Literary speculation.

The class we're taking, Literature of Horror, Fanstay & Sci-Fi, for which I created this blog, main purpose (from what I understand) is to discuss genre, it's subcategories and what defines each of them. Although a keen reader, who will gobble up mostly any work of literature put infront of me, I must admit that, before taking this class, I had no idea there was such a distinction as genre vs. literary fiction. From what I gather, after discussing it in class and reading up on it some more, while genre has certain elements that distinguishes one from the other, literary fiction is harder to place, falling in to either several or neither of the genre categories. While genre also focuses more on entertainment, literary fiction tries rather to emphasize meaning. This can be done through evocative language, thematic purpose and dimensional characters. And then of course, there are some works of fiction who falls into both categories.

So the question arises, is one better or more important than the other? To this, my instant response would be no. While understanding the presence of genre, as a way to not confuse the reader (or the writer) too much in what the work is trying to communicate, and by way of more easily finding what you're looking for in the bookstore, they each have something of worth to communicate.

I found it interesting to hear from our teacher that, even as late as by the time Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings came out, genre wasn't really a thing, but is rather something that has arisen after that. And now, all of a sudden, there are people that frown if you can't place your work into a genre, or if you have elements that border between the genres.

Then I wonder, have we always been such snobs when it comes to literature? As long as the work is well written and enjoyed by the reader as well as the writer, what difference does it make weather or not the work can fall into a certain category, really? Personally I find that works of literature that are more free and playful in it's expression; books that does not worry so much about what category they fall into, but rather that is formed in a way that works best for the story it's trying to convey, weather it be genre or literary, are the ones I enjoy reading the most, and are also the ones I learn the most from. Good examples of this are the stories created by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett who doesn't necessarily fall in to any genre, and writers such as Joyce Carol Oates, and Nicolas Sparks, who clearly falls into the distinction of romance and drama; yet they're all writers who are cherished and appreciated across the globe.

I do think it's a good thing genre exists, if nothing else to create that variety by having certain guidelines, but I find it equally important to be able to break from those guidelines without being frowned upon. Because in order to convey a truly great story, how important is categorisation, really?

Witches; female archetypes.

In addition to to watching Studio Ghiblis Kiki's delivery service this week (a wonderful movie I highly suggest watching if you haven't already), and Suspiria from 1977, we also read Diana Wynne Jones's Aunt Maria. 

They all had quite different takes on witches that are interesting to look at, but I'm going to focus on Aunt Maria for now.

Aunt Maria, with a couple of major exceptions, bordered rather on phycology than direct magic or teachings of herbs and nature (things I associate with witches). In fact, it took some time before anything extraordinary happened at all. That said, the book was still captivating from beginning to end, through Diana Wynne Jones's excellent description of the family's situation and how they get progressively merged in these circumstances that neither of them wish to be in. As I was reading, I got very emotionally invested in the characters, mirroring their frustration. On a couple of occasions, I even caught myself cursing out loud when Aunt Maria did something extra vile.

As the story progresses, we come to understand that the town where the story takes place, is divided in two opposing groups, the women and the men, that each wield their own type of power.  The men's power is less discrete and is kept in a small box that is entrusted to a caretaker. The women on the other hand wields their power mainly through manipulation, which is why the more obvious elements of magic appears first later in the tale.

Aunt Maria herself is almost a metaphor for a queen bee. She seems to be the center of the entire town and everyone yields to her every bidding. What's making it all so scary is that she enforces her power by appearing to be helpless, in her old and crippled state, while imposing guilt upon everyone to make them do as she wishes. In a way this suggests a kind of archetype, where womanise their cunning while men use brute force. In this case however, the stereotype is broken by the mother, who gets fed up with all tip-toeing around and wants to take instant action, and by the carrier of the mens magical box, who is tired of fighting.

While there are some clear stereotypes in the book, they all play an efficient part of the story, and most of them show personal growth as the plot moves along. The fact that it's narrated by the main protagonist almost like a diary, gives it another satisfying dimension, that adds to the actual story.

Response to Bloodchild.

In class we got to read a short story by Octavia Butler called Bloodchild, and was assigned to answer these questions.

1. Are there any prominent symbols in the story? If so, what are they and how are they used?

The story was obviously a discussion about slavery and class differentiations based on race. There where hints that humans (here referred to as Terrans) had landed on this different planet som time ago, and was now living under the mercy of the planets inhabitants; centipede-like creatures called the Tlic. What intrigued and bothered me the most was that the Tlic saw (or at least tried to give the appearance of) themselves as bringing mercy to the Terrans, taking them in and saving them from heir own race and the harsh climate they lived in. (Sounds familiar?) We understand that the characters in the story are locked up in what is referred to as the Preserve(!), where humans are preserved for breeding purposes, ensuring that the Tlic, who is a parasitic race, never run out of Terrans that are suitable for carrying their eggs.

The Tlic claim the Terrans are free and honoured members of the society, yet they're not given the choice. They are free in the sense that they are raised to believe what they're experiencing is right, so they don't even question the situation. It's all they know. The Tlic are taking advantage of their situation to manipulate the Terrans, thereby writing it off as justified. They're in the right simply because of the fact that they can get away with it. True freedom you say? 

Bloodchild is told from the perspective of one of the Terrans that are specifically meant to carry the eggs of a Tlic. Within a short span of time we get to experience his inner struggle as he is faced with the true nature of his situation, and the stages of ignorance, realisation, denial and finally acceptance.

2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the work with which you where able to connect.

I found the story to be very expertly told in the sense that not only was I able to understand the situation as oppressive and wrong, but also the protagonists doubts and turmoil through the way the story was written. Even though I was deeply disturbed and frustrated, I could somehow relate to the characters in the story enough to understand their choices. There's the influential authority, the protective yet subdued mother, the jealous sister, the free minded and rebellious brother that's only trying to look after himself, and the protagonist; attentive and reflecting yet completely under the influence of his "captivator".

In a broad sense, this situation can be applied to a lot of things in this world, not restricted crudely to slavery. Even though originally meant to be something helpful (at least so I hope) authority has a nasty habit of evolving into selfish needs and oppression of those with less influence. Even when authority should rightfully be opened for questioning (such as in the government, or in a smaller scale, a school) where every decision affects the people that are exposed to and has to follow them. Somehow the right to decide over others tends to fall into the hands of people that doesn't actually have to abide by the rules. How and why does this happen?

If the decisions are right, having someone questioning them should sensibly not be a problem. If ones decisions are justified, one should be able to have them disputed without loosing ones footing. We have the right to question things that affects our way of living, and if we're wrong, well then at least we've gotten the chance to air our opinion and understand the situation better. If we don't even get the chance to question, or if our questions are not being adhered to, then we know that authority is being misused.

As for the characters in the story, they all show clear human traits that respond well to the unfolding of events and can likewise be placed in various other situations.

3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you use?

The story was told in a way that didn't give away the entirety of the situation but rather let up to it, leaving the reader speculating and wondering most of the way through. The Tlic for example was described as crawling, with many limbs and a broad face, but the rest is entirely left to our imagination. The fact that they are parasitic is suggested maybe halfway through the story and in not so many words. Some hints where made about the situation, but most emphasis was laid on the emotional experiences of the protagonist. It made the story eery and leaving the reader slightly uncomfortable. Not because of what was shown, but rather what was left out. Adopting this story to a medium such as a play, a film or a graphic novel would therefore unavoidably change the atmosphere as it then becomes more visual. One would have to build atmosphere without making it into horror because that is not the purpose of the story.

Having the story read out by someone in audio form or adopted into a radio play would be very interesting and probably more true to the original intent. I'm quite intrigued to see what kind of music would accompany it; how it would be interpreted in notes.

As it is, I feel the story has found it's right medium. Judging by the reactions of some of my classmates, Bloodchild certainly managed to provoke both thought and emotion. It is a message in it's own right.

The new weird.

(Warning: some spoilers may appear)

The New Weird is something of an interesting topic. Ranging from somewhere between horror, science-fiction and fantasy, new weird holds it's story base in the supernatural and bizarre. Tugging at our nervous minds by twisting our existence in on itself, the stories reveal dark corners of the world that maybe should have remained hidden. They take on things that we fear and make them even scarier by removing the rime and reason behind what we thought we knew.

Two good examples of this is the book Krakken by China Miéville and the movie Freaks (1932). Freaks had a provocative take on this theme. The movie plays off of alienation, having the setting within a circus where a lot of the characters stand out from the norm because of their features or other qualities, and thereby are exposed to others ridicule, resentment or the entertainment of others. 

Throughout the movie, I felt they did a good job of showing character portraits, bringing them to an equal level and showing the humanity and compassion between all (or most) of the people living within the circus. The ones referred to as 'the freaks' had a very touching friendship community that truly made it upsetting to see how some of the other circus artists, even when exposed to it, where still unable to see them as anything more than freaks.

While keeping this tone throughout the movie, the end had an interesting twist where one of the members of the 'freak-community' had been viciously deceived by two of the other circus members and the freaks show just how capable they are of standing up for themselves, bringing out a most horrifying side. Seeing the movie, I couldn't help but hurraying them for bringing down their justice and scaring the bejesus out the atrocious couple that had deceived one of their own. While having a heart as kind and soft as feathers to anyone who treated them well, the harsh world had certainly left its mark on them, and they did not take kindly to misstreatment.

As for Krakken, I was quite captivated by this book. While expertly crafted, it creates a perfect marriage between religion, science and magic. A young scientist specialising in the conservation and research of mollusks gets involuntarily wrapped up in a religious war where he encounters talking tattoos, a man who can swallow a person whole, a police detective with a controversial skill set and a shop owner who specialises in origami which involves not only folding paper, but humans as well. 

This is a book I likely wouldn't have picked up if it weren't on the required reading list, which is one of the reasons I enjoy this class so much. Literature is a wondrous way of being exposed to the strange and beautiful minds in this world we otherwise might have missed out on. We are given ideas thrown in our face that are radically different from our own, ideas that we might disregard as outrageous, bland or upsetting. Or in those magical moments, ideas that sparks our own minds to embellish and explore. Either way, the important thing is that we are exposed to something that is not coming directly from our selves, and that challenges our way of thinking.

Being a student at an art school, I am struck by the notion that anything that evolves out the normal tangible societal system is a possible base for the new weird. That includes storytellers, artists that are hiding in the shadow of their own work, scientists working in dark labs with theories and substances that to an outsider seamed to be out of this world. What is stirring in those secluded minds? What secrets do they hold that is unreachable for the rest of us? 

When I was younger I used discuss this tendency with my friends; how people used to see us as weird and how hard it could be to communicate on the same level. Not that any one of them was better or worse, we just had a different way of thinking from one another and of perceiving the world around us. The difficulty came in communicating across borders. Here, where the outside world tends to fade into something of an awareness yet not present, and where a lot of people have backgrounds of being excluded or alienated in their previous communities, they are united by the very same factors. We're all so different, but we see the world from somewhat of the same angles; from behind the curtains, examining the workings of the world backstage rather than from the front row seats. We try to observe the preparations, the dressing rooms as one person changes into another completely, the little secret signs and the small needles that keeps a dress together where it was too large. And when we leave the backstage to take part in the audience we can no longer see the show without analysing it. We get a second dimension because we've observed the tricks to create the elusion. That's what new weird is to me; peeking behind the curtains of something we take for granted to see the possible dimensions that lie beneath. New weird doesn't grasp from thin air to create simple fiction of our imagination, it elaborates on what already there, thereby making it believable in the most eerie sense.

As trends are moving forward and our society is drastically changed by new gadgets, cultural influences across borders and experimental thinking, things that before seemed strange and frightening are stepping out into the light and becoming norm, whereas new unknown factors arise to present more fascination. Doomsday predictions spread across genres, and although a lot of what's new in our melding pot of a world will unavoidably seep into the new weird, I believe the heart and soul of the genre will remain the same, leaving a lot of the 'new world' fascination and dystopia to the cyberpunk and sci-fi genres.

Young Kraken in Training, by Barak Ashraf

Gotcha!

J-horror, a different mindset.

Triptych of Takiyasha the With and the Skeleton Spectre, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797 - 1861)

This week we focused on Japanese horror as opposed to Western horror. We were assigned to read a collection of short stories based on Japanese folklore, called Kwaidan, and in class we watched a movie where sections of the book had been translated onto the screen.

I highly enjoyed reading these stories, and was both surprised and delighted to find that they diverged so much from most of the horror I've previously been exposed to. When thinking about J-horror, my mind inadvertently goes to movies such as The grudge, or The ring, where the horror element is high and there is jump scares and if not gore, then human distortion. Reading the Kwaidan however was a completely different experience.

Though there is a distinct difference between western and Asian horror, I still find they carry certain similarities that sometimes makes it difficult to discern between the two. They both use ghosts and ghouls as tools to convey a message, though I find stories as the ones in the Kwaidan to refer more to folklore and principals of tradition and culture than western horror does.

What appeals to me the most about the Kwaidan, as apposed to western horror, is the tone in which the stories are presented. At first I didn't find the stories scary at all, but rather mellow, even sad. As I kept reading, more disturbing elements crept into the stories. There where ducks turning themselves inside out to display their sorrow of loosing a loved one; there were maidens without faces, creatures with the ability to remove their heads from their bodies without dying, and monks cursed to devour the corpses of the dead.

In our class we discussed how Asian vs Western horror handle the factor of good versus evil. Though we can defiantly argue that it is more prominent in western horror, it is not completely absent in J-horror. In Kwaidan there are creatures that seek to deceive and harm humans, merely because it is part of their nature. I think that might hit the core difference. While in western horror, the things that are scary has been dislodged from their natural state to become something twisted and ill natured, in J-horror the frightening elements are a natural part, and sometimes even a direct embodiment of the spiritual or physical world. Instead of fighting against them with elements of opposing powers or believes, the characters in the story need to play by the rules of the spirits in order to overcome or avoid them with the spirit's own means.

With the stories of the Kwaidan, everything from the cultural setting to the oral tone suggests something more connectable to the world than many of the Western horror stories I've taken part of. Western horror seems to retaliate more to the individual person as acting through or against beastial behaviour and sin, while J-horror goes deeper and further, raging beyond our own believes and brief comprehensions. It gives J-horror an air of something constantly present and rudimentary intriguing in it's suggestion that everything is connected rather than separate. That the things that scare us the most are not simply hiding in the shadows. They are repercussions of the actions of us humans rather than something demonic. It is part of the mountains and stones, rivers and wildlife. It is life just as much as it is death. It is everywhere and all the time. Our fears are generated by something very real integrated in the essence of our world.

Intimacy as symbolised by vampires.

For week 2 of our Literature of Horror, Fantasy & Sci-fi class we got the opportunity to read Interview with a vampire as well as watch the intriguing, but quiet movie Only lovers left alive.

My view on vampires as a base for storytelling has always been rather neutral. Their nature is intriguing, but seemingly stale in their timelessness. No matter the take on vampires, their nature stays the same and when faced with one, in any given context, their easily recognized. With their constantly pale skinn, the unmistakable fangs and relentless mixture of imposing entrancement and dread, they just haven't offered enough character development to gain and keep my interest. Although admittedly, this may well be the very thing that gives their character their certain strong hold in our collective mind. As the rest of the world move on, they stay in the shadows, eternal and timeless all at once.

Looking into mythology however, and discussing the subject with other people, I've come to realize just how many different versions of Vampires actually exists. Although their not necessarily referred to as vampires. And though they take on many different forms and shapes, what connects these creatures is that they all feed on the life force of people in some way. What's even more interesting is that a lot of the cultures where you can find them, have no apparent relation to each other.

A couple of these examples can be found here, just to give you an idea:
wikipedia.org List of vampires in folklore and mythology
vampirefacts.net

In class we specifically discussed relationships and sexuality as presented through the idea of vampirism. Though other aspects are associated with these creatures as well, it's not surprising that vampires in particular has come to represent intimacy. Not only are vampires driven by their basic instincts, which as we come to understand are highly amplified, but their contact with their pray can be seen as nearly seductive. They lure their pray with their charmsand they generally feed either from the wrist or the throat, which both are considered sensual parts of the body. In Interview with a vampire when Lestat turns Louise, the author specifically describes the sensuous feeling of Lester's lips as they curl around Louise's throat.

A lot of emphasis is also put on Louise's emotional transformation. A lot of the book is spent describing Louise fighting against his own nature as a vampire whereas Lestat is doing his best to have him submit to it. Louise is appalled by the killing, yet entranced by his own senses as he in a sense is re-descovering life, and what it means to be truly living. He gains a new intimacy with life itself.

Only lovers left alive has a similar and very interesting take on what it means to be a vampire. Set solely in a baren night-scape, the main Characters Adam and Eve, live secluded and quiet lives. Though lovers, they live separately, in different parts of the world. Adam spends most of his nights creating music and attaining most of what he needs from the outside world through his closest acquaintance, Ian. Eve wanders the nights in Bombay, reads books, and listens to the music recorded by Adam.

One of the most interesting aspects in this movie was the relationships; that between Eve and Adam, the relationship between them and Eve's sister Ava, between them and other vampires, but mostly between vampires and humans. Throughout the movie Adam and Eve kept referring casually to humans as Zombies, and not one single time during the film was they word vampire used. I find this very interesting, especially considering I didn't find either Adam nor Eve particularly joyous of life. Eve had a sort of quiet appreciation for life and the simple act of living, while Adam was verging towards suicidal.

Over all this weeks discussion has raised my appreciation for vampires as a platform for describing our own human nature, and for raising our appreciation for the life that is happening to us every day. I would also recommend both reading Interview with a vampire and watch Only lovers left alive if you haven't yet done so.

Example of the gothic in contemporary culture; Alexander McQueen

Photos are taken from McQeen's website.
Credit: Chris Moore.

A prominent theme in gothic literature is the notion of using the dark and supernatural as a tool for examining as well as exposing something deeply human. When we humans are placed in a state of fear, or a situation that is unknown to us, where we lack any kind of previous experience, we are forced to fall back on our most primal instinct; that of survival. Sides of our personality that may otherwise be hidden re-surface to reveal our true nature. The gothic makes a point out of exploiting this to the full, in it’s different variations.

Many of it’s themes being rooted in what can readily be seen as forbidden or tabu, gothic has a tendency of being romanticised for it’s unattainability. Gothic can either be flamboyant and wild or exposing and raw. It reflects our desires and deepest wishes, alluring us in it’s intimacy. 

A good example of where we can find gothic in its contemporary form is the extravagant creations of Alexander McQueen. Turning to materials like lace, feathers, embroidery, prints and other miscellaneous objects McQueen had a unique sense of how to most effectively embellish an idea.  Although covering up most of the body with fabric, sometimes even including the face, his cutting bold lines and deep colours are sensual, even erotic, although a few collections displays a more delicate side where McQueen seems to be toying with the concept of innocence through materials and design.

McQueen drew a lot of his inspiration from history as well as the cinema. One of his collections, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (2002), was conceived as a tribute to the famous film maker within the horror genre, Tim Burton, while others have been influenced by historical characters and scenes from the Victorian age. Through his fashion lines, McQueen creates a marriage between opposites, forging them into a dark romance of the senses, thereby presenting a perfect example of going back to what is indeed deeply human; “I’m about what goes through people’s minds, the stuff that people don’t want to admit or face up to. The shows are about what’s buried in peoples Psyches.”

All and all, Alexander McQueen and his creations strikes me as a remarkable embodiment of the gothic in a contemporary world.

Photo credit: Chris Moore.                    Photo credit: Anne Deniau

More about McQueen and the gothic: AMQ Savage Beauty