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RE: The Spark + Unbewusstes - Finish The Story Contest - Week #66 @bananafish
I love the way you characterize the sentinel Carol.
The subtle analogy with Frankenstein's monster and the literary construct of Karl being an amalgamation of various human experiences. Conceptually this is a really strong Sci-fi piece as it gives us that glimpse into an imagined future, and an imagined different form of consciousness.
Really gr8 FTS entry :)
I love you Raj!!!!
You are so insightful, you see more in my writing than I ever saw in it.
Love your idea of the amalgamation - not of body parts, the clumsy sewn-together pieces of Victor Frankenstein's sad, sorry "man," but a mind put together from pieces of other minds, and a "soul" resulting from it. Because didn't the Frankenstein have a soul? He had feelings. I was remembering scenes from The Iron Giant movie - one in particular - when I wrote this:
And of course that awful moment the giant soars up to stop the missile:
Is this not what we all are in some ways? an amalgamation of the personalities and values of the people who brought us up, most often parents but also close friends and partners to an extent.
There is a deeper reflection in most good writing I think. And it's 100% true that the reader can see stuff that maybe the author didn't intend. I often wonder if this is the result of how we peice the world together from what we're taught and inspired by, or if Jung had it right with his idea of a collective unconscious. Maybe a bit of both.
The idea of archetypes running through stories is a proven one, and it's interesting that I saw comparison with Frankenstein when the inspiration was 'the iron giant'. Perhaps there are echoes of ' frankenstein's monster' in that movie and this sort of passed through without you being aware of it.
The old adage about us just re-telling old stories in a new way.
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yes - yes - as always, Raj, you nailed it!
an amalgamation of the personalities and values of the people who brought us up, most often parents but also close friends and partners to an extent.
and Hemingway himself said he was unaware of all the pages and pages of themes other people read into The Old Man and the Sea. To him, it was a story about a man and the big fish that got away.
I need to read more of the criticism on that one. To me, the #1 most outstanding aspect of the story was the little boy who brought the old man dinner under the pretext Mom cooked too much again (not, you are unable to get your own food), and in the end, he protected the old man from ridicule by the townspeople. The boy had so much respect for the dignity of a proud old man who was too stubborn to admit he was aging and not what he once was. How does anyone not see the boy as the true hero of the story? But I never did look up any other critics commenting on that.
The Old Man and the Sea, one of my favorite books, and hands down my favorite by Hemingway.
One of my favorite things about the old man was his reverence for the sea, which I share, and his recognition of the majesty, not only of the giant marlin, but also of the mako shark bent upon its destruction.
And, in his own way, he loved them both.
Yes, the little boy always brought tears to my eyes, because he was clearly one of the few people who bothered to be kind to the old man. And clearly this extended to his mother, who was, after all, the one feeding the old man, whether or not by her son's request.
It is a truly beautiful story, with amazing details about life on the sea, such as the recounting of the old man downing a cup of cod liver oil on the way to his boat each morning, and reflecting on the young fishermen who refused to do so.
While they complained about the glare of the sun on the water, as their eyes began progressively failing, his eyes remained clear and unhazed, as he had been admonished to begin the habit in his youth, and continued it without fail.
No wimpy teaspoons for this old man.
That book has always hit me squarely in my heart.
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Wow, I don't know how I haven't read 'the old man and the sea'. I'm completely in love with the sea and all things beneath the waves. In fact that's how I started on steem, writing scuba scribe articles about my dive experiences and reverence for the marine environment.
I am just finishing a collection of Sci-Fi short stories by Robert Silverberg which I need to return to the library so I now have a title for the next book to get out to read.
Thanks for the recommendation of the old man and the sea 🙂👍
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You will love The Old Man and the Sea, Raj! I don't know if internet archives are sketchy, but if you can't find a copy on ebay or bookfinder.com or amazon, here's a pdf: https://archive.org/stream/oldmansea00hemi_1/oldmansea00hemi_1_djvu.txt
Robert Silverberg!!!!
I reviewed one of his stories for Perihelion Science Fiction. Oh how I love it - said to be the first story he dared to let out some of his Jewish legacy. Quoting myself here:
You're in luck! Galaxy's Edge reprinted the story in 2018, and it's still online:
http://www.galaxysedge.com/magazines/issue-34-september-2018/the-dybbuk-of-mazel-tov-iv/
It opens like this:
But maybe you've already read this one.
@crescendoofpeace, of course you would notice the boy's kindness and the mother's too (who cooks the old man's dinner if not her), AND the cod liver oil!!! Oh yes. Modern science//nutrition backs him up now on that.
Ah, this is why I spend most of my waking hours reading. People in my face-to-face life hardly read much at all. And they rarely want to talk books or hear ME talk about stories I've read.
I love you all, book fiends, er, friends, of Steemit!
It occurs to me now that a short story I wrote had to be me subconsciously seeking to emulate the voice of that Silverberg story. Now, to remember the story...
Well, that took some digging! It was 3 months ago, for another @banafish contest. You commented on the narrator:
(Germans in that story, and in the latest, with Karl the android: I see now that yet another German keeps popping from my head in response to a story prompt.)
OF COURSE I didn't achieve the narrative voice that Silverberg does, least of all in the THE DYBBUK OF MAZEL TOV IV, but when I read something I love, I find myself trying to channel that kind of voice in my own writing. Whenever someone says my purple prose stories remind them of Joyce Carol Oates it's time I try harder to be aware of "appropriating" someone else's voice.
https://steemit.com/tellastorytome/@carolkean/the-visionaires-contest-entry-for-tell-a-story-to-me-the-known-future
I haven't done that in prose, that I know of, although others could probably pick out a lot of my influences if well read.
But I've definitely done that in songwriting, and although sometimes done as homage, I often don't even realize it until after the fact.
The human mind is fascinating in its intricacies.
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That is amazing that you reviewed one of Silverberg short stories for perihelion Carol! I haven't read that particular story you mention, it sounds interesting. Here is a pic of the collection I'm just finishing.
My favourite out of this collection has to be either 'this is the road' or 'in the house of double minds' both great Sci-fi bit very different styles.
You're right about having friends on here who can talk about literature of different types with. I'd forgotten how much fun it can be 🙂
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well, I am on a mission now to buy an anthology of his short stories!
I've read others, but none I loved as much as the Dybukk.
It's an amazing book, and a fast read.
It's also the best of Hemingway, in my opinion; his mastery at saying so much by inference, rather than spelling everything out, and of writing with the assumption that his readers were intelligent enough to discern his meaning.
Meanwhile, clearly, I need to seek out some of Robert Silverberg's work!
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It's great swapping recommendations like this over tinterweb 🤣
I have read some Hemingway, but it was over ten years ago when I was in university. I'll look forward to a change of pace from all this Sci-Fi I've been reading 👍
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P.S. from the Slate.com article:
Interesting Article.
I read 'the iron man' by Ted Hughes as a kid, although I barely remember it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Man_(novel
I think 'the iron giant' may be an American interpretation of the same story!? Not sure, maybe partly inspired by Hughes' children's story that explored themes around war and conflict.
Iron Man,
Not to mention all these movies and books about androids and how to define "human" and "soul." I need to read the Ted Hughes novel! It sounds like the source of Iron Giant. Then again, Neil Gaiman had a book with a boy wizard and his owl that J.K. Rowling insists she never saw. I've had story ideas I failed to write or publish and later someone else had the same thing. The radio was invented by at least three men unbeknownst to each other, but only one of them is now known as the father of radio.
I'll bet you've read The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde (1888). Hey, Iron Giant, similar theme...
Ohhh wow, I finally read farther into the wiki article. What a great story!
But from there, all resemblance to the movie ends.
@crescendoofpeace, this is the kind of story you'd know all about. :)