WEEK 8 assignment : N.K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms reminded me of a collection of novels I read back in middle school called ‘Last Fantasy’. This reading also led me to an awareness of a genre Mythic fiction and Contemporary urban Fantasy which I’ve had experiences with but never able to explain why there was a certain eccentric charm that divide it distinctively from High Fantasy. 

There are several similarities I’ve found in HTK and Last Fantasy. Although both were products of authors who came from completely different cultures the spirit of this genre inhabited in their works are strangely alike. In comparison to High fantasy, Contemporary urban fantasy that I’ve experienced reading resonated much less mythological feeling and much more political and tragedy feeling. However, there is a certain kind of magical tone to them that’s more tragic, bitter, cinematic and adventurous. Sometimes I get a similar feeling reading works in this genre and playing role playing games that mostly based on fantasy stories by contemporary writers. It doesn’t transport me as an audience to another ethereal world like Tolkien’s works but it provided a different kind of escape and we tend to get more sympathized with characters’ dramatic mentality.

Both High Fantasy world and Urban Fantasy world are full of elaborated details at every corners. Although, lives in Urban Fantasy seems to express more intimate backstory in an individual level. I can think of a lot of Urban Fantasy works that has a similar characteristic in Anime culture. Some of them might be Fullmetal Alchemist and Bounen no Xamdou. Although, they seems to have a stronger Mechanical theme (that somehow managed to co-exist with magical stuffs).

This topic raised questions about urban/contemporary fantasy writers. From the experience reading The Hobbits I found several uses of terminology that’s odd for fantasy but appropriate for Tolkien’s time such as gunpowder and other things that gave audiences idea of scale by comparing to contemporary objects. Time might be a big factor that separate characteristic essence of each Fantasy works. It’s possibly impossible for contemporary authors to write mythology that has the same tone as Tolkien as different generation inhabited different perspective of the world. Although, unique tone in habited in individual works also record the spirit of it’s era and that alone make them attractive. 

WEEK 15 assignment : Final Evaluation

Attending literature classes has been one of the most important milestone for my art & design education. Because ultimately my true passion is to tell stories. Crafts are just medium that allow it to physically happen. My perspective toward learning about genre is the same as anything else I’ve learned here, I want to understand them throughly, take something from them and pursue something new. Learning about varieties of traditions also allow me to understand my value deeper and find ways to integrate it to my works. 

I’ve learned that Genres are deeply related to target audiences’ expectation and needs. Sometimes it could tied to range of demographics, but in the end it should deliver the spirit there intended audiences expect. Fantasy for example, almost always need to function with spirit of escapism. 

Stories in most genre can be told successfully when there are clear visions of their world and people who live in it. There are always a strong relationship between how characters think and characteristic of environment in each world. They co-exists and reflects each others. Cyberpunk characters functioned best in a world where the sense of mother nature is faded and the industrialize landscape shape their state of mind. Genre can be viewed as shared spaces appeared as different realities which valued by different kinds of people. 

Although, one important thing that has come to my awareness is the importance of life-span of each genres, cultures and traditions. Spirit of genre is organic and change through time. Authors should not simply replicate what they created before if it’s not necessarily and pursuing for ways that allow that spirit to live on in equilibrium with the present. This is my current answer to the struggle with the view of culture in my country where it’s been valued in a fossilized way. The role for new generation creator is to re analyze that spirit and allow it to live in the new world in an appropriate way even if it means to let it change or inhabit in new forms. 

WEEK 11 assignment : Bruce Sterling, Cyberpunk in the Ninetieth.

I love natural world and folklore and I don’t want to live in a cyberpunk world or be part of the culture by all means. Although, somehow I found this genre totally attractive. I think it’s the cleverness in the worldview and deep thoughts given to human being that gives cyberpunk a distinctive charm. It stands out for itself very well and stay very true and passionate to it’s idea.

I read Bruce Sterling, Cyberpunk in the Ninetieth and fascinated with many explanation he had for this genre. Not only Cyberpunk remains true to it’s worldview, I think it’s also communicate the way things are at it’s moment so honestly without concern of mythological past or limitation of the future. It might be quite a sorrowful world with an absence of reasoning to why things appear as they are or what divine forces determined it. Although that is in itself is a great food for thought about what can we do with the present, which can lead us to many directions and some could be pretty dark. As Sterling said ‘There is ecstasy, but there is also dread. 

However, I don’t find Cyberpunk completely Nihilistic. By freeing our mind from the limitation made from sacred rule we could possibly learn more from what we create in the process of destroying. To me Cyberpunk is extremely philosophical, paradoxical and reflective because we are able to learn from looking directly and into that dreadful kind of world. In the end, people in Cyberpunk universe might be quite wise with decision making and know how to live good with choices they committed to. 

WEEK 14 assignment : Not (necessarily) the Future

I don’t think of the future as an establish reality all of us are heading toward. There are way too many possibilities that can emerge from things that happens along the way. I simply focus on the future in an individual level, a kind of future I’m able to create more than milestones of humanity that measured by advancement in technologies or societal progress. Although they’re vital to the world we live in, I think uncertainty is inevitable so as the nature of things.

If human has been wiped out by some forces it won’t be the end of everything, we just won’t be there. If you look at it other way, there’s a chance than human being is merely just a concept when all have been disassemble into quantum that belongs to nobody and perceivable or non perceivable matters that continues as chains of phenomenon. These are all in the end my personal worldview that can’t defy the uncertainty. While I’m passionate about it I found myself strangely detached from it. 

Many(like Stephen Hawking) said the future of humanity is on other planet. It’s an exciting idea but I doubt how much we can make of it if we’re still or may be eternally struggling to be in harmony with this earth we emerged from. If I’m to create a modern hero I’d make that person an arch antagonist with his or her self and put all the deepest wisdom into that antagonist and may be all other exterior antagonistic forces.

Perhaps I’m able to say all of this because I’m not so concern nor paranoid about the future as much as I used to anymore. It may sounds extremely cliche but I’ve come to realize or believe that to understand the way to create the future is to understand that ourselves and anything else are in a relationship that one affect another. This means that we are part of what’s make the future and to carry on to good one is to learn to make peace with things that exist in the present physically or mentally. 

WEEK 13 assignment : Italo Calvino, Cosmiccomics, The Distance of The Moon.

I very much enjoyed reading The Distance of The Moon because of it’s imaginative concept, emotion centric characters and narrative elements that filled with animism. I said before on the week four blog (weird and new weird) that I’ve wrote short stories similar to these and on the process of writing more. 

Speculative literacy fascinated and inspired me as a writer who’s interested in the essence and philosophy than in genre. I’m willing to use whichever genre as tools to convey the essential state of mind inhibited in myself. This related to my personal value that originally emerged from outside the culture of western genre. As an artist and storyteller that stand on the crossing point of diverse inspirations and cultures I think The Distance of The Moon is a great reference for a characteristic of work I wish to create. The meeting between scientific logic and heartfelt folklore emotions is one of the most fascinating aspects of all. 

Although, speculative literacy might be outside the main genre but it can be categorized other ways. In Asia especially Japan there is a literacy movement called Light Novel which consist varieties of mixture of genre and traditional value. I think that most Light Novels can be considered as speculative but more established in term of characters and brands. One story can be categorized in many ways. Some could be labelled as Sci-fi, Romance and Thriller at the same time, but they’re all commonly intended for teenagers and young adults and inspired by Anime culture.

I found approaches reflects in speculative literature very charming and would adapt it to my body of work, in which any genre’s trophy can be use as long as it express the essence of the author idea, able to educate audience, elevate traditional culture to the new value and can be adapt to other media.

WEEK 12 assignment : Octavia E. Butler, Bloodchild.

I found this story quite disturbing and that fact in itself make it quite real. I would like to add from a statement I made in class why I think survival are always intense and how does it reflects in this story. 

To me, Bloodchild is just a reflection of the world where supportive and destructive forces are inevitable. I personally think there are causes that make different beings and things exist and somehow we need to find the way to live in harmony and keep conflicts minimal. To achieve that we should be aware of organic relationship between things and find the best way to work with it. Sometimes we’ll come to a certain consciousness that there are things we simply need to let go and focus on what’s matter to one self to be truly content. 

I said in class that the story of Bloodchild indicated that survival is always intense no matter which perspective we look through, except those perspective that we don’t care to look at. We are constantly living upon suffering and death of others and ourselves just like how Terran need human as host of reproduction and human need other animals for food(not the case mentioned in this story). Forgivable or unforgivable, respect, compassion and gratitude toward things that allow us to survive are significant in cultivating the flow. The bond of family in the story is a kind of gratitude that tolerate both kinds of survivor. I obviously don’t want this scenario to happen to the earth or myself but if we investigate it carefully it’s quite similar to what’s already happening. 

It’s probably impossible to free all beings from suffering but in the individual level there are choices we can make to become a better microcosm of the totality which is complex and transformative.

WEEK 10 assignment : J. G. Ballard, The Drowned Giant.

The Drowned Giant is quite an inspiring reading. While the main element of the story is totally out of place(the dead giant) the reaction by other characters is totally nothing dramatic and nothing out of ordinary. This non-drama yet unexpected and easing mood of the story is the main body of this story which I really enjoy for some reason and I would definitely like to adapt it to my work in the future.

This work make me realize further that I enjoy stories that are quiet, reflective and atmospheric. Perhaps it has to do with my introvert personality. It made me think of a possibility to create works that can speak directly to these specific audiences or at least works that contain elements or characters that represents anti-drama yet reflective personality. 

Other works I know that contain similar idea are mostly in Anime and Manga culture where the theme depicted can be totally fabulous yet the reaction to it is very mundane. Some of the example would be slices of life genre and some independent manga such as After School Earth. I accidentally stumbled upon the work and didn’t find it that amazing but the approach sure is interesting. The story was basically about a young man and three other girls who live a relaxing and peaceful life after all other human were disappeared by the force of unknown alien. There was no violence nor other explanation. The story is simply about a group of kids enjoying their lives in a quiet world with a little bit of hope that other human being will return. There are several other manga I’ve read that started off with dramatic theme such as post apocalypse and space colony but turned out to be just a guilty pleasure for slow-life dreamer and I found these stuff totally wonderful. 

WEEK 9 assignment : CL Moore, Song In A Minor Key

After reading Song In A Minor Key I’ve come to an awareness that Space Opera is ultimately stories of a relationship between life and space-time. A theme of unfamiliar realm outer space where the law of distances and speed separate not only objects but milestones of identities that make it possible to craft characters who are more complex than earthbound characters.

Song In A Minor Key is an example of a scenario where an expanded perception of time-space make us feel about our own Earth and our relationship to it differently. Smith is an example of a character whose life has been re-defined by this new definition of space-time. With an ability to travel across planets this character is able to show us what it means to live a new life in a different world and leave the past behind with other time and space. Distances between different planets are far enough to be able to separate his ex-identity to who he is at the present. 

I think that characters who experienced a significantly larger perception of space-time has a potential to obtain identities that is richer in complexity and perspectives. I haven’t had much experience with Space-opera but I think Star-Child from 2001 is a good reflection of that aspect. I would like to see more space-opera characters grow significantly beyond what one life-time on Earth can offer. I believe that there has to be more to the people who has seen different things in the universe. There has to be more than experiencing different cultures as different beings may inhabit not only different way of life but probably live in an entirely different law of logic and mind. This doesn’t mean throwing away the essence of hero’s journey but adding the whole other level of definition to it. 

Aquatic Uncle, In class assignment.

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

Climates played very important role in the development of the story. Underwater and Dry Land were heart and motif of the story. It is the source of progression and conflict that make the whole scenario possible and also determined all the characters identity and their point of view. While water represents the origin and those who cling on to the original way of life such as uncle, dry land represents adaptation. Some character such as Lll represents one that was born on the transformed way of life but choose to return to the original way. In the end, the story reflected that different kind of world were meant for different individuals.

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

I read some of the works in the same collection of these short stories and I found the use of language and concept very romantic. The way natural elements were used as a motif that ties to characters way of life resonates to me and my taste strongly. In term of story in Aquatic Uncle, I can sympathize with the message deeply with my personal experience. I’ve had a lot of experience overseas in several countries at this age and that effect the way I identify my identity. While I carry some trait of my origin, who I actually am is what I’ve become through adaptation and decision. 

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

At first this story reminded me of an Anime I’ve seen called Nagi no Asukara(Lull under the sea). A very similar setting were used and some can be apply in the adaptation of Aquatic Uncle. I can see a potential for this story to be adapted into a visual narrative such as comic, animation and especially children's book. To achieve that I think the characters could be redesign, not necessarily into a human but somehow more humanoid with lifestyle we can associate with. 

WEEK 7 assignment : J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone

This is the first time I’ve read Harry Potter. Although I’ve seen all films I never realize that there are so many things in the story I can relate my life to. I’ve been studying overseas for almost ten years by myself. I’ve transferred from school to school, city to city, country to country and it forced me to survive and be part of new societies where it’s distinctively different from the one before it. However, like leaving for Hogwarts, the journey away from a familiar world brought me to a better understanding of my very own world. 

Perhaps it is because Harry Potter is all about coming of age and growing up it speaks directly to the heart of children, adolescent and young adults like me who are going through stages of transformation and finding themselves. In fact many elements from the story sounds very realistic(like sister crying when her brother leaves) that it is easy to feel connected to them.

To me, going to different countries to study meant that I have to enter the realm of unknown and once again become innocent to everything. Just like Harry Potter, I have had many questions to ask about unfamiliar world even on subjects that are as mundane as common sense. I now realized that they may not be an end to it, but I have become more and more comfortable with being innocent, with adaptation and able to face things with more peaceful mind. The beginning of Hogwarts life reminded me of how nervous I was at the beginning of my journey and how much I’ve changed since then. Harry and many characters of his generation reflected mind of adolescent fascinatingly as they are always project negative thought to their future and worried about what could go wrong. I can imagine the story of this book being valuable to young readers as it can almost be an advisor or good influence to their life. It also reminds us that choices are actually ours, and most time we’ve already made them long before options come to us.

Just like Harry Potter, sometimes it is kind adults who resemble guardian figures, sometimes it is wisdom, courage or mere luck that got me through all challenges. Most of the time, I’ll know from deep inside and I’ve slowly learn to follow my inner voice which tells me that this is the path I meant to take. 

WEEK 6 assignment : Jrr Tolkien, The Hobbit

I think The Hobbit was an excellent work in both medium the film and the book(if I don’t compare The Hobbit film to The Lord of the Ring film). However, I found my experience watching and reading distinctively different. While imageries of the film highly satisfied the eye wonder and the tone of sounds and music evoked an epic mood, the book contained many subtle elements that film languages can’t fully convey. 

The book brought me a kind of immersion that is unique to all other mediums. What I noticed strongly as I was reading The Hobbit was the presence of Tolkien’s ethereal self. It was as if a mysterious kindness and wisdom of this invisible narrator always surrounded me as I immersed into the adventure. The film did gave me a heartwarming feeling in some parts but it did not occupy the world surrounding me like the novel did. I think it has to do with the way we perceive different mediums. Film watching experience was highly concentrated on what we see and hear, thus, the surrounding environment associate with the overall experience with the medium and embed in our mind. For example, nowadays when I think of my childhood favorite shows I always remember them along with place and time I watched them. Reading experiences were similar to some degrees but in comparison to films, books has a stronger ability to make us ignore the surrounding environment and make us simulate the world in our mind.

Books have an ability to make every elements seems much more intendedly important.  Mountains and treasures for example contain much more spiritual significance as they are landmarks of the world and worldly conflicts. Aspects of natures as big as seasons to mundane things like silence become something so lively and deeply interconnected to life. Nature such as Summer has been metaphorically compare to a person kindness, the wilderness felt truly wild, dance and music has truly become representative of culture, riddle has become a truly sacred ritual.

Acting, CGI and music were well made in the film but Middle Earth in the novel felt much more vast and colorful to me. I believe that it is because written words doesn’t only suggest the appearance of subjects but also absence of things surrounding it. Every descriptions of things in the novel also wordlessly described the world around it. This also apply to not only space but time. While several establishing shots were used to suggest a long journey in the film, sentences that describe time lapse in the book actually made it felt like significantly long time has passed because there’s more element of unknown that piled up to imagine. 

There was an interesting case of a medium that unintentionally allow us to fill our imagination in the absence of the world surrounding the subject and it was dialogues from translated MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game). As a player, the idea of the world must be achieve from observing the world by traveling through it and connect it with dialogues from non-player characters. Most of the time, translated dialogue would be characters expressing their thoughts and feeling in broken sentences. That make most of the element in the Fantasy game world a fragments of informations and that successfully evoke players imagination to make connections and fill the voids. 

WEEK 5 assignment : Diana Wynne Jones, Black Maria

I think the novel Black Maria didn’t just reflect females empowerment. Essentially the story also reflects a clash between ideas of how power should be handle through the perspective of senior and younger generation and certainly genders. As seen from the story, the society where power are limited to several dictators with limited perspective and to those few who benefits directly from them are not a productive society. The world and people gravitated around Aunt Maria’s control reflect not much sense of progression but repetitive almost meaningless ritual like tea party that satisfy only few. 

Cranbury-on-Sea project an image of a failing community that resulted from limiting only one conservative ideology to exists. Mig and Christ on the other hands, prove that progression can be successfully achieve by balance of power between active members. By allowing different specialties to co-operate, not even supernatural power can stand a chance. To some degrees, aunt Maria could probably understand the threat of such conventional ideas that younger generation could bring, therefore she force children of Cranbury-on-Sea to be kept away. I found Black Maria quite political. What’s more fascinating is the fact that these fictional characters appears can be compare to political figures archetype in many dictatorship society, especially Aunt Maria who can be compare to senior elites in a strictly hierarchical society that will punish anyone who is against her or act offensively to her rule. I doubt it would be different if we swap the gender of ruling class or aunt Maria to male. Ultimately, awareness that all genders, members and lives (including other species) must coexist is the key to progressive society and natural world.

Mig and Christ are also a good representation of a cooperation between different gender with capability who are not in lover relationship with a chance of beneficial conflict(like their parents). Their bond are based on sense of being part of the family which is more unconditional. This means that as siblings they both must coexist and help each others no matter how bad things go. Especially when there single mother wasn’t being very helpful which also reflects that younger generation themselves also have a power to change the world dictated by powerful force.

WEEK 4 assignment : Weird and New Weird

Weird genre was a very interesting reading experience to me because they certainly reminded me of a collection of short stories I wrote on my own during high-school (when I haven’t even come across the existence of this particular genre). What’s even more remarkable was the fact that I could sympathize with writers’ writing mentality more clearly than I could understand the messages they tried to convey. And that also make a lot of sense to me as I realized from my own experience that this style so called weird is highly personal point of view based, which could be quite idiosyncratic to individual authors.

I read The Snow Child, The Executioner’s Beautiful Daughter, Souvenir of Japan and The Unnamable. Essentially they all prioritized the delivery of an interesting or clever point of view of metaphysics, humanity and perceptions over telling clean stories. In fact, enigmatic uses of languages stirred up the sensibility and force readers to think harder to uncoded there message. The Unnamable for example might contain an element of horror but to it’s core it was an attempt to bring up question about our perceptions. Materialistic elements and theme were used only as a tool to form an unspoken question about aspects of life. Sometimes the theme could be as mundane as a caption of ordinary events like in Souvenir of Japan or could be one without specific meaning to it’s background like The Executioner’s Beautiful Daughter, though the story still works because these are treated as fragments of mind rather than an external world. 

I considered worlds in weird genre metaphoric and symbolic in multiple layers. In Executioner’s Beautiful Daughter, almost everything from the existence and appearance of each characters to the rule of the universe they live in are metaphors. It is in fact weird an unnatural for the executioner to wear mask all the time but it make a complete sense if it’s being view as a symbolic representation of dictated law. 

There were a few weird short story I wrote during high school that are worth mentioning. One of them used both events and time as metaphors. It was a story about a boy who was walking back home behind his father’s coldhearted and fearsome shoulder that never look back. The boy not so kind opinion about his father were use as a main narrative throughout the journey home. The time passing during the short walk were use as a metaphor for a life span and what one learn. That aspect keep reflecting through the development of the boys chain of thoughts. When his mind finally decided to become independent the father turned back to him and reveal his tough parenting intention that shook the boy point of view and maturity and leave him with a little fear of losing his fatherly guardian. From this experience I think that an unspoken conclusion and realization is a charm of weird genre. 

Another story I wrote that worth mentioning as an example of a possible characteristic of weird is a short story that I used a scenario from a classic cartoon as a reference but twisted it’s point of view to create am impactful message. This is similar to the story Snow Child where the author use a famous fairy tale as a theme then twist the role and relationship between each characters and let audiences contemplate on that unfamiliar point of view which could be absurd or can be optimistic.

WEEK3 Kwaidan

I’m a kind of person who enjoy watching Kurosawa’s Dream, playing Shakuhachi(Bamboo flute) and reading about Zen, so I’m not surprise why I could easily appreciate series of Japanese folk tales from Kwaidan, in fact I’m familiar with many of them. I doubt that it’s totally the effect of my oriental background, I’ve seen many people from non-Japanese and non-eastern culture that deeply understood and appreciate Japanese deep culture. My pattern of world views just seems to connect with Buddhist philosophy and animism similar to Shinto quite well. 

These Japanese horror tales shares a lot of similarities to Thai indigenous horror as there are presence of the concept of Karma, states of one spirit and Buddhist Monks as representatives of balance bringer. Animism seems to integrate quite well with Buddhist in many Asian countries, however, one cultural trait that makes Thai folk culture quite different from Japanese folk culture seems to be the political influence that come later in the history. Both Thai and Japanese has a long history of glorifying Monarch as a heavenly figure but Thai metropolitan culture tend to overshadowed folk culture a lot more because of the political policies. Japanese successfully preserve their past by allowing them to be reconstruct materialistically while keeping the same spirit (example could be seen with ancient palace that has been issued to be reconstruct every 4 year with the same exact floor plan) while Thai method of preserving tend to keep the same exact material and structure on it’s spot without permission to re-study and reconstruct.

One other aspect that create a distinct difference between Japanese and Thai culture is the natural pattern and view of nature. Thailand is known to be located in tropical area in which crops can grow all years with lots of flat land available for it, while Japan has much harsher seasons and environments. Through Japanese eyes, life is much more fragile and nature is both beautiful and terrifyingly powerful. In Kwaidan and in many Japanese literatures, nature and nature of life has always been a huge statement and big part of the narrative. There is a philosophy that directly explain that aesthetic called Yugen. There is an example of a very old Thai folk tale I’ve read that actually contain the same essence, though the style tend to be forgotten through time and I’m hoping that I could revive it in the future. 

WEEK2 Interview with a Vampire

     Vampire fiction is a new reading experience to me. I thought that the appearance of this genre seems somewhat interesting but once I get a glimpse of what the true nature of this genre is I started to get inspired by it. I got over the perspective that vampires are the representation of true evil and start seeing them as a kind of being with an entirely different logic that represents areas of grey. To me, Vampires are an exaggerate reflection of certain human nature like desires that are difficult to resist especially passion toward something. When you think about it, if bloods are food to vampires then we can’t really differentiate them from ourselves that feast on lives of others. On the other hands, Vampires in The Interview with Vampire could be considered more manneristic than human because they actually saved life of a sickly girl by granted her an immortality. They might have sucked other humans’ blood to death but at least they understand come concept of restrain. 

    What I found fascinating in a character reflects through Letat is a vibes of eccentric wisdom that seems to come from his immortality. Whether he has been a human before or not he lives among the same world as us yet he have seen it from more point of views than we have. It was hard to tell whether his indifferent expression was an effect of his vampiric existence or a human who’ve seen more than the others, that in itself is a sign that there is a degree of solitude or an emotion in him. At this point we can understand that vampires also have a heart. It is just more difficult for us to understand those who live a different mind. Night and darkness represents that part of the world in which we couldn’t fully perceive while vampires lives as part of it. That world might have been so small that the connection means a lot to them. I found the use of word and a concept of ‘family’ through Vampire quite meaningful. When Claudia snuggled Lestat and when they enjoyed sucking blood(which also represents physical contact) there is a tiny presence of happiness that vibrates meaningfully through these transcendental beings.