Obsessions

How many obsessions do I have? Too many to count. Most of them stem back to my childhood. I rarely discover new obsessions in my adulthood, except for, perhaps, my undying love for Jason Segel which flourished when I first saw “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” But typically most of my obsessions can be traced back to my childhood. One in particular has been around for as long as I can remember: my obsession with movies. I remember the first film that really resonated with me. It was “Jaws.” I saw it for the first time when I was probably about seven. I didn’t even see the whole thing. I walked into the kitchen one day, and my brother was watching it on TV. So I took a seat next to him at our kitchen table, and I remember it was at  the scene where Quint gets eaten by the shark. Of course, I’d seen movies before that, mostly children’s movies like “Aladdin” and “The Wizard of Oz” (the green witch still haunts me). But I’d never really seen a movie until “Jaws.” Why do I connect so much with a film about a killer shark? I have absolutely no idea, but I know that I own the movie and have watched it now probably 25+ times. If you ever watch the movie with me, you’ll soon realize that I also talk along with the characters in the film because I have the lines memorized that much. Is this nerdy to admit? Yes. But, am I ashamed? Absolutely not. Movies are my biggest obsession. I watch around 7 movies a week. Two during the required screenings I have for my film classes, usually one for my job (film critic for the Daily), and about four in my spare time for fun. Movies are my escape. They help me relax. They inspire me.  And they make me happy. That’s why I watch so many and that’s why I want to be a screenwriter. The only thing better than sitting down to watch a movie is sitting down to watch a movie starring Jason Segel with a bag of banana flavored Laffy Taffy in my hands (strictly banana flavor, though, any other flavor is simply unacceptable). That’s 3 obsessions in one. But above all is the movie.

One of the best scenes in the movie.

Do Unicorns Exist?

Everyone knows what a unicorn is, but nobody has ever seen one. Or perhaps someone has, but we have no photographic evidence. Unicorns and their skulls play a prominent role in Murakami’s “Hard-Boiled Wonderland,” popping up numerous times. For most of chapter 9, Murakami discusses unicorns at great length. So this got me thinking about unicorns and how the myth first came up. I researched the origins of unicorns, as well as, what animals (that we know existed for real) could have been mistaken for unicorns. Murakami makes a lot of different claims about unicorns in his book: they can have one to three horns, and there are different varieties (Greek, Chinese). They can be aggressive or gentle and signs of good luck or powerful lust. Murakami also mentions the narwhal, the qilin, the triceratops, and the rhinoceros in relation to the unicorn. Here’s what I found out:

-The word “unicorn” is mentioned 9 times in the King James version of the Bible; in modern translations, the word is changed to “wild ox” or “buffalo”

-The origin of the unicorn can not be traced exactly, though there are many accounts of the unicorn that can be traced back as far as 5th century BC

-Ctesias’ (Greek physician and historian) account: Unicorn has a white body, a head that is dark red, eyes that are dark blue, with 1 horn that consists of 3 colors: the base is white, the middle is black, and the upper part is crimson

-Pliny’s account: Unicorn had the head of a stag, body of a horse, the feet on an elephant, a tail like a boar, and one single black horn that measured 3 feet long

-Aristotle’s account: Refers to unicorn as “ass of India,” he claimed that the horn was attached to the unicorn’s head by skin rather than bone so that it may be moved up and down like  ears

-Solinus’ (Latin compiler) account: Describes the unicorn as a monster; “a cruel animal with a horrible bellow;” asserts that the unicorn cannot be caught alive

-Often compared to a goat, a horse, an ass/donkey, a stag in older accounts

-Some accounts describe the unicorn as having small wings; possible link to Pegasus

-Current day representations of unicorns usually presents them as essentially white horses with a long horn at the top of their head (typically thought of as more beautiful than ugly)

-Greek accounts typically describe the unicorn as having the ability to be both fierce and gentle

-Chinese version of a Unicorn: was said to have a fleshy horn that was useless in fights, skin that was white, red, yellow, blue and black; with feet like a horse and a voice like bells; it was believed that unicorns could walk on water as well as land; known to be very gentle; one of the 4 sacred animals of China (which includes phoenix, dragon, and tortoise)

-Chinese accounts asserted that the unicorn was a portent of good fortune

-Qilin and unicorn are sometimes used interchangeably though they have slight differences; the Qilin is a Chinese chimerical creature with a body that is described as looking like fire

-There was a long standing belief that only a virgin could tame a unicorn

-Unicorns are often used as symbols of purity and innocence

-Also linked to the eclipse, the sun, and the moon which relates to the Chinese assertion that unicorns descended from heaven

-Unicorn horns are often allegorically interpreted as the union of Christ with the Father

-Unicorn horns were thought to have magical properties: it is said that the horn could purify water and eliminate poisons from drinks; it was also said to have medicinal properties (interestingly enough, rhino horns are poached to this very day for many reasons, one of which being that they are believed to have medicinal properties)

-Many animals that exist today or that have been proven to exist have horns (or bumps, in the case of the giraffe) and descriptions similar to the early accounts of unicorns: Rhinoceros, Narwhal, the extinct Triceratops, Giraffes, and multiple types of antelope (Impala, Nyala, Dik Dik, Springbok, etc.)

-Unicorns are used a lot in sci-fi or fantasy literature because now they are believed to be purely mythological creatures

-The unicorn myth is still being expanded upon today; ex. Harry Potter (unicorn blood can keep any man alive, but that man’s life will be cursed)

 

Some early portrayals of “Unicorns”

Our Modern Representation of the Unicorn:

Horned Animals Similar to the Unicorn:

 

So…the question remains: Did unicorns ever exist or do they still exist today? And why are they so prominently featured in HW?

Hard-Boiled

In his novel, Murakami makes a lot of references to films: John Ford’s “The Quiet Man,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and a couple of film noirs, as well. I wanted to do a context piece about the film noirs that Murakami mentions because they obviously have a lot to do with Murakami’s “hard-boiled” writing style. Film noirs were known as having “hard-boiled” heroes, cold detectives who often dealt with a lot of violence and sex. Oddly enough, when Murakami mentions the movies “Key Largo” and “The Big Sleep,” he focuses on the female lead in them: Lauren Bacall. He even makes Bacall one of the three items listed as part of the chapter title. Why such a focus on Bacall and these two movies?

We watched a bit of “The Big Sleep” in class. It’s about a private detective who is hired by a wealthy, old client with two daughters, one of which is played by Lauren Bacall. The movie “Key Largo” is another film noir, this time about a war veteran who comes home to pay his respects to the family of a war buddy who died. He gets wrapped up in some trouble with a few gangsters, and the story continues from there. Lauren Bacall plays the female lead in both of these films, alongside Humphrey Bogart. Bacall (and Bogart, too) was known for doing film noirs. Why does Murakami place such an emphasis on Bacall then? He refers to as being “practically allegorical” in “Key Largo.” I think Murakami’s emphasis on her serves two purposes. First, to play up the hard-boiled quality of the narrator. He has a deep interest in film noirs that have hard-boiled characters like Bogart and Bacall. Secondly, I think it is to illuminate the narrator’s character by showing his preference in women. If he likes Lauren Bacall’s character in “Key Largo,” he probably likes a a no-nonsense, sultry, femme fatale type.

This interest in a very specific type of woman lends even further to the hard-boiled style of the narrator. He is blunt and headstrong, he focuses on sex and mystery, and he seems to love women like Lauren Bacall. He could not be a more perfect hard-boiled man.

 

The movie poster for "Key Largo"

Reincarnation: A Yellow Flower

The whole time I was reading Cortazar’s “A Yellow Flower,” I was thinking about the idea of reincarnation. The belief goes that once a person dies and leaves one life, they become reincarnated into another person (or plant or animal) in another life. Cortazar’s proposal in this story that we are all immortal would make sense if reincarnation were really true because technically our souls would never die, they would just inhabit new bodies, which is immortality in some form. The story of the first mortal man seems to make the assertion that reincarnation exists. He never names it per se, but his statement that Luc (his reincarnated self) would someday die “and another man would relive Luc’s pattern and his own pattern until he died and another man in his turn enter the wheel” (57) pretty much outlines the concept of reincarnation. When one form of your being falls out of existence, another form takes its place, and this cycle goes on endlessly. Reincarnation is a really interesting idea that I’m not actually sure if I believe in or not. I suppose I can understand how people might feel they’ve been things “in a past life,” but whether I feel I have been something in a past life or will be something in a future life, I’m not sure. Cortazar’s take on reincarnation is really quite thought-provoking. At one point, the mortal man states that similar things that happened to him as a child were happening to Luc. But he states Luc was not “the perfect copy” (54). For example, the mortal man had measles as a child and it took him two weeks to recover, whereas Luc had scarlet fever and he was “better in five day, well, you know, the strides of science, etc” (54). This quote lends itself to the idea that our reincarnated selves are always improving and altering our story just a little bit. They are not carbon copies, but they contain the same spirit that dwells within each of us. This idea kind of makes me think that if reincarnation does exist, then perhaps it’s to improve our lives. Maybe what reincarnation works toward is self-improvement and a happier life for each reality our soul inhabits. Regardless of what it means, the idea of reincarnation remains prevalent in this piece. It’s interesting to note that this piece is considered magical realism as it implies that the concept of reincarnation is supernatural and “uncanny.”

As a side note, I’ve always wondered about how deja vu and reincarnation are linked. My personal opinion is that when one experiences deja vu, you are actually living out something that you have unconsciously dreamt (which means you probably don’t remember it, but you still get an eerie feeling that you’ve experienced it before). I suppose an argument could be made that dreams are images of your past life and so deja vu is a result of experiencing something in both your past life and your current life. Just a thought…

If reincarnation does exist, I think perhaps I might have been a lion in a past life. Here’s a picture I took when I was South Africa a couple years back: 

House Taken Over

Cortazar’s “House Taken Over” was a really great story, but one I don’t entirely understand. Perhaps I’m not supposed to. But regardless, I cannot help but feel dissatisfied with the ending. Who has taken over the house? It’s never answered, or maybe I didn’t read closely enough. Cortazar has a knack for great descriptions and imagery. The brother and sister of the story are described in such a fashion that I could picture them immediately, cooped up in their house. They appear to very dull people, always with the same routine, day in and day out. They both clean the house, eat lunch at precisely noon, and then go off to separate activities. Irene does her knitting, while the narrator reads his books (he mentions bookstores and his books a lot). The narrator seems to take a sweet satisfaction in watching Irene knit – he loves to see the tangled wool lying on the floor. One night, the narrator hears a noise on the other side of the oak doors. He bolts the doors immediately and  tells Irene that “they’ve taken over the back part.” Irene seems to know exactly who or what her brother is talking about, but the reader is left in the dark.  The narrator talks about how everything, aside from the noises they make in their sleep, is quiet in the house. The people or things on the other side of the oak door apparently make no noise. By the end of the story, “they” have taken over the entire house. Irene and her brother leave, but not before the brother locks the door of the house and throws the key down a sewer because, as he puts it, “it wouldn’t do to have some poor devil decide to go in and rob the house, at that hour and with the house taken over.” So clearly from this last line, robbers are not who took over the house in the first place. In fact, the narrator’s sympathy for any possible robber who might come across the house implies that those who have taken over the house are a whole lot worse than a few petty criminals. But what has taken over the house? They seemed to be expected by Irene and her brother. Could they be spirits? Demons? Cortazar never defines it, which I suppose lends itself to the magical realism of the story, but it’s quite frustrating not to know what has consumed this house and frightened the narrator and Irene so much that they leave the house that they were supposed to die in someday. “They” seem to be described like humans (‘having muted conversations”), but for all I know they could be giant bugs or flying carpets. Cortazar leaves this up to the imagination, and to me, it seems that it would be demons or the spirits of those who have lived in the house that have taken it over. But I guess we’ll never really know.

More on the Spectre Bridegroom

I was also thinking that I could squash both terms entirely and switch my term to “romance” as we think of it today. At its core, this story is a tale of romance, but the supernatural elements and dark tone of the overall story make it a non-stereotypical romance. So maybe I could argue that it defies the traditional rules of a romance story by containing horrific elements..

The Spectre Bridegroom, Part 2

Originally in class, I settled on applying the term “Romanticism” to The Spectre Bridegroom for my paper. But after re-reading the story with the terms Gothic and Romanticism in mind, I’m quite confused about what I should do. The story contains elements of both gothic and romantic stories (I suppose it could be called a Gothic Romance). However, upon reflection, I have decided that it’s actually more Romantic than it is Gothic.  It’s more of a romantic tale because the hero relies more on his emotion than logic (he pursues the girl even though he knows they are from rival families), the nature is described as raw and wild, Starkenfaust uses his imagination to make it appear as though he is a ghost, and the daughter is freed from her oppressive aunts and father. Upon first reading the story, I assumed that it was a Gothic tale rather than a Romantic one because it had all the frightening elements, but Irving uses these elements almost ironically. Sure, there is a mystery surrounding the “spectre” bridegroom who appears, but in the end it turns out that it was Starkenfaust the whole time. There are no supernatural characters after all, only a man who pretends to be one so he can unite with his love. The story also has sort of a “happily-ever-after” ending with the two lovers being married and receiving no backlash from the girl’s father. Nothing bad actually happens to anyone in this story (except for poor Von Altenburg who dies, but that could be argued as a natural i.e. romantic occurrence that must take place so Starkenfaust and the girl can meet).  While it appears Gothic and has been written to contain elements of the supernatural, decaying castles, and frightened women, it’s more of a mock Gothic. It’s kind of like Irving was playing a joke on us the whole time, leading us to assume that it’s a tale of horror and mystery, when in reality it’s kind of a weirdly happy story about love. So my confusion lies in which term to use for my paper now. Do I still use Romanticism and argue that the term doesn’t wholly apply to the story because Irving wrote it to appear Gothic, so while it’s principles lie in Romanticism, its structure lies in the Gothic? Or do I use Gothic and argue that while, yes, it does contain most of the ordinary elements of a Gothic story, it is not one by nature because it revolves around Romantic ideals? I could also argue for the term Gothic that it contains all the elements but in truth is a mock Gothic because of the way the story unfolds and ends. Basically I’m just confused because Irving veils the Romantic elements of the story with the Gothic elements of the story. Decisions, decisions…

Another Side Note…

In my last post, I briefly talked about how people often view fairytale love as the ideal. However, a lot of people don’t realize that the original tales that our commonplace Disney stories sprang from are actually pretty gruesome. The original “Snow White” ends with the evil queen dancing herself to death in red-hot iron shoes. In “The Little Mermaid,” the mer princess trades in her tongue (or voice) for a magical potion from a sea witch that makes her human just as Ariel does. However, while the original little mermaid gains legs, it is said that when she walks it feels as though she is walking on sharp knives. On top of that, she never wins the love of the prince and instead turns into sea foam. If you’re interested in more original “happily ever after” tales, you can look them up on Google or in a library. It’s interesting to think that such joyous children’s films came from stories that initially were more horrific than happy.

Oh and don’t get me wrong, I still love the Disney films. Sometimes all people need is a story with a happy ending.

The Spectre Bridegroom

Of what we’ve already read, The Spectre Bridegroom has to be my favorite story of Washington Irving’s. A grim and gripping story, it follows the arrival of an alleged spectre bridegroom to the castle of Baron Von Landshort. On his way to meet his betrothed, Count Von Altenburg falls victim to a fatal wound and asks his dear friend Herman Von Starkenfaust to go immediately to the Baron’s castle and report what has happened. At first, I suspected that the visitor on the black steed was Starkenfaust coming to report the news of the bridegroom’s death. But as the story goes on, the family’s belief that he was a spectre soon deluded me into believing it too. When the spectre appears outside of the daughter’s window, causing her aunt to faint, I began to question whether the “ghost” was really just Starkenfaust or an actual ghost. Irving, though he can write quite densely at times, has a way of getting the reader to fully immerse him/herself into the story, almost as though we too are visitors at the Baron’s castle. Only at the end when Starkenfaust finally reveals himself did I fully accept that it was him. Though Irving himself says that “you must have known all the while, he was no goblin” (141), he manages to sprinkle seeds of doubt into the reader’s mind through his storytelling, making the tale that much more compelling. I also loved this story because of the darkness of the romantic plot; it struck as me as something Tim Burton would turn into a movie as he has a particular affinity for twisted and darkly captivating tales of love. He even has a movie with a slightly similar basis called the Corpse Bride, and though the story is different, the central premise of a ghost and a human falling in love remains. (As a side note, Tim Burton has actually turned a Washington Irving tale into a movie; he directed the 1999 film adaptation of Sleepy Hollow). There’s something interesting in the notion that love can spring to life from a dark seed, similar to “a rose bud blushing forth among [thorns]” (131) as Irving puts it. People often jump straight to fairytale love as the ideal, but there’s something strangely endearing in a love that has a darkness to it – it’s more realistic, I suppose, though there’s a probably a better word than that for what I’m trying to get at.

Here are a few movie posters for some of Tim Burton’s films that revolve around a twisted love story:

While I’m on the subject of seas…

Here’s a photo I took in Greece this past summer and a link to one of my favorite songs that tells a different story of the sea:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8OLb1DK9HY