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Shape-shifting in Nimona: Metaphor and the Subconscious

February 12, 2024

creativity, criticism, fiction, imagination, LGBT, social masses, society, symbolism, writing

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.
Time

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.

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Man Talk – a Short Story by a Reader

April 26, 2021

Fiction, Society

bigotry, feminism, guest post, LGBT, masculinity, society

3 comments

Today’s post, “Man Talk”, is a short story (offering fictional truths, I would add) authored by a reader of Home for Fiction, who would like to remain anonymous (their identity is known to me). I would not normally accept a text for publication under these conditions, but the nature of the text and the importance of its message compel me to make an exception.

“I want you to prove you’re a man”; “claim you’re a man”; “if you don’t do this, you’re not macho”; “you look like a faggot”.

Since childhood, a man loses decades of his life proving his masculinity. With friends at school, inside the house, on the street with the girls, in adulthood with the women and the booze friends.

He is tested in every moment. At the club or at the barbecue. On the sidewalk or at the stadium. Being a man is not natural, it is a conditioning. An endless test of intellectual testosterone. An incessant ordeal that begins in infantile fights and does not end with death.

man talk — “Man Talk” is a short story (a fictional truth, in a sense) by an anonymous reader

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Review of Confessions of a Mask, by Yukio Mishima

August 24, 2020

Book Review, Criticism

book, fiction, Japan, LGBT, literature, love, review, society

2 comments

As is often the case with some of my reviews – Outline, by Rachel Cusk comes to mind – this review of Confessions of a Mask, by Yukio Mishima, is not just a review. It’s also an opportunity for me to explain something about how literature is supposed to operate.

And here’s the (meta-)lesson: There’s no “supposed to” in literature.

Yukio Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask – in a meta-textual twist, having this very element as the core of its plot – demonstrates how awfully things can fall apart once you begin following rules and supposed-tos.

Mishima’s novel is probably one of the most difficult books I’ve ever thought to review. Not only does it defy categorization, but reading it I wonder whether we could even call it “a novel”. In that regard, it’s very similar to Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino.

Review of Confessions of a Mask — *Confessions of a Mask* is a fine example of our struggle to balance between being part of society and understanding it can’t offer us what we crave. If this duality sounds familiar, take a look at my post on the meaning of Jinjer’s “Pisces” – talking about a multi-layered metaphor, huh?

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