusal of fixed identity) or entrapment (the temptation without refusal cycle repeating forever). The Incompletion Collective argues the glitch is the refusal to settle identity; others see tragic repetition-compulsion.