WEEK TEN: Left Hand of Darkness

Week Ten: The Fiction of Ideas through Left Hand of Darkness

This week, I read Urusulla K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness. The theme for this week revolved around the ways in which science fiction/fantasy writing can address problems in the modern world. In this sense, the authors of this genre are writing with metaphors to indirectly emphasize topics that would otherwise be sensitive subjects to deal with.

Reading the story, as it would seem so many other readers felt, my biggest takeaway was Le Guin’s addressing of gender identity. The topic of gender recognition is something that becomes more and more relevant in today’s world, as binary gender roles are questioned and seen as being absurd (at least among the liberal crowd that Ringling seems to attract). 

Le Guin took a risk in writing this book. Published in 1969, the novel would have been even more controversial than it is now. I think the way that she was able to provide such forward thinking at such a time of intense scrutiny is admirable. I also think this was made possible thanks to the use of metaphor. In similar ways to Haruki Murakami, Le Guin used metaphor to her advantage. In being able to tackle deep issues, one must first realize that it can be dangerous and unheard of to speak so directly. By placing the characters in a world unlike our own, the reader can disconnect from the logistics of the story and place themselves into the philosophy of the writer. Le Guin elegantly does this, in my opinion. 

I have not had the chance to finish reading the novel, but from what I have read so far, and based on my own opinions, Genley represents a type of person that does not understand non binary gender roles. This type of person is common place in our modern society. Le Guin created a world in which people are people despite the changing paths of the world or people’s individual opinions. She proves that life is meaningful and real no matter your representation or lifestyle.

WEEK NINE: The Space Opera

The Space Opera

This week's genre/topic is an interesting one. Space opera's, as Dr. Steiling has described, provides a different kind of audience with their own kind of Western. Typically, I don’t think that the people who enjoy the space opera are the same types of people that enjoy Westerns. The demographic shifts entirely from the alpha male to the inspired nerd.

I started The Martian for this week by Andy Weir. One of the things I enjoyed about this novel was the attention to detail of science coupled with Weir’s ability to create a fantastically unreal world. He pairs reality and fantasy with such great detail that the reader immediately relates and believes that this story is factual. We become sucked into the novel incredibly fast. As an interesting and relevant aside, I did a little digging and found that Weir published the novel on his blog in separate installments as he was writing it. The reason that the science in The Martian comes to feel so believable/true is because different correspondents to Weir’s blog would leave him critiques on the representation of scientific facts and calculations.

While the scientific factuality of his novel is inspiring, to say the least, I will say that at times the calculations and explanations became long-winded. I found myself occasionally skipping over a page or two in order to get back to the story, trusting that Weir had appropriately detailed everything that needed to be detailed. 

All in all, I enjoyed what I read for this week. Weir and space operas are not typically the type of story that I would find myself enjoying but I was pleasantly surprised. This class has opened me up to all kinds of different reading possibilities and that’s been really great.

WEEK EIGHT: Mythical Fiction

Week Eight: Mythic Fiction (Neil Gaiman)

For this week’s reading I looked at Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys. To start, I feel the need to say that Gaiman’s writing style seems to be one that the reader either loves or hates. He speaks in a voice that sometimes seems frivolous while at other times seeming incredibly direct. He takes his time in moving through things in a poetic sort of prose that becomes an art form of its own. He writes fantasy with a dash of realism that lets the reader immerse themselves entirely into his own world, which is simply a grand amalgamation of the things that have inspired him.

Anansi Boys is a fantastical journey through a young man’s life as he loses himself, only to reconnect with himself through spiritual beings and reasonings. Anansi himself is an African mythological character that Gaiman has appropriated for the telling of his story. Anansi is known to take the form of a spider, typically, and holds within him the power of knowledge and tales. Gaiman uses this story to connect a variety of myths and legends in order to tell the tale of one man whose life changes dramatically after a death in the family and a visit from a brother he never knew he had.

The interesting thing about this story is that Gaiman is taking a folk tale written many years ago and repurposing it for the contemporary instance. The folk tales of such a nature have a lot of promise and intricacy and entertainment, but a modern audience would have a hard time relating to them. This is similar to the way that other authors and artists will take common tropes and re-imagine them into concepts that are uniquely their own. Spider, Fat Charlie’s brother, an all knowing, cunning, and tricky man comes into Fat Charlie’s life with his own motivations. The two brothers are polar opposites and it is through their conflicting interests and drama that the story unfolds before us.

The beauty in Gaiman’s writing this story is that we are first thrust into a somewhat reality and then whipped through a world of imagination, magic, and mythology. 

WEEK SEVEN: Spiritual Education and Harry Potter

Harry Potter

Although I have read the stories of Harry Potter, it was a sweet reminder to be able to read them again. The entire series follows the story of Harry and his friends as they go through Hogwarts. They grow up together, finding themselves through their classes and discovering what it means to be wizards as well as adults. In the context of this class, I feel like these stories were a nice fit along with the other texts. Harry Potter is iconic. It stands to the test of time and to other texts that fit alongside it. It represents a different type of fantasy literature and is, in itself, so powerful and impactful. There is nothing else that represents fantasy literature as well as Harry Potter does. 

I think that JK Rowling created something that has changed the lives of so many people. The scope of her writing has become a very important thing in a lot of people’s lives. We follow the education of Harry and his companions as they grow up in all of their own rights. While Harry matures with his friends, his friends mature alone.

My favorite part about the in-class discussion was hearing about how the "good" characters in Harry Potter were more aggressive than the bad characters. I had never really considered that before the discussion but now that I’ve been thinking about it, it all makes sense. Harry himself is the most aggressive and crude character in the entire series. His actions prove that to a “T.”

I found an interesting article that well describes this notion, http://www.dailydot.com/parsec/harry-potter-stats-good-characters-more-aggressive/ , and in it, they discuss everything that we were going through in class. The author’s opinions were well put and describe the notion that perhaps those whom we consider to be the most perfect characters may in fact be the most flawed. Harry, for example, made more hastily wrong actions towards others than any other characters in the story. That came as a shock to me at first, and I wanted to stay in denial, but it makes sense. Even though I want to stand by his side, I realize now that his character isn’t as glorious as I made it out to be.

WEEK SIX: The Hobbit

This week, I read Tolkien’s classic, The Hobbit. This iconic piece of folklore is about a hobbit named Bilbo who gets chosen to accompany a group of dwarves on a quest to take back stolen treasures. The plot itself has become such a huge part of the fantasy lexicon that I will not bore you with the summary, which everyone undoubtedly has heard by this point.

The book was a major player in the world of fantasy fiction. It paved the way for a new style of content and writing that stretches the boundaries of reality through fantasy. Tolkien was remarkably prolific in his world building abilities. He sculpts such an elaborate world for us that is elegant even in its smallest details that we believe it all to be real (or at least believable), no matter how outlandish the whole thing can be. The Hobbit is kind of unique in the realm of world building, as well. Tolkien is able to create a new world with unheard of things presented to us while still giving us rich stories that take place there. All the while, none of this feels as being too much on the reader to take in, because of how robustly Tolkien presents it to us. I found a great quote from C.S. Lewis describing the world of the hobbit as, “a world that seems to have been going on long before we stumbled into it but which, once found by the right reader, becomes indispensable to him.”

WEEK FIVE: Witches

Witches!

Witches hold an interesting place in the world of literary archetypes. They are one of the few character types that are gender specific in reference to women. A witch is a powerful woman with abilities normal people do not possess. They cast fear into those who get in their way. They represent an difference towards normal lifestyles and they embrace their femininity proudly while in opposition to masculinity. It is an archetype of empowerment.

For the week, I read Aunt Maria by Diana Wynne Jones. The story is about a “normal” old woman, helpless and innocent as perceived, who lives in a town with other witches. The story starts pretty normally but escalates as the truth of the matters come to light.

Jones presents us with a witch but it’s not a witch that we are more typically expected to see. Her witch stands as the protagonist of the story, rather than some kind of evil being out to make lives so much worse. I think the classic trope of using a witch to display malicious intent is a fun one at best, but there’s so much to play with that I think it’s great to see it being explored further through this novel. We are given a witch that wants to be seen as quiet and frail but underneath that exterior lies a woman of great power. In terms of gender representation, I think Jones represents a woman of reality, guised underneath the witch persona. 

Week Four, Weird

Week Four, Three Moments of Weird

This week I read Three Moments of an Explosion and I came to the conclusion China Mieville is brilliantly weird, period. His work assaults you with its oddity in a way that makes you question what writing really is. It is not often that I read something and feel so entertained with the newness of that something’s content. Not only through his use of subject but in the way he presents it to us is something to be admired. For example, in “The Crawl,” he uses a screenplay to communicate with us, which fits the theme for this week because it immediately confuses us. This confusion is a big part of what defines the weird genre. The reader is meant to feel uncomfortable and surprised. The genre is not unwilling to take risks and sing out on things that other genres wouldn’t. 

I was reading a critical review on Mieville’s work and the reviewer was saying of Mieville’s work that there is a mystery and anonymity to the stories that make them so intriguing. I’ve talked about this before in one of my blog posts and we’ve talked about it in class but, this subtlety to storytelling can be so much more impactful than being obvious about the content. Allowing the reader to fill in the blanks means that the reader becomes an active participant in the work. 

Another thing to note about Three Moments of an Explosion is that it is written in short story format. The brevity of the narratives leaves you feeling astounded that such a fast read could possibly make you feel so moved in such a period of time. 

I think what is so compelling about this week’s topic is that unlike the other genres of horror and science fiction, these stories are just… weird. They tap into a part of you that the other genres can’t, simply by nature. With Mieville, I think the weird is immediately perceived by us as viewers. The fantasy of his stories takes place in worlds not unlike our own. This juxtaposition of reality and bizarre create a discomfort that some of us enjoy partaking in, if only for a few pages.