I have a love-hate relationship with Haruki Murakami’s fiction. Well, alright, it’s much closer to love than hate, but I’ve been critical of his fiction before. However, South of the Border, West of the Sun must be my favorite Murakami novel – and I’ve read plenty.
Whether we like or not something can boil down to personal preferences. Nonetheless, the reason why I liked South of the Border, West of the Sun so much can be very revealing in terms of writing – and reading – in a self-aware manner.
In a nutshell, I’d say in this novel Murakami succeeded in understanding the critical connection between depth and widthmore than in any other.
There are various small details in the novel that seem insignificant, such as the use (or not) of umbrellas. But just as the protagonist cannot be certain about his observations, the reader can’t ignore the subtle symbolism lurking in these (only apparently minor) details (more…)
The topic might sound unusual and, ironically enough, this too is part of the theme. Namely, we should be able to explore a topic as ubiquitous as human sexuality. The differentiation between pornography and erotica (erotic art, that is) is problematic. United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart notoriously said he couldn’t define it but he knew it when he saw it.
That isn’t good enough.
I want to define it and I want to understand it. I’ve had some discussions on the topic with my friend Igor, and I decided to take my side of the emails we exchanged, edit it for length and focus, and turn it into a post.
But here’s an important caveat: My main interest isn’t in defining pornography (or erotica). Rather, I want to create a more general theoretical framework that talks about the differences between art’s function, purpose, and essence. So while there will be a fairly in-depth discussion on pornography, erotica, and their differences, my ultimate focus will divert to art in general.
Erotica doesn’t even need to display nudity to be erotic. Though, funnily enough, even nudity itself can be a matter of definition (i.e. historical/cultural contexts). Is the woman of the photo nude (a little? a lot?) or not? Ask a twenty-year old secular, liberal person in present-day Helsinki and a Victorian prude like Christina Rossetti, and you’ll get very different answers!(more…)
Nimona is an animated film based on the graphic novel by ND Stevenson. It features “a girl” (more of this in a while) who can shape-shift into any form, from whales to gorillas and from little boys to emulating other people. As I explore in this post, shape-shifting in Nimona is a metaphor that reveals something about the role of the subconscious in the creative process.
You see, there are some metadata you need to know – if you aren’t familiar with ND Stevenson already: The first one is that he identifies as transmasculine/bigender. The second, that Stevenson was apparently unaware about his gender identity before Nimona:
There are times in my life where I feel like everybody knew what my deal was before I did, and this is one of them. But it would be years before I started to see that in myself. I guess I planted the seeds without realizing.
Is that really possible? Can an author create such strong symbolism – as shape-shifting is for gender identity – without consciously realizing it? We know that books often write themselves, but as we’ll see in this post, symbolism is even more powerful, its focus more sharp, when it comes to subconscious meanings.
