Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is on track to be my favorite book we have read this year by far. Though I hesitate to call it "science fiction," the book fits well into the category of speculative fiction and has more in common with "social science fiction" than fantasy. Social science fiction tends to disregard technical and physical practicality of the situations involved and place emphasis on the reaction of modern society to impressive (or simply ubiquitous) new technologies. Examples you may have heard of include Feed, Minority Report, We'll Remember it for you Wholesale (the basis for the movie Total Recall), and Gattaca. Many dystopias could also be classified as social science fiction.
As a work of social science fiction, The Metamorphosis certainly makes no attempt to explain how its situation came to be (Gregor must have... uh... metamophosed during the night) and jumps right into exploring how people would treat a monstrous vermin even if they suspected it was one of their family members. However, it goes about it in a style that reminds me of an author of a less serious form of speculative fiction.
Helpless protagonist, ridiculous situations, deadpan narration. Remind you of anything? Anything involving petunias, towels, mice, horrendous poetry, and pan-galactic gargleblasters?
The fact that Kafka's writing reminds me of Douglas Adams only makes me like it even more. Granted, Kafka is slightly more serious in how he goes about the story, but a number of thematic elements are common between the two authors' writing.
Like Gregor Samsa, Arthur Dent is a guy with an unimpressive job (works at local radio station) who wakes up one day facing a horrible calamity (destruction of the earth) but focuses on a more local issue (his house being bulldozed to make way for a bypass). Dent realizes a bit more than Samsa that the things around him make little sense, but his goals are still largely unreasonable considering his situation (trying to continue a normal human lifestyle when human life is nearly extinct).
Dent's humanity isn't necessarily degraded in HHGTTG, but he is certainly a fish out of water (insect out of proportion?) in the weird galactic setting dominated by dolphins and mice. Instead of not being human making him somehow lesser than those around him, it's the fact that he is a human, a species that merits no more description than "mostly harmless."
The other modern work of speculative fiction The Metamorphosis brings to mind is the movie District 9 directed by Neill Blomkamp, at least in the sense that it includes the premise of "guy gets turned into a giant insect/insectoid alien and is promptly ostracized by society." My guess, though, is that at no point in the book will Gregor Samsa don a mech suit and battle the minions of a xenophobic security firm.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Them Hipsters, part deux...
...in which I take back some of what I said about the characters in The Sun Also Rises. Not all of it, not most of it, but some of it.
Pedro and Cohn:
After reading the last few chapters of TSAR, I find a few of the characters less repulsive than before. As mentioned in the previous post, Cohn gained back some decency by avoiding Brett and (possibly) reuniting with Frances. His immaturity and naivete were passed on to Pedro Romero, who was pretty sure that Brett was the love of his life and would make a great spouse if she would just become an "honest woman" and grow her hair out. Maybe Pedro took some of Cohn's irrationality.
Brett:
She solves her Pedro problem. She shows signs of considering how her lifestyle affects others (aka deciding "not to be a bitch"). She actually seems kind of caring when she tells Jake not to get drunk. Trouble is, her conversion is too sudden. An about-face at the end of the book can't make me like a character I've spent two hundred pages disliking.
Jake:
The last line of the book makes me hate Jake a lot less than I did when I wrote the previous post. It's entirely possible that this is just my dark interpretation of the wording, but by saying "isn't it pretty to think so?", Jake indicates that he at least realizes he can't be with Brett. This is a big flip from earlier in the book when it seemed like Jake wanted to get back together with Brett and she was the one resisting the idea (granted, she didn't want Jake to come with her to San Sebastian because she intended to be with Cohn)...
...which means that Jake has actually changed over the course of the story.
YES!!!
I like characters who change, even if the change is a transition from insanity (when defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results) to resignation. Jake's transformation is somewhat less abrupt than Brett's, since he starts to realize he has screwed up when Montoya stops smiling at him (there's Montoya again... my favorite character in the book). Still, he was kinda boring for much of the book, so his extant character arc is merely improves my opinion to something warmer than apathy.
And I still don't understand where everyone's money comes from.
Pedro and Cohn:
After reading the last few chapters of TSAR, I find a few of the characters less repulsive than before. As mentioned in the previous post, Cohn gained back some decency by avoiding Brett and (possibly) reuniting with Frances. His immaturity and naivete were passed on to Pedro Romero, who was pretty sure that Brett was the love of his life and would make a great spouse if she would just become an "honest woman" and grow her hair out. Maybe Pedro took some of Cohn's irrationality.
Brett:
She solves her Pedro problem. She shows signs of considering how her lifestyle affects others (aka deciding "not to be a bitch"). She actually seems kind of caring when she tells Jake not to get drunk. Trouble is, her conversion is too sudden. An about-face at the end of the book can't make me like a character I've spent two hundred pages disliking.
Jake:
The last line of the book makes me hate Jake a lot less than I did when I wrote the previous post. It's entirely possible that this is just my dark interpretation of the wording, but by saying "isn't it pretty to think so?", Jake indicates that he at least realizes he can't be with Brett. This is a big flip from earlier in the book when it seemed like Jake wanted to get back together with Brett and she was the one resisting the idea (granted, she didn't want Jake to come with her to San Sebastian because she intended to be with Cohn)...
...which means that Jake has actually changed over the course of the story.
YES!!!
I like characters who change, even if the change is a transition from insanity (when defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results) to resignation. Jake's transformation is somewhat less abrupt than Brett's, since he starts to realize he has screwed up when Montoya stops smiling at him (there's Montoya again... my favorite character in the book). Still, he was kinda boring for much of the book, so his extant character arc is merely improves my opinion to something warmer than apathy.
And I still don't understand where everyone's money comes from.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Them Hipsters...
...them bullfight-watching, pernod-drinking, expat hipsters.
Think about it. They're writers. They care so much about irony. Brett was androgynous before it was cool. Jake and the rest of his com(ex)patriates are hipsters. Except for Cohn. He's the opposite of a hipster. He's chivalrous and romantic after it was cool.
Actually, the main point of this post is not that the characters in The Sun Also Rises are hipsters. It's about likability. A week or so ago I read a column in the New York Times Book Review (available online here) about whether characters in a novel have to be likable in order to keep readers interested. This got me thinking about the characters in the novels we read in class and the characters I write in my own fiction.
Begin rant.
My standards for "likability" revolve more on understanding how a character thinks than whether or not they are a nice person. I don't mind characters who are selfish, violent, or crude if I think they aren't deranged. I liked reading about Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart even if he beats his wife, cuts people's heads off, and kills his adoptive son, because I could see how much his thought process was motivated by a paranoia towards "weakness". Victor Frankenstein might ignore the possible consequences of his work and cause the death of a sizable number of his friends and family, but it's because he feels the only point of his life is to make some scientific breakthrough (and later on, to exact revenge). I like characters who are rationally irrational.
I tend to like to read about the characters I write... otherwise I wouldn't write about them. I've created my fair share of understandable jerks. Murderous paranoid philosopher? That was fun to write. Guy who makes a living off of misleading people (and isn't a politician)? I churned out 50,000 words with him as the protagonist. One of my favorite characters in a long-running, constantly changing project I intend to finish eventually (oh, sometime in the next twenty years...) is a military commander so disillusioned with the world that he equates diplomacy with murder. I don't have to agree with his might-makes-right views to enjoy writing about him and respect/pity him for the way he sees the world.
When characters continually act irrationally irrational, though, I start to lose interest in their problems. I start wondering why they don't change their behavior. They get whiny. This was my issue with The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, a book I will refrain from criticizing any further because that would take up several paragraphs of ranting. Let's just say that Sherman Alexie is grouped with Nathaniel Hawthorne and, to an extent, Virginia Woolf in the category of authors whose shorter works I enjoy and longer works I do not.
Protagonists seem irrationally irrational when their motivations are things I just don't consider serious enough. If the character is actually deluded, in the case of Okonkwo and Frankenstein, something minor like masculinity or scientific glory can work as a motivating force. If the character is presented as a semi-reasonable person, though, weak motivation makes them seem shallow.
So what's a weak motivation? Love.
Characters motivated primarily by romantic or sexual impulses typically seem shallow to me. Never Let Me Go was a major letdown because it ignored the topic of cloning ethics and went after human relationships instead. Katniss was getting a bit whiny by the time Mockingjay rolled around... yeah, whatever with the whole revolution thing and ending widespread government oppression, just get me my boyfriend alive and non-brainwashed. For those of you about to jump on me for dissing The Hunger Games, I will say that Suzanne Collins managed to pull the end of the series together in a way that was satisfyingly dark to keep me interested.
On a similar note, I think it is possible for an author to pull off an enjoyable book without having any particularly deep or "likeable" characters. I think Jurassic Park is a good example. If the plot itself is engaging enough, the author can be a bit more lax with developing your interest in the characters.
(I'll have to write a post sometime about exactly why I like Jurassic Park so much...)
The problem with The Sun Also Rises, then, is that I don't like most of the characters and I'm not terribly engaged by the plot. Mike is an annoying drunkard. Cohn acts like a middleschooler. Brett messes with other people's lives and then complains about how hard it is on her. Jake just sits there and occasionally tries to get reacquainted with the woman who already turned him down. Pedro Romero is okay, but he's minor enough that my appreciation of him being not a jerk is less powerful than my hope that he gets gored in the bull-fighting ring so that something exciting can happen with the plot. Bill Gorton provides comic relief, but like the rest of them he leads a pointless life and somehow buys copious amounts of alcohol despite being bankrupt.
What makes these characters tick? Why do they lead this ridiculous lifestyle? Are they really so disillusioned after World War I that they can't do something useful with their lives? Cohn, Brett, and Jake fall into the unfortunate category of motivated by love. Pedro would be more interesting if he was some sort of vehement bullfighting purist (wait... that's Montoya... hey, a character I like!). He's also motivate by love, to an extent. Love of bullfighting, love of Brett. Mike is motivated by drinking. Bill is motivated by... irony?
What annoys me most is that the characters don't show any signs of changing the way they live. Okay, Jake, so your life is a mixture of great (bullfights, and Brett) and sucky (that injury, and Brett). Seems like the root of your problems is Brett and her corresponding drama. It's been established that you can't be with Brett. So... can't you flee? Leave Brett far behind? Go do something more exciting than cruising the bars in Paris or watching a dude with a cape kill domesticated animals? Join a monastery or something. Cohn left. He finally realized the solution to the unsolvable problem was to get away from the problem. That made me respect Cohn to an extent, but he still acted immature before that. Brett could leave, too. Avoid Jake and Pedro and Cohn and possibly Mike. But no, they just keep on drinking and going to cafes (and drinking) and staying in hotels (and drinking) and going to festivals (and drinking) and getting into arguments and fights (caused in part by drinking).
Yes, Jake has his sympathetic moments. But the combination of pointless lifestyle and hopeless behavior prevent me from feeling like his story matters to me.
End rant.
Think about it. They're writers. They care so much about irony. Brett was androgynous before it was cool. Jake and the rest of his com(ex)patriates are hipsters. Except for Cohn. He's the opposite of a hipster. He's chivalrous and romantic after it was cool.
Actually, the main point of this post is not that the characters in The Sun Also Rises are hipsters. It's about likability. A week or so ago I read a column in the New York Times Book Review (available online here) about whether characters in a novel have to be likable in order to keep readers interested. This got me thinking about the characters in the novels we read in class and the characters I write in my own fiction.
Begin rant.
My standards for "likability" revolve more on understanding how a character thinks than whether or not they are a nice person. I don't mind characters who are selfish, violent, or crude if I think they aren't deranged. I liked reading about Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart even if he beats his wife, cuts people's heads off, and kills his adoptive son, because I could see how much his thought process was motivated by a paranoia towards "weakness". Victor Frankenstein might ignore the possible consequences of his work and cause the death of a sizable number of his friends and family, but it's because he feels the only point of his life is to make some scientific breakthrough (and later on, to exact revenge). I like characters who are rationally irrational.
I tend to like to read about the characters I write... otherwise I wouldn't write about them. I've created my fair share of understandable jerks. Murderous paranoid philosopher? That was fun to write. Guy who makes a living off of misleading people (and isn't a politician)? I churned out 50,000 words with him as the protagonist. One of my favorite characters in a long-running, constantly changing project I intend to finish eventually (oh, sometime in the next twenty years...) is a military commander so disillusioned with the world that he equates diplomacy with murder. I don't have to agree with his might-makes-right views to enjoy writing about him and respect/pity him for the way he sees the world.
When characters continually act irrationally irrational, though, I start to lose interest in their problems. I start wondering why they don't change their behavior. They get whiny. This was my issue with The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, a book I will refrain from criticizing any further because that would take up several paragraphs of ranting. Let's just say that Sherman Alexie is grouped with Nathaniel Hawthorne and, to an extent, Virginia Woolf in the category of authors whose shorter works I enjoy and longer works I do not.
Protagonists seem irrationally irrational when their motivations are things I just don't consider serious enough. If the character is actually deluded, in the case of Okonkwo and Frankenstein, something minor like masculinity or scientific glory can work as a motivating force. If the character is presented as a semi-reasonable person, though, weak motivation makes them seem shallow.
So what's a weak motivation? Love.
Characters motivated primarily by romantic or sexual impulses typically seem shallow to me. Never Let Me Go was a major letdown because it ignored the topic of cloning ethics and went after human relationships instead. Katniss was getting a bit whiny by the time Mockingjay rolled around... yeah, whatever with the whole revolution thing and ending widespread government oppression, just get me my boyfriend alive and non-brainwashed. For those of you about to jump on me for dissing The Hunger Games, I will say that Suzanne Collins managed to pull the end of the series together in a way that was satisfyingly dark to keep me interested.
On a similar note, I think it is possible for an author to pull off an enjoyable book without having any particularly deep or "likeable" characters. I think Jurassic Park is a good example. If the plot itself is engaging enough, the author can be a bit more lax with developing your interest in the characters.
(I'll have to write a post sometime about exactly why I like Jurassic Park so much...)
The problem with The Sun Also Rises, then, is that I don't like most of the characters and I'm not terribly engaged by the plot. Mike is an annoying drunkard. Cohn acts like a middleschooler. Brett messes with other people's lives and then complains about how hard it is on her. Jake just sits there and occasionally tries to get reacquainted with the woman who already turned him down. Pedro Romero is okay, but he's minor enough that my appreciation of him being not a jerk is less powerful than my hope that he gets gored in the bull-fighting ring so that something exciting can happen with the plot. Bill Gorton provides comic relief, but like the rest of them he leads a pointless life and somehow buys copious amounts of alcohol despite being bankrupt.
What makes these characters tick? Why do they lead this ridiculous lifestyle? Are they really so disillusioned after World War I that they can't do something useful with their lives? Cohn, Brett, and Jake fall into the unfortunate category of motivated by love. Pedro would be more interesting if he was some sort of vehement bullfighting purist (wait... that's Montoya... hey, a character I like!). He's also motivate by love, to an extent. Love of bullfighting, love of Brett. Mike is motivated by drinking. Bill is motivated by... irony?
What annoys me most is that the characters don't show any signs of changing the way they live. Okay, Jake, so your life is a mixture of great (bullfights, and Brett) and sucky (that injury, and Brett). Seems like the root of your problems is Brett and her corresponding drama. It's been established that you can't be with Brett. So... can't you flee? Leave Brett far behind? Go do something more exciting than cruising the bars in Paris or watching a dude with a cape kill domesticated animals? Join a monastery or something. Cohn left. He finally realized the solution to the unsolvable problem was to get away from the problem. That made me respect Cohn to an extent, but he still acted immature before that. Brett could leave, too. Avoid Jake and Pedro and Cohn and possibly Mike. But no, they just keep on drinking and going to cafes (and drinking) and staying in hotels (and drinking) and going to festivals (and drinking) and getting into arguments and fights (caused in part by drinking).
Yes, Jake has his sympathetic moments. But the combination of pointless lifestyle and hopeless behavior prevent me from feeling like his story matters to me.
End rant.
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