Week Seven: Fantasy and Children

            Having read harry potter multiple times as a child I mostly enjoyed it as a world of wonder to escape to like Tolkien rather than a story to act as moral compass for me. I decided to begin to re read the novels and found myself having subconsciously found an identity in Luna Lovegood and was surprised as to how little I’d remembered to relating to her as a child. I never really felt like I was able to connect to many of the other kids because when I tried to talk to them they’d call me strange and even went as far to call me a which. Luna was often called “loony lovegood” for her strange behavior and odd beliefs.  I knew I wasn’t crazy I just knew I’d be exposed to darkness a lot sooner than most children I was around, in the same way that Luna witnessed her mothers day at the age of 9 and could see Thestrals because of it. The thestrals in my life were the parts of things I couldn’t explain to people who didn’t have the ability to see it. Thestrals were creatures that only people who had witnessed death could see. It’s why her and Harry could see them. I loved how much Luna spent time with herself. I remember reading about her dancing by herself at the wedding of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour at the Burrow and falling in love with her character. It reminded me of the many times that I’d just enjoy myself in a moment and the strange looks I’d get.

            I think that the books serve as a great option for kids to find themselves in characters instead of their friend who are probably sucking in the media that’s shoved down their throats that makes them all carbon copies of one another. I think these types of novels are more important to a child's growth rather than overly biased history books and chanting songs praising our presidents. It also evokes an early thought process of identity both spiritual and physical that we see harry go through. Spiritual self reflection should be much more encouraged than it is now.

Week Six: A Rich Fantasy Life

            I didn’t really see a specific question pertaining to fantasy but you touched on escapism related to Fantasy and Tolkien’s view in specific. I totally agree with Tolkien view “that readers "escaped" into fantasy literature the way prisoners "escaped" from jail. Tolkien saw the genre we now call fantasy literature as a necessary antidote to modern life.” Growing up extremely sheltered as a child I spent most of my time growing up playing video games, watching films and then creating my own stories in those words in my back yard. When I was old enough my dad sat me down for an entire weekend and made me watch the Trilogy films of Lord of The Rings. My life was never the same after seeing the movies. I absorbed every little bit of Middle Earth that I could. I watched the films over and over again and read the books multiple times. By high school I was fluent in Sindarin (since then have lost it :’( )

            My point in all of this was that I immersed myself in the world, the mythology, and the characters. Because there were so few chances for me to have adventures of my own being a young PK, the world of Tolkien provided me with lengthy descriptions to lose my mind in.

            As I’ve grown I’ve since lost touch with a lot of the simple wonder I would experience just by spending time with myself. I see myself now in Frodo’s shoes after his Bilbo left after his birthday in the beginning of the fellowship. I find that all my heart draws me to have gone with Bilbo instead of staying with the real world. Hopefully my adventure will come soon, and I will have a there and back again.

Week Four: The New Weird

Hannah Blair

WEIRD

            I would like to preface by sharing my thoughts on the word “weird” itself. Weird was always a word used in a very negative way. In the 21^st century to be “weird” is almost a desirable thing by many people. People often label themselves with the term along with “quirky” or “different.” For some time I often responded with “who’s to say what’s weird and what’s normal?” Since hearing it more and more often I began to wonder why we have adapted this. Is it our need to stick out among the masses? Do we enjoy shock value and the attention we receive? My thoughts on the term are now as follows. There is no such thing as weird. Our own standards by which we judge is just the picture we have painted in our minds that is subject to change at any one point. The “norm” is so frequently challenged now that the “norm” isn’t a norm anymore. All we have is our own interpretations of the delusion that is our simple insignificant lives. To those that think they are weird I will say continue to challenge and push so the word weird is constant unspoken truth among all people.

            I guess the thing that to some people would be considered the weirdest in my reading of Monster Island was the fact that the main military force was a troupe of Liberian child soldiers (whom of which were mostly women) that they pumped full of drugs. The concept to me doesn’t seem that bizarre because as a child I remember that when I was exposed to less opinions that life in general made more sense to me and it was easier for me to just buckle down and do something without thinking about a million other things. To me the book was much like every other zombie book I read by the end of it and wasn’t as exciting as the first chapters had made me expect.

Week Three: Asian Horror:Vengeful Spirits

Hannah Blair

Week 3

The conventions in A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami resonate with me on a very personal level. The novel had me paying more attention to the duality of what is good and evil as well as the playing the concept of authority more than any horror aspects. Most of my life I’ve always had issues with authority figures because of situations as a child that moved me to almost having to live two lives. Because of this I’ve often felt life in an almost dual fashion, sometimes in my head seen as the negative and positive.

The writing style instantly proved to be something I was going to enjoy just because it is so extreme in itself. I often have a hard time with names and the way Haruki illustrates the characters it makes it a less confusing experience and really allowed myself to immerse myself in each characters minds. I could easily empathize with the struggle of each of the characters even Sheep man, who illustrates someone who had something of TRUE value which was a memory and now cannot move on with his life because of how hard he tries to hold onto those good moments from our past.

Another concept the book plays with that I find interesting is the Romanization of images. Our “hero” finds a new girlfriend by his over Romanization of a photo of her ear. And the business mans (the rat) obsession with the picture of the sheep and his need to find it resonates notes of that delusion as well. I think as a society we do this with so many things creating value in material items or even the thought of an item or person that we can drive ourselves (and our inferiors that we boss around) to put so much importance in things that only have meaning because we give them meaning. When we allow those delusions to take control of us, we can force ourselves or those around us (much like our hero’s unfortunate situation) to waste the little precious life that is given to us in our blip of an existence on empty goals.

Week Two: Vampire: Love and Pain

Hannah Blair

Week 2

When I saw that we had the option to read a George R. R. Martin book I knew that was going to be the one. It took me a bit longer than anticipated because so much of the book was dedicated to the descriptions of steamboats in the way that Tolkein would describe a mountain. It made it less of an enjoyable experience than Martin’s other more popular series Game of Thrones, which has conventions that appeal to me more. But I digress, The story was staring an Abner Marsh who in fact wasn’t a vampire unlike some of the other novel choices I researched for this weeks topic. We meet Abner a very unfortunate fellow both aesthetically and financially. The vampire is Joshua York who stumbles into Abners life when the peculiarly rich man decides to fund Abners dreamboat in exchange for a co-captainship of the Vessel named Fevre Dream. Abner doesn’t discover his business associates secret until he observes many weeks of strange behavior from Joshua and his crew. The strangely group spends most of their time in closed doors during the day and Abner discovers their secret when he stumbles upon strange writings they have stored in their quarters about deaths and murders and confronts Joshua about them. This is where the novel takes a turn from that of a normal vampire story. Joshua tries to calm Abner at first telling him that him and his people are actually hunters of vampires only to later reveal that while they are out to “end” vampires by using a cure that Joshua created, they are themselves vampires. The irony of this convention really resonated with me as a struggle that even us mortals deal with. We often recognize the evil of man kind and strive to do all In our power to diminish the destruction that we leave on this world with our wars and mass reproduction and pollution and political corruption but there is always a greater power that either distracts us (think the reason the Greeks originally created the Olympics) or we become so overwhelmed with the amount of corruption that we choose ignorance. This translates over, in my opinion, when the villain of the novel, Damon Julian, an ultimate evil vampire, takes over the Fevre Dream, crushing the nobel attempts of the vampires aboard. Abner barely escapes the vessel. To me the vampires are those that were distracted from their mission by fear and distraction while Abner chose the path of ignorance. Many years pass and Abner and Joshua reunite in order to conquer the evil that instilled fear and disregard in the people with noble intentions. The novel ends on a happy (well as happy as it can be) note when the team is able to overcome Damon. To refer back to my analogy, during my reading I often found that if those who felt overpowered by the evil in the world were able to leave their reservations and delusions of what is possible behind then the evil in this world can be abolished.