"Esther Donnelly" -- wha?

[r5rs]

Use of "Esther Donnelly" in this excerpt, referring to Esther as a female:

We shall begin to assemble our own version of the north shore. We will scrawl in
dead languages and electrical diagrams and hide them away for future theologians to
muse and mumble over. We will send a letter to Esther Donnelly and demand her
answer.

Use of Esther and Donnelly as separate people in the same quote, Donnelly is referred to as male:

Dear Esther. I have burnt my belongings, my books, this death certificate. Mine will
be written all across this island. Who was Jacobson, who remembers him? Donnelly
has written of him, but who was Donnelly, who remembers him?

Now the game is confusing enough with obscure clues revealed randomly. This is just plain confusing and if it weren't in a voice recording I'd really assume it was a stupid typo.

Are we really supposed to believe it is a coincidence that Esther's last name is Donnelly? Or did the narrator misspeak? Or is the narrator is confusing two people? Maybe the narrator is insane?

Yes I think there is plenty of evidence in other voice overs to say the narrator is insane.

Or on the other hand if this is supposed to be a clue, then for what? Donnelly and Esther are related by blood?

There's one thing I know for sure: the author of the game is definitely insane and it would be fine by me if he took a boat with no bottom out into the middle of the Atlantic, I'll contribute another $10 for him to make the trip :P

[charlestheoaf]

There are a few times when Esther is referred to as Esther Donnelly, so it is definitely intentional. But it also confused me.

There was one line in which he mentions first meeting Donnelly after the crash, or "on the tarmac", something like that. It was a little unclear. Perhaps they were related after all, and maybe that is also the narrator's tie with the island?

[Unbelievable21]

What I think happened is that, after the 'incident', the narrator found two other people named Donnelly and Jacobsen (who also had some sort of connection) and began researching their lives; perhaps in some strange way to cope with what happened. I'm reading through the narrative and it sounds like something along these lines happened. I could be way off, though. I need to read through all of it first.

[somebloke]

I like to think that the the two former days characters: Donelly, the historian and Jacobsen, the shepherd, were actually two separate people, in their own right, long since dead and that the three (...or two, if you decide the narrator and Paul are one and the same, rather than the voice belonging to another Donelly) people involved in the accident and its aftermath; All knew each other before the accident; Had once visited, in group, the real island, that ties the historic figures together and; Were either amused at discovering their shared names, or had actively sought out the island, seeking their roots.

The narrator built the island that we visit, around this time - a mental construct, modelled after the real world one.

Then: The accident and our narrator's grief-struck mind beginning to craft metaphors and far-fetched connections, which blurs the division between many stories, anywhere that you can draw any sort of parallel and manifests as words and scenes in his island-shaped memory house.

[Ratone]

Donelly is the narrator, unfortunatly the game description spoilers this.

The Narrator describes Donnely Book as a "book written by a dying man", it is the description of the game.