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the oceans at the end of the lane

The Oceans at the end of the lane This took me a really long time to finish, BUT I MADE IT! I personally love the overlapping of magical realism and contemporary fantasy. I’m less knowledgeable of Anglo-Saxon literature, than I am of Latin American, Spanish and European works. At my school we would read a lot of magical realis, works like 100 years of solitude and Isabel Allende. This book is kind of a mixture of magical realism and the classic fairy tales. The story is set in a more “believable setting”. Unusual things are happening to seemingly normal people. It’s when he meets Lettie that things start getting weird. The classic fairy tale elements are the different creatures like the fleas and varmints. The real part is the disconnect the protagonist has between his childhood and adulthood. It is suggested that his heart was eaten by the hunger birds, and its slowly growing back. This symbolizes the loss of purity and innocence when leaving childhood. Although The oceans at t...

Seven Japanese tales

When thinking about balance in nature, and life Shunkin and Sasuke's story reflects this concept the best. We start by getting background information of Shunkin's social class. The narrator lets us know they aren't normal by previous standards. They're pale, skinny and shut inside their homes, when supposedly they should be outside.  There's no stereotypical happy endings in these stories. Shunkin and Sasuke both die, they are never formally recognized as a couple. They never feel remorse for their children. It isn't up until both of them are blind, and one of them disfigured, that they find a sort of balance. When both of them make a sacrifice, mainly, a sacrifice that lowers them in the societal hierarchy. Shunkin only shows slivers of good temperament, she has complete control over a man. She is older, he is submissive.  Both of the characters break our western expectations, Shunkin is the complete opposite of the gothic heroine. It defied my expectation...

We can remember it for you wholesale

I've read Phillip K Dick's work beforehand, and this is classic sci fi, throwing the reader into the story with no previous exposition. Phillip K Dick’s work tends to deal with hallucinations, group projections and the authenticity of humans. In Android’s we see this present in the humanity of the replicants vs the humans. What makes feeling and conscience exclusively human? While in this piece the struggle seems to be what is a real memory and fantasy. I like that without having to lift a single finger he is what keeps Earth safe from an alien invasion. His lifelong childhood fantasy manifested in his psyche and became a reality. I love how one act of kindness makes all of his past as a secret agent seem meaningless. Quail's childish thought of mercy made the aliens feel mercy in turn. The message seems to be a commentary on the senseless violence of war and how it fades away and moral solutions endure. The slow reveal of Quail’s past is also part of sci fi genre code...