<rant>
In Yellowstone
Once upon a time there were three bears. Baby Bear came back home before breakfast with a smirk on his face. It was like him to do that, smirk before breakfast. Mommy Bear made porridge.
"Where you been all morning?"
"Getting beat up. They said I talk like a polar bear."
They sat watching the TV because the porridge was too hot. A steaming bowl of mushy grain product. China dishes. The red tablecloth on top of the cheap wooden table bought for twenty-five dollars at a garage sale held by Mommy Bear's sister. There was no Daddy Bear anymore. His philandering with many mistresses had been sneaky at first, and once found out he had arranged a messy divorce. They only had two chairs.
"We should go for a walk."
A walk. They will pass the time it takes for the porridge to cool down by taking an ordinary walk. While they are out a girl named Goldilocks comes along and enters their house.
My daughter Goldilocks, she loves to read.
Her mother always.
Goldilocks tried both bowls of porridge, the second one being just right. How fun it will be to narrate the eating of the porridge to Robert Sproul, who had turned and gone home too early. Goldilocks tested the house's furniture. One excessively large chair. One just right. One bed with too much give in the mattress. One perfect. Stucco walls glistening like... uh... stucco doesn't glisten. Ceilings like parchment. Dirt floor littered with Baby Bear's toys. Sentence fragments.
The bears return in the present tense.
We found Goldilocks in my bed and ate her.
The bears were upset that their house had been invaded. Mommy Bear decided it would be best to move out. A boy in a non-human-infested part of the world isn't chased down by truancy officers. I am a god-fearing American Grizzly Bear just as patriotic as any other, so why must my boy be taken away from me just because he likes to go to the zoo?
It was the CIA. The CIA is responsible for Goldilocks.
The bears defected to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union wants maps, contents of garbage cans, locations of campsites. It was a worker's paradise, better in every way than America but not perfect.
The bears return in the present tense.
Mommy Bear made porridge.
They sat watching the TV because the porridge was too hot. A steaming
bowl of mushy grain product. China dishes. The red tablecloth on top of
the cheap wooden table bought for twenty-five dollars at a garage sale
held by Mommy Bear's sister. There was no Daddy Bear anymore. His
philandering with many mistresses had been sneaky at first, and once
found out he had arranged a messy divorce. They only had two chairs.
</rant>
...if you haven't figured it out yet, I'm not the biggest fan of DeLillo's writing style.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Thursday, April 17, 2014
The obligatory bird referene post for Libra
Lee Harvey Oswald asks how many people know a killdeer is a bird.
Now you do.
I apparently take killdeer for granted, and thus this is the best photo I have of any. The bird on the far left and the bird on the far right are both killdeer. In the middle are one spotted sandpiper and one solitary sandpiper.
If you want to see some live killdeer, head down to the Fourth Street extension just north of Windsor Rd (or anywhere else south of St. Mary's Rd). There was a nest last week near Atkins Tennis Center, though last I checked I couldn't find any evidence of it having been there. Considering the pestering and distraction displays I got from the adult killdeer in the area, though, there are probably chicks hiding somewhere.
ANYWAY,
This is the part where I get all conspiracy theory-y and say that DeLilo purposely picked the killdeer as his random bird encyclopedia reference.
To start off with, it has the word "kill" in it, so we wonder about what other alphabetically adjacent encyclopedia entries Oswald was interested in.
Secondly, killdeer fit in very well as imagery for Win Everett's failed assassination plot (note that this might be an example of me reading waaaaaaaay too much specific biological importance into a nature reference, similar to my reaction every time I see mention of orchids). The killdeer's most notable behavior is that they will lead predators away from their nests and young by pretending to have a broken wing. It's actually a really fun display to watch, and pretty convincing. One of the parent birds will make a lot of noise and partially extend one wing while sitting on the ground, occasionally twitching it to make a point of its fictional injury. Movement of the wing and the bird's bright reddish-brown tail also help divert attention. When approached, the displaying bird will run along the ground, keeping just enough distance between itself and the predator to be safe but still a potential food item. This continues until the predator is deemed to be far enough away from the nest, at which point the bird ends the charade, spreads both wings, and flies away, eventually looping back around to its nest.
Specifics aside, killdeer are the classic example of diversion tactics in nature; there are other organisms that do this, but kildeer are the ones that end up in textbooks.
Everett's plot, then is like a killdeer's display: he is going to enact a life-threatening situation (broken wing/assassination attempt) that is ultimately fake, but convincing enough to lead nosy people to where Everett wants them (away from the nest/in support of an invasion of Cuba) while leaving the important target (mommy bird/JFK) unscathed.
After all, there are plenty of other weirdly-named birds that could have been used, one of which would be an even more blatant symbol:
(unfortunately, I have no photos of this bird)
Snipe.
 |
| Photo by me. |
I apparently take killdeer for granted, and thus this is the best photo I have of any. The bird on the far left and the bird on the far right are both killdeer. In the middle are one spotted sandpiper and one solitary sandpiper.
If you want to see some live killdeer, head down to the Fourth Street extension just north of Windsor Rd (or anywhere else south of St. Mary's Rd). There was a nest last week near Atkins Tennis Center, though last I checked I couldn't find any evidence of it having been there. Considering the pestering and distraction displays I got from the adult killdeer in the area, though, there are probably chicks hiding somewhere.
ANYWAY,
This is the part where I get all conspiracy theory-y and say that DeLilo purposely picked the killdeer as his random bird encyclopedia reference.
To start off with, it has the word "kill" in it, so we wonder about what other alphabetically adjacent encyclopedia entries Oswald was interested in.
Secondly, killdeer fit in very well as imagery for Win Everett's failed assassination plot (note that this might be an example of me reading waaaaaaaay too much specific biological importance into a nature reference, similar to my reaction every time I see mention of orchids). The killdeer's most notable behavior is that they will lead predators away from their nests and young by pretending to have a broken wing. It's actually a really fun display to watch, and pretty convincing. One of the parent birds will make a lot of noise and partially extend one wing while sitting on the ground, occasionally twitching it to make a point of its fictional injury. Movement of the wing and the bird's bright reddish-brown tail also help divert attention. When approached, the displaying bird will run along the ground, keeping just enough distance between itself and the predator to be safe but still a potential food item. This continues until the predator is deemed to be far enough away from the nest, at which point the bird ends the charade, spreads both wings, and flies away, eventually looping back around to its nest.
Specifics aside, killdeer are the classic example of diversion tactics in nature; there are other organisms that do this, but kildeer are the ones that end up in textbooks.
Everett's plot, then is like a killdeer's display: he is going to enact a life-threatening situation (broken wing/assassination attempt) that is ultimately fake, but convincing enough to lead nosy people to where Everett wants them (away from the nest/in support of an invasion of Cuba) while leaving the important target (mommy bird/JFK) unscathed.
After all, there are plenty of other weirdly-named birds that could have been used, one of which would be an even more blatant symbol:
(unfortunately, I have no photos of this bird)
Snipe.
The half-baked mechanics of time travel
As a science-fiction author, Butler isn’t content to simply say “it just is that way”, even in a novel she describes as fantasy. Though at first she seems to disregard the more nitpicky aspects of time travel, there are some instances in the novel where the
We can add plenty of more metaphorical interpretations to Dana losing her arm in the wall, but the way I interpreted it at first was a simple answer to an obvious question: it's established fairly early on that Dana moves slightly in space between the time she leaves and returns to the present, so what happens if she happens to move into an area where there's an obstacle?
The original Star Trek series had to answer the question of "why do Kirk and Spock never beam into a wall when using the transporter?" This was explained by the one-way accuracy of transporter pads. It was safe to beam crewmembers into a large open area on a planet's surface, but in order to move them from ship to ship there had to be a corresponding receiving apparatus on the other end to make sure they didn't end up like Dana. Transporter technology presumably got better as time went on, since this rule was disregarded in later Star Trek series.
Anyway, Butler gives a pretty clear answer to the question: yes, Dana's movements in space are random, and thus it is possible for her to wind up halfway inside of a wall. Certain versions of the X-Men storyline (superhero comic writers like to create alternate realities and retcon things out the wazoo) involve Nightcrawler dying from this sort of accident.
Butler does a fairly good job of sweeping other potential time-travel issues under the rug. Dana makes a point of not testing the paradox. However, there's one instance that I'm really kind of annoyed by.
Why is Rufus still in the past?
When Dana timeported while Kevin was holding on to her, Kevin got dragged into the past. Similarly, Kevin gets pulled back to the present when he tackles Dana during the confrontation with Rufus. So if a person in direct contact with Dana undergoes the same temporal displacement, why does the dead body of Rufus, which is clinging tightly to her arm, turn into a wall instead of following her to the present?
Does it not work on dead people?
Even so, is Rufus entirely dead at that point?
The NaNoWriMo forums, which are a great place to look for answers to the weirdest questions you've ever wondered about, suggest that people are still alive for a while after losing consciousness from stab wounds.
The problem isn't so much that there's a loophole in the time travel--if I wanted to be really picky, I'd go after stuff like "why isn't the dirt under her feet timeported as well?" The problem is that this is a pretty blatant inconsistency, to the point of being distracting and causing tangents that lead to discussion of the finer details.
Oh, well. I guess I'll use a catch-all explanation:
Metaphorical license.
We can add plenty of more metaphorical interpretations to Dana losing her arm in the wall, but the way I interpreted it at first was a simple answer to an obvious question: it's established fairly early on that Dana moves slightly in space between the time she leaves and returns to the present, so what happens if she happens to move into an area where there's an obstacle?
The original Star Trek series had to answer the question of "why do Kirk and Spock never beam into a wall when using the transporter?" This was explained by the one-way accuracy of transporter pads. It was safe to beam crewmembers into a large open area on a planet's surface, but in order to move them from ship to ship there had to be a corresponding receiving apparatus on the other end to make sure they didn't end up like Dana. Transporter technology presumably got better as time went on, since this rule was disregarded in later Star Trek series.
Anyway, Butler gives a pretty clear answer to the question: yes, Dana's movements in space are random, and thus it is possible for her to wind up halfway inside of a wall. Certain versions of the X-Men storyline (superhero comic writers like to create alternate realities and retcon things out the wazoo) involve Nightcrawler dying from this sort of accident.
Butler does a fairly good job of sweeping other potential time-travel issues under the rug. Dana makes a point of not testing the paradox. However, there's one instance that I'm really kind of annoyed by.
Why is Rufus still in the past?
When Dana timeported while Kevin was holding on to her, Kevin got dragged into the past. Similarly, Kevin gets pulled back to the present when he tackles Dana during the confrontation with Rufus. So if a person in direct contact with Dana undergoes the same temporal displacement, why does the dead body of Rufus, which is clinging tightly to her arm, turn into a wall instead of following her to the present?
Does it not work on dead people?
Even so, is Rufus entirely dead at that point?
The NaNoWriMo forums, which are a great place to look for answers to the weirdest questions you've ever wondered about, suggest that people are still alive for a while after losing consciousness from stab wounds.
The problem isn't so much that there's a loophole in the time travel--if I wanted to be really picky, I'd go after stuff like "why isn't the dirt under her feet timeported as well?" The problem is that this is a pretty blatant inconsistency, to the point of being distracting and causing tangents that lead to discussion of the finer details.
Oh, well. I guess I'll use a catch-all explanation:
Metaphorical license.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
What? There's no Santa Claus?
...or rather, no Howard W. Campbell?
Coming off of Ragtime and Mumbo Jumbo, I'd gotten into the habit of assuming that characters who are fleetingly referred to are either entirely real (you just can't make this stuff up!) or based on someone real. So imagine my disappointment when I discover that there was not a prominent American expatriate from Schenectady working in the Nazi propaganda department.
Oh, well. I guess the important thing is that Howard W. Campbell was entirely believable in the sense that I was not shocked by his existence. After all, there were (and still are) plenty of Nazi sympathizers and Nazi party members in the United States, so the concept of one working for Goebbels is not out of the question.
Campbell was originally created for one of Vonnegut's earlier works, Mother Night (1961, eight years before SH5), but he fits in well with one of the messages of the later work: anybody can do terrible things.
...okay, that sounded a bit like a motivational poster.
In order to shy away from a traditional view of the war, Vonnegut muddles the lines of who exactly is fighting whom and avoids identifying one particular side as "Committer of Atrocities". The American soliders are miserable; the Germans are equally miserable, and save Billy from his own squad. The bombing of Dresden is senseless and horrible, but those candles are always burning in the background. Billy is an American taking shelter with Germans from an American and British bombing raid; Campbell is an American working for the Germans, just another part of the blurred boundaries.
But still, it's a bit of a letdown that Vonnegut had to invent the character instead of ripping him straight from history.
Coming off of Ragtime and Mumbo Jumbo, I'd gotten into the habit of assuming that characters who are fleetingly referred to are either entirely real (you just can't make this stuff up!) or based on someone real. So imagine my disappointment when I discover that there was not a prominent American expatriate from Schenectady working in the Nazi propaganda department.
Oh, well. I guess the important thing is that Howard W. Campbell was entirely believable in the sense that I was not shocked by his existence. After all, there were (and still are) plenty of Nazi sympathizers and Nazi party members in the United States, so the concept of one working for Goebbels is not out of the question.
Campbell was originally created for one of Vonnegut's earlier works, Mother Night (1961, eight years before SH5), but he fits in well with one of the messages of the later work: anybody can do terrible things.
...okay, that sounded a bit like a motivational poster.
In order to shy away from a traditional view of the war, Vonnegut muddles the lines of who exactly is fighting whom and avoids identifying one particular side as "Committer of Atrocities". The American soliders are miserable; the Germans are equally miserable, and save Billy from his own squad. The bombing of Dresden is senseless and horrible, but those candles are always burning in the background. Billy is an American taking shelter with Germans from an American and British bombing raid; Campbell is an American working for the Germans, just another part of the blurred boundaries.
But still, it's a bit of a letdown that Vonnegut had to invent the character instead of ripping him straight from history.
The Tralfamadorians' MG/YA cousins?
(MG = Middle Grade, YA = Young Adult. I wasn't quite sure what to qualify the book in question as; I read it during elementary school, but they probably wouldn't let public-schoolers anywhere near it until eighth grade. I'm just bad at gauging reading level. I will henceforth refer to it as a kids' book, since any audience younger than me is clearly composed of kids.)
As I read through Slaughterhouse-Five, I couldn't help but notice that the Tralfamadorians have some stylistic similarities to an alien species I had encountered before: the Boov from Adam Rex's middle-grade/young-adult novel The True Meaning of Smekday, which to this day remains one of the few books I have read more than once. That's how good it is. Adam Rex writes some weeeeeiiiiiird kids' books. But they're really good. He also illustrates them.
Smekday involves a girl named Gratuity, a cat named pig, and a (male) alien named J.Lo traveling in a (hovering) car called Slushious. Needless to say, it's not all that serious of a book.
The Boov (pronounced Bo-o-ov, according to the alien character who is rather rude in his ignorance of the International Phonetic Alphabet) don't have much of a direct relationship to the Tralfamadorians except for glovelike body parts and a general theme of lavatory about their appearance. They don't live in the fourth dimension; they don't see everything all at once; they don't say "So it goes". The Boov are presented flat-out comically, with malapropisms in their speech (the bomb is going to explore!), condescending treatment of humans (sending them to human preserves and feeding them milkshakes), general ineptitude (a second alien race is on its way to destroy Earth because a Boov technician accidentally sent them a recording of an offensive children's song), and odd affinities (they like to wear oranges on their feet). They don't have much to offer in the way of deep philosophical insights about the meaning of time, and they actually don't have such a hard time understanding things the way humans do. Instead, the similarities I see between the Boov and the Tralfamadorians are more tangential, including passing references and stylistic features.
The main passage of SH5 that made me become literarily unstuck and jump to Rex's book was where the Tralfamadorians react to Billy's inspiring speech about everyone living in harmony. The adorable little gloved plungers close their hands over their eyes because Billy has just said something very stupid; they then explain that they themselves are actually more dangerous to the galaxy than humans are, since they destroy the universe while testing new fuels for their flying saucers. Specifically, a Tralfamadorian test pilot presses a starter button and the whole universe disappears.
This passage reminded me of the Boov's own mishaps in space exploration, featuring a Koobish (a type of alien livestock used as a test animal) named Peeches who leans on the Big Red Button Labeled NO, leading to the complete loss of the mission... sort of. I can't tell you what happens to it without spoiling things.
Okay, okay, so maybe not a big connection; just pressing buttons and making bad things happen. But this at least got me thinking about some other connections. Both species view humans as animals, placing them in zoos or herding them off to preserves in Arizona. Both try to focus on the happy parts of life and block out sadness, failure, and mistakes, and yet both are also somewhat defeatist and realize when they can't change something; the Tralfamadorians' destruction of the universe and the Boov losing control of Earth against the invading Gorog. Throw in some weird technology and an astounding number of sexes, and you can see where I might be getting ideas about these two being related somehow.
Since Adam Rex wrote Smekday much later than Kurt Vonnegut wrote SH5, I'll assume a non-Tralfamadorian concept of time and conclude that Adam Rex hid some Vonnegut references throughout his book, and if I go back and read it again, I'll probably find more than just the ones I immediately remembered while going through SH5.
Of course, I could email Adam Rex and ask him about this. He seems like the kind of guy who would answer email from fans.
As one last interesting note, The True Meaning of Smekday is being made into a Dreamworks animated movie. I'm sure they'll ruin it. For one thing, they've retitled it Home (can people really not handle "smek"?) and J.Lo has been possibly been renamed "Oh", perhaps because the female human known as "J. Lo" has been cast as Gratuity's mother, and it would be confusing (BUT OH SO HILARIOUSLY METAFICTIONAL!!!) to have Jim Parson's character share a name with his costar--especially since in the book there is a brief exchange where Gratuity points out that J.Lo is the name of a human actress.
I wonder what they'll do with the parts where J.Lo (the alien) directly adresses the reader to explain certain aspects of Boov history and culture through comic strips?
Basically, if they stay true to the book, it will probably not be popular with a general audience (due to sheer weirdness) but will become a cult classic kids' film. If they try to tone it down a bit, it will be the usual bland silliness you expect from an animated movie that tries to be new and different.
Anyway... I'm judgmental about movies. And Smekday is great. Go read it.
As I read through Slaughterhouse-Five, I couldn't help but notice that the Tralfamadorians have some stylistic similarities to an alien species I had encountered before: the Boov from Adam Rex's middle-grade/young-adult novel The True Meaning of Smekday, which to this day remains one of the few books I have read more than once. That's how good it is. Adam Rex writes some weeeeeiiiiiird kids' books. But they're really good. He also illustrates them.
Smekday involves a girl named Gratuity, a cat named pig, and a (male) alien named J.Lo traveling in a (hovering) car called Slushious. Needless to say, it's not all that serious of a book.
The Boov (pronounced Bo-o-ov, according to the alien character who is rather rude in his ignorance of the International Phonetic Alphabet) don't have much of a direct relationship to the Tralfamadorians except for glovelike body parts and a general theme of lavatory about their appearance. They don't live in the fourth dimension; they don't see everything all at once; they don't say "So it goes". The Boov are presented flat-out comically, with malapropisms in their speech (the bomb is going to explore!), condescending treatment of humans (sending them to human preserves and feeding them milkshakes), general ineptitude (a second alien race is on its way to destroy Earth because a Boov technician accidentally sent them a recording of an offensive children's song), and odd affinities (they like to wear oranges on their feet). They don't have much to offer in the way of deep philosophical insights about the meaning of time, and they actually don't have such a hard time understanding things the way humans do. Instead, the similarities I see between the Boov and the Tralfamadorians are more tangential, including passing references and stylistic features.
The main passage of SH5 that made me become literarily unstuck and jump to Rex's book was where the Tralfamadorians react to Billy's inspiring speech about everyone living in harmony. The adorable little gloved plungers close their hands over their eyes because Billy has just said something very stupid; they then explain that they themselves are actually more dangerous to the galaxy than humans are, since they destroy the universe while testing new fuels for their flying saucers. Specifically, a Tralfamadorian test pilot presses a starter button and the whole universe disappears.
This passage reminded me of the Boov's own mishaps in space exploration, featuring a Koobish (a type of alien livestock used as a test animal) named Peeches who leans on the Big Red Button Labeled NO, leading to the complete loss of the mission... sort of. I can't tell you what happens to it without spoiling things.
Okay, okay, so maybe not a big connection; just pressing buttons and making bad things happen. But this at least got me thinking about some other connections. Both species view humans as animals, placing them in zoos or herding them off to preserves in Arizona. Both try to focus on the happy parts of life and block out sadness, failure, and mistakes, and yet both are also somewhat defeatist and realize when they can't change something; the Tralfamadorians' destruction of the universe and the Boov losing control of Earth against the invading Gorog. Throw in some weird technology and an astounding number of sexes, and you can see where I might be getting ideas about these two being related somehow.
Since Adam Rex wrote Smekday much later than Kurt Vonnegut wrote SH5, I'll assume a non-Tralfamadorian concept of time and conclude that Adam Rex hid some Vonnegut references throughout his book, and if I go back and read it again, I'll probably find more than just the ones I immediately remembered while going through SH5.
Of course, I could email Adam Rex and ask him about this. He seems like the kind of guy who would answer email from fans.
As one last interesting note, The True Meaning of Smekday is being made into a Dreamworks animated movie. I'm sure they'll ruin it. For one thing, they've retitled it Home (can people really not handle "smek"?) and J.Lo has been possibly been renamed "Oh", perhaps because the female human known as "J. Lo" has been cast as Gratuity's mother, and it would be confusing (BUT OH SO HILARIOUSLY METAFICTIONAL!!!) to have Jim Parson's character share a name with his costar--especially since in the book there is a brief exchange where Gratuity points out that J.Lo is the name of a human actress.
I wonder what they'll do with the parts where J.Lo (the alien) directly adresses the reader to explain certain aspects of Boov history and culture through comic strips?
Basically, if they stay true to the book, it will probably not be popular with a general audience (due to sheer weirdness) but will become a cult classic kids' film. If they try to tone it down a bit, it will be the usual bland silliness you expect from an animated movie that tries to be new and different.
Anyway... I'm judgmental about movies. And Smekday is great. Go read it.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Silliness and Science Fiction...
...do they weaken a message?
This blog post mostly consists of me musing and asking you all for answers. Just warning you.
Today in class we questioned whether Vonnegut can tackle issues like war and and the meaning of life while including flying saucers, toilet plungers, and two-bit sci-fi writers. Does the silliness detract from the seriousness?
Just to get that out of the way, I'll just say that I am of the belief that if you can't take a joke about something, you can't take it seriously, either. Vonnegut's writing style panders perfectly to me. This blog post will not focus on the use of humor to discuss serious topics.
Instead, I'm musing about the inclusion of science fiction, or rather why that might set off some peoples' alarm bells for anti-seriousness.
Maybe it's just because I've been raised in a pro-sci-fi household, but I've never really understood why it's sometimes not considered a "serious" genre (example: while researching education issues and methods for a paper sophomore year, I found out that many educators discourage children from reading adventure, fantasy, and sci-fi). I've often found science fiction to be a much more approachable way to tackle tough philosophical issues than through "literary fiction" (poorly defined term... refers to fiction which has nothing outstanding to identify it by except the fact that it is written?) Vonnegut's characters' use of science fiction for reinventing themselves and their world is something I see as entirely valid: science fiction can look at a potential future to try to make sense of the present.
Most of the time, I'm not complaining about sci-fi not being serious--instead, I'm complaining about certain incredibly-non-serious-and-non-sci-fi things being labeled as sci-fi and thus giving it a bad image (John Carter of Mars, James Cameron's Avatar, The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey, The Host by Stephanie Meyer... the list goes on and on). Are these kinds of works the reason for people disregarding the genre? Too much sex, explosions, Pocahontas, and White Man's Burden in Space obscuring the public's view? I suppose the definition of sci-fi is up for grabs. Here's the one I'll provide: works of fiction that focus on the impact of scientific discoveries and technological developments on society and the human condition. This can be anything from the invention of time travel to newfound political relations with aliens.
Is "real" sci-fi just too weird to appeal to a broader audience? Do the more extrapolated or fantastical elements distance the story too much from the real world? Is it a matter of, "Well, that's someone's imagined future, and they're probably wrong about a bunch of stuff"?
If anyone would like to comment with some reasons why sci-fi is unrelatable or lessens the seriousness of a work's central message, I'd love to hear them. And I promise that I won't give you terrifyingly rabid backlash. I'll give you mild-mannered, constructive backlash.
This blog post mostly consists of me musing and asking you all for answers. Just warning you.
Today in class we questioned whether Vonnegut can tackle issues like war and and the meaning of life while including flying saucers, toilet plungers, and two-bit sci-fi writers. Does the silliness detract from the seriousness?
Just to get that out of the way, I'll just say that I am of the belief that if you can't take a joke about something, you can't take it seriously, either. Vonnegut's writing style panders perfectly to me. This blog post will not focus on the use of humor to discuss serious topics.
Instead, I'm musing about the inclusion of science fiction, or rather why that might set off some peoples' alarm bells for anti-seriousness.
Maybe it's just because I've been raised in a pro-sci-fi household, but I've never really understood why it's sometimes not considered a "serious" genre (example: while researching education issues and methods for a paper sophomore year, I found out that many educators discourage children from reading adventure, fantasy, and sci-fi). I've often found science fiction to be a much more approachable way to tackle tough philosophical issues than through "literary fiction" (poorly defined term... refers to fiction which has nothing outstanding to identify it by except the fact that it is written?) Vonnegut's characters' use of science fiction for reinventing themselves and their world is something I see as entirely valid: science fiction can look at a potential future to try to make sense of the present.
Most of the time, I'm not complaining about sci-fi not being serious--instead, I'm complaining about certain incredibly-non-serious-and-non-sci-fi things being labeled as sci-fi and thus giving it a bad image (John Carter of Mars, James Cameron's Avatar, The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey, The Host by Stephanie Meyer... the list goes on and on). Are these kinds of works the reason for people disregarding the genre? Too much sex, explosions, Pocahontas, and White Man's Burden in Space obscuring the public's view? I suppose the definition of sci-fi is up for grabs. Here's the one I'll provide: works of fiction that focus on the impact of scientific discoveries and technological developments on society and the human condition. This can be anything from the invention of time travel to newfound political relations with aliens.
Is "real" sci-fi just too weird to appeal to a broader audience? Do the more extrapolated or fantastical elements distance the story too much from the real world? Is it a matter of, "Well, that's someone's imagined future, and they're probably wrong about a bunch of stuff"?
If anyone would like to comment with some reasons why sci-fi is unrelatable or lessens the seriousness of a work's central message, I'd love to hear them. And I promise that I won't give you terrifyingly rabid backlash. I'll give you mild-mannered, constructive backlash.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
The Novel as a Museum Exhibit
Ishmael Reed's Ragtime has an unusual variety of footnotes, images, definitions, citations, newspaper clippings, and other such non-narrative bits thrown in with the somewhat jumbled story. This certainly throws some readers off, and some may find this format to be objectionable, but I actually like the way Reed tells the story. It seems almost like an exhibit at a history museum, where artifacts are displayed next to descriptions of the world they were part of and there is an occasional helpful little placard explaining what the heck some of these things are.
I can think of a few other novels that could be construed as having this layout. One is 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson, which takes advantage of its miscellaneous extra documents to explain some of the technologies and cultural norms present in its science-fiction setting (such as a section from a do-it-yourself book on how to colonize an asteroid).
The other novel, which many more of you have likely heard of, is The Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. This one is somewhat more structured in its use of extra documentation than 2312, but still: every once in awhile, we get a break from the usual adventures so we can read a section of the eponymous encyclopedia that tells us the wonders of towels, dolphins, mice, the Infinite Improbability Drive, species that are mostly harmless, and Pan-Galactic Gargleblasters.
I happen to like the story + supporting documents approach enough that I've considered using it for one of my own long-term writing projects.
And when I say long-term, I mean long-term.
In sixth grade or so I created a set of characters who I just kept on thinking up stories for (Note "thinking up," not "writing." There are very few finished stories). Thing is, as I got older, my writing style and writing tastes changed, and I kept reimagining not only plotlines but also the themes and setting these characters existed in. If you placed the original characters in a room with their more recent incarnations, they wouldn't recognize each other. Or be able to breathe the same atmosphere, for that matter.
Here's the short explanation of the premise: The current rendition (unfinished, as always) features two sentient alien species living in a major political mess on a large moon orbiting a gas giant in a distant solar system. Then one day, a human spaceship discovers their civilization, and the political mess just gets worse. Some characters are trying to use humanity's new diplomatic influence to bring peace to the moon. Others are trying to use humanity's superior technology to bring peace in an entirely different way. And of course, humanity is busy with its own war against a fourth sentient species, and would greatly appreciate any help from its new acquaintances.
Anyway, since I prefer to write in the first person, the problem is: who do I use as a narrator?
The original alien character who's stuck with the story for six years?
The human journalist?
Or one of the other characters involved?
The answer is Yes.
It's potentially confusing (Mumbo Jumbo certainly is), but ideally I'd throw in a couple of historical documents and narrator's notes into the story. The original alien character would be primary narrator; after all, he's sort of the center of attention. The journalist can be passed off as the document's translator, adding her own notes to explain certain aspects of alien society and even filling in accounts of events she was present at but the alien character wasn't. And to give human readers the full story, she'll include a number of historical documents from the time.
Gimmicky? Sort of. But does it accomplish what I'm looking for? Yes.
That's probably similar to what went through Ishmael Reed's head when he was deciding what "extras" to add into Mumbo Jumbo.*
*which, I must point out, I have found to be far less confusing than Mr. Mitchell's warnings suggested it would be.
I can think of a few other novels that could be construed as having this layout. One is 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson, which takes advantage of its miscellaneous extra documents to explain some of the technologies and cultural norms present in its science-fiction setting (such as a section from a do-it-yourself book on how to colonize an asteroid).
The other novel, which many more of you have likely heard of, is The Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. This one is somewhat more structured in its use of extra documentation than 2312, but still: every once in awhile, we get a break from the usual adventures so we can read a section of the eponymous encyclopedia that tells us the wonders of towels, dolphins, mice, the Infinite Improbability Drive, species that are mostly harmless, and Pan-Galactic Gargleblasters.
I happen to like the story + supporting documents approach enough that I've considered using it for one of my own long-term writing projects.
And when I say long-term, I mean long-term.
In sixth grade or so I created a set of characters who I just kept on thinking up stories for (Note "thinking up," not "writing." There are very few finished stories). Thing is, as I got older, my writing style and writing tastes changed, and I kept reimagining not only plotlines but also the themes and setting these characters existed in. If you placed the original characters in a room with their more recent incarnations, they wouldn't recognize each other. Or be able to breathe the same atmosphere, for that matter.
Here's the short explanation of the premise: The current rendition (unfinished, as always) features two sentient alien species living in a major political mess on a large moon orbiting a gas giant in a distant solar system. Then one day, a human spaceship discovers their civilization, and the political mess just gets worse. Some characters are trying to use humanity's new diplomatic influence to bring peace to the moon. Others are trying to use humanity's superior technology to bring peace in an entirely different way. And of course, humanity is busy with its own war against a fourth sentient species, and would greatly appreciate any help from its new acquaintances.
Anyway, since I prefer to write in the first person, the problem is: who do I use as a narrator?
The original alien character who's stuck with the story for six years?
The human journalist?
Or one of the other characters involved?
The answer is Yes.
It's potentially confusing (Mumbo Jumbo certainly is), but ideally I'd throw in a couple of historical documents and narrator's notes into the story. The original alien character would be primary narrator; after all, he's sort of the center of attention. The journalist can be passed off as the document's translator, adding her own notes to explain certain aspects of alien society and even filling in accounts of events she was present at but the alien character wasn't. And to give human readers the full story, she'll include a number of historical documents from the time.
Gimmicky? Sort of. But does it accomplish what I'm looking for? Yes.
That's probably similar to what went through Ishmael Reed's head when he was deciding what "extras" to add into Mumbo Jumbo.*
*which, I must point out, I have found to be far less confusing than Mr. Mitchell's warnings suggested it would be.
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