Skip to main content

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 the end of the lane is considerably more lighthearted than the previous two authors I mentioned before. Memories are very ambiguous, we have to remember that the narrator is pulling stuff from his head, we don’t really know what truly happened.
 The Hempstocks are very interesting, they see  things differently and make everything else seem disappointing and gloomy, this ties along with the previous themes of memory. They also reveals to the main character that this is not his first time going there and Lettie still checks up on him. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Akata Witch

This book was quite a fun read. I was immersed in the magical, colorful Nigerian culture presented. I was more familiar with it because my own Latin American culture has African influences in it. So I did recognize a few parallels there. Like the masks and knives. There's no cloaks wands and house elves, it's a Truer "raw" witchcraft we can totally find in the world today.  A really cool element of this novel is how Sunny's power resides within her, we discussed it in class, but after finishing up the novel I noticed how present it was. Her name, her personality, her physical appearance, and her leopard self are all interconnected with who she is. Sunny, a being who's meant to shine bright, glow. Another reflection of culture is how the characters act. They are headstrong and mature, well all of them are leopard people, but this also is affected by the fact that the culture they grew up in is harsher. Sunny's father hits her, he's harsher on her than...
Post a Comment
Read more

Assessment: Bloodchild

The unusual bond between humans and Tlic is very strange. It seems like the Tlic are using the Terrans for their own purposes in exchange for not. They're not allowed to have any weapons and depend on the Tlic for protection as long as they need them. The protagonist, a young boy named Gan, seems to take the role as a reproductive slave in this alien society. Women are usually the ones being sexually exploited, but its not the case for this one. Humans seem to be bred for hosting purposes, they live in a specific place and have a  Tlic assigned to each family.  The Tlic have also eased the humans into actually believing this is their purpose, they don't hide what happens when the humans "give birth". In the end we have a human who questions the system, but ends up giving up to the system. Or does he? Gan says he wanted to keep T Gatoi for himself.  1- What is your reaction to the text you just read? Mainly disgust, the Tlic C section was really hard to read....
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more