Against The Day a is 1000+ pages thick epic novel by Thomas Pynchon. It tells the somewhat absurd and humorous, but deeply emotional stories of a variety of characters, taking place in the years 1893 to 1923. They include, among others: The Chums of Chance, a group of adventurers who, in a loving parody of period pulp science fiction, fly around the world in the airship Inconvenience; Lew Basnight, a detective whose life is destroyed due to a crime he doesn't remember committing; Merle Rideout, the daughter to a travelling photographer, who as an adult sets off to find her mother who had run off with magician; Yashmeen Halfcourt, an orphan who is raised by English occultists and Cyprian Latewood, bisexual spy for the British empire, who begins to question his employer.
The centre of the book is however, the Traverse siblings, Frank, Kit, Reed and Lake. Their Father Webb Traverse is miner and an anarchist-syndicalist, who uses dynamite in his struggle against capitalism. Webb is however murdered by the villainous capitalist Scarsdale Vibe and his sons swear revenge. They soon get sidetracked however by their own stories.
The book is an absurd epic, but Pynchon manages to combine his absurd plots with very real human emotions and deep characters. As a writer, he is often accused of being emotionless and dry, something he ably disproves with this book. Amidst all the absurdity and humour, very real and resonant themes and emotions of loss and love develop. The characters struggle to love in an cold and cruel capitalist world, and must deal with death in various forms.
Pynchon is also an incredible stylist and the prose of this book is simply incredible. Here we have both humour and heart-rending emotion. Even if one loses track of the various plot threads, the prose makes one want to continue nevertheless. I especially liked the parodies or pastiches of various genres of fiction. The Chums of Chance sections are for example written in a pulp adventure style, Lew Basnight's story is in the style of a detective novel and parts of the story of the Traverse family in a western style. There is a also a brief but very good pastiche of Lovecraft relatively early in the book.
Pynchon's use of motifs in the novel is also impressive. There is a central motif or theme in the book of doubling. The Chums of Chance, for example encounter Russian counterparts of themselves and at the end of the book gets transported to a parallel earth. There is two minor characters, the professors Werfner and Renfrew who are doubles of each other and whose names is a palindrome. The magician who Merle Rideout's mother runs off with, can create identical doubles of a person. In a memorable passage, fiction is described as giving the reader a "dual existence" between material reality and the world of the book. Finally, the book is dominated by the image of the Icelandic spar, which double refracts light.
Another central theme is the time period of 1893 to 1923 itself. Pynchon ably describes how the optimism of the age, which both the form of the liberal capitalist idea of eternal progress and the socialist dream of a better world, came to an end in the First World War and the brutal repression of the socialist movement in the United States. This is depicted partially through The Chums of Chance, who being pulp adventurers of course embody this optimism, and who comes to question everything they stand for, as the war approaches and eventually break out.
Pynchon gives powerful and harrowing depictions of both the war and the Ludlow massacre (a central moment in the repression of the US socialist movement), in which he doesn't parody, but rather evokes the writings of Siegfried Sassoon, Erich Maria Remarque, Upton Sinclair and other writers who have depicted the same horrors.
But Pynchon doesn't give in to despair and is thankfully unfashionable enough as writer to give the reader a hopeful and happy ending. Despite everything, hope should not be abandoned, Pynchon seems to argue. The Chums of Chance eventually construct an new positive world-view after the war has ended and starts to build an utopia aboard their airship, which leads to one of the most moving and optimistic ending sentences in all of literature: "They will feel the turn in the wind. They will
put on smoked goggles for the glory of what is coming to part the sky.
They fly toward grace."
A fitting ending to one of the best novels I have ever read. A true epic, skilfully told with both love and humour.
Sunday, 21 September 2014
Friday, 19 September 2014
"The Ocean at the End of the Lane" by Neil Gaiman
The Ocean at the End of the Lane is, in part, a novel about childhood, written from an adult perspective. The story is told by an unnamed narrator, who in the present remembers
the events of the book, which happened when he was seven years old, which was about forty years ago.
His parents, in order to make ends meet, take in a lodger. He is a cruel opal miner from South Africa, who due to his gambling debts, steals the family car and commits suicide in it. However, due to him committing suicide in a magical place, his death summons forth a Lovecraftian monster from another universe. Thankfully, three women live on a farm at the end of the lane, The Hempstocks, who fight against the monstrous being. The Hempstocks are of course not human at all, but in fact powerful supernatural beings, of whom the oldest is even older than the universe. On their farm is a duckpond, which is in fact the ocean of the title.
One of Neil Gaiman's strengths as a writer has always been his ability to ground the fantastic in mundane reality. And that ability is very much in evidence here. The story is partly autobiographical and it is not hard to recognize Gaiman in the lonely and bookish child, who lives "more in books than.. anywhere else" and grows up to be an artist. He fills the book with little details, obviously from his own childhood in the 1960s, that make the story and its world interesting and convincing.
His stylistic strength as a writer is here too, the book is a delight to read. The text flows in a way that is very rare and it is very quotable. The characterization is very strong too. I particularly liked the portrayal of the narrator and his father, and their relationship. As anybody familiar with The Sandman might expect, Gaiman's non-human characters are also very well drawn, both the monstrous villian and the Hempstocks (who, by the way, reflect the archetypes of Maiden, Mother and Crone).
As I said before, this is a book about childhood and it is one of the best books I have read on the subject. Gaiman brilliantly captures the wonder of childhood: “I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.”
But as the quote implies, Gaiman is very much aware of the vulnerability of children, which is the source of much of the horror of the novel. Indeed, the narrator seems much more vulnerable to human adults, than to the inhuman monstrosities he must face. At one point, the Lovecraftian monster that is the villian of the book even transforms itself into an adult human, and by doing this becomes more of a threat to Gaiman's boy hero than it was before.
This way, Gaiman cleverly connects this mundane human fear all children have, with a grand cosmic, Lovecraftian horror, where the reality we know is, as he delightfully puts it, merely "a thin layer of icing on a great dark birthday cake writhing with grubs and nightmares and hunger". This dark perspective is put into contrast by the Hempstocks, who act as a powerful, but benevolent counterforce to the immense monsters, who haunt the cosmos.
This is a rare book. It is a novel about childhood, which doesn't fall into shapeless nostalgia, but instead retains the wisdom that comes with growing up and applies it to childhood in order to bring light to it. Gaiman manages to keep both the wisdom of age and the ability of a child to see an ocean in a pond.
His parents, in order to make ends meet, take in a lodger. He is a cruel opal miner from South Africa, who due to his gambling debts, steals the family car and commits suicide in it. However, due to him committing suicide in a magical place, his death summons forth a Lovecraftian monster from another universe. Thankfully, three women live on a farm at the end of the lane, The Hempstocks, who fight against the monstrous being. The Hempstocks are of course not human at all, but in fact powerful supernatural beings, of whom the oldest is even older than the universe. On their farm is a duckpond, which is in fact the ocean of the title.
One of Neil Gaiman's strengths as a writer has always been his ability to ground the fantastic in mundane reality. And that ability is very much in evidence here. The story is partly autobiographical and it is not hard to recognize Gaiman in the lonely and bookish child, who lives "more in books than.. anywhere else" and grows up to be an artist. He fills the book with little details, obviously from his own childhood in the 1960s, that make the story and its world interesting and convincing.
His stylistic strength as a writer is here too, the book is a delight to read. The text flows in a way that is very rare and it is very quotable. The characterization is very strong too. I particularly liked the portrayal of the narrator and his father, and their relationship. As anybody familiar with The Sandman might expect, Gaiman's non-human characters are also very well drawn, both the monstrous villian and the Hempstocks (who, by the way, reflect the archetypes of Maiden, Mother and Crone).
As I said before, this is a book about childhood and it is one of the best books I have read on the subject. Gaiman brilliantly captures the wonder of childhood: “I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.”
But as the quote implies, Gaiman is very much aware of the vulnerability of children, which is the source of much of the horror of the novel. Indeed, the narrator seems much more vulnerable to human adults, than to the inhuman monstrosities he must face. At one point, the Lovecraftian monster that is the villian of the book even transforms itself into an adult human, and by doing this becomes more of a threat to Gaiman's boy hero than it was before.
This way, Gaiman cleverly connects this mundane human fear all children have, with a grand cosmic, Lovecraftian horror, where the reality we know is, as he delightfully puts it, merely "a thin layer of icing on a great dark birthday cake writhing with grubs and nightmares and hunger". This dark perspective is put into contrast by the Hempstocks, who act as a powerful, but benevolent counterforce to the immense monsters, who haunt the cosmos.
This is a rare book. It is a novel about childhood, which doesn't fall into shapeless nostalgia, but instead retains the wisdom that comes with growing up and applies it to childhood in order to bring light to it. Gaiman manages to keep both the wisdom of age and the ability of a child to see an ocean in a pond.
Wednesday, 20 August 2014
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind by Hayao Miyazaki (manga review)
Hayao Miyazaki is more known as a film director than as a mangaka, and judging by his own comments, he prefers it that way. In a essay included with my edition, he confesses to having "no talent for comics" and seems to have finished Nausicaä purely out of a sense of duty. It was almost surreal to read that, as the book I held in my hands proves him wrong.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is a fantasy/science fiction story about our planet, after our industrial civilization is destroyed in a cataclysmic war, called "The Seven Days of Fire". Despite the environmental destruction caused by industrialism and war, humanity survives, though the industrial civilisation is never rebuilt. According to the prologue, industrial civilisation lasted for about a thousand years, and in the comic itself, we learn that a thousand years has passed since its destruction. As industrial civilisation began around 1800, I guess that means the comic is supposed to take place around the year 3800.
After the apocalypse, a forest begins to grow on the polluted wastelands left by the humans, whose plants gives off a toxic miasma, called the Sea of Corruption, which takes over most of the land. Humans are forced to live on its periphery on the little land that remains, where they form small kingdoms, primarily using aircraft for transportation. The title character, Nausicaä, is the princess of one of these small kingdoms, called the Valley of the Wind. As the manga begins, war breaks out between two empires, The Torumekian empire and The Dorok empire. By necessity, The Valley of The Wind is allied to the Torumekians and Nausicaä is required to fight for them.
Thus begins an epic and thrilling, but philosophical adventure, that I will leave the readers to discover for themselves. For Nausicaä is one of the best comics I have ever read. To begin, it has simply beautiful and very detailed artwork with amazing designs, that pulls the reader into the complex world that Miyazaki constructs.
For that matter, the world-building in this manga is simply wonderful. One of Miyazaki's inspirations in creating it was Tolkien, who was the first great world-builder in fantasy, and it shows.
Miyazaki's imagination is seemingly limitless in its ability to create new and original places, animals and plants. The Sea of corruption in itself is a powerful thought, and the immense insects who live in it are among the most original creatures in fantasy. Several times while reading, I was struck by the sense of wonder, which is the hallmark of all good fantasy and science fiction.
The world is compelling and believable, although it is somewhat illogical how everyone keeps using aircraft in this non-industrial world, seemingly without having to worry about fuel at all. But as usual in Miyazaki's works, the flying scenes are wonderful and his love for flight radiates through them, so one can't really complain.
This is all tied together by a strong and intelligent story, with simple, but profound themes. Miyazaki may be accused of preaching, as his thesis, while subtle overall, is obvious to the discerning reader, but as it is a very good sermon, this stands in its favour.
The manga is especially strong in its clear depiction of the horrors and madness of war. It shows how war is nearly always caused by cynical greed instead of the supposedly noble causes warmongers always claim to be inspired by. As Peter Hammil puts it: "every bloody emperor claims that freedom is his cause". (and while we are on the subject of war and violence, I must say that this comic is the perfect refutation of the idea that one can not create a thrilling adventure story, that is also against violence.)
As in many of Miyazaki's works, the main character is a young woman, a subtle feminist statement by itself. But as you might have guessed from my synopsis above, the ecological message is paramount here. And it is a message of such rare beauty and power, that I won't even attempt to reproduce it here.
And finally, there are the wonderful and likeable characters. Miyazaki's characterization are one of his strengths. In Nausicaä he manages to create an (almost messianic) role-model, who embodies his message of empathy with all living things, but who also has human faults and foibles. But my personal favourite character is Kushana, the Torumekian princess, a warrior woman involved in the power struggles of her empire, but who slowly becomes influenced by Nausicaä peaceful views. And this is only two of the many wonderful characters in this comic.
Part of the reason for this is Miyazaki's rejection of the traditional western concept of good and evil people. There are characters who perform evil actions, but they are not themselves wholly evil and unredeemable (and of course the heroes are not wholly good either, although Nausicaä comes very close to that). This makes for complex characterizations. Often Miyazaki will introduce someone or something that seems evil, only to slowly reveal more or develop the character, so that the thing or character not only seems not so evil, but actually loveable. Often I found myself feeling sympathy for a character I hated a few hundred pages earlier.
And that is the greatness of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. It not only advocates universal love for all living things, even those who seem contemptible and disgusting, but makes the reader also feel that love.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is a fantasy/science fiction story about our planet, after our industrial civilization is destroyed in a cataclysmic war, called "The Seven Days of Fire". Despite the environmental destruction caused by industrialism and war, humanity survives, though the industrial civilisation is never rebuilt. According to the prologue, industrial civilisation lasted for about a thousand years, and in the comic itself, we learn that a thousand years has passed since its destruction. As industrial civilisation began around 1800, I guess that means the comic is supposed to take place around the year 3800.
After the apocalypse, a forest begins to grow on the polluted wastelands left by the humans, whose plants gives off a toxic miasma, called the Sea of Corruption, which takes over most of the land. Humans are forced to live on its periphery on the little land that remains, where they form small kingdoms, primarily using aircraft for transportation. The title character, Nausicaä, is the princess of one of these small kingdoms, called the Valley of the Wind. As the manga begins, war breaks out between two empires, The Torumekian empire and The Dorok empire. By necessity, The Valley of The Wind is allied to the Torumekians and Nausicaä is required to fight for them.
Thus begins an epic and thrilling, but philosophical adventure, that I will leave the readers to discover for themselves. For Nausicaä is one of the best comics I have ever read. To begin, it has simply beautiful and very detailed artwork with amazing designs, that pulls the reader into the complex world that Miyazaki constructs.
For that matter, the world-building in this manga is simply wonderful. One of Miyazaki's inspirations in creating it was Tolkien, who was the first great world-builder in fantasy, and it shows.
Miyazaki's imagination is seemingly limitless in its ability to create new and original places, animals and plants. The Sea of corruption in itself is a powerful thought, and the immense insects who live in it are among the most original creatures in fantasy. Several times while reading, I was struck by the sense of wonder, which is the hallmark of all good fantasy and science fiction.
The world is compelling and believable, although it is somewhat illogical how everyone keeps using aircraft in this non-industrial world, seemingly without having to worry about fuel at all. But as usual in Miyazaki's works, the flying scenes are wonderful and his love for flight radiates through them, so one can't really complain.
This is all tied together by a strong and intelligent story, with simple, but profound themes. Miyazaki may be accused of preaching, as his thesis, while subtle overall, is obvious to the discerning reader, but as it is a very good sermon, this stands in its favour.
The manga is especially strong in its clear depiction of the horrors and madness of war. It shows how war is nearly always caused by cynical greed instead of the supposedly noble causes warmongers always claim to be inspired by. As Peter Hammil puts it: "every bloody emperor claims that freedom is his cause". (and while we are on the subject of war and violence, I must say that this comic is the perfect refutation of the idea that one can not create a thrilling adventure story, that is also against violence.)
As in many of Miyazaki's works, the main character is a young woman, a subtle feminist statement by itself. But as you might have guessed from my synopsis above, the ecological message is paramount here. And it is a message of such rare beauty and power, that I won't even attempt to reproduce it here.
And finally, there are the wonderful and likeable characters. Miyazaki's characterization are one of his strengths. In Nausicaä he manages to create an (almost messianic) role-model, who embodies his message of empathy with all living things, but who also has human faults and foibles. But my personal favourite character is Kushana, the Torumekian princess, a warrior woman involved in the power struggles of her empire, but who slowly becomes influenced by Nausicaä peaceful views. And this is only two of the many wonderful characters in this comic.
Part of the reason for this is Miyazaki's rejection of the traditional western concept of good and evil people. There are characters who perform evil actions, but they are not themselves wholly evil and unredeemable (and of course the heroes are not wholly good either, although Nausicaä comes very close to that). This makes for complex characterizations. Often Miyazaki will introduce someone or something that seems evil, only to slowly reveal more or develop the character, so that the thing or character not only seems not so evil, but actually loveable. Often I found myself feeling sympathy for a character I hated a few hundred pages earlier.
And that is the greatness of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. It not only advocates universal love for all living things, even those who seem contemptible and disgusting, but makes the reader also feel that love.
Thursday, 12 June 2014
"The King of Elflands Daughter" by Lord Dunsany
A council in the kingdom of the valley of Erl, demand to be ruled by a magic king, so that their land will not be forgotten by the world. Their present king sends out his son Alveric to go to Elfland and fetch The King of Elflands Daughter as his wife. With help of a magic sword, forged by the witch Ziroonderel, he makes his way into the beautiful, but dangerous Elfland. He meets the elven princess, Lirazel and they fall in love. And Alveric takes her to the kingdom of Erl to be his wife...
The King of Elflands Daughter is a novel about the conflict between the mundane human world of Erl and the elfin magic of Elfland. This is a conflict that takes many forms in the novel and in reality: the conflict between Christianity and paganism, the human-made world and nature, dreams and practical reality, masculinity and femininity, childhood and adulthood.
Dunsany doesn't take sides in this struggle and both sides have their faults. The denizens of Elfland, for example, are immortal and time in their land moves very slowly, so that each moment may be appreciated in full by everyone. Therefore there is no hurry, stress or ageing in Elfland. As beautiful and desirable this may be, it also leads to almost complete stagnation (1). Ageing and death is a blessing, as it means change, growth and new people.
On the other hand, the human world can be cruel and rule-bound. When Lirazel comes to Erl, Alveric tries to convert her to Christianity. However, as an elf, a pagan being, she is, despite trying her best, unable to become Christian and would rather worship the stars. For this, she is shunned and treated with cruelty by the humans, even Alveric. In this and other matters, Lirazel is unable to conform to the human way of life, and keeps to her "elvish ways". She eventually returns to Elfland.
For while, no one is at fault in this conflict, the rational human world and magic can not co-exist.
For Lord Dunsany, the magical world is not at all mendable to human demands, but in fact much greater and powerful than humanity. It is not hard to see the influence he had on H. P. Lovecraft, not only in the Dream-cycle stories, but also in Lovecrafts more famous horror stories. Just as in Lovecrafts books, humanity is surrounded by immense supernatural forces, so large and powerful that they are largely indifferent towards humans, who they see as insignificant. Lovecraft used this "cosmic" perspective as the basis for his magnificent horror stories.
However, in Dusany's stories (and of course in Lovecrafts own fantasy stories) the magical is not only frightening, but also full of wonder and beauty. And this is perhaps the foremost reason to read The King of Elflands Daughter, for Dunsany's writing is, to me, simply deeply beautiful, both in content and form. His prose is unique, lyrical and dreamlike. It is often imitated, but rarely sucessfully.
Of course, the novel shows it's age at times and is far from perfect. The foremost weakness of the book was for me was the story of Orion, the son of Lirazel and Alveric. He is, as befits his name, a hunter, and spends a large part of the novel hunting unicorns with dogs at the borders of Erl and Elfland. The narrative doesn't condemn his actions and even celebrates them, which isn't surpsing considering the book was written in 1924, but it is hard for a modern person not to view Orion's actions as cruel and brutish, making these parts somewhat unpleasant to read (2). There is also a very silly plot development, in which Orion gets help hunting from trolls, that wouldn't seem out of place in a Terry Pratchett novel.
I was compelled to contrast this with T. H. White's The Once and Future King, in which unicorn hunting is also portrayed, but there as a cruel destruction of beauty, which to me is a much more relatable perspective, than Dunsany's enthusiasm for trophy hunting.
On the other hand, there is much beautiful writing even in these weaker parts of Dunsany's book. The depiction of Orion's childhood and coming of age are one of the best parts of the book and the encounter of the trolls with the Human world is very beautiful, as is the chapter in which the trolls convince the will o' the wisps to help Orion hunt.
So, despite some flaws, this is an incredible and very beautiful book, one of the foundation stones of the fantasy genre. As Lovecraft put it in his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature:
"... no amount of mere description can convey more than a fraction of Lord Dunsany’s pervasive charm... To the truly imaginative he is a talisman and a key unlocking rich storehouses of dream and fragmentary memory; so that we may think of him not only as a poet, but as one who makes each reader a poet as well."
"Lirazel" (sung by Mary Hopkin)from the album "The King of Elflands Daughter" by Bob Johnson and Peter Knight (both members of Steeleye Span)
Notes
(1) This is an idea Tolkien would later explore in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, in which the elves stagnate due to their near-immortality.
(2) Lord Dunsany was a keen hunter himself, and these parts of the book are probably based on his own experiences fox-hunting with dogs. This form of hunting is now banned in the UK. Interestingly, Dunsany, despite being a hunter, was also a animal welfare activist, active within the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and even president of it's West Kent branch.
The King of Elflands Daughter is a novel about the conflict between the mundane human world of Erl and the elfin magic of Elfland. This is a conflict that takes many forms in the novel and in reality: the conflict between Christianity and paganism, the human-made world and nature, dreams and practical reality, masculinity and femininity, childhood and adulthood.
Dunsany doesn't take sides in this struggle and both sides have their faults. The denizens of Elfland, for example, are immortal and time in their land moves very slowly, so that each moment may be appreciated in full by everyone. Therefore there is no hurry, stress or ageing in Elfland. As beautiful and desirable this may be, it also leads to almost complete stagnation (1). Ageing and death is a blessing, as it means change, growth and new people.
On the other hand, the human world can be cruel and rule-bound. When Lirazel comes to Erl, Alveric tries to convert her to Christianity. However, as an elf, a pagan being, she is, despite trying her best, unable to become Christian and would rather worship the stars. For this, she is shunned and treated with cruelty by the humans, even Alveric. In this and other matters, Lirazel is unable to conform to the human way of life, and keeps to her "elvish ways". She eventually returns to Elfland.
For while, no one is at fault in this conflict, the rational human world and magic can not co-exist.
For Lord Dunsany, the magical world is not at all mendable to human demands, but in fact much greater and powerful than humanity. It is not hard to see the influence he had on H. P. Lovecraft, not only in the Dream-cycle stories, but also in Lovecrafts more famous horror stories. Just as in Lovecrafts books, humanity is surrounded by immense supernatural forces, so large and powerful that they are largely indifferent towards humans, who they see as insignificant. Lovecraft used this "cosmic" perspective as the basis for his magnificent horror stories.
However, in Dusany's stories (and of course in Lovecrafts own fantasy stories) the magical is not only frightening, but also full of wonder and beauty. And this is perhaps the foremost reason to read The King of Elflands Daughter, for Dunsany's writing is, to me, simply deeply beautiful, both in content and form. His prose is unique, lyrical and dreamlike. It is often imitated, but rarely sucessfully.
Of course, the novel shows it's age at times and is far from perfect. The foremost weakness of the book was for me was the story of Orion, the son of Lirazel and Alveric. He is, as befits his name, a hunter, and spends a large part of the novel hunting unicorns with dogs at the borders of Erl and Elfland. The narrative doesn't condemn his actions and even celebrates them, which isn't surpsing considering the book was written in 1924, but it is hard for a modern person not to view Orion's actions as cruel and brutish, making these parts somewhat unpleasant to read (2). There is also a very silly plot development, in which Orion gets help hunting from trolls, that wouldn't seem out of place in a Terry Pratchett novel.
I was compelled to contrast this with T. H. White's The Once and Future King, in which unicorn hunting is also portrayed, but there as a cruel destruction of beauty, which to me is a much more relatable perspective, than Dunsany's enthusiasm for trophy hunting.
On the other hand, there is much beautiful writing even in these weaker parts of Dunsany's book. The depiction of Orion's childhood and coming of age are one of the best parts of the book and the encounter of the trolls with the Human world is very beautiful, as is the chapter in which the trolls convince the will o' the wisps to help Orion hunt.
So, despite some flaws, this is an incredible and very beautiful book, one of the foundation stones of the fantasy genre. As Lovecraft put it in his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature:
"... no amount of mere description can convey more than a fraction of Lord Dunsany’s pervasive charm... To the truly imaginative he is a talisman and a key unlocking rich storehouses of dream and fragmentary memory; so that we may think of him not only as a poet, but as one who makes each reader a poet as well."
Notes
(1) This is an idea Tolkien would later explore in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, in which the elves stagnate due to their near-immortality.
(2) Lord Dunsany was a keen hunter himself, and these parts of the book are probably based on his own experiences fox-hunting with dogs. This form of hunting is now banned in the UK. Interestingly, Dunsany, despite being a hunter, was also a animal welfare activist, active within the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and even president of it's West Kent branch.
Sunday, 20 April 2014
Kaze Tachinu (2013, dir. H. Miyazaki) - an analysis
"Kaze Tachinu" (The Wind Rises), directed by Hayao Miyazaki, is an animated and fictionalized biography of Jiro Horikoshi (played by Hideaki Anno), an airplane designer who created the famous Mitsubishi Zero fighter in the years preceding the second world war. He combines the story of Horikoshi, with elements drawn from a short novel by Japanese author Tatsuo Hori. The theme is fitting for Miyazaki, especially as it is supposed to be his final film. His fascination with flight, and the wonder and beauty of it, runs through his work.
The film is a poetic and elegiac portrayal of Horikoshi's life, in which Miyzaki uses a complex and beautiful visual language. The film takes as much place inside the mind of Jiro, as in the world around him, shifting seamlessly between his world of dreams and imagination and the real world
(Before I continue, I should warn the reader that I am going to discuss and analyze the plot of the film in some detail, including the ending).
Miyazaki portrays Horikoshi as an artist and airplanes as beautiful art. Miyazaki has a love of flying, that shows itself in practically all his films, but never more than here. The beauty of the airplanes of the past is fully on display in this film and Miyazaki fully imparts his love of them unto the audience. In Miyazaki's eyes, technology and engineering is an artform (1). At times, one even gets a science-fictionlike sense of wonder from the beautiful designs, all the more wonderful because they are real. Miyazaki, known to be the master of fantasy, here makes reality as wonderful as fantasy (2).
This is entirely appropriate, as airplanes (as technology in general), by going from an idea in the mind of the designer to concrete realtity, are dreams made real. (and of course, the airplane is realization of one of the oldest human dreams, that of flight). This breakdown between imagination and reality are fully present in the film itself, since its travels fluidly between Jiro's imagination and reality.
A world with pyramids
But dreams can also be nightmares and beauty corrupted. In the hands of the military, the beautiful airplanes become instruments of death and destruction. Jiro himself ends up designing fighter planes for the military. Of course, he realized that this would happen and, being a man of peace, struggles with the dilemma. In his imagination, he speaks to his hero, airplane designer Count Caproni, who himself ended up designing war planes. Caproni (or rather himself) tells him to go ahead despite this. He makes an analogy with the pyramids (which were built by slave labor) and says he would rather have a world with pyramids, than one without. The world is better off with the beauty of Jiro's creations, despite the fact that others are going to use them for evil.
But of course, this is no definite answer and in the end Jiro surveys the carnage caused by the war, sincerely wondering if his Zero fighter was worth it (3).
This is of course a very difficult subject matter, but Miyazaki handles it beautifully, condemning war and imperialism, but recognizing the beauty of the Zero fighter and the humanity of its designer. He wrestles maturely with the questions this means and doesn't give easy answers.
"Das gibt's nur einmal"
The film also tells the story of the love between Jiro and his wife Naoko. He meets her during the great earthquake of 1923, when he rescues her and her mother from its effects. They are afterwards separated for several years, before they meet again at a holiday resort. Their love blossoms and they become engaged to each other.
But sadly, Naoko suffers from tuberculosis and is eventually confined to a sanatorium (Thomas Mann's Der Zauberberg is naturally explicitly referenced.). But her love for Jiro is too strong and she leaves the sanatorium to live with and marry him, despite this shortening her life. She decides that living a short life with the one she loves, is better than a longer life without him. Miyazaki seems to argue that life without love is not worth living, no matter how long (4).
Myiazaki of course connects this theme to the questions raised by Jiro's work. Jiro "choosing a world with pyramids", by creating the Zero fighter, is in the end the same decision Naoko makes when she leaves the sanatorium.
But yet again, Miyazaki avoids easy answers. Naoko eventually returns to the sanatorium, but this time to die, in order to spare Jiro the pain of seeing her die. Just as she feared, burning brighter also means one burns out faster (5).
"The Wind rises"
The ending is sad and elegiac. Naoko dies and Jiro's beautiful plane becomes a tool of destruction in the second world war. In the ending scene, which takes place in Jiro's imagination, he surveys the carnage and questions his life. But there is also hope.
This hope is in the very title of the film, which comes from a poem by Paul Valery: ‘Le Cimetiere marin’ ("The graveyard by the sea") which also serves as the films motto: "The wind rises!... We must try to live!" The wind is a recurring motif throughout the film, that is associated with Naoko.
Finally the wind rises one last time and Naoko appears. She tells Jiro to keep on living, before she disappears. On that melancholic, but hopeful note, the film ends. As Valery tells us: despite all the suffering in the world, we must try to live.
Notes
(1)There is one scene in which he extends this viewpoint beyond aeroplanes to technology in general, when Jiro admires a radiator and compares it to his beloved planes. I remember this particularly because my house has very similar old-fashioned water-radiators and the scene has made me appreciate them more.
(2) Miyazaki does the same thing with the Japanese countryside, making it seem as fantastic and wonderful as the fantasy landscapes in some of his earlier films.
(3) Jiro says that none of the Zero fighters survived, which is a very beautiful and poetic idea, despite not being true, as there are a few surviving Zeros.
(4) It is no coincidence, that Jiro sings the period schlager "Das gibt nur einmal, das kommt nicht wieder", right before announcing his engagement to Naoko. The ethos of the song, that life is to be lived to the fullest because it is the only one we have, is also that of her life and marriage.
(5) It is also implied that Naoko sacrifices herself, not only for her love, but for Jiro's work. She acts as muse to Jiro, inspiring him, during his work on the Zero fighter, and she only leaves when it is finished, making her the fighters first victim.
Sunday, 23 February 2014
In memoriam, Francesco Di Giacomo (1947-2014)
I have just learned that Francesco Di Giacomo, the lead singer of Italian progressive rock band Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso, has tragically died in a car accident on the 22th of February. With him, Porgressive rock lost one of it's greatest singers.
Italy for some reason, really took to progressive rock in the 70s in a way that few, if any, countries did. Prof. Bill Martin in his book about the music, "Listening to the Future" argues that this is due to the romantic currents which run deep in Italian culture. The Italians could therefore sympathize with the music of the (mainly) English progressive rock bands, which took deep influences from earlier English romanticism, both in poetry and music (Martin also points out that the English romantic poets, especially Byron, often took inspiration from the Italian landscape).
This did not only mean the mass-popularity of the English original bands In Italy (It was the only country in which "Pawn Hearts" by Van Der Graaf Generator not only made the album charts, but went all the way to number one), but also that the Italians created their own progressive music.
This rock music "sprang fully-grown from the head of Jupiter" in Italy, Martin notes, as it was the first kind of rock music to catch on there
Perhaps the best of all Italian Progressive rock bands, certainly one of the best, was Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso. They, like many of these bands took the English style and made it their own, adding Italian folk music and opera into their music. Their very distinct sound was defined by their two keyboardists, the brothers Gianni and Vittorio Nocenzi; and of course Di Giacomo's beautiful and warm tenor, which often was operatic in style. He sang, like most bands in the Italian progressive rock movement, in Italian (with the exception of some lesser recorded efforts in English). Two of their best records were 1972's "Darwin!" ( a concept album about evolutionary theory) and 1973's "Io sono nato libero" ("I was born free", a hymn to freedom,with a 15 minute long opening track in support of the political prisoners in Latin American fascist dictatorships).
Even when one doesn't know Italian, one is often greatly moved by Di Giacomo's wonderful singing, which shows his power as a singer; the ability he had to convey emotion and move listeners all over the world just with his voice, many who didn't understand the language he spoke and sang. Hopefully he will continue to do so through the records he made.
Here are some testaments to that, recorded at an reunion concert in the early 90s. I hope they show a little of his range as a singer and, of course, the abilities of the band. Both selections are from "Darwin!"
Italy for some reason, really took to progressive rock in the 70s in a way that few, if any, countries did. Prof. Bill Martin in his book about the music, "Listening to the Future" argues that this is due to the romantic currents which run deep in Italian culture. The Italians could therefore sympathize with the music of the (mainly) English progressive rock bands, which took deep influences from earlier English romanticism, both in poetry and music (Martin also points out that the English romantic poets, especially Byron, often took inspiration from the Italian landscape).
This did not only mean the mass-popularity of the English original bands In Italy (It was the only country in which "Pawn Hearts" by Van Der Graaf Generator not only made the album charts, but went all the way to number one), but also that the Italians created their own progressive music.
This rock music "sprang fully-grown from the head of Jupiter" in Italy, Martin notes, as it was the first kind of rock music to catch on there
Perhaps the best of all Italian Progressive rock bands, certainly one of the best, was Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso. They, like many of these bands took the English style and made it their own, adding Italian folk music and opera into their music. Their very distinct sound was defined by their two keyboardists, the brothers Gianni and Vittorio Nocenzi; and of course Di Giacomo's beautiful and warm tenor, which often was operatic in style. He sang, like most bands in the Italian progressive rock movement, in Italian (with the exception of some lesser recorded efforts in English). Two of their best records were 1972's "Darwin!" ( a concept album about evolutionary theory) and 1973's "Io sono nato libero" ("I was born free", a hymn to freedom,with a 15 minute long opening track in support of the political prisoners in Latin American fascist dictatorships).
Even when one doesn't know Italian, one is often greatly moved by Di Giacomo's wonderful singing, which shows his power as a singer; the ability he had to convey emotion and move listeners all over the world just with his voice, many who didn't understand the language he spoke and sang. Hopefully he will continue to do so through the records he made.
Here are some testaments to that, recorded at an reunion concert in the early 90s. I hope they show a little of his range as a singer and, of course, the abilities of the band. Both selections are from "Darwin!"
Sunday, 9 February 2014
"Tear down the mountains" ( a poem)
Dedicated to the sharks in the waters off the coast of Western Australia
"Tear down the mountains, we're afraid to fall".
"Dry the oceans, we're afraid to drown"
"Kill the wolves, we're afraid to be eaten"
So they scream in shrill voices, the "stewards of the Earth"
To them the Earth belongs
They who have never understood.
I dream of sharks at night
Huge, white, with many teeth
I do not fear
I see men, in suits.
Old and frail.
I scream in fear
For sharks kill to eat, men in suits kill to earn.
The sharks will stop eating, once they are full,
but the men are never full
They will go on, eating forests, libraries, oceans, schools, animals and hospitals,
until there is nothing left on this Earth.
(2014-02-09)
"Tear down the mountains, we're afraid to fall".
"Dry the oceans, we're afraid to drown"
"Kill the wolves, we're afraid to be eaten"
So they scream in shrill voices, the "stewards of the Earth"
To them the Earth belongs
They who have never understood.
I dream of sharks at night
Huge, white, with many teeth
I do not fear
I see men, in suits.
Old and frail.
I scream in fear
For sharks kill to eat, men in suits kill to earn.
The sharks will stop eating, once they are full,
but the men are never full
They will go on, eating forests, libraries, oceans, schools, animals and hospitals,
until there is nothing left on this Earth.
(2014-02-09)
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