We're All Bozos on This Bus

Well, this is quite different from our normal reading experience in class but I rather enjoyed it. We're All Bozos on This Bus was a mixture of parody and pure terror. The plot is essentially a man that hears an advert for a "fair of tomorrow" ( A fair showcasing technology) and the man (Clem) decides he'll go to the fair as a form of amusement. There are some interesting interactions between Clem and another character Barney that can only be described as comedic but beyond that Clem is interacting with these holograms and computers at this future fair. He has curious questions for both of them and is essentially trying to dishevel the technology at the fair by asking the computer peculiar questions. There's a whole bunch of satire based on Americana and a lot of irony throughout the piece but to me that's not what makes this particular audio experience stand out. For me, it was the experience itself. It felt fully developed as if it were really utilizing the medium of audio theatre. Not just some reading of a story but an immersive tale in which I was talking part as a viewer and that's what really held me as a listener. I'm starting a list of science fiction tapes./records to check out because of this particular installment of Firesign theatre because it felt. . . well it felt just like a theatre experience. It was so different and so immersive that I don't know if I've ever experience anything like it before and that was remarkable. Genre and humor aside that's why this piece stood out to me.

1Q84

I wanted to talk about another book by Haruki Murakami (1Q84) because I feel like it is a good example of the synergism of multiple genres into something new. It's a 1980's period piece with science-fiction and with religious/supernatural undertones and it's also mystery novel. I think this is where I find my interest. In works that transcend genre and become something altogether new entirely. Essentially, the novel is about two different narrators finding each other. Oh and they're also stuck in an alternate timeline where certain events occurred that had never actually happened in their "real" timeline and they both become suspects in a murder case. I think for me, the real reason this novel stuck out with me is the seemingly simplistic world we find ourselves in. It really is just 1984 in Japan but there are a few inconsistencies and run ins with the supernatural. Also the intrigue and sexiness of having a hit woman as a protagonist captivated me. I think the brilliance of Murakami is in his insight into the seemingly dull and ordinary. I think the most prime example is the explanation of our two main characters love interest. The fact that they love each other across different timelines all because they touched hands once in elementary school is an interesting insight into the ability to attract and be attracted to other human beings through the most fickle of moments. Of course this is stretched thinner and thinner by the use of science-fiction as a backdrop for this love story. But I feel in the world of genre, things are always meant to be more exciting, more captivating, and writers tend to look over the micro-micro of human interaction. Murakami handles the mystique of genre fiction with the care of someone writing about deeper personal relationships and that's why his work stands out as strong to me.

Dystopian Scifi

Whether it's steampunk, cyberpunk, cybergoth, etc. They're all forays into the genre of dystopia. All of these genres explore the decay of civilization and they usually explore a gap in power and in wealth between types of people. These types of novels are categorically marked in obvious social structures and a sense of oppression upon the lower ranking members of society. I've skimmed the suggested readings but I want to talk about a novel that takes a different spin on typical futurism. Dorohedoro is essentially a combination of cyberpunk and fantasy. I think the fusion of the genres is what makes it such an interesting read. Instead of your usual stratification based on who has the power via technology, it's who has the power based on who's a magic user and who isn't. (Really it all boils down to which sneech has a star on his belly). The wealth gap between the world of magic users and the normal citizens is so much that the world of normal people is just called "hole" and it is an actual shithole where magic users test out their powers and bully the world's citizens. It's a rather fascinating dichotomy between the two as hole is in fact one giant slum where as the world of magic users appears to be a bustling city. Instead of using science to explain advances in technology the world uses magic as means to explain grand advances (air travel, medical advancements, etc.) in science and to me that was rather interesting because it's almost like a lore was developed to explain a society very similar to our own but it doesn't seemed like a romanticized fantasy, it feels like a low fantasy set in the near future which I find to be an interesting blend of genres that I find incredibly attractive. Though it still carries immense amounts of archetypes and cliches it feels like an innovational work.
The plot for the novel is simplistic enough, there's a man who wants to transgress his place in the world of non-magic users and so he wants to become a man with power (i.e. a magic user) and he pushes until he can obtain this power. (The novel turns into a sort of science and eugenics themed work as this plot develops further but it still retains the feel of a work of fantasy and I think this is mostly attributed to the author's world-building skills).
All in all I would recommend this highly as it's an incredibly unique take on the theme of dystopian scifi and I feel it would be a worthwhile read for many students who are interested in the genre.

Contemporary Myths

Synergism of both old and new. Essentially, it's the retelling of an older story but given the twists of the contemporary world. All that is fantastical can still take place in our time period but by the setting and events occurring you can essentially renovate old myths to fit our lives. That's exactly what Neil Gaiman does with Anansi Boys. The book is actually designed after African myths about Anansi and Gaiman pushes it a step further as he writes about Anansi's sons. Gaimain takes an old myth and builds upon it using the contemporary setting as his backdrop. This synergism makes for an incredibly engaging read. It gives the reader something normalistic to hold onto but also something fantastical for them to get lost in. Anansi Boys has all the demons of the contemporary world (Big Business, Womanizing, etc.) combined with the mythical demons of the past. I think that this fusion is what makes Gaiman's work stand out so strongly from the rest. His technique is amazing but it's really this synergistic writing that captivates audiences.
Give me something I know, but shake it up a bit
is basically how I would describe Gaiman's work. It feels so real because the fantastical/mythological events occurring are happening to real people (Such as Fat Charlie).
All in all a great read and one of my favorites from the class.

Aunt Maria

Aunt Maria, in essence, is a tale about a mean relative that pretends to be far nice than she actually is. Oh, and there's a bit of magic and the paranormal to stir things up.
Aunt is the matriarch of her town and she runs it not with an iron fist, but with a doily covered palm and lots of magic to manipulate the men and children around her. She frees herself from their code of conduct by behaving in this way but she also imprisons herself within her own rules (Girls cant wear pants, no fish and chips for dinner, etc.) and so the book is about "Who's really the captive".
Essentially Aunt Maria is a character study and the book examines the family unit but mostly the book examines women in society and their roles in society. Aunt Maria seems to be all powerful in the novel, but the real problem with Maria is that she is being held back by a code of ethics that is outdated and she oppresses herself with them without even realizing it.
The whole point of the story is to examine women's roles in society and to examine what exactly is oppression. What does it mean to be oppressed by society? It makes an individual wonder, that's for sure.

Lilith's Brood

At first, I was incredibly confused on the nature of this week's title/ category for reading. I didn't know what you meant about non majority science fiction. I think for me, it's hard to establish that as another genre separate from science fiction altogether but I do see the importance of putting someone other than a white male(or woman I suppose) out amongst the stars. I think for me though, the implications of race run deep in this book; the inter marrying of species, oppression from one race to another etc. It's almost as if this book is about American slavery but instead of white Americans it's aliens, and instead of black Africans, it's human beings in general. I think the potency of this fiction is from drawing comparisons to our own history. Using genre's like scifi to underline an important part of history ( and to be frank, an important part of life as we know it today) is a very clever thing to do. I feel other works in the genre such as Attack the Block also touch on issues of race (gentrification in this case). I think these works are incredibly important and make scifi accessible to a wider range of individuals, but I don't know if I make the discernment that they are another genre altogether.

The Left Hand of Darkness

Essentially, the entire novel is a report from our main character (Ai) talking about how he attempts to persuade a ruler of another planet (King Argaven of Gethen) to join the Ekumen (an intergalactic federation of some kind that is comprised of many planets in this universe). Long story short, it takes a long time to convince the King and after an unsuccessful attempt the book ends with Ai getting the Gethenians to join the Ekumen. Personally, I can't stand this kind of novel. It's a lot of notes on customs on a foreign planets, and has a lot to do with the politics of the world that's being created. The book seems to drone on and on and maybe it's because everything is so Alien to me or because I'm not a big sci-fi kinda guy, but I found it very hard to relate to and I was dredging through the text in order to finish it.
I think the most interesting thing for me was the supplementary legends and story's from the homeworld that were included in the text to foreshadow/complement other events in the book.
All in all, I can see why other people would be a fan. The novel is well written and it finds it's place in the science fiction genre. The book has some pretty interesting characters as well as thought out history and politics. However, it's just not my cup of tea so I don't think I'll be venturing back to Gethen any time soon.

Goblin Wood

This week I decided I'd go ahead and dip my feet back into fantasy and I read Hilari Bell's "The Goblin Wood"

I actually only have a copy because my sister was reading it and insisted I had to read the trilogy, but I only have enough patience for the first book. (Not that they're terrible works of literature, I'm just busy right now.)

Wow, I digress.
Anyway, the format for the book is pretty simple, it has to do with goblins, witches, and humans and there is sort of this good vs. evil type of motif going on. I think the most clever thing about this book (And I assume it is a recurring theme throughout the trilogy) is the sort of back and forth of multiple narrators from the perspective of both the "Human" side and the "Goblin"side. With these two main narrators we get this kind of omniscient view of the world while our individual narrators have very much skewed perspectives. The trick Bell really pulls off here is that she explores the fact that evil doesn't actually exist and it's all a matter of perspective and that conflict comes from miscommunication/misunderstanding. It's a pretty simple and altruistic moral but it's strung together rather beautifully through the perspectives of our two main characters (Makenna and Tobin).

The magic system is fun and believable and although the world isn't as fleshed out as Tolkien I still found it to be somewhat immersive and I enjoyed my time while I was there. All in all pretty good read, but it's definitely directed more at young adults than at 22 year old men.

Screwed Turns

For the reading this week I went and revisited horror and ghost stories. I read through Turn of The Screw by Henry James.

I think the problem for me is that I'm a person living in the 21st century and I'm reading a book from the late 19th century so my idea of pacing is a little different from theirs.  However the story still has strength. The plot is essentially the ghostly possession/haunting of two children in a wealthy home being observed by their governess. At first it's just the governess's observation of these geists but we soon find out the children are connected to these ghosts. The book catalogues the Governess's desire to protect the children she watches over and her slow descent as she realizes she is powerless.

I think that's the most fascinating thing from this book. This third party, someone who doesn't have anything more than a job obligation to these children so desperately wants to protect them. The fact that she's unable to save them and that she just has to observe is also something fascinating. She has to watch as two children slowly descend into whatever the ghosts have wished upon them.

That convention of powerless is something really empathizable and I see it come up over and over in Ghost/horror stories as a trope. This sense of power far beyond our own understanding is something  quite common to fantasy but I suppose if a normal human being was all powerful than the book wouldn't be too interesting would it?

In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit. . .

I mean, it's going to be hard to write a response of The Hobbit. It's such an icon and I feel almost all that is to be said of The Hobbit has been said (Or turned into a trilogy of movies by Peter Jackson).

I think The Hobbit is one of the epitomes of the genre of fantasy for children, it also perfectly illustrates Joseph's Campbell's "Hero's Journey".
Essentially, the book begins with poor Bilbo Baggins who doesn't want to leave the comfort of his home despite Gandalf the Grey proposing an adventure for him to do so. Bilbo is more or less cast out from his home and forced to go on this adventure into the unknown. Of course Bilbo follows the rest of the "Hero's Journey" (Trials, tribulations, Death, Abyss, etc.) and eventually comes to his conclusion. What really made The Hobbit special was it's incredibly powerful storyline but also in compilation with the worldbuilding that occurs. Tolkien's world in The Hobbit is so incredibly described that it has inspired many other works of fantasy (E.g. Jim Hensen's The Dark Crystal).

It's hard to really go into detail on the monumental impact Tolkien's book has had on the genre of fantasy, but I highly recommend reading The Hobbit and the rest of his works. (And if not, at least try sitting through the movies)

J Horror

Though I will admit I have read a good bit of Murakami, I don't think he quite qualifies as J-horror. I think he falls into the category of "Magical Realism" similar to Kawabata's "House of Sleeping Beauties"

I already spoke about Uzumaki which I feel is a pretty solid example of Japanese horror. I find that there is no real "enemy" that things simply exist, whether it be good or bad, things simply exist in Japanese horror. The natural world collided with the supernatural world, and the outcome simply created what we consider horror. This is such a common thing in J-horror. It's all a mixture of pure coincidence or circumstantial things. It's not because someone committed a grave sin or anything along the lines of that. The reasoning behind the events can be as simple as "Oh, it's Wednesday. Supernatural things always happen on a Wednesday around here." Uzumaki also ends with a stereotypical jhorror ending, where no one really ends up happy. Things simply are, things that went wrong just went wrong and that's the end of that. The death of everybody in the village was a bittersweet thing, but that particular ending felt at home in the genre.

 After Chris Phelps spoke about Homonculus I went home and read that as well and found it rather fascinating. It was more of a trip into supernatural realism as well. Dealing mostly with the psychological aspects of horror; it was rather fascinating. Lots of guilt and sex, pretty entertaining, don't know if I'd consider it horror but that's just my western definition of the genre I suppose.

Oh and if we're talking asian horror, I'd recommend I Saw The Devil, Chaser, or any other Korean thriller. I find them to be pretty incredible, works of art in fact.

Mutually Beneficial (Vampire response)

Having read a few books on vampires previously (Dracula, some cheesy young adult novels, etc.) the relationship between Constantine and Sunshine in Robert McKinley's "Sunshine" peaks my interests. First off we have the reluctance from Constantine and how he's almost being forced to feed from Sunshine (Of course, we know he doesn't but the premise is that he's being starved so that he will).
I find this to be very atypical. Of course it's almost this weird kind of Stockholm syndrome relationship between the two of them as they're stuck together and are both captives of the same greater evil.
Sunshine saving Constantine is also a bit of an odd thing as far as relationships between humans and vampires go. Usually the human (Almost always a human woman) is in a state of powerlessness and they're under the influence of the vampire. The interaction between them is very different. It's a mutually beneficial relationship which is very bizarre, it seems there is no real person who's in power here. The two of them need each other and although Constantine could potentially kill this woman, he doesn't. It's a weird twist of humanity to a traditional monster.

On an unrelated tangent, I read Carmilla and the relationship between those two and the form the vampire takes are a very different thing than what I'm used to and it was one of my favorite vampire tales. (Vampire cat creatures? Who could imagine that.)

Week 1: Gothicness

The influence of gothic aesthetics and literature is incredibly strong in contemporary culture. Before we elaborate on particular examples it is best to establish what "Gothic" truly means.
In reality it is a term used to categorize media that combines the genres of romanticism and horror. Literary examples would be works like Dracula, Frankenstein, Turn of the Screw, etc.
Specific iconography associated with Gothic works are things like black cats, stormy weather, terrible frights, and things that go bump in the night (amongst many other tropes). But what really defines something as Gothic rather than horror?
Does it have to do with time period?
Does it have to do with where the material originates from?
I would reply no to both questions.

For an example of "Gothicness" in contemporary cultures I'd like to examine manga and comics.
A great example would be Itou Junji's Uzumaki.

In short, Uzumaki is a story about the overpowering magic of a spiral. It's hypnotizing effects and how it draws one's attention through it's organic shape. The comic is really a collection of short stories that all deal with the supernatural power of spirals and how a small japanese town is caught in the vicious cycle of it's shape.

I chose this example because it fits the category of a gothic work but it's not a typical european style of gothic. Uzumaki combines your typical tropes of mystery, horror, and romanticism to create a truly terrifying experience that fits the gothic genre perfectly. The most obvious connection is in the delivery/pacing of the story. As in many gothic works of literature uzumaki begins with a seemingly normal story about normal people in a normal place. However, as the story progresses the more the supernatural becomes apparent and it it's energy begins to affect the normal world the tale began in. Uzumaki draws on themes that a lot of gothic writers drew on. Nature versus civilization, the individual versus society, etc.
I chose the medium of comics specifically to talk about the gothic genre and how it can portray horror differently through words or images. With classic works of gothic literature the fear was created in the mind of the reader, the more immersed in the tale you become the deeper and more personal the experience can be and thusly the more horrifying an experience it can be. Creating images with your mind to give visual meaning to the words you're reading, that's the power of words in the horror genre. However, comics hold a slightly different level of power. Comics not only have the gift of words, but it's accompanied by visual imagery. These images can create horrors your visual library could not have possibly come up with on it's own. Images created by someone else can show horrifying things you just don't have the frame of reference for.
I digress and stray far from the original assignment, but I feel like it's a fair thing to address in terms of contemporary culture embracing "gothicness".