Herman Melville's seminal 1851 novel Moby Dick or The Whale stands as part of a rich tradition of the uncertainty felt by man when confronted with the sea and its inhabitants. Life on land is static where the sea is mutability incarnate. The sun, aid to man's dominant sense, cannot penetrate to the bottom of the oceans. Uncertainty, then, is our natural reaction to the depths of the sea. Melville, Jules Verne, Lovecraft and others use this primal trepidation to their advantage. The whale, Moby Dick, takes the natural enmity between open air and the sea even further: as an albino, the sun is inimical to him. Ahab's quest is to dredge up, make sense of and murder a force that seeks concealment and secrecy.
Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, linked thematically and via numerous allusions to Melville's magnum opus, draws on the idea of the whale to create its eloquent and monstrous antagonist, judge Holden. While not a true albino, Holden's skin is "nearly devoid of pigment" and his size, well over seven feet in height and massive in frame, is a clear bridge between himself and the overwhelming horror of Moby Dick. Holden, like the whale, is also a murderer of children (Moby Dick kills the the son of the Captain of the Rachel)) and a killer of men. Holden's great size and strength (among other things, he uses a howitzer ripped free of its carriage to fight his way out of an Indian raid) impact the characters of McCarthy's novel in a fashion similar to the whale's slaughter of the sailors. Holden, after the Glanton Gang is butchered at the fords they've co-opted, hunts down survivors in a strange, meandering fashion. Where Moby Dick destroys the Pequod in a red rage, Holden kills methodically and for arcane reasons. That both novels explore in detail the nature and consequences of violence can be no coincidence.
Holden's demonic nature, heavily alluded to during a story regarding his introduction to the gang and, among other scenes, during a loosely-described scene in which the sound of his speech threatens the sanity of Tobin the expriest and the novel's "protagonist," the kid, adds another layer to the conflict between deep-dweller and sun. Not only does it scorch Holden when he loses his hat, symbolizing his exposure to the world of man, it burns his skin as the Eye of God suddenly aware of an infernal presence in its realm. Holden even says to Toadvine, following the escape from the fords, that he "must have [his] hat" and will "pay any price for it." Holden's tongue and mouth become chapped and bloody during his brief hatless sojourn, and while he sometimes removes it as a matter of course during interactions with other characters it is never for long and almost always inside.
The deep gnostic imagery in McCarthy's novel (blindness, crippling injuries, weakness and blood) corresponds to the unnatural, godlike presence of the albino whale. Unknowable, Moby Dick terrorizes those who pursue it. Similarly, Holden is beyond the understanding of his fellow marauders by virtue of his prodigious intellect, loquaciousness and physical otherness. In relating Moby Dick's benthic nature to the judge, one must look to Holden's mysterious origins. While out of powder and fleeing pursuit, the Glanton Gang comes across Holden in the wilderness and accept his guidance on a hellish journey down into a twisted, mazelike hellscape of broken rock and volcanic glass. There Holden, with preternatural speed and ability, makes gunpowder for the company which then slaughters wholesale its enemies. This place, never visited, explained or reference again, could be Holden's place of origin or natural habitat. Where Moby Dick and the judge share physical characteristics, Holden takes mystery from the belly of the earth while Moby Dick takes it from the fathomless deep.
Word of the Day: Languorous.
Book of the Day: Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself, a light-hearted deconstruction and subversion of the fantasy genre. Drags high fantasy joyfully through a blood-choked gutter.
Author of the Day: Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus and other works.
Author vs Author of the Day: Bram Stoker vs Cormac McCarthy.
Result: Too violent for print. McCarthy wins.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Koschei the Deathless: Nested Reality in Myth
"The soul of Koschei the Deathless lies across the ocean on the Isle of Buyan where it is bound within a needle that is within an egg that is within a duck that is within a hare that is locked away in a chest of iron buried beneath the roots of a great green oak where no one will ever find it."
-The Tale of Koschei the Deathless, 1819 collected edition.
Recursion, nesting and layered realities are common themes underpinning the structure of myth, folklore and now speculative fiction. Koschei, famed sorcerer-villain of Russian lore immortalized by Stravinsky in his opera The Firebird is a prime example of nesting in fiction. Koschei's soul, by obscure means, was separated from his body long ago and hidden like a Matryoshka doll within a great many other things (which vary between tellings of the myth). He remains vulnerable, though, to any human who can lay hands upon the egg. Consider Koschei as nested within the reality of his own existence. Koschei, then, will be referred to as K, while the egg containing/embodying his soul will be referred to as K-1. What occurs in/to/around K cannot effect K-1, for through the principles of nesting theory K-1 has come to exist as a super-reality for K. The reverse, then, is untrue; if the egg is smashed (sometimes against Koschei's forehead, sometimes simply against a rock) then Koschei will die.
The idea presented by the necessity of breaking the egg against Koschei's body is an interesting one. It affirms the idea that K and K-1 are not separate ideals but a disjointed whole capable of reintegration. When K and K-1 are reunited, their distinct realities collapse into one and correlation is replaced by singularity. Koschei becomes whole and, his interstitial existence collapsed, he dies. Or, rather, his body is allowed to experience the Death that has befallen it.
Death via reunion with one's soul, or freeing of one's soul from mortal bonds, is a popular trope in today's speculative fiction. Voldemort, villain of J. K. Rowling's acclaimed Harry Potter septad, possesses magical phylacteries which each contain a piece of his soul. The books state that Voldemort could, were he to experience true remorse, rebuild his mangled animus, but that the existential pain would more than likely prove lethal. The archetype of the lich, his body soulless and unstuck from time, is a powerful one. As (un)living expressions of Cartesian dualism, they resonate powerfully with the mythic conscience of humanity. No violation could be more profound, or more intriguing, than the subversion of death. The subtext of inward-outward definition through Nesting act as an effective anchor for a theoretical dissection of the mechanics of Lichism, parsing mysticism, metaphysics and psychology from a dense and resonant subject.
In Koschei's story we are shown, ultimately, the folly of Practical Dualism when the sorcerer's soul ends up in the hands of an enemy, a state of affairs that would never have been possible had Koschei not committed his existential crime. A fanciful lesson, but an interesting one.
Word of the Day: Milieu.
Book of the Day: The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway.
Author of the Day: Oscar Wilde, English playwright and novelist/philosopher.
-The Tale of Koschei the Deathless, 1819 collected edition.
Recursion, nesting and layered realities are common themes underpinning the structure of myth, folklore and now speculative fiction. Koschei, famed sorcerer-villain of Russian lore immortalized by Stravinsky in his opera The Firebird is a prime example of nesting in fiction. Koschei's soul, by obscure means, was separated from his body long ago and hidden like a Matryoshka doll within a great many other things (which vary between tellings of the myth). He remains vulnerable, though, to any human who can lay hands upon the egg. Consider Koschei as nested within the reality of his own existence. Koschei, then, will be referred to as K, while the egg containing/embodying his soul will be referred to as K-1. What occurs in/to/around K cannot effect K-1, for through the principles of nesting theory K-1 has come to exist as a super-reality for K. The reverse, then, is untrue; if the egg is smashed (sometimes against Koschei's forehead, sometimes simply against a rock) then Koschei will die.
The idea presented by the necessity of breaking the egg against Koschei's body is an interesting one. It affirms the idea that K and K-1 are not separate ideals but a disjointed whole capable of reintegration. When K and K-1 are reunited, their distinct realities collapse into one and correlation is replaced by singularity. Koschei becomes whole and, his interstitial existence collapsed, he dies. Or, rather, his body is allowed to experience the Death that has befallen it.
Death via reunion with one's soul, or freeing of one's soul from mortal bonds, is a popular trope in today's speculative fiction. Voldemort, villain of J. K. Rowling's acclaimed Harry Potter septad, possesses magical phylacteries which each contain a piece of his soul. The books state that Voldemort could, were he to experience true remorse, rebuild his mangled animus, but that the existential pain would more than likely prove lethal. The archetype of the lich, his body soulless and unstuck from time, is a powerful one. As (un)living expressions of Cartesian dualism, they resonate powerfully with the mythic conscience of humanity. No violation could be more profound, or more intriguing, than the subversion of death. The subtext of inward-outward definition through Nesting act as an effective anchor for a theoretical dissection of the mechanics of Lichism, parsing mysticism, metaphysics and psychology from a dense and resonant subject.
In Koschei's story we are shown, ultimately, the folly of Practical Dualism when the sorcerer's soul ends up in the hands of an enemy, a state of affairs that would never have been possible had Koschei not committed his existential crime. A fanciful lesson, but an interesting one.
Word of the Day: Milieu.
Book of the Day: The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway.
Author of the Day: Oscar Wilde, English playwright and novelist/philosopher.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
some superficial differences: myths and truths.
I first came to College on the east coast with certain expectations and lack there of, here's what i found.
Dispelled:
-Everyone smokes
Not so. I'd say the two coasts have about the same number of smokers, the difference is that the east doesn't villainize smoking like the west coast.
-the drivers are crazy
They’re no worse than Californians (and they don't get as angry when you mess up).
-they don’t smile as much
This might be true
What I’ve noticed:
-there's a whole lot more baseball cap wearing on the east coast
-people don’t care that much about basketball
-people care about baseball A LOT
-there is a lot more notice of and significance put on cultural ethnicity and religion. While on the west coast we tend to blend, on the east people adhere to types and shades more.
Dispelled:
-Everyone smokes
Not so. I'd say the two coasts have about the same number of smokers, the difference is that the east doesn't villainize smoking like the west coast.
-the drivers are crazy
They’re no worse than Californians (and they don't get as angry when you mess up).
-they don’t smile as much
This might be true
What I’ve noticed:
-there's a whole lot more baseball cap wearing on the east coast
-people don’t care that much about basketball
-people care about baseball A LOT
-there is a lot more notice of and significance put on cultural ethnicity and religion. While on the west coast we tend to blend, on the east people adhere to types and shades more.
Why clark, why so far away from home?
I was born in Seattle Washington, Have lived in Portland Oregon since i was two, and most of my family is from or still lives in california (when i say i'm from the west coast, i mean it). I decided i wanted to go to clark my sophomore year of highschool (i'm quite a planner). I knew i wanted to either stay really close to home or go really far away. I loved Portland (still do) and knew that if i wasn't going to be able to see it on a regular basis i wanted it to be for a good, far-away, new experiences reason. So i had no interest in California or Washington or any other states nearby. If i was going to go away from home i wanted something new. New England seemed like the right place to look. I reseached and found some promising almosts, but wasn't wold until i found clark. All the other school seemed concerned with finding the best students possible and being the best possible because of it. Clark semmed concerned with making the best student possible. I felt they were looking for students with promise. The more i looked in to clark the more i liked what i saw. It was small, had a great student to faculty ratio, had a lot of programs and opportunities for students and great financial aid. So i applied, got in and went.
Monday, March 14, 2011
The Abaia: Dreams & Subtextuality in Science Fiction & Fantasy
In Melanesian mythology, the Abaia is a great eel that dwells at the bottom of freshwater lakes and drowns those foolish enough to fish in its domain. Author Gene Wolfe co-opts the myth in his Book of the New Sun, transforming Abaia into a monstrous aquatic demigod who rules vast swathes of humanity through their dreams. The motif of the Abaia as a benthic entity associated with transitive states like drowning, dreaming and unconsciousness in general (states symbolized by the being's aquatic nature) is one found often in perusal of mythology. Nymphs, merfolk, leviathans and a whole host of mythic creatures dwell in the Abaia's interstitial realm. Nothing conflates so well with the idea of the mind divided by sleep and waking as the barrier between air and water.
Science fiction and fantasy, genres long dependent on such tropes as prophetic dreams, visions and oracular foretellings, draw heavily on the concepts of meta-reality and subconscious veracity. In the tradition of Hunter S. Thompson's and William S. Burroughs' psychedelic dream sequences, speculative fiction dives in and out of an unconscious world where semiotics runs rampant. Free-floating symbols anchor themselves loosely to the skins of stories, describing (to the astute reader) what has been or will be within the framework of the mytharc. In Orson Scott Card's renowned Ender's Game, Ender comes to understand the true rules of the battle school (a training ground for genius-level tactical intellects) through a fantastical computer simulation in which a vindictive giant proctors an impossible test. The simulation is later revealed to draw heavily on the subconscious of the user, playing neatly into the idea that Truth is held within the vault of the sleeping mind.
The dreaming world is, in speculative fiction as in modern thought, a place of potent symbolic importance. It functions as a kind of Plane of Truth, a meta-world where the sometimes overwhelming jargon and convolutions of fiction can be dissected and resolved unconsciously. Meaning escapes the obfuscation of plot and becomes apparent in the constructs of dreaming, expressed in bold colors and broad strokes. Through dreams speculative fiction escapes its most persistent parasite: information overload. The reader is drawn down not into the world of the characters but into the characters themselves where comprehension and its absence play equally to reader and __tagonist both.
Dreams are the atlas for speculative fiction's liminal landscape. Like the Abaia, they wait beneath the membrane of textual reality, strange and monstrous in character.
Word of the Day: Nostrum.
Book of the Day: Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.
Author of the Day: Jack Vance, author of The Dying Earth and other seminal works of fantasy and science fiction.
Author vs Author of the Day: Herman Melville vs Thomas Aquinas.
Result: Melville harpoons Aquinas, writes symbolically dense novel about experience.
Science fiction and fantasy, genres long dependent on such tropes as prophetic dreams, visions and oracular foretellings, draw heavily on the concepts of meta-reality and subconscious veracity. In the tradition of Hunter S. Thompson's and William S. Burroughs' psychedelic dream sequences, speculative fiction dives in and out of an unconscious world where semiotics runs rampant. Free-floating symbols anchor themselves loosely to the skins of stories, describing (to the astute reader) what has been or will be within the framework of the mytharc. In Orson Scott Card's renowned Ender's Game, Ender comes to understand the true rules of the battle school (a training ground for genius-level tactical intellects) through a fantastical computer simulation in which a vindictive giant proctors an impossible test. The simulation is later revealed to draw heavily on the subconscious of the user, playing neatly into the idea that Truth is held within the vault of the sleeping mind.
The dreaming world is, in speculative fiction as in modern thought, a place of potent symbolic importance. It functions as a kind of Plane of Truth, a meta-world where the sometimes overwhelming jargon and convolutions of fiction can be dissected and resolved unconsciously. Meaning escapes the obfuscation of plot and becomes apparent in the constructs of dreaming, expressed in bold colors and broad strokes. Through dreams speculative fiction escapes its most persistent parasite: information overload. The reader is drawn down not into the world of the characters but into the characters themselves where comprehension and its absence play equally to reader and __tagonist both.
Dreams are the atlas for speculative fiction's liminal landscape. Like the Abaia, they wait beneath the membrane of textual reality, strange and monstrous in character.
Word of the Day: Nostrum.
Book of the Day: Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.
Author of the Day: Jack Vance, author of The Dying Earth and other seminal works of fantasy and science fiction.
Author vs Author of the Day: Herman Melville vs Thomas Aquinas.
Result: Melville harpoons Aquinas, writes symbolically dense novel about experience.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Hello,
My name is Milla. I'm a senior English/Theater double major who works in the English office. I've taken longer to post because i've been stuck on what to write about. I thought about all the things I do that have something to do with the English department; working in the office, writing an honors thesis, studying for the dreaded English subject MTELs, double majoring. I finally gave up deciding and just asked the chair--Jay Elliott. I wrote him an e-mail with a list and asked him to pick and right before hitting that send button threw in one after thought idea: going to school in New England as a West Coaster. I didn't add it in because i thought it would make a good blog. infact, i saw no chance of professor Elliott picking the topic at all. I just threw it in because i felt i was making a list of what made me unique, and looking at the list it looked a little short. So i let myself add something that had nothing to do with the English department but everything to do wiht my uniqueness. As you have probably guessed he picked it. At first i was surprised, but then i thought about it. Anyone who asks me why clark? almost always means why so far away from home? It's a question i get from west and east coasters whenever they first find out my university and homtown are on opposite sides of the country, so there must be something interesting about it; people must be curious what it's like. so in this blog i will tell you.
My name is Milla. I'm a senior English/Theater double major who works in the English office. I've taken longer to post because i've been stuck on what to write about. I thought about all the things I do that have something to do with the English department; working in the office, writing an honors thesis, studying for the dreaded English subject MTELs, double majoring. I finally gave up deciding and just asked the chair--Jay Elliott. I wrote him an e-mail with a list and asked him to pick and right before hitting that send button threw in one after thought idea: going to school in New England as a West Coaster. I didn't add it in because i thought it would make a good blog. infact, i saw no chance of professor Elliott picking the topic at all. I just threw it in because i felt i was making a list of what made me unique, and looking at the list it looked a little short. So i let myself add something that had nothing to do with the English department but everything to do wiht my uniqueness. As you have probably guessed he picked it. At first i was surprised, but then i thought about it. Anyone who asks me why clark? almost always means why so far away from home? It's a question i get from west and east coasters whenever they first find out my university and homtown are on opposite sides of the country, so there must be something interesting about it; people must be curious what it's like. so in this blog i will tell you.
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