It’s not like me to read the classics, but this is a story that many of us grew up with, like Biblical stories, and I can’t help but feel that it has had an enormous influence on Western literature, and still has in the 21st Century. I came across a copy in one of my local bookshops, which has a huge range of classical literature, amongst all the more popular fare, both fiction and non-fiction.
The translation I have is by Samuel Butler - 1900, according to the Preface – where he discusses another relevant work he published in 1897, titled The Authoress of The Odyssey. That’s right: he argues that The Odyssey was written by a woman, whom he believes put herself into the story as Nausicaa. Following this preface there is an Introduction written by Andrew Lynn, who teaches literature at Barnard College, and who makes no reference to an ‘authoress’. At the other end of the book, there is a section titled, About the Author, by David B. Monro, who discusses at length various theories and speculations about Homer’s origins around 7th Century BC. In particular, it seems that there are many ‘beliefs’ pertaining to where he was born and/or lived. I’m not a scholar of ancient Greek literature so I won’t elaborate or partake in any debate concerning Homer’s identity or of the possibility that the author was actually a woman.
The original story would have been in verse and would have been orated, which makes its origins all the more nebulous, which is true for much of ancient literature that survives to the current day, whatever its cultural origins may be.
I have to say that Butler’s translation is very easy to read whilst capturing much of the poetic imagery, one suspects, of the original. There is not a lot of description but there is a lot of detail in terms of customs, specific objects and relationships between classes of society, like Penelope and her maidservants or Odysseus and the swineherd on his land, for example. So one is embedded into the story by being made familiar with the society and its mores. This extends to the relationship between the protagonists and the gods.
Everything that happens in this story is dependent on the will or whim of the gods, and one suspects that this is what people truly believed at the time when this story was originally told. Every storm and every natural phenomenon is an ‘act of God’ so one’s fate is completely dependent on their favour or not, which is why sacrifices are made throughout the story, and one suspects, throughout the lives of the people who originally were the audience for this story. There is contact between the mortals and the immortals (or gods) and people are genuinely ‘god-fearing’ because gods are all powerful and have complete control over one’s destiny. This is explicit in the tale, and one can see parallels in Biblical stories. Whether this tale had the religious significance that we associate with stories from the Bible, I don’t know, but if it ever did, such significance has long been detached.
This is most definitely a bloke’s story, because it is an adventure involving a male protagonist, who has close scrapes with monsters, immortals, and who must overcome a series of ordeals, culminating in a bloody fight against strong odds to win back his estranged wife. All this makes it hard to accept Butler’s claim that the author was a woman, yet there are strong pivotal female roles. Not only Penelope but the Goddess, Athene (pronounced Ath-en-a, according to my Greek friends) without whom, Odysseus would never have made it nor won the day at the end. In fact, Athene comes across as the least contrary of the gods and the most understanding of the human condition. In fact, she reminds me of a warrior version of Guan Yin (the Goddess of Mercy in Chinese Buddhism).
Nausicaa plays a very minor role in the whole story, yet Hayao Miyazaki borrowed her name and her title (Princess) for his 7 book graphic novel, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, which he also made into an anime movie.
Miyazake is not mentioned in an appendix to the edition I have, called Further Reading, that refers to literary influences, but does include a reference to the Coen Brothers' movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou, starring George Clooney.
But ‘odyssey’ has become a term that transcends its origins, for it means “a long and eventful or adventurous journey” according to my computer’s dictionary. In fact, I would call ‘odyssey’ a fiction genre, and certainly every story I’ve written (not many) has involved ‘a long, eventful or adventurous journey’. But I suspect its biggest influence has been in Fantasy and superheroes, including the current highest rating television adventure story, Game of Thrones. I’ve long argued that superheroes are the 20th Century equivalent of Greek gods, though their relationship with humanity is decidedly different. They are not worshipped and they don’t need sacrifices in order to be of service to humanity’s well-being, but they are god-like in their abilities and humanlike in their character, which makes them very much akin to the Greek gods in Homer’s epic.
Whilst reading The Odyssey, I couldn’t help but think of Neil Gaiman’s epic Sandman graphic novel series, which borrows from everywhere, including Shakespeare. Gaiman also wrote the award winning novel, American Gods, where he also borrows liberally from mythology (including Arabic mythology). Another example is Tolkien borrowing from Nordic mythology as does Marvel studios. Gaiman has also recently published a book called Norse Mythology, which is on my ever extending reading list.
So Homer arguably provided the template for quest fiction, which might help to explain why it remains a classic after two and a half millennia. Stories allow us to extend our imaginations in ways that other art forms can’t emulate. Creating superhuman characters, be they gods or immortal, or somehow transcendent to the physical universe, is one of the more obvious tropes one can explore.
One of the more intriguing subplots in The Odyssey is Odysseus’s capture by Calypso who wants to make him an immortal like herself, yet he resists for 7 years. I remember an episode of Tarzan (as a radio serial, when I was a pre-pubic lad) being held captive by a queen who wanted to make him immortal, and not understanding why he resisted. Curiously, I’ve addressed the issue of immortality in my own fiction. As I’ve remarked elsewhere on this blog, I don’t wish for immortality – it’s not part of the natural order – yet one only has to look at the pyramids in Egypt to realise how this has captured the imagination amongst narcissistic leaders, and currently amongst those who believe we may one day download our consciousness into a computer.
Odysseus is one of the original superheroes along with Achilles, and perhaps that is why his story has become a part of Western collective consciousness.
Showing posts with label Storytelling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Storytelling. Show all posts
Sunday 10 September 2017
Sunday 18 June 2017
Walkaway, a novel
I don’t often review novels on this blog – in fact, I think this may be my third. Actually, the title is exactly as written above, so people know that it is ‘a novel’ (written by Cory Doctorow), as if it could be mistaken for non-fiction – I’m not sure how. To be honest, I’ve never read anything else of his, and I bought it after reading a review, which is something I rarely do. I read a lot more non-fiction than fiction, because it takes a commitment in time that one might rather spend elsewhere.
The review interested me because the novel portrays dystopia and utopia in the same story, both common themes in science fiction. There are many subgenres in sci-fi but there are 2 broad categories: speculative fiction and space opera. I tend to write space opera, though I’d call it science fantasy, because it contains fantasy elements. One of the characters in Walkaway makes the observation that ‘science fiction and fantasy are opposite sides of the same coin’; a deliberate ironic touch by the author: talking about science fiction from within a science fiction novel.
I went straight to my local bookshop after reading the review, because bookshops still exist in my part of the world – in fact, there are 2 about 5 mins from here in opposite directions; both thriving according to their managers. Sometime in the first decade of this century, Borders came to Melbourne with the intention of putting every other bookshop out of business, which is the American business model. Well, Borders are long gone and the locals are still going, so sometimes the American model doesn’t work in Australia, which probably has more to do with our small population base than anything else. I’m not an economist so others may be able to enlighten me.
Back to Walkaway: it’s based on a dichotomy which some may say is reflected in our current political climate, which is why it is worthy of a blog post. But that’s only partly true, even though the book is very political and the author would like to think: visionary. Personally, I‘m not so sure on the last point. One day, I’ll make my own attempt at trying to predict what makes a better world, but I’m the first to admit that most such attempts get it woefully wrong, so I can’t knock the guy for his efforts, and putting it out there for others (like me) to challenge.
Someone (Peter Nicholls) once said that what distinguishes science fiction from fantasy is that it’s all about ‘what-ifs’. This is more true in speculative fiction (a good definition, in fact) than space operas, but it still applies because, almost by definition, sci-fi requires speculative technologies that probably don’t exist. I’ve also remarked elsewhere that science fiction invariably makes some comment about the current social dynamic in which it was written. Not surprisingly, Doctorow’s novel delivers on both of these in spades.
I think I can describe the premise without any spoiler alerts: basically, society has become divided between the ‘zottas’ (corporate lords and their feudal underlings) and ‘walkaways’ (hippies with magic-like technology so they don’t want for anything material). I need to explain a few things, but I should point out up front that I struggled to be engaged for much of its 500 page length. For the first half, it was a series of philosophical discussions interspersed with heavy sex scenes and martial conflict (war-like battles) – yes, I know I’ve done this myself, so I can’t throw stones. Well, actually, I can and I will as you’ll see. What happened halfway through was a fork in the plot which created genuine suspense. It wasn’t till near the end that I got truly emotionally involved and I can’t say how or why without giving things away. Now the fact that it took so long may say more about me than the book: nothing objective is more subjective than art. But enough about me.
At this point in historical time, the world is polarised in a way that I haven’t seen since the 1960s, and to some extent the novel extrapolates that polarisation into the future. The Left and the Right are getting further apart all over the Western world, and Doctorow has taken that to one of its logical conclusions (with significant help from technologies yet to be invented) whereby he’s dressed one up as evil and the other as virtuous. I tend to agree with Sam Harris (I don’t agree with him on much) that the far left is just as dangerous, volatile and violent (perhaps more so) as the far right. But letting that one through to the keeper, Doctorow allows his ‘walkaway’ characters to espouse his particular utopian worldview. Now, as an author, I need to point out that fictional characters don’t always express the views of their creator, and, in fact, an author’s fiction is all the better when he or she keeps his or her opinions out of it. Having said that, Walkaway is unapologetically a polemic, and needs to be assessed as one.
For a start, the novel is full of techno-jargon that the reader has to assimilate and learn as they proceed; basically making assumptions or ignoring it in the hope that it doesn’t get in the way of the plot. The story is set in Canada but it feels distinctly Californian: not just the language and sexual mores, but the whole hippy combined with silicon valley on steroids thing. I’ve visited and worked in California (for about 3 months, 15 years ago) but California as a culture has been broadcast to the English-speaking world, and beyond, since the 1960s, through TV, movies and computer games. Anyway, in a nutshell, Doctorow’s utopia is the counter culture with AI – very advanced AI.
As a plot device, there are very convenient technologies, which allows one to make just about anything, including food, homes, transportation, you name it. The hippy group are called ‘walkaways’ because, not only did they walk away from society, called ‘default’, but they can walk away from anything they’ve built and start all over again. That’s a fundamental premise of this ‘new’ societal order. Another fundamental premise is that theirs is a leaderless society and that there are no ‘snowflakes’ – people who think they are special.
I have philosophical problems with all of this, but then it is a philosophical manifesto dressed up as a good versus evil fiction. Ah, that’s why the author feels compelled to tell us it’s ‘A Novel’ on the front cover.
For a start, I don’t believe in leaderless societies. I’ve never seen a leaderless project of any nature that’s worked. I wrote, way back when I started this blog, a post called Human Nature, where I contended that leadership is a fundamental aspect of humankind, but it only works when those being led are invested in the leadership. In other words, they need to believe that the leader has the requisite skills and expertise to lead in that particular endeavour, whatever it might be: a sporting event, an engineering project, a nation, a theatrical production. I once wrote an essay on leadership, before I had a blog, but, in essence, I argued that a leader is best measured by the successes of those he leads rather than his own successes as an individual. In other words, good leaders bring out the best in people.
I find this whole ‘snowflake’ thing just bullshit, but I admit that’s my own particular perspective based on my own experience. I live and grew up in a society where the greatest ‘sin’ was to have ‘tickets on yourself’. This means that in whatever you do you’re judged on your current endeavours and should not take for granted whatever respect you’ve earned. I think this is very healthy and effectively punishes complacency without throwing away whatever you’ve gained. In walkaway society, the characters tend to conflate ‘snowflakiness’ with leadership.
I mentioned the plot device that allows walkaway characters to magically invent anything they need through ultra-superior technology – I don’t know how else to describe it. I’ve spent a working lifetime in engineering, so I know the true value of infrastructure and our dependency on it. There are so many things we take for granted (like sewerage) that we don’t appreciate what life would be like without them. I mention sewerage, because, of all the utilities, it would have the biggest and earliest impact if they all failed. My point is that, like everything technological that we take for granted, most people have no knowledge of its underpinnings or how they’d cope without it. Doctorow’s plot device attempts to cover this with an internet-like infrastructure called ‘interface’, energy from hydrogen ‘cells’, virtually 3D printable anything, including food if required, and transportation with blimps; all without anything resembling an economy.
I wouldn’t be giving too much away if I mention that one of the technological inventions that the walkaways have is the ability to upload (or download) their consciousness into AI. I think this is called the singularity. I admit that I am sceptical about this particular futuristic prediction, but given that it’s a work of fiction, I look at it as the ‘fantasy’ side of the same coin, that one of the characters conveniently reminded us of. My aversion to this scenario is that, personally, I don’t want immortality, in a machine or any other form. I’ve actually addressed this issue in my own fiction, so it’s there for someone else to take apart if they want to.
To be fair, a lot of people will enjoy this book, and some (if not many) will find my criticisms harsh. Arthur C Clarke once famously said (or wrote) that “any advanced enough technology is indistinguishable from magic” (that may not be verbatim but it’s close enough). All fiction is a blend of fantasy and realism, including mine, and the mix varies depending on the author and the subject. Science fiction novels can explore alternative societies, which is one of the things that attracted me to it when I was young. As I alluded to above, Doctorow’s novel comes across as a philosophical treatise, which I think is flawed, and it’s completely dependent on technology that’s indistinguishable from magic.
The review interested me because the novel portrays dystopia and utopia in the same story, both common themes in science fiction. There are many subgenres in sci-fi but there are 2 broad categories: speculative fiction and space opera. I tend to write space opera, though I’d call it science fantasy, because it contains fantasy elements. One of the characters in Walkaway makes the observation that ‘science fiction and fantasy are opposite sides of the same coin’; a deliberate ironic touch by the author: talking about science fiction from within a science fiction novel.
I went straight to my local bookshop after reading the review, because bookshops still exist in my part of the world – in fact, there are 2 about 5 mins from here in opposite directions; both thriving according to their managers. Sometime in the first decade of this century, Borders came to Melbourne with the intention of putting every other bookshop out of business, which is the American business model. Well, Borders are long gone and the locals are still going, so sometimes the American model doesn’t work in Australia, which probably has more to do with our small population base than anything else. I’m not an economist so others may be able to enlighten me.
Back to Walkaway: it’s based on a dichotomy which some may say is reflected in our current political climate, which is why it is worthy of a blog post. But that’s only partly true, even though the book is very political and the author would like to think: visionary. Personally, I‘m not so sure on the last point. One day, I’ll make my own attempt at trying to predict what makes a better world, but I’m the first to admit that most such attempts get it woefully wrong, so I can’t knock the guy for his efforts, and putting it out there for others (like me) to challenge.
Someone (Peter Nicholls) once said that what distinguishes science fiction from fantasy is that it’s all about ‘what-ifs’. This is more true in speculative fiction (a good definition, in fact) than space operas, but it still applies because, almost by definition, sci-fi requires speculative technologies that probably don’t exist. I’ve also remarked elsewhere that science fiction invariably makes some comment about the current social dynamic in which it was written. Not surprisingly, Doctorow’s novel delivers on both of these in spades.
I think I can describe the premise without any spoiler alerts: basically, society has become divided between the ‘zottas’ (corporate lords and their feudal underlings) and ‘walkaways’ (hippies with magic-like technology so they don’t want for anything material). I need to explain a few things, but I should point out up front that I struggled to be engaged for much of its 500 page length. For the first half, it was a series of philosophical discussions interspersed with heavy sex scenes and martial conflict (war-like battles) – yes, I know I’ve done this myself, so I can’t throw stones. Well, actually, I can and I will as you’ll see. What happened halfway through was a fork in the plot which created genuine suspense. It wasn’t till near the end that I got truly emotionally involved and I can’t say how or why without giving things away. Now the fact that it took so long may say more about me than the book: nothing objective is more subjective than art. But enough about me.
At this point in historical time, the world is polarised in a way that I haven’t seen since the 1960s, and to some extent the novel extrapolates that polarisation into the future. The Left and the Right are getting further apart all over the Western world, and Doctorow has taken that to one of its logical conclusions (with significant help from technologies yet to be invented) whereby he’s dressed one up as evil and the other as virtuous. I tend to agree with Sam Harris (I don’t agree with him on much) that the far left is just as dangerous, volatile and violent (perhaps more so) as the far right. But letting that one through to the keeper, Doctorow allows his ‘walkaway’ characters to espouse his particular utopian worldview. Now, as an author, I need to point out that fictional characters don’t always express the views of their creator, and, in fact, an author’s fiction is all the better when he or she keeps his or her opinions out of it. Having said that, Walkaway is unapologetically a polemic, and needs to be assessed as one.
For a start, the novel is full of techno-jargon that the reader has to assimilate and learn as they proceed; basically making assumptions or ignoring it in the hope that it doesn’t get in the way of the plot. The story is set in Canada but it feels distinctly Californian: not just the language and sexual mores, but the whole hippy combined with silicon valley on steroids thing. I’ve visited and worked in California (for about 3 months, 15 years ago) but California as a culture has been broadcast to the English-speaking world, and beyond, since the 1960s, through TV, movies and computer games. Anyway, in a nutshell, Doctorow’s utopia is the counter culture with AI – very advanced AI.
As a plot device, there are very convenient technologies, which allows one to make just about anything, including food, homes, transportation, you name it. The hippy group are called ‘walkaways’ because, not only did they walk away from society, called ‘default’, but they can walk away from anything they’ve built and start all over again. That’s a fundamental premise of this ‘new’ societal order. Another fundamental premise is that theirs is a leaderless society and that there are no ‘snowflakes’ – people who think they are special.
I have philosophical problems with all of this, but then it is a philosophical manifesto dressed up as a good versus evil fiction. Ah, that’s why the author feels compelled to tell us it’s ‘A Novel’ on the front cover.
For a start, I don’t believe in leaderless societies. I’ve never seen a leaderless project of any nature that’s worked. I wrote, way back when I started this blog, a post called Human Nature, where I contended that leadership is a fundamental aspect of humankind, but it only works when those being led are invested in the leadership. In other words, they need to believe that the leader has the requisite skills and expertise to lead in that particular endeavour, whatever it might be: a sporting event, an engineering project, a nation, a theatrical production. I once wrote an essay on leadership, before I had a blog, but, in essence, I argued that a leader is best measured by the successes of those he leads rather than his own successes as an individual. In other words, good leaders bring out the best in people.
I find this whole ‘snowflake’ thing just bullshit, but I admit that’s my own particular perspective based on my own experience. I live and grew up in a society where the greatest ‘sin’ was to have ‘tickets on yourself’. This means that in whatever you do you’re judged on your current endeavours and should not take for granted whatever respect you’ve earned. I think this is very healthy and effectively punishes complacency without throwing away whatever you’ve gained. In walkaway society, the characters tend to conflate ‘snowflakiness’ with leadership.
I mentioned the plot device that allows walkaway characters to magically invent anything they need through ultra-superior technology – I don’t know how else to describe it. I’ve spent a working lifetime in engineering, so I know the true value of infrastructure and our dependency on it. There are so many things we take for granted (like sewerage) that we don’t appreciate what life would be like without them. I mention sewerage, because, of all the utilities, it would have the biggest and earliest impact if they all failed. My point is that, like everything technological that we take for granted, most people have no knowledge of its underpinnings or how they’d cope without it. Doctorow’s plot device attempts to cover this with an internet-like infrastructure called ‘interface’, energy from hydrogen ‘cells’, virtually 3D printable anything, including food if required, and transportation with blimps; all without anything resembling an economy.
I wouldn’t be giving too much away if I mention that one of the technological inventions that the walkaways have is the ability to upload (or download) their consciousness into AI. I think this is called the singularity. I admit that I am sceptical about this particular futuristic prediction, but given that it’s a work of fiction, I look at it as the ‘fantasy’ side of the same coin, that one of the characters conveniently reminded us of. My aversion to this scenario is that, personally, I don’t want immortality, in a machine or any other form. I’ve actually addressed this issue in my own fiction, so it’s there for someone else to take apart if they want to.
To be fair, a lot of people will enjoy this book, and some (if not many) will find my criticisms harsh. Arthur C Clarke once famously said (or wrote) that “any advanced enough technology is indistinguishable from magic” (that may not be verbatim but it’s close enough). All fiction is a blend of fantasy and realism, including mine, and the mix varies depending on the author and the subject. Science fiction novels can explore alternative societies, which is one of the things that attracted me to it when I was young. As I alluded to above, Doctorow’s novel comes across as a philosophical treatise, which I think is flawed, and it’s completely dependent on technology that’s indistinguishable from magic.
Friday 14 April 2017
48hr Flash Fiction Challenge 2017
Actually the competition (ran over the 8-9 Apr weekend) was called the SFL Challenge (Sci-Fi London Challenge), which I came across in New Scientist a few weeks earlier. You had to register and you were given a title and a line of dialogue from which to write a 2000 word short story in 48 hrs (actually 50hrs). But in reality, you only needed 24 once you got the bit between your teeth, though, in some circumstances that in itself may take 24 hrs. I was lucky in that I found the story started for me as soon as I put pen to paper. I say 'lucky' because that doesn't normally happen. It also could mean that the story is complete crap, but obviously I don't think so, otherwise I wouldn't be willing to post it here.
This is the complete opposite to the science fiction I normally write or used to write (as I haven't written anything in the past few years) in that it verges on real science, whilst my novel length attempts I would call science fantasy as opposed to so-called hard core sci-fi. You’ll understand what I mean if you read it. It could almost actually happen. In fact, similar ‘incidents’, for want of a better term, have notoriously happened in the past. I can’t say anymore without giving the plot away.
Some may think it a touch ambitious for a male writer to tell a story in first person female, or even a conceit, but I have done it before, though not in first person. There is little difference, from a writer’s perspective in writing in third person intimate or first person. Third person intimate (as it’s called) is distinct from third person omniscient. The point is that in both third person intimate and first person, the story is told from inside a character’s head, so little difference really.
FUTURE GUARANTEED
Cue dialogue: The drug could permanently enhance mirror neurons and make people too empathetic.
Word limit: 2000
‘Someone once said that evil should be called lack of empathy. When one looks at history, even recent history, atrocities have always occurred when one group of people demonise another group. In order to commit atrocities like genocide, or even milder forms of human rights abuse like denying sanctuary to refugees, it requires one to completely reject any empathetic feelings.’
Dr Robert immediately had the room’s attention by mentioning the word ‘evil’ in his first utterance, and possibly hit a nerve by introducing a topic that everyone would have an opinion on. I looked around the room to assess the reaction of the seventy odd people present and noted, that as a woman, I was in a distinct minority. He went on to woo us further by suggesting the highly improbable, if not impossible.
‘So imagine if we could cure evil, so to speak. We could guarantee the future.’ He paused to let the idea sink in. ‘Imagine if we could create a drug that would effectively eliminate evil; that would stop all atrocities in their tracks. A drug that could permanently enhance mirror neurons and make people more empathetic.’
As a science journalist, I knew this was an extraordinary claim. But was it just a blatant, self-promoting publicity grab or did it have substance? I needed to find out. In his next breath, Dr Robert offered me a means to that end.
‘We are looking for volunteers to trial this drug. And we have set up a web site for people to register. It will be a controlled double-blind experiment, so some of the volunteers will be given a placebo. We have already passed this by an ethics committee, which is why I can tell you about it here today.’
The group broke up and we went into an adjoining room for drinks and nibbles. I got myself a glass of white wine and observed Dr Robert from the fringe of the pack.
I guessed that he was in his early forties, reasonably good looking, with a relaxed and confident manner. I got the impression he was used to addressing large groups of people, and possibly corporate boards, using a combination of charm and intellect to persuade others to follow and support him in whatever he wished to pursue. I had to admit he reminded me of my ex-husband, who had used the same combination to sweep me off my feet when I was not quite twenty. More than a decade later, with wisdom and hindsight, I now know that someone who looks and behaves like they were perfect casting for the romantic lead of the movie playing in your head, can in reality be self-centred, inconsiderate and insensitive to the needs of others. Richard wasn’t evil, just a bastard, but an empathy enhancing drug may have performed wonders.
I was abruptly broken out of my reverie when I saw Dr Robert approaching me, carrying a glass of red.
‘I don’t believe we’ve met.’
We both changed hands with our glasses so we could cordially shake. His grip was gentle, which I suspect he reserved for women.
‘Jennifer Law, I’m a journalist with Science of Today.’
‘A very respectable periodical. I understand you have a wider audience than just geeks and science professionals.’
‘I would like to think so. I’ve been told that even some politicians read us.’
‘Well, you must be doing something right.’
‘Or possibly something wrong.’ We both chuckled and I lifted my glass to my lips to hide behind. Then I got serious. ‘To be honest, I’d like to be part of your trial.’
‘So you can report on it. From the inside, so to speak.’
‘Exactly.’
He gave me a look as if he was reassessing me. ‘Well, at least you’re up front.’
‘Yes, I find in the long run, it earns respect.’
He gave me another look, and I believe he liked what he saw. It occurred to me that he possibly liked blondes. From my experience, dark haired men often do.
‘Here’s my card,’ he said, taking it out of an inside pocket.
I looked at it: psychiatrist. It had his mobile number.
‘Thanks Dr Robert. Tomorrow I’ll go to your web site and register.’
‘Call me David.’ And he touched my arm ever so lightly.
We both smiled and he turned his back so he could meld into the crowd.
If I was to be honest, we’d been flirting and despite the alarms going off inside my head, I had to admit I enjoyed it.
The next day I went on-line to register. I noticed that they asked for the usual parameters: age, gender, profession and education level. They also asked, rather unexpectedly, if we could take a week out of our lives to participate. Naturally, I said yes, but I suspect that particular question would have eliminated a lot of potential volunteers before they even registered.
Those of us who were successful were booked into a hotel in the inner city, all expenses paid, and told on the first day to attend an introductory meeting in a ‘function’ room on the top floor. I estimated there were thirty or more of us, varying in age from early twenties to late forties, maybe early fifties, roughly equally divided by gender.
Dr Robert addressed us, saying that we would be divided by ballot into two groups and separated. I assumed that one group would be on the drug and the other on the placebo. Dr Robert told us that even he didn’t know who would be on the drug and who wouldn’t.
A female assistant then proceeded to read out a list of names which formed the first group and, as requested, they assembled one by one on the left side of the room, being the right side to Dr Robert and his assistant. I was in the second group so I moved to the right side.
Before dismissing us, Dr Robert told us something about the purpose of the trial. ‘It’s important that you understand that this drug doesn’t enhance empathy per se. It enhances mirror neurons, which actually fire when we observe the activities of others. But it is widely believed that this feature, which is not unique to humans by the way, allows what we call empathy with others. The trial is to specifically observe how or if we can get inside someone else’s head, figuratively speaking.’
I found it intriguing that he didn’t elaborate on how he would do that or how it would be measured. Someone in the other group obviously had the same thought, as they asked that very question.
Dr Robert replied, ‘I can’t answer that as it may affect the results.’ He smiled knowing that his answer would only intrigue us further, but perhaps that was the idea.
We then exited, under the guide of another two assistants, male this time, out separate doors.
We were given an oily gold liquid in a cup; the sort one usually associates with cough medicine. It had no distinct taste but the texture matched its look. Of course one wondered if its lack of taste indicated that it was the placebo, but I knew that was intuitive thinking misleading cognitive deduction. We were told that we would be given the same dose under supervision for every day of the trial.
Over the next few days we had no contact with the other group. Under the supervision of our assistant, who called himself Jones, we were involved in discussions about racial issues and societal dynamics. We watched documentaries, mainly concerned with historical events like the civil rights movement in the 1960s and pre-War Europe in the 1930s. I have to admit I was starting to feel acute disappointment, as I could see nothing innovative or novel about this approach. I found myself becoming bored and irritated, with the daily cumulative feeling that I was wasting my time. Also Dr Robert had effectively disappeared and I was beginning to feel that I had been duped. I also began to realise that many in the group felt the same way. If we were taking the drug, as opposed to the placebo, then our mirror neurons were in full synchronicity.
After four days we were told by Jones that we would be doing an exercise with the other group, which would be a role playing exercise. We would not be told what our roles were until we met. I noticed that the two groups even occupied separate floors of the hotel and used separate dining rooms. There had been no fraternising at all. Only a fire could have caused us to meet.
The next day we found ourselves in the function room where we had started. This time Dr Robert was no where to be seen.
We were going to play a game and some props were introduced to help us. The props consisted of two partitions, in the form of fences with 2 metre vertical poles about 10 centimetres apart. They were placed about 3 metres from the opposing walls where there were no doors. Half of our group were allocated to stand behind one partition and half of their group to stand behind the other partition, which was the one behind us. So both sides had their opposing side standing between them and half their group who were effectively prisoners.
Then those of us who weren’t prisoners were given a list of crimes committed by our opponents against imaginary members of our own group. The crimes included murder, rape, infanticide and torture; the usual accusations associated with war crimes. Each prisoner was given a number, which was associated with a specific crime. Our job, as a group, was to negotiate the release of their prisoners.
Logically, we would exchange prisoners with similar crimes, but everyone, myself included, felt that treating it as a book-keeping exercise didn’t serve justice.
Recollecting events later, I was surprised how seriously we all took it. No one said: It’s only a game. Both the assistants took up the cause for their respective sides, urging us not to give in to our opponents’ demands. I’m not sure how long it went on for, but later that morning the exercise was called off with no prisoners released, and we were allowed to return to our rooms.
Later that day we were called back to the function room for a debriefing. I have to admit I didn’t even want to go back into that room, but I had the feeling that it would be the last time.
This time Dr Robert was present and told us that the trial was over. He said we would all be debriefed over the next 24 hours and allowed to go home.
Dr Robert debriefed me personally. I’m unsure if that was deliberate, but I suspect it was. I have to confess my original attraction, even warmth, for him felt tainted by the experience that he had just put me through.
‘May I call you Jennifer?’
‘Sure,’ I said, feeling raw. ‘Can you tell me if I was on the drug?’
‘There was no drug. Everyone was given a placebo.’
I was so stunned that words would not form in my mind.
‘But, believe it or not, the trial was a success.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘We gave everyone the impression that their mirror neurons would be enhanced, and they were to the extent that we kept you in a group. Empathy has a dark side in that it causes people to associate more strongly with their group. It’s as much a cause for evil as an antidote.’ He elaborated, ‘The real purpose of the trial was to show that empathy, through mirror neurons, is a two-edged sword.’
I said no more. I left the room knowing that any romantic feelings I might have felt for Dr Robert had long dissipated. Not because he reminded me of Richard, but because I couldn’t abide his deception, however he may justify it.
This is the complete opposite to the science fiction I normally write or used to write (as I haven't written anything in the past few years) in that it verges on real science, whilst my novel length attempts I would call science fantasy as opposed to so-called hard core sci-fi. You’ll understand what I mean if you read it. It could almost actually happen. In fact, similar ‘incidents’, for want of a better term, have notoriously happened in the past. I can’t say anymore without giving the plot away.
Some may think it a touch ambitious for a male writer to tell a story in first person female, or even a conceit, but I have done it before, though not in first person. There is little difference, from a writer’s perspective in writing in third person intimate or first person. Third person intimate (as it’s called) is distinct from third person omniscient. The point is that in both third person intimate and first person, the story is told from inside a character’s head, so little difference really.
FUTURE GUARANTEED
Cue dialogue: The drug could permanently enhance mirror neurons and make people too empathetic.
Word limit: 2000
‘Someone once said that evil should be called lack of empathy. When one looks at history, even recent history, atrocities have always occurred when one group of people demonise another group. In order to commit atrocities like genocide, or even milder forms of human rights abuse like denying sanctuary to refugees, it requires one to completely reject any empathetic feelings.’
Dr Robert immediately had the room’s attention by mentioning the word ‘evil’ in his first utterance, and possibly hit a nerve by introducing a topic that everyone would have an opinion on. I looked around the room to assess the reaction of the seventy odd people present and noted, that as a woman, I was in a distinct minority. He went on to woo us further by suggesting the highly improbable, if not impossible.
‘So imagine if we could cure evil, so to speak. We could guarantee the future.’ He paused to let the idea sink in. ‘Imagine if we could create a drug that would effectively eliminate evil; that would stop all atrocities in their tracks. A drug that could permanently enhance mirror neurons and make people more empathetic.’
As a science journalist, I knew this was an extraordinary claim. But was it just a blatant, self-promoting publicity grab or did it have substance? I needed to find out. In his next breath, Dr Robert offered me a means to that end.
‘We are looking for volunteers to trial this drug. And we have set up a web site for people to register. It will be a controlled double-blind experiment, so some of the volunteers will be given a placebo. We have already passed this by an ethics committee, which is why I can tell you about it here today.’
The group broke up and we went into an adjoining room for drinks and nibbles. I got myself a glass of white wine and observed Dr Robert from the fringe of the pack.
I guessed that he was in his early forties, reasonably good looking, with a relaxed and confident manner. I got the impression he was used to addressing large groups of people, and possibly corporate boards, using a combination of charm and intellect to persuade others to follow and support him in whatever he wished to pursue. I had to admit he reminded me of my ex-husband, who had used the same combination to sweep me off my feet when I was not quite twenty. More than a decade later, with wisdom and hindsight, I now know that someone who looks and behaves like they were perfect casting for the romantic lead of the movie playing in your head, can in reality be self-centred, inconsiderate and insensitive to the needs of others. Richard wasn’t evil, just a bastard, but an empathy enhancing drug may have performed wonders.
I was abruptly broken out of my reverie when I saw Dr Robert approaching me, carrying a glass of red.
‘I don’t believe we’ve met.’
We both changed hands with our glasses so we could cordially shake. His grip was gentle, which I suspect he reserved for women.
‘Jennifer Law, I’m a journalist with Science of Today.’
‘A very respectable periodical. I understand you have a wider audience than just geeks and science professionals.’
‘I would like to think so. I’ve been told that even some politicians read us.’
‘Well, you must be doing something right.’
‘Or possibly something wrong.’ We both chuckled and I lifted my glass to my lips to hide behind. Then I got serious. ‘To be honest, I’d like to be part of your trial.’
‘So you can report on it. From the inside, so to speak.’
‘Exactly.’
He gave me a look as if he was reassessing me. ‘Well, at least you’re up front.’
‘Yes, I find in the long run, it earns respect.’
He gave me another look, and I believe he liked what he saw. It occurred to me that he possibly liked blondes. From my experience, dark haired men often do.
‘Here’s my card,’ he said, taking it out of an inside pocket.
I looked at it: psychiatrist. It had his mobile number.
‘Thanks Dr Robert. Tomorrow I’ll go to your web site and register.’
‘Call me David.’ And he touched my arm ever so lightly.
We both smiled and he turned his back so he could meld into the crowd.
If I was to be honest, we’d been flirting and despite the alarms going off inside my head, I had to admit I enjoyed it.
The next day I went on-line to register. I noticed that they asked for the usual parameters: age, gender, profession and education level. They also asked, rather unexpectedly, if we could take a week out of our lives to participate. Naturally, I said yes, but I suspect that particular question would have eliminated a lot of potential volunteers before they even registered.
Those of us who were successful were booked into a hotel in the inner city, all expenses paid, and told on the first day to attend an introductory meeting in a ‘function’ room on the top floor. I estimated there were thirty or more of us, varying in age from early twenties to late forties, maybe early fifties, roughly equally divided by gender.
Dr Robert addressed us, saying that we would be divided by ballot into two groups and separated. I assumed that one group would be on the drug and the other on the placebo. Dr Robert told us that even he didn’t know who would be on the drug and who wouldn’t.
A female assistant then proceeded to read out a list of names which formed the first group and, as requested, they assembled one by one on the left side of the room, being the right side to Dr Robert and his assistant. I was in the second group so I moved to the right side.
Before dismissing us, Dr Robert told us something about the purpose of the trial. ‘It’s important that you understand that this drug doesn’t enhance empathy per se. It enhances mirror neurons, which actually fire when we observe the activities of others. But it is widely believed that this feature, which is not unique to humans by the way, allows what we call empathy with others. The trial is to specifically observe how or if we can get inside someone else’s head, figuratively speaking.’
I found it intriguing that he didn’t elaborate on how he would do that or how it would be measured. Someone in the other group obviously had the same thought, as they asked that very question.
Dr Robert replied, ‘I can’t answer that as it may affect the results.’ He smiled knowing that his answer would only intrigue us further, but perhaps that was the idea.
We then exited, under the guide of another two assistants, male this time, out separate doors.
We were given an oily gold liquid in a cup; the sort one usually associates with cough medicine. It had no distinct taste but the texture matched its look. Of course one wondered if its lack of taste indicated that it was the placebo, but I knew that was intuitive thinking misleading cognitive deduction. We were told that we would be given the same dose under supervision for every day of the trial.
Over the next few days we had no contact with the other group. Under the supervision of our assistant, who called himself Jones, we were involved in discussions about racial issues and societal dynamics. We watched documentaries, mainly concerned with historical events like the civil rights movement in the 1960s and pre-War Europe in the 1930s. I have to admit I was starting to feel acute disappointment, as I could see nothing innovative or novel about this approach. I found myself becoming bored and irritated, with the daily cumulative feeling that I was wasting my time. Also Dr Robert had effectively disappeared and I was beginning to feel that I had been duped. I also began to realise that many in the group felt the same way. If we were taking the drug, as opposed to the placebo, then our mirror neurons were in full synchronicity.
After four days we were told by Jones that we would be doing an exercise with the other group, which would be a role playing exercise. We would not be told what our roles were until we met. I noticed that the two groups even occupied separate floors of the hotel and used separate dining rooms. There had been no fraternising at all. Only a fire could have caused us to meet.
The next day we found ourselves in the function room where we had started. This time Dr Robert was no where to be seen.
We were going to play a game and some props were introduced to help us. The props consisted of two partitions, in the form of fences with 2 metre vertical poles about 10 centimetres apart. They were placed about 3 metres from the opposing walls where there were no doors. Half of our group were allocated to stand behind one partition and half of their group to stand behind the other partition, which was the one behind us. So both sides had their opposing side standing between them and half their group who were effectively prisoners.
Then those of us who weren’t prisoners were given a list of crimes committed by our opponents against imaginary members of our own group. The crimes included murder, rape, infanticide and torture; the usual accusations associated with war crimes. Each prisoner was given a number, which was associated with a specific crime. Our job, as a group, was to negotiate the release of their prisoners.
Logically, we would exchange prisoners with similar crimes, but everyone, myself included, felt that treating it as a book-keeping exercise didn’t serve justice.
Recollecting events later, I was surprised how seriously we all took it. No one said: It’s only a game. Both the assistants took up the cause for their respective sides, urging us not to give in to our opponents’ demands. I’m not sure how long it went on for, but later that morning the exercise was called off with no prisoners released, and we were allowed to return to our rooms.
Later that day we were called back to the function room for a debriefing. I have to admit I didn’t even want to go back into that room, but I had the feeling that it would be the last time.
This time Dr Robert was present and told us that the trial was over. He said we would all be debriefed over the next 24 hours and allowed to go home.
Dr Robert debriefed me personally. I’m unsure if that was deliberate, but I suspect it was. I have to confess my original attraction, even warmth, for him felt tainted by the experience that he had just put me through.
‘May I call you Jennifer?’
‘Sure,’ I said, feeling raw. ‘Can you tell me if I was on the drug?’
‘There was no drug. Everyone was given a placebo.’
I was so stunned that words would not form in my mind.
‘But, believe it or not, the trial was a success.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘We gave everyone the impression that their mirror neurons would be enhanced, and they were to the extent that we kept you in a group. Empathy has a dark side in that it causes people to associate more strongly with their group. It’s as much a cause for evil as an antidote.’ He elaborated, ‘The real purpose of the trial was to show that empathy, through mirror neurons, is a two-edged sword.’
I said no more. I left the room knowing that any romantic feelings I might have felt for Dr Robert had long dissipated. Not because he reminded me of Richard, but because I couldn’t abide his deception, however he may justify it.
Sunday 27 November 2016
Arrival; a masterclass in storytelling
Four movie reviews in one year; maybe I should change the title of my blog – no, just kidding. Someone (either Jake Wilson or Paul Byrnes from The Age) gave it the ultimate accolade: ‘At last, a science fiction movie with a brain.’ They also gave it 3.5 stars but ended their review with: ‘[the leads: Amy Adams, Forest Whitaker and Jeremy Renner] have the chops to keep us watching even when the narrative starts to wobble.’ So they probably wouldn’t agree with me calling it a masterclass.
It’s certainly not perfect – I’m not sure I’ve seen the perfect movie yet – but it’s clever on more than one level. I’m always drawn to good writing in a movie, which is something most people are not even aware of. It was based on a book, whose author escaped me as a couple in front of me got up to leave just as the name came up on the screen. But I have Google, so I can tell you that the screenplay was written by Eric Heisserer, and Ted Chiang wrote the novella, “Story of Your Life”, upon which it is based. French-Canadian director, Denis Villeneuve has also made Prisoners and Sicario, neither of which I’ve seen, but Sicario is highly acclaimed.
It would be remiss of me not to mention the music and soundscape, which really adds another dimension to this movie. I noticed that beginning and end scores were by Max Richter, whom I admire in the contemporary classical music scene. Though the overall music score is credited to Johann Johannsson. Some of the music reminded of Tibetan music with its almost subterranean tones. Australia also gets a bit of 'coverage', if that's the right word, though not always in a flattering manner. Forest Whitaker's character reminds us how we all but committed genocide against the Aboriginal people.
I haven’t read the book, but I’m willing to give credit to both writers for producing a ‘science fiction story with a brain’. Science fiction has a number of subgenres: the human diaspora into interstellar space; time travel; alien worlds; parallel universes; artificial intelligence; dystopian fiction, utopian fiction and the list goes on, with various combinations. The title alone tells us that this is an Alien encounter on Earth, but the movie keeps us guessing as to whether it’s an invasion or just a curious interloper or something else altogether.
I’ve written elsewhere that narrative tension is one of the essential writing skills and this story has it on many levels. To give one example without giving the plot away, there is a sequence of narrative events where we think we know what’s going to happen, with the suspense ramping up while we wait for what we expect to happen to happen, then something completely unexpected happens, which is totally within the bounds of possibility, therefore believable. In some respects this sums up the whole movie because all through it we are led to believe one thing only to learn we are witnessing something else. It’s called a reversal, which I’m not always a fan of, but this one is more than just a clever twist for the sake of being clever. Maybe that’s what the reviewer meant by ‘…when the narrative starts to wobble’. I don’t know. I have to confess I wasn’t completely sold, yet it was essential to the story and it works within the context of the story, so it’s part of the masterclass.
One of the things that struck me right from the beginning is that we see the movie almost in first person – though, not totally, as at least one cutaway scene requires the absence of the protagonist. I would not be surprised if Ted Chiang wrote his short story in the first person. I don’t know what nationality Ted Chiang is, but I assume he is of Chinese extraction, and the Chinese are major players in this movie.
Communication is at the core of this film, both plot and subplot, and Amy Adams’ character (Louise Banks) makes the pertinent point in a bit of expositional dialogue that was both relevant to the story and relevant to what makes us human: that language, to a large extent, determines how we think because, by the very nature of our brains, we are limited in what we can think by the language that we think in. That’s not what she said but that was the lesson I took from it.
I’ve made the point before, though possibly not on this blog, that science fiction invariably has something to say about the era in which it was written and this movie is no exception. Basically, we see how paranoia can be a dangerous contagion, as if we need reminding. We are also reminded how wars and conflicts bring out the best and worst in humanity with the worst often being the predominant player.
It’s certainly not perfect – I’m not sure I’ve seen the perfect movie yet – but it’s clever on more than one level. I’m always drawn to good writing in a movie, which is something most people are not even aware of. It was based on a book, whose author escaped me as a couple in front of me got up to leave just as the name came up on the screen. But I have Google, so I can tell you that the screenplay was written by Eric Heisserer, and Ted Chiang wrote the novella, “Story of Your Life”, upon which it is based. French-Canadian director, Denis Villeneuve has also made Prisoners and Sicario, neither of which I’ve seen, but Sicario is highly acclaimed.
It would be remiss of me not to mention the music and soundscape, which really adds another dimension to this movie. I noticed that beginning and end scores were by Max Richter, whom I admire in the contemporary classical music scene. Though the overall music score is credited to Johann Johannsson. Some of the music reminded of Tibetan music with its almost subterranean tones. Australia also gets a bit of 'coverage', if that's the right word, though not always in a flattering manner. Forest Whitaker's character reminds us how we all but committed genocide against the Aboriginal people.
I haven’t read the book, but I’m willing to give credit to both writers for producing a ‘science fiction story with a brain’. Science fiction has a number of subgenres: the human diaspora into interstellar space; time travel; alien worlds; parallel universes; artificial intelligence; dystopian fiction, utopian fiction and the list goes on, with various combinations. The title alone tells us that this is an Alien encounter on Earth, but the movie keeps us guessing as to whether it’s an invasion or just a curious interloper or something else altogether.
I’ve written elsewhere that narrative tension is one of the essential writing skills and this story has it on many levels. To give one example without giving the plot away, there is a sequence of narrative events where we think we know what’s going to happen, with the suspense ramping up while we wait for what we expect to happen to happen, then something completely unexpected happens, which is totally within the bounds of possibility, therefore believable. In some respects this sums up the whole movie because all through it we are led to believe one thing only to learn we are witnessing something else. It’s called a reversal, which I’m not always a fan of, but this one is more than just a clever twist for the sake of being clever. Maybe that’s what the reviewer meant by ‘…when the narrative starts to wobble’. I don’t know. I have to confess I wasn’t completely sold, yet it was essential to the story and it works within the context of the story, so it’s part of the masterclass.
One of the things that struck me right from the beginning is that we see the movie almost in first person – though, not totally, as at least one cutaway scene requires the absence of the protagonist. I would not be surprised if Ted Chiang wrote his short story in the first person. I don’t know what nationality Ted Chiang is, but I assume he is of Chinese extraction, and the Chinese are major players in this movie.
Communication is at the core of this film, both plot and subplot, and Amy Adams’ character (Louise Banks) makes the pertinent point in a bit of expositional dialogue that was both relevant to the story and relevant to what makes us human: that language, to a large extent, determines how we think because, by the very nature of our brains, we are limited in what we can think by the language that we think in. That’s not what she said but that was the lesson I took from it.
I’ve made the point before, though possibly not on this blog, that science fiction invariably has something to say about the era in which it was written and this movie is no exception. Basically, we see how paranoia can be a dangerous contagion, as if we need reminding. We are also reminded how wars and conflicts bring out the best and worst in humanity with the worst often being the predominant player.
Sunday 6 November 2016
Dr Strange; a surprisingly philosophical movie
I have to admit I wouldn’t have gone to see this based on the trailer, as it just appeared to be a special effects spectacular, which is what you expect from superhero movies. And it seemed very formulaic - an apprentice, a mentor, a villain who wants to destroy the world - you know the script. What changed my mind was a review by Stephen Romei in the Australian Weekend Review (29-30 Oct. 2016), who gave it 3.5 stars, and re-reading it, gives a lot of the plot away. I’ll try not to do that here, but I’m not promising.
Dr Stephen Strange is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who is much better cast here than in The Imitation Game, which I thought was a travesty. As an aside, The Imitation Game was an insult to the real Alan Turing, but I don’t believe that was Cumberbatch’s fault. I blame the director, writers and producers, who, knowing the audience’s ignorance, gave them the caricature of genius that they expected the audience wanted to see.
Cumberbatch’s Dr Strange is a self-obsessed, egotistical, unapologetically self-promoting brain surgeon. He’s never known failure and that’s an important psychological point in my view. The first subliminal philosophical reference in this movie is the well-worn trope: the unexamined life is not worth living. This is pretty much the theme or premise of every story ever told. The point is that no one examines their life until they experience failure, and, of course, Strange faces failure of a catastrophic kind. Otherwise, there’d be no movie.
He then goes on a mystical journey, which many of us may have done at an intellectual level, but can only be done viscerally in the world of fiction. I should point out that I went through a prolonged ‘Eastern philosophy’ phase, which more or less followed on from the ‘Christian’ phase of my childhood. I’m now going through a mathematical phase, as anyone reading this blog could not have failed to notice.
Anyway, Strange’s journey is distinctly Eastern, which is the antithesis of his medical-science background. But he is introduced to an ‘astral’ or ‘spirit’ dimension, and there is a reference to the multiverse, which is a current scientific trope, if I may re-use that term in a different context. I don’t mind that ‘comic book’ movies allude to religious ideas or even that they mix them with science, because one can do that in fiction. I’ve done it myself. The multiverse is an allusion to everything that we don’t know scientifically (even in science) and is the current bulwark against metaphysics. Employing it in a fantasy movie to enhance the fantasy element is just clever storytelling. It embodies the idea, that is still very current in the East, that science cannot tell us everything.
There are 2 mythological references in the movie, including one biblical one. At one point the villain, Kaecilius (played by Mads Mikkelsen) attempts to seduce Strange to the ‘dark side’, which is very reminiscent of Satan’s attempt to seduce Jesus in the desert. I’ve always liked that particular biblical story, because it represents the corruption of power and status over the need to serve a disenfranchised public. In other words, it is an appeal to ego over the need to subordinate one’s ego for a greater good.
One of the themes of the story is mortality and immortality; something I’ve explored in my own fiction, possibly more explicitly. We live in a time where, as Woody Allen once explained in literary terms, we ‘suspend disbelief’ that we are going to live forever. We tend to avoid, in Western culture, any reference to mortality, yet it is an intrinsic part of life. We all eventually get there but refuse to face it until forced to. This is actually addressed in this movie, quite unexpectedly, as we don’t expect lessons in philosophy in a superhero movie.
Last but not least, there is a subtle but clever allusion to Camus’ famous retelling of the Greek Sisyphus myth (look it up), not something your average cinema audience member would be expected to know. It is embedded in one of those plot devices that I love: where the hero uses an unexpected ‘twist’, both literally and figuratively, and where brain defeats overwhelming force.
Dr Stephen Strange is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who is much better cast here than in The Imitation Game, which I thought was a travesty. As an aside, The Imitation Game was an insult to the real Alan Turing, but I don’t believe that was Cumberbatch’s fault. I blame the director, writers and producers, who, knowing the audience’s ignorance, gave them the caricature of genius that they expected the audience wanted to see.
Cumberbatch’s Dr Strange is a self-obsessed, egotistical, unapologetically self-promoting brain surgeon. He’s never known failure and that’s an important psychological point in my view. The first subliminal philosophical reference in this movie is the well-worn trope: the unexamined life is not worth living. This is pretty much the theme or premise of every story ever told. The point is that no one examines their life until they experience failure, and, of course, Strange faces failure of a catastrophic kind. Otherwise, there’d be no movie.
He then goes on a mystical journey, which many of us may have done at an intellectual level, but can only be done viscerally in the world of fiction. I should point out that I went through a prolonged ‘Eastern philosophy’ phase, which more or less followed on from the ‘Christian’ phase of my childhood. I’m now going through a mathematical phase, as anyone reading this blog could not have failed to notice.
Anyway, Strange’s journey is distinctly Eastern, which is the antithesis of his medical-science background. But he is introduced to an ‘astral’ or ‘spirit’ dimension, and there is a reference to the multiverse, which is a current scientific trope, if I may re-use that term in a different context. I don’t mind that ‘comic book’ movies allude to religious ideas or even that they mix them with science, because one can do that in fiction. I’ve done it myself. The multiverse is an allusion to everything that we don’t know scientifically (even in science) and is the current bulwark against metaphysics. Employing it in a fantasy movie to enhance the fantasy element is just clever storytelling. It embodies the idea, that is still very current in the East, that science cannot tell us everything.
There are 2 mythological references in the movie, including one biblical one. At one point the villain, Kaecilius (played by Mads Mikkelsen) attempts to seduce Strange to the ‘dark side’, which is very reminiscent of Satan’s attempt to seduce Jesus in the desert. I’ve always liked that particular biblical story, because it represents the corruption of power and status over the need to serve a disenfranchised public. In other words, it is an appeal to ego over the need to subordinate one’s ego for a greater good.
One of the themes of the story is mortality and immortality; something I’ve explored in my own fiction, possibly more explicitly. We live in a time where, as Woody Allen once explained in literary terms, we ‘suspend disbelief’ that we are going to live forever. We tend to avoid, in Western culture, any reference to mortality, yet it is an intrinsic part of life. We all eventually get there but refuse to face it until forced to. This is actually addressed in this movie, quite unexpectedly, as we don’t expect lessons in philosophy in a superhero movie.
Last but not least, there is a subtle but clever allusion to Camus’ famous retelling of the Greek Sisyphus myth (look it up), not something your average cinema audience member would be expected to know. It is embedded in one of those plot devices that I love: where the hero uses an unexpected ‘twist’, both literally and figuratively, and where brain defeats overwhelming force.
Sunday 17 April 2016
Eye in the Sky
Two movie reviews in a row – but quite different – one arguably the latest incarnation of my generation’s best known comic book icons, and the other a serious intellectual debate on the moral dimension of modern warfare.
This is a really good movie: one where you can’t leave the cinema without internally debating the pros and cons of a military operation, where you know the consequences are real for those who take part in this very new ‘theatre of war’ involving drone strikes, electronic intelligence surveillance and high tech Western military powers versus third world terrorist enclaves. This is one of those movies where you ask yourself: What would I do? Only many times over.
You insert yourself in so many points of view; a credit to the filmmakers and the actors who create them for you. Only 2 of the actors are known to me: Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman; but they all acquit themselves well, with events taking place simultaneously in 3 geographically separate parts of the world. Such is the nature of modern warfare and communications availability that one can imagine the co-operation of 3 different countries’ governments and military personnel performing one tactically precise operation.
A British production, Colin Firth is one of the producers, which is how it came to Helen Mirren (according to an interview with her) and you wonder why he’s not in it. One can imagine him playing any one of the British roles, such is his versatility. Apparently, the Mirren character was written for a man, so it’s a master stroke giving it to her. Sadly, it’s Alan Rickman’s last film, so it seems fitting to me that he has arguably the best line in the movie: “Never tell a soldier that he doesn’t know the cost of war.” Seeing ‘In Loving Memory of Alan Rickman’ in the credits was as emotional for me as any moment in the movie itself. And the movie certainly has its moments.
I’m not giving anything away by telling you the premise: a drone strike on a house in Nairobi is compromised by the presence of a young innocent girl (just watch the trailer). And it was the trailer that compelled me to go and see this film. In some respects this is a perfectly realistic and believable recasting of Mills’ famous trolley thought experiment: would you sacrifice the life of 1 innocent man to save the lives of 4 others? In this case, do you sacrifice the life of 1 innocent girl to save the potential 80+ lives from a suicide bomber? Really, that’s it in a nutshell. You empathise with everyone in the so-called chain of command, but, in particular, with the young drone pilots, who must perform the actual kill, one of whom is a woman on her very first operation.
Like the military personnel (played by Rickman and Mirren) you get frustrated by the Public Service mentality of avoiding a decision for fear of yet-to-be realised consequences. But what struck me was that the entire decision-making process was driven purely by legal and political considerations, not moral ones. I’ve never been in a war so I really can’t judge. The truth is that in a war, one’s moral compass is changed, not least because you are trained to kill; something you’ve been taught never to do for your entire life. The other truth is that the more one side escalates atrocities so does the opposing side. Concepts of right and wrong that seem so solid and dependable in civilian life can suddenly become slippery and even obsolete. I’ve never been there but I can imagine.
A few years back I wrote a post on drone warfare after reading an article that cited David Kilcullen (in the Weekend Australian) who opposed it, arguing that it would recruit terrorists. One of the many arguments that takes place in the movie is about winning the propaganda war. At the time, watching the scene, I thought: who cares? But at the end of the movie, I realised that collateral damage is always a propaganda win for the opponent. This is the biggest risk of drone warfare. There is another side to this as well. Someone once pointed out (no, I don’t remember who) that when one side of a conflict is technically superior to the other, the other side invariably uses tactics that are considered unethical by the superior side, but the inferior side know that such tactics are their only advantage. This is the case in the so-called ‘War on Terror’, where the technological might of Western military power is thwarted by suicide bomber attacks in public places.
In movies, it’s not difficult to create a character whom the audience roots for, and in this case, it’s the young girl. Alongside that is the imperative to stop terrorist attacks by ideologues whose stated aim is to eradicate Western political and educational norms in whichever way they can. The film makes it clear that the young girl represents the future that these ideologues oppose.
This is a really good movie: one where you can’t leave the cinema without internally debating the pros and cons of a military operation, where you know the consequences are real for those who take part in this very new ‘theatre of war’ involving drone strikes, electronic intelligence surveillance and high tech Western military powers versus third world terrorist enclaves. This is one of those movies where you ask yourself: What would I do? Only many times over.
You insert yourself in so many points of view; a credit to the filmmakers and the actors who create them for you. Only 2 of the actors are known to me: Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman; but they all acquit themselves well, with events taking place simultaneously in 3 geographically separate parts of the world. Such is the nature of modern warfare and communications availability that one can imagine the co-operation of 3 different countries’ governments and military personnel performing one tactically precise operation.
A British production, Colin Firth is one of the producers, which is how it came to Helen Mirren (according to an interview with her) and you wonder why he’s not in it. One can imagine him playing any one of the British roles, such is his versatility. Apparently, the Mirren character was written for a man, so it’s a master stroke giving it to her. Sadly, it’s Alan Rickman’s last film, so it seems fitting to me that he has arguably the best line in the movie: “Never tell a soldier that he doesn’t know the cost of war.” Seeing ‘In Loving Memory of Alan Rickman’ in the credits was as emotional for me as any moment in the movie itself. And the movie certainly has its moments.
I’m not giving anything away by telling you the premise: a drone strike on a house in Nairobi is compromised by the presence of a young innocent girl (just watch the trailer). And it was the trailer that compelled me to go and see this film. In some respects this is a perfectly realistic and believable recasting of Mills’ famous trolley thought experiment: would you sacrifice the life of 1 innocent man to save the lives of 4 others? In this case, do you sacrifice the life of 1 innocent girl to save the potential 80+ lives from a suicide bomber? Really, that’s it in a nutshell. You empathise with everyone in the so-called chain of command, but, in particular, with the young drone pilots, who must perform the actual kill, one of whom is a woman on her very first operation.
Like the military personnel (played by Rickman and Mirren) you get frustrated by the Public Service mentality of avoiding a decision for fear of yet-to-be realised consequences. But what struck me was that the entire decision-making process was driven purely by legal and political considerations, not moral ones. I’ve never been in a war so I really can’t judge. The truth is that in a war, one’s moral compass is changed, not least because you are trained to kill; something you’ve been taught never to do for your entire life. The other truth is that the more one side escalates atrocities so does the opposing side. Concepts of right and wrong that seem so solid and dependable in civilian life can suddenly become slippery and even obsolete. I’ve never been there but I can imagine.
A few years back I wrote a post on drone warfare after reading an article that cited David Kilcullen (in the Weekend Australian) who opposed it, arguing that it would recruit terrorists. One of the many arguments that takes place in the movie is about winning the propaganda war. At the time, watching the scene, I thought: who cares? But at the end of the movie, I realised that collateral damage is always a propaganda win for the opponent. This is the biggest risk of drone warfare. There is another side to this as well. Someone once pointed out (no, I don’t remember who) that when one side of a conflict is technically superior to the other, the other side invariably uses tactics that are considered unethical by the superior side, but the inferior side know that such tactics are their only advantage. This is the case in the so-called ‘War on Terror’, where the technological might of Western military power is thwarted by suicide bomber attacks in public places.
In movies, it’s not difficult to create a character whom the audience roots for, and in this case, it’s the young girl. Alongside that is the imperative to stop terrorist attacks by ideologues whose stated aim is to eradicate Western political and educational norms in whichever way they can. The film makes it clear that the young girl represents the future that these ideologues oppose.
Monday 28 March 2016
Superheroes for adults – Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
This is not the first movie review I’ve written on this blog; not even the first about superheroes. I wrote a review of Watchmen in Oct., 2009, which is an exceptional movie in my view, based on an exceptional graphic novel by Alan Moore, which I have to confess I read some years after I saw the movie.
One really shouldn’t reference other reviewers when writing a review (an unwritten rule of reviewing) but Stephen Romei, writing in the Weekend Australian Review (26-27 Mar., 2016) makes the pertinent point of how our superheroes have evolved over the best part of a century (the ones in this movie were all created pre-WW2). As someone who was born immediately post-WW2, I grew up with these heroes in the form that they were born in, comic books. Like many of my generation (including Romie, I suspect) they are imbedded in my psyche, especially Superman.
Romei makes the point that he’s glad he didn’t take his 10 year old son (so maybe not my generation) because the movie is long and the characters' relationships complex. But the truth is that when you see Lois in a bath you know this isn’t a movie for kids. And no, it’s not a gratuitous nude scene – it’s a very clever way of demonstrating her relationship with Clark without showing them in bed. Our superheroes have become grown up – they have sex. It’s a bit like the point in your life when you realise your parents have been at it for at least as long as you’ve been alive. Bruce Wayne has someone in his bed as well, but we never meet her. In fact, she’s so unobtrusive that I now wonder if I imagined her.
This is a very noirish film, and not only in subtext. The first thing that struck me about this movie was the cinematography: it’s darkly lit, even the outdoor shots. But what makes this film worthy of a blog post is that it has a moral dimension that reflects the current world we live in. It’s about fear and trust and how we are manipulated by politicians and media. Our heroes are flawed, suffer doubt and have to deal with real moral dilemmas. All of these factors are dealt with a level of authenticity that we would not expect from a superhero movie. It’s also about being judged by association; very relevant in the current global environment.
One of the themes of this movie, which is spelt out in some of the dialogue, as well as in gestures, is that these heroes are effectively gods. Bryan Singer brought this home to us as well in Superman Returns (a movie that you either loved or hated; it’s one my favourites, I confess). This is a point I’ve raised myself (when I discussed Watchmen): the superheroes are our ‘Greek Gods’. And like the Greek Gods of literature, they exhibit human traits, dabble in human affairs and even have human lovers. I am a storyteller by nature, and the whole point of storytelling is to be able to stretch our imaginations to worlds and beings that only exist in that realm. But that storytelling only resonates with us when it deals with human affairs, not only of the heart, but of politics and moral crises.
Chris Nolan’s second Dark Knight movie is a case in point, where Heath Ledger’s Joker makes Christian Bale’s Batman become, albeit fleetingly, as morally compromised as he is. This is the lesson: do we have to become as bad as our enemies in order to defeat them. Consider the Republicans’ current leading contender for the White House saying on national television that in order to defeat ISIS we need to attack their families. Cringeworthy doesn’t cover it.
And this movie, in its own way, challenges our prejudices, our inherent distrust in anyone who is ‘not one of us’, especially when we can associate them with atrocities occurring in remote locations and on our doorstep. We are tribal – it’s our strength and our downfall. And this fear and mistrust is manipulated blatantly (in the movie) which is why it is relevant and meaningful to the present day. Science fiction stories, always set in the future, always have something relevant to say about the time in which they are written.
And this brings me to the introduction of Wonder Woman, who has very little screen time, yet promises much for the future. I have a particular interest in her character, because she influenced one of my own creations, albeit subconsciously (I wasn’t aware of the obvious references until after I’d written it). I have to confess I was worried that she would come across as a lightweight, but Gal Gadot gives the role the gravitas it deserves. Gadot is a former Miss Israeli and the fact that she’s served in the military is maybe why she convinces us that she is a genuine warrior and not just someone who looks good in tight-fitting clothes.
Remember that Sean Connery was a Mr Universe contender before he became the first and (50 years later) still the most iconic James Bond. But the reason for her relevance is that female superheroes have been historically in short supply, but there is a sense that their time has come. Looking on the Internet, the biggest concern seemed to be if her boobs were big enough. And, in fact, a radio interviewer asked her that very question. She pointed out that the real Amazonians only had one breast, which may have made the role ‘problematic if one really wanted authenticity’. (I remember being told that as a kid: that they cut off their left breast so they could draw and release a bow string. It seemed plausible to me then and it sounds plausible to me now.) That slightly irrelevant point aside, the original Wonder Woman was based on Greek mythology; she is Hellenic, so possibly more in common with the Greek Gods than any other 20th Century fictional creation. Anyway, I think Gadot perfect for the role, and I only hope the scriptwriters have done her justice in her own story.
Just one bit of trivia: there is a piece of dialogue by Alfred (played pitch-perfect by Jeremy Irons) that has been lifted straight out of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (1986) of which I still have a copy. A subtle but respectful salute.
One really shouldn’t reference other reviewers when writing a review (an unwritten rule of reviewing) but Stephen Romei, writing in the Weekend Australian Review (26-27 Mar., 2016) makes the pertinent point of how our superheroes have evolved over the best part of a century (the ones in this movie were all created pre-WW2). As someone who was born immediately post-WW2, I grew up with these heroes in the form that they were born in, comic books. Like many of my generation (including Romie, I suspect) they are imbedded in my psyche, especially Superman.
Romei makes the point that he’s glad he didn’t take his 10 year old son (so maybe not my generation) because the movie is long and the characters' relationships complex. But the truth is that when you see Lois in a bath you know this isn’t a movie for kids. And no, it’s not a gratuitous nude scene – it’s a very clever way of demonstrating her relationship with Clark without showing them in bed. Our superheroes have become grown up – they have sex. It’s a bit like the point in your life when you realise your parents have been at it for at least as long as you’ve been alive. Bruce Wayne has someone in his bed as well, but we never meet her. In fact, she’s so unobtrusive that I now wonder if I imagined her.
This is a very noirish film, and not only in subtext. The first thing that struck me about this movie was the cinematography: it’s darkly lit, even the outdoor shots. But what makes this film worthy of a blog post is that it has a moral dimension that reflects the current world we live in. It’s about fear and trust and how we are manipulated by politicians and media. Our heroes are flawed, suffer doubt and have to deal with real moral dilemmas. All of these factors are dealt with a level of authenticity that we would not expect from a superhero movie. It’s also about being judged by association; very relevant in the current global environment.
One of the themes of this movie, which is spelt out in some of the dialogue, as well as in gestures, is that these heroes are effectively gods. Bryan Singer brought this home to us as well in Superman Returns (a movie that you either loved or hated; it’s one my favourites, I confess). This is a point I’ve raised myself (when I discussed Watchmen): the superheroes are our ‘Greek Gods’. And like the Greek Gods of literature, they exhibit human traits, dabble in human affairs and even have human lovers. I am a storyteller by nature, and the whole point of storytelling is to be able to stretch our imaginations to worlds and beings that only exist in that realm. But that storytelling only resonates with us when it deals with human affairs, not only of the heart, but of politics and moral crises.
Chris Nolan’s second Dark Knight movie is a case in point, where Heath Ledger’s Joker makes Christian Bale’s Batman become, albeit fleetingly, as morally compromised as he is. This is the lesson: do we have to become as bad as our enemies in order to defeat them. Consider the Republicans’ current leading contender for the White House saying on national television that in order to defeat ISIS we need to attack their families. Cringeworthy doesn’t cover it.
And this movie, in its own way, challenges our prejudices, our inherent distrust in anyone who is ‘not one of us’, especially when we can associate them with atrocities occurring in remote locations and on our doorstep. We are tribal – it’s our strength and our downfall. And this fear and mistrust is manipulated blatantly (in the movie) which is why it is relevant and meaningful to the present day. Science fiction stories, always set in the future, always have something relevant to say about the time in which they are written.
And this brings me to the introduction of Wonder Woman, who has very little screen time, yet promises much for the future. I have a particular interest in her character, because she influenced one of my own creations, albeit subconsciously (I wasn’t aware of the obvious references until after I’d written it). I have to confess I was worried that she would come across as a lightweight, but Gal Gadot gives the role the gravitas it deserves. Gadot is a former Miss Israeli and the fact that she’s served in the military is maybe why she convinces us that she is a genuine warrior and not just someone who looks good in tight-fitting clothes.
Remember that Sean Connery was a Mr Universe contender before he became the first and (50 years later) still the most iconic James Bond. But the reason for her relevance is that female superheroes have been historically in short supply, but there is a sense that their time has come. Looking on the Internet, the biggest concern seemed to be if her boobs were big enough. And, in fact, a radio interviewer asked her that very question. She pointed out that the real Amazonians only had one breast, which may have made the role ‘problematic if one really wanted authenticity’. (I remember being told that as a kid: that they cut off their left breast so they could draw and release a bow string. It seemed plausible to me then and it sounds plausible to me now.) That slightly irrelevant point aside, the original Wonder Woman was based on Greek mythology; she is Hellenic, so possibly more in common with the Greek Gods than any other 20th Century fictional creation. Anyway, I think Gadot perfect for the role, and I only hope the scriptwriters have done her justice in her own story.
Just one bit of trivia: there is a piece of dialogue by Alfred (played pitch-perfect by Jeremy Irons) that has been lifted straight out of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (1986) of which I still have a copy. A subtle but respectful salute.
Tuesday 12 January 2016
How to write a story so it reads like a movie in your head
I’ve written about writing a few times now, including Writing’s 3 Essential Skills (Jul. 2013) and How to Create an Imaginary, Believable World (Aug. 2010), the last one being a particularly popular post. Also, I taught a creative writing course in 2009 and have given a couple of talks on the subject, but never intentionally to provide advice on how to make a story read like a movie in your head.
This post has arisen from a conversation I had when I realised I had effectively taught myself how to do this. It’s not something that I deliberately set out to do but I believe I achieved it inadvertently and comments from some readers appear to confirm this. At YABooksCentral, a teenage reviewer has made the point specifically, and many others have said that my book (Elvene) would make a good movie, including a filmmaker. Many have said that they ‘could see everything’ in their mind’s eye.
Very early in my writing career (though it’s never been my day job) I took some screenwriting courses and even wrote a screenplay. I found that this subconsciously influenced my prose writing in ways that I never foresaw and that I will now explain. The formatting of a screenplay doesn’t lend itself to fluidity, with separate headings for every scene and dialogue in blocks interspersed with occasional brief descriptive passages. Yet a well written screenplay lets you see the movie in your mind’s eye and you should write it as you’d imagine it appearing on a screen. However, contrary to what you might think, this is not the way to write a novel. Do not write a novel as if watching a movie. Have I confused you? Well, bear this in mind and hopefully it will all make sense before the end.
Significantly, a screenplay needs to be written in ‘real time’, which means descriptions are minimalistic and exposition non-existent (although screenwriters routinely smuggle exposition into their dialogue). Also, all the characterisation is in the dialogue and the action – you don’t need physical descriptions of a character, including their attire, unless it’s significant; just gender, generic age and ethnicity (if it’s important). It was this minimalistic approach that I subconsciously imported into my prose fiction.
There is one major difference between writing a screenplay and writing a novel and the two subsequent methods require different states of mind. In writing a screenplay you can only write what is seen and heard on the screen, whereas a novel can be written entirely (though not necessarily) from inside a character’s head. I hope this clarifies the point I made earlier. Now, as someone once pointed out to me (fellow blogger, Eli Horowitz) movies can take you into a character’s head through voiceover, flashbacks and dream sequences. But, even so, the screenplay would only record what is seen and heard on the screen, and these are exceptions, not the norm. Whereas, in a novel, getting inside a character’s head is the norm.
To finally address the question implicit in my heading, there are really only 2 ‘tricks’ for want of a better term: write the story in real time and always from some character’s point of view. Even description can be given through a character’s eyes, and the reader subconsciously becomes an actor. By inhabiting a character’s mind, the reader becomes fully immersed in the story.
Now I need to say something about scenes, because, contrary to popular belief, scenes are the smallest component of a story, not words or sentences or paragraphs. It’s best to think of the words on the page like the notes on a musical score. When you listen to a piece of music, the written score is irrelevant, and, even if you read the score, you wouldn’t hear the music anyway (unless, perhaps, if you’re a musician or a composer). Similarly, the story takes place in the reader’s mind where the words on the page conjure up images and emotions without conscious effort.
In a screenplay a scene has a specific definition, defined by a change in location or time. I use the same definition when writing prose. There are subtle methods for expanding and contracting time psychologically in a movie, and these can also be applied to prose fiction. I’ve made the point before that the language of story is the language of dreams, and in dreams, as in stories, sudden changes in location and time are not aberrant. In fact, I would argue that if we didn’t dream, stories wouldn’t work because our minds would continuously and subconsciously struggle with the logic.
This post has arisen from a conversation I had when I realised I had effectively taught myself how to do this. It’s not something that I deliberately set out to do but I believe I achieved it inadvertently and comments from some readers appear to confirm this. At YABooksCentral, a teenage reviewer has made the point specifically, and many others have said that my book (Elvene) would make a good movie, including a filmmaker. Many have said that they ‘could see everything’ in their mind’s eye.
Very early in my writing career (though it’s never been my day job) I took some screenwriting courses and even wrote a screenplay. I found that this subconsciously influenced my prose writing in ways that I never foresaw and that I will now explain. The formatting of a screenplay doesn’t lend itself to fluidity, with separate headings for every scene and dialogue in blocks interspersed with occasional brief descriptive passages. Yet a well written screenplay lets you see the movie in your mind’s eye and you should write it as you’d imagine it appearing on a screen. However, contrary to what you might think, this is not the way to write a novel. Do not write a novel as if watching a movie. Have I confused you? Well, bear this in mind and hopefully it will all make sense before the end.
Significantly, a screenplay needs to be written in ‘real time’, which means descriptions are minimalistic and exposition non-existent (although screenwriters routinely smuggle exposition into their dialogue). Also, all the characterisation is in the dialogue and the action – you don’t need physical descriptions of a character, including their attire, unless it’s significant; just gender, generic age and ethnicity (if it’s important). It was this minimalistic approach that I subconsciously imported into my prose fiction.
There is one major difference between writing a screenplay and writing a novel and the two subsequent methods require different states of mind. In writing a screenplay you can only write what is seen and heard on the screen, whereas a novel can be written entirely (though not necessarily) from inside a character’s head. I hope this clarifies the point I made earlier. Now, as someone once pointed out to me (fellow blogger, Eli Horowitz) movies can take you into a character’s head through voiceover, flashbacks and dream sequences. But, even so, the screenplay would only record what is seen and heard on the screen, and these are exceptions, not the norm. Whereas, in a novel, getting inside a character’s head is the norm.
To finally address the question implicit in my heading, there are really only 2 ‘tricks’ for want of a better term: write the story in real time and always from some character’s point of view. Even description can be given through a character’s eyes, and the reader subconsciously becomes an actor. By inhabiting a character’s mind, the reader becomes fully immersed in the story.
Now I need to say something about scenes, because, contrary to popular belief, scenes are the smallest component of a story, not words or sentences or paragraphs. It’s best to think of the words on the page like the notes on a musical score. When you listen to a piece of music, the written score is irrelevant, and, even if you read the score, you wouldn’t hear the music anyway (unless, perhaps, if you’re a musician or a composer). Similarly, the story takes place in the reader’s mind where the words on the page conjure up images and emotions without conscious effort.
In a screenplay a scene has a specific definition, defined by a change in location or time. I use the same definition when writing prose. There are subtle methods for expanding and contracting time psychologically in a movie, and these can also be applied to prose fiction. I’ve made the point before that the language of story is the language of dreams, and in dreams, as in stories, sudden changes in location and time are not aberrant. In fact, I would argue that if we didn’t dream, stories wouldn’t work because our minds would continuously and subconsciously struggle with the logic.
Thursday 3 September 2015
Ruminations on The Sparrow (SF novel by Mary Doria Russell, 1996)
Russell is a paleoanthropologist and so is one of the characters in her book (Anne) whom one thinks may represent the author’s world view, especially concerning religion and God. Anne is basically a good natured and tolerant sceptic.
Whether Anne is representative of the author’s point of view or not, I found Russell’s ideas of God, as expressed explicitly by the main character, Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit (but also implicitly by others) to be old-fashioned, even anachronistic. The idea of God as a father figure and we being ‘His’ children is one I rejected in my teens, especially after reading Camus’ The Plague (La Peste). So, in some ways, I think Russell is applying the same literary devices as Camus (pointless and undeserved human suffering) to challenge this particular version of God that many of us grew up with.
At one point the character, Anne, asks Emilio if it’s alright for her to ‘hate God’. Towards the end of the novel, another Jesuit priest proposes the idea (not original, I suspect) that God had to make room for the existence of the Universe by removing Himself, which is really a Deistic version of God that one sometimes finds appealing to scientists, because such a God would be non-interventionist. If one takes this to its logical conclusion, there is no reason for this God to have empathy or be the anthropomorphic version we are familiar with from the Bible.
The interesting point is that people sometimes ‘find God’ in the midst of their own suffering. I think of Viktor Frankl (an Auschwitz survivor) who wrote Man’s Search for Meaning and The Unconscious God, who argued that a person can find meaning through adversity. But this supports my own view that God is something that people find within themselves and is not dependent on making God responsible for whatever happens in the world.
As Russell’s novel makes clear, if one makes God responsible for everything that happens, then He’s responsible for the suffering as well as the triumphs of the human spirit. At the start of the story’s journey, the protagonists believe that everything they’re doing is part of God’s plan – it’s meant to be – but at the end, this premise is effectively negated.
One of the attractions of Sci-Fi for me, even when I was quite young, is that it allows what-if scenarios, alternative societies. I would suggest that Frank Herbert and Ursula Le Guin were particularly adept at rendering alternative social structures. Russell’s alien society is particularly well thought through and makes one consider how it may have evolved on Earth had other hominids (like Neanderthals) survived into an agricultural world. As it is, we were (and still are) very good at exploiting economically weaker sectors of our societies, at all levels, from global to local.
There is no clear resolution, at least for me, to the ‘God question’, which is a central theme of her book. One can end up ‘hating’ God, if one follows the logical conclusion from the book’s premise to its confounding end, but I believe that the characters in the story are simply following an antiquated version of God.
P.S. I should point out that this book won the 1998 Arthur C. Clarke Award.
Whether Anne is representative of the author’s point of view or not, I found Russell’s ideas of God, as expressed explicitly by the main character, Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit (but also implicitly by others) to be old-fashioned, even anachronistic. The idea of God as a father figure and we being ‘His’ children is one I rejected in my teens, especially after reading Camus’ The Plague (La Peste). So, in some ways, I think Russell is applying the same literary devices as Camus (pointless and undeserved human suffering) to challenge this particular version of God that many of us grew up with.
At one point the character, Anne, asks Emilio if it’s alright for her to ‘hate God’. Towards the end of the novel, another Jesuit priest proposes the idea (not original, I suspect) that God had to make room for the existence of the Universe by removing Himself, which is really a Deistic version of God that one sometimes finds appealing to scientists, because such a God would be non-interventionist. If one takes this to its logical conclusion, there is no reason for this God to have empathy or be the anthropomorphic version we are familiar with from the Bible.
The interesting point is that people sometimes ‘find God’ in the midst of their own suffering. I think of Viktor Frankl (an Auschwitz survivor) who wrote Man’s Search for Meaning and The Unconscious God, who argued that a person can find meaning through adversity. But this supports my own view that God is something that people find within themselves and is not dependent on making God responsible for whatever happens in the world.
As Russell’s novel makes clear, if one makes God responsible for everything that happens, then He’s responsible for the suffering as well as the triumphs of the human spirit. At the start of the story’s journey, the protagonists believe that everything they’re doing is part of God’s plan – it’s meant to be – but at the end, this premise is effectively negated.
One of the attractions of Sci-Fi for me, even when I was quite young, is that it allows what-if scenarios, alternative societies. I would suggest that Frank Herbert and Ursula Le Guin were particularly adept at rendering alternative social structures. Russell’s alien society is particularly well thought through and makes one consider how it may have evolved on Earth had other hominids (like Neanderthals) survived into an agricultural world. As it is, we were (and still are) very good at exploiting economically weaker sectors of our societies, at all levels, from global to local.
There is no clear resolution, at least for me, to the ‘God question’, which is a central theme of her book. One can end up ‘hating’ God, if one follows the logical conclusion from the book’s premise to its confounding end, but I believe that the characters in the story are simply following an antiquated version of God.
P.S. I should point out that this book won the 1998 Arthur C. Clarke Award.
Tuesday 25 August 2015
Far from Men (Loin des Hommes)
This is a movie starring Viggo Mortensen, set in Algiers in 1954 and based on a short story by Albert Camus. Watching it, I was conscious of Camus’ philosophy all through it, and was not that surprised when I saw an online interview with Mortensen, who maintained that both he and the director (David Oelhoffen) drew heavily on Camus’ beliefs and principles when formulating the character of Daru.
As a friend of mine (who had already seen it) told me: it has similarities with another French movie (Of Gods and Men) both in terms of themes and geography. I reviewed Of Gods and Men (Des homes et des dieux) in June 2011. Both films involve men caught up in war against their wills and determined not to take sides, even when literally caught in the middle.
Camus had experience both in Algiers and in the French resistance during WWII, so he’s well equipped to tackle the subject matter. Viggo Mortensen’s character, Daru, teaches French to Arab children in a very remote location. Later in the movie we learn he’s lost his wife (not told how) and that he was an officer in the army during WWII (we assume, as the movie’s ‘now’ is the 1950s).
In the opening scenes, Daru is given custody of an Arab, Mohammed, who killed his cousin apparently, and whom he’s very reluctant to take charge of for reasons of humanity as much as inconvenience to his vocation as teacher.
Watching this movie I was reminded of a dream I had many decades ago where I was caught between 2 gangs in a pub (can only happen in a dream) and told I had to take sides. I surprised myself by refusing, even though it made an enemy of me to both sides, but, of course, I woke up before I had to deal with the consequences. That dream has stayed with me ever since, because it’s a metaphor for many situations we find ourselves in where we are asked to choose sides. In this film, this situation recurs repeatedly for its protagonist and we appreciate that this is Camus’ idealism tested in the crucible of battle where life and death, loyalty and execution are only separated by the thinnest of margins.
I haven’t read Camus’ original story, but I know enough about him to know that this character represents an ideal that he would have aspired to, as do most of us, but for which we are rarely tested and even fewer of us would pass.
Its relevance to the modern world is how easily it is to demonise Arabs and followers of Islam, in an Us and Them world. It’s worth watching this interview with Mortensen (though skip the first 4 minutes, which should have been cut) because he explains better than me how his world view is not so dissimilar to the character's, Daru, whom he plays.
As a friend of mine (who had already seen it) told me: it has similarities with another French movie (Of Gods and Men) both in terms of themes and geography. I reviewed Of Gods and Men (Des homes et des dieux) in June 2011. Both films involve men caught up in war against their wills and determined not to take sides, even when literally caught in the middle.
Camus had experience both in Algiers and in the French resistance during WWII, so he’s well equipped to tackle the subject matter. Viggo Mortensen’s character, Daru, teaches French to Arab children in a very remote location. Later in the movie we learn he’s lost his wife (not told how) and that he was an officer in the army during WWII (we assume, as the movie’s ‘now’ is the 1950s).
In the opening scenes, Daru is given custody of an Arab, Mohammed, who killed his cousin apparently, and whom he’s very reluctant to take charge of for reasons of humanity as much as inconvenience to his vocation as teacher.
Watching this movie I was reminded of a dream I had many decades ago where I was caught between 2 gangs in a pub (can only happen in a dream) and told I had to take sides. I surprised myself by refusing, even though it made an enemy of me to both sides, but, of course, I woke up before I had to deal with the consequences. That dream has stayed with me ever since, because it’s a metaphor for many situations we find ourselves in where we are asked to choose sides. In this film, this situation recurs repeatedly for its protagonist and we appreciate that this is Camus’ idealism tested in the crucible of battle where life and death, loyalty and execution are only separated by the thinnest of margins.
I haven’t read Camus’ original story, but I know enough about him to know that this character represents an ideal that he would have aspired to, as do most of us, but for which we are rarely tested and even fewer of us would pass.
Its relevance to the modern world is how easily it is to demonise Arabs and followers of Islam, in an Us and Them world. It’s worth watching this interview with Mortensen (though skip the first 4 minutes, which should have been cut) because he explains better than me how his world view is not so dissimilar to the character's, Daru, whom he plays.
Thursday 4 June 2015
Ex Machina – the movie
This is a good film for anyone interested in AI at a philosophical level. It even got reviewed in New Scientist and they don’t normally review movies. It’s a clever psychological thriller, so you don’t have to be a nerd to enjoy it, though there are some pseudo-nerdy conversations that are better assimilated if the audience has some foreknowledge. Examples are the Turing Test and the Mary thought experiment regarding colour.
Both of these are explained through expositional dialogue in the movie, rather seamlessly I should add, so ignorance is not necessarily a barrier. The real Turing test for AI would be if an AI could outsmart a human – not in a game of chess or a knowledge-based TV quiz show, but behaviourally – and this is explored as well. Like all good psychological thrillers, there is a clever twist at the end which is not predictable but totally consistent within the context of the narrative. In other words, it’s a well written and well executed drama irrespective of its philosophical themes.
One of the issues not addressed in the movie – because it would spoil it – is the phenomenon known as the ‘uncanny valley’, which I’ve written about here. Basically, when androids become almost human-like in appearance and movement, we become very uncomfortable. This doesn’t happen in the movie, and, of course, it’s not meant to, but it’s the real piece of deception in the film. Despite appearances that the character, Ava, is a machine because we can literally see through parts of her body, we all know that she is really an actress playing a part.
I’ve argued in the aforementioned post that I believe the source of this discomfort is the lack of emotional empathy. In the movie, however, the AI demonstrates considerable empathy, or at least appears to, which is one of the many subtle elements explored. This is very good science fiction because it explores a possible future and deals with it on a philosophical level, including ethical considerations, as well as entertaining us.
There are nods to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Asimov’s I Robot, although that may be my own particular perspective. I’ve created AI’s in my own fiction, but completely different to this. In fact, I deliberately created a disembodied AI, which develops a ‘relationship’ with my protagonist, and appears to display ‘loyalty’. However I explain this with the concept of ‘attachment’ programming, which doesn’t necessarily require empathy as we know it.
I bring this up, because the 2 stories, Ex Machina and mine, explore AI but with different philosophical perspectives and different narrative outcomes.
Both of these are explained through expositional dialogue in the movie, rather seamlessly I should add, so ignorance is not necessarily a barrier. The real Turing test for AI would be if an AI could outsmart a human – not in a game of chess or a knowledge-based TV quiz show, but behaviourally – and this is explored as well. Like all good psychological thrillers, there is a clever twist at the end which is not predictable but totally consistent within the context of the narrative. In other words, it’s a well written and well executed drama irrespective of its philosophical themes.
One of the issues not addressed in the movie – because it would spoil it – is the phenomenon known as the ‘uncanny valley’, which I’ve written about here. Basically, when androids become almost human-like in appearance and movement, we become very uncomfortable. This doesn’t happen in the movie, and, of course, it’s not meant to, but it’s the real piece of deception in the film. Despite appearances that the character, Ava, is a machine because we can literally see through parts of her body, we all know that she is really an actress playing a part.
I’ve argued in the aforementioned post that I believe the source of this discomfort is the lack of emotional empathy. In the movie, however, the AI demonstrates considerable empathy, or at least appears to, which is one of the many subtle elements explored. This is very good science fiction because it explores a possible future and deals with it on a philosophical level, including ethical considerations, as well as entertaining us.
There are nods to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Asimov’s I Robot, although that may be my own particular perspective. I’ve created AI’s in my own fiction, but completely different to this. In fact, I deliberately created a disembodied AI, which develops a ‘relationship’ with my protagonist, and appears to display ‘loyalty’. However I explain this with the concept of ‘attachment’ programming, which doesn’t necessarily require empathy as we know it.
I bring this up, because the 2 stories, Ex Machina and mine, explore AI but with different philosophical perspectives and different narrative outcomes.
Saturday 28 February 2015
Leonard Nimoy (aka Spock): 1931 - 2015
I first watched Star Trek when I was 16 or 17 on black and white TV. It
was innovative and evoked many of the ideals of the 1960s that people
from different races and backgrounds could form a team that would
explore the universe. Spock is one of the great Sci-Fi icons. I
particularly liked his appearance in J.J Abrams' Star Trek movie from
2009, where Spock meets a younger version of himself through a time warp,
as can only happen in Sci-Fi.
From a philosophical perspective, Star Trek projected a positive, utopian scenario of human nature - envisioning a future where humans would overcome their tendency towards conflict. But it also envisioned a belief, recently expounded by Brian Cox in the final episode of his series, The Human Universe, that humans have a destiny to go beyond their Earth-bound existence.
There is a scene in Abrams' movie that is reminiscent of a scene in my novel, Elvene, where Spock is holed up in an ice cave. Such coincidences in storytelling are not uncommon, like finding the thread of a tune in a piece of music transferred into another work, though, in this case, quite unintentional, as Elvene was written many years before Abrams' Star Trek.
The newslink below to CBSNews is a very touching tribute.
Leonard Nimoy's final tweet.
From a philosophical perspective, Star Trek projected a positive, utopian scenario of human nature - envisioning a future where humans would overcome their tendency towards conflict. But it also envisioned a belief, recently expounded by Brian Cox in the final episode of his series, The Human Universe, that humans have a destiny to go beyond their Earth-bound existence.
There is a scene in Abrams' movie that is reminiscent of a scene in my novel, Elvene, where Spock is holed up in an ice cave. Such coincidences in storytelling are not uncommon, like finding the thread of a tune in a piece of music transferred into another work, though, in this case, quite unintentional, as Elvene was written many years before Abrams' Star Trek.
The newslink below to CBSNews is a very touching tribute.
Leonard Nimoy's final tweet.
Friday 2 January 2015
Ursula Le Guin's acceptance speech at the American Book Awards 2014
An acerbic commentary on the publishing industry from someone who's been in it for a long, long time; very successfully, I might add.
I've added Neil Gaiman's intro because it says so much about both of them.
I came across this by accident; posted as recently as November last year.
I'm a huge fan: Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed and the Earthsea Quartet, which I re-read not that long ago. She's one of the greats: up there with Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert and Arthur C Clarke.
I've added Neil Gaiman's intro because it says so much about both of them.
I came across this by accident; posted as recently as November last year.
I'm a huge fan: Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed and the Earthsea Quartet, which I re-read not that long ago. She's one of the greats: up there with Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert and Arthur C Clarke.
Sunday 17 August 2014
Woody Allen’s Magic in the Moonlight
I’ve just seen this movie at NOVA (yes, I’ll give them a plug for Melbournians). In Australia, we are very fortunate in that we have art-house multiplexes, as well as commercial ones. Not all movies are made for teenagers (in particular teenage boys): there are lots of good movies from all over the world made with adults in mind. And Melbourne art-house cinemas are evidence that there is an audience for them, at least in Melbourne. Does that make me a cultural snob? Probably.
About 15 years ago, I was working on an engineering project in the ‘bush’, in north-east Victoria, living in Benalla, which is about 2.5 hrs from Melbourne. About 10 minutes outside of Benalla was a ’one-horse’ town called Swanpool – one of those towns you’d miss if you blinked – I don’t even think it had a pub. But it had a public hall that some locals had converted into a cinema. The seats were cheap and you came rugged up (Benalla is frosty in winter) and brought your own coffee mug to get a cheaper cup of coffee. The point of this little sojourn is that on Saturday nights they screened blockbusters but on Friday nights they screened art-house movies (usually foreign). I saw the Cuban film about homosexuality, Strawberry and Chocolate and the French surrealist film, The City of Lost Children, amongst many others. I remember sending an email to an ex-pat friend living in California that art-house cinema was alive and well in country Victoria.
Woody Allen is going through a European phase, and Magic in the Moonlight is no exception, set on the Cote d’Azur in France. Amongst his more recent films, I think To Rome With Love failed to hit the mark, but Midnight in Paris was a work of genius. I also enjoyed You’ll Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, even though it didn’t get good reviews; I liked it for Allen’s ability to put up a mirror to our humanly flaws, and loved it for the Faustian twist in its tail.
Which brings me to Magic in the Moonlight, starring British acting icon, Colin Firth. It’s masterly economical in the way Allen leads us through the narrative, referencing the next scene in its predecessor, so that the story flows without any intellectual or logical hurdles to deal with. And yes, it’s predictable but we don’t know how it will be resolved, so that sort of predictability is welcome, especially when the resolution is both logical and a surprise, as it is in this film. The resolution of the romantic dimension is less a surprise but it’s treated in an unusual and humourous fashion.
But the reason I’m writing about this particular Allen film is because it has a philosophical dimension. Colin Firth’s character, ‘Stanley Crawford’, is a sceptic in the tradition of James Randi, and he meets his match in ‘Sophie Baker’ (Emma Stone), an American ‘psychic’, and the rest I won’t tell you. In fact, I haven’t told you any more than you can deduce from the trailer. The point is that Allen plays with his audience, knowing they will take sides in this philosophical-oriented debate: is there something beyond the world we can see? In effect, he tackles the divide between the hard-nosed scientists and empiricist philosophers and the romantic idealists who believe or like to believe that life holds more meaning than the short span of our years.
About 15 years ago, I was working on an engineering project in the ‘bush’, in north-east Victoria, living in Benalla, which is about 2.5 hrs from Melbourne. About 10 minutes outside of Benalla was a ’one-horse’ town called Swanpool – one of those towns you’d miss if you blinked – I don’t even think it had a pub. But it had a public hall that some locals had converted into a cinema. The seats were cheap and you came rugged up (Benalla is frosty in winter) and brought your own coffee mug to get a cheaper cup of coffee. The point of this little sojourn is that on Saturday nights they screened blockbusters but on Friday nights they screened art-house movies (usually foreign). I saw the Cuban film about homosexuality, Strawberry and Chocolate and the French surrealist film, The City of Lost Children, amongst many others. I remember sending an email to an ex-pat friend living in California that art-house cinema was alive and well in country Victoria.
Woody Allen is going through a European phase, and Magic in the Moonlight is no exception, set on the Cote d’Azur in France. Amongst his more recent films, I think To Rome With Love failed to hit the mark, but Midnight in Paris was a work of genius. I also enjoyed You’ll Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, even though it didn’t get good reviews; I liked it for Allen’s ability to put up a mirror to our humanly flaws, and loved it for the Faustian twist in its tail.
Which brings me to Magic in the Moonlight, starring British acting icon, Colin Firth. It’s masterly economical in the way Allen leads us through the narrative, referencing the next scene in its predecessor, so that the story flows without any intellectual or logical hurdles to deal with. And yes, it’s predictable but we don’t know how it will be resolved, so that sort of predictability is welcome, especially when the resolution is both logical and a surprise, as it is in this film. The resolution of the romantic dimension is less a surprise but it’s treated in an unusual and humourous fashion.
But the reason I’m writing about this particular Allen film is because it has a philosophical dimension. Colin Firth’s character, ‘Stanley Crawford’, is a sceptic in the tradition of James Randi, and he meets his match in ‘Sophie Baker’ (Emma Stone), an American ‘psychic’, and the rest I won’t tell you. In fact, I haven’t told you any more than you can deduce from the trailer. The point is that Allen plays with his audience, knowing they will take sides in this philosophical-oriented debate: is there something beyond the world we can see? In effect, he tackles the divide between the hard-nosed scientists and empiricist philosophers and the romantic idealists who believe or like to believe that life holds more meaning than the short span of our years.
Friday 19 July 2013
Writing’s 3 Essential Skills
I’ve written on this topic before and even given classes in it, as well as talks, but this is a slightly different approach. Basically, I’m looking at the fundamental skills one has to acquire or develop in order to write fiction, as opposed to non-fiction. In a nutshell, they are the ability to create character, the ability to create emotions and the ability to create narrative tension. None of these are required for ordinary writing but they are all requisite skills for fiction. I’ll address them in reverse order.
Some people may prefer the term ‘narrative drive’ to ‘narrative tension’ but the word tension is more appropriate in my view. Tension is antithetical to resolution and has a comparable role in music which is less obvious. Narrative tension can be manifest in many forms, but it’s essential to fiction because it’s what motivates the reader to turn the page. A novel without narrative tension won’t be read. You can have tension between characters, in many forms: sexual, familial, or between colleagues or between protagonist and antagonist. Tension can be created by jeopardy, which is suspense, or by anticipation or by knowledge semi-revealed. In a word, this is called drama. And, of course, all these forms can be combined to occur in parallel or in series, and have different spans over the duration of the story. Tension requires resolution and the resolution is no less important a skill than the tension itself. Ideally, you want tension in some form on every page.
Emotion is what art is all about, and the greatest exemplar is music. Music is arguably the purest art form because music is the most emotive of art forms. No where is this more apparent than in cinema, where it is employed so successfully that the audience, for the most part, is unaware of its presence, yet it manipulates you emotionally as much as anything on the screen. In novels, the writer doesn’t have access to this medium, yet he or she is equally adept at manipulating emotions. And, once again, this is an essential skill, otherwise the reader will find the story lifeless. Novels can make you laugh, make you cry, make you horny, make you scared and make you excited, sometimes all in the same book.
Normally, I start any discussion on writing with character, because it is the most essential skill of all. I can’t tell you how to create characters – it’s one of those skills that comes with practice – I only know that I do it without thinking about it too much. For me, when I’m writing, the characters take on a life of their own, and if they don’t, I know I’m wasting my time. But there is one thing I’ll say about characters, based on other reading I’ve done, and that is if I’m not sympathetic to the protagonist(s) I find the story an ordeal. If the protagonist is depressed, I get depressed; if the protagonist is an angry young man, I find myself avoiding his company; if the protagonist is a pretentious prat, I find myself wishing they’d have an accident. It’s a very skilled writer who can engage you with uninviting characters, and I’m not one of them.
There is a link between character and emotion, because the character is the channel through which you feel emotion. A story is told through its characters, including description and exposition. If you want to describe something or explain something do it through the characters' senses and introspection.
Finally, why is crime the most popular form of fiction? Because crime often involves a mystery or a puzzle and invariably involves suspense, which is a guaranteed form of narrative tension. The best crime fiction (for example, Scandinavian) involves psychologically authentic characters, and that will always separate good fiction from mediocre. We like complex drawn characters, because they feel like people we know, and their evolvement is one of the reasons we return to the page.
Some people may prefer the term ‘narrative drive’ to ‘narrative tension’ but the word tension is more appropriate in my view. Tension is antithetical to resolution and has a comparable role in music which is less obvious. Narrative tension can be manifest in many forms, but it’s essential to fiction because it’s what motivates the reader to turn the page. A novel without narrative tension won’t be read. You can have tension between characters, in many forms: sexual, familial, or between colleagues or between protagonist and antagonist. Tension can be created by jeopardy, which is suspense, or by anticipation or by knowledge semi-revealed. In a word, this is called drama. And, of course, all these forms can be combined to occur in parallel or in series, and have different spans over the duration of the story. Tension requires resolution and the resolution is no less important a skill than the tension itself. Ideally, you want tension in some form on every page.
Emotion is what art is all about, and the greatest exemplar is music. Music is arguably the purest art form because music is the most emotive of art forms. No where is this more apparent than in cinema, where it is employed so successfully that the audience, for the most part, is unaware of its presence, yet it manipulates you emotionally as much as anything on the screen. In novels, the writer doesn’t have access to this medium, yet he or she is equally adept at manipulating emotions. And, once again, this is an essential skill, otherwise the reader will find the story lifeless. Novels can make you laugh, make you cry, make you horny, make you scared and make you excited, sometimes all in the same book.
Normally, I start any discussion on writing with character, because it is the most essential skill of all. I can’t tell you how to create characters – it’s one of those skills that comes with practice – I only know that I do it without thinking about it too much. For me, when I’m writing, the characters take on a life of their own, and if they don’t, I know I’m wasting my time. But there is one thing I’ll say about characters, based on other reading I’ve done, and that is if I’m not sympathetic to the protagonist(s) I find the story an ordeal. If the protagonist is depressed, I get depressed; if the protagonist is an angry young man, I find myself avoiding his company; if the protagonist is a pretentious prat, I find myself wishing they’d have an accident. It’s a very skilled writer who can engage you with uninviting characters, and I’m not one of them.
There is a link between character and emotion, because the character is the channel through which you feel emotion. A story is told through its characters, including description and exposition. If you want to describe something or explain something do it through the characters' senses and introspection.
Finally, why is crime the most popular form of fiction? Because crime often involves a mystery or a puzzle and invariably involves suspense, which is a guaranteed form of narrative tension. The best crime fiction (for example, Scandinavian) involves psychologically authentic characters, and that will always separate good fiction from mediocre. We like complex drawn characters, because they feel like people we know, and their evolvement is one of the reasons we return to the page.
Saturday 16 March 2013
Cloud Atlas
Cloud Atlas is a very recent release, which I saw last
weekend; a collaborative effort by the Wachowski siblings (Lana and Andy) and
Tom Tykwer. The Wachowski siblings famously gave us the Matrix trilogy (shot in Australia) and Twyker gave us Run Zola Run (made in Germany) a
brilliant film that played with different media (like anime) and time (not
unlike Ground Hog Day, only different). Cloud Atlas was shot in
Scotland, Germany and Majorca, and, considering all its different scenarios
shot with conscientious realism, it must have been very expensive.
It has to be said straight away that this
film, with its 6 overlapping stories, all in different periods, and only
tenuous connections, won’t appeal to everyone, yet I liked it a lot. A bloke
sitting a couple of seats away from me kept looking at his iphone; a sure
indication of boredom. I suspect the only thing that kept him in his seat
(other than the outlay for his ticket) were the action scenes and any storyline
was irrelevant to his need for entertainment. Without actually talking to him,
this may be a harsh judgement, but I suspect he simply gave up trying to keep
track of the 6 interlocking stories; so, for many, this may be a flawed film. Even David Stratton (arguably, Australia’s most respected film reviewer)
who gave it 3.5 stars (his co-host, Margaret Pomeranz, gave it 4) said he’d like to see it again.
I think what saved the film, for me, was
that all 6 stories were good stories in their own right and they all followed
the classic narrative arc of setup, conflict and resolution. I thought the editing
between stories (especially at the beginning) was too frequent, but that’s a
personal prejudice. Once I got past the setup for each story (some took longer
than others) I had no trouble following them. I made no attempt to follow any
links between them (more on that below) and they all had the same theme, which
was human rights and oppression, and how it hasn’t changed historically, except
in its focus, and how it will continue into the future of our evolutionary development.
One story was set in the 19th
Century, 2 in the 20th Century, 1 in the present, and 2 in the
future. At almost 3 hours duration each story really only took up half an hour, therefore it didn’t drag, at
least for me. As a writer I like to have 2 or 3 subplots happening at once –
that’s how I write – so multiple storylines are not a problem in themselves.
The popular series, Game of Thrones,
has multiple storylines of 4 or more, yet I’ve never heard anyone say it was
too difficult to follow.
Only one character, as far as I could tell,
traversed 2 of the stories (in the 20th Century) and there was a
very clever link between the 2 future stories, which was only revealed towards
the end, and I won’t give it away, except to say (spoiler alert) that it
reveals how a mortal from the past can be seen as Godlike in the future. In
other words, they gain an iconic status as a result of their personal
sacrifice. I thought this was the singularly most germane insight of the
entire movie.
To call it ambitious is an understatement.
Even within individual stories, they play with time, using every storytelling device
that film allows, with flashbacks, flash-forwards and voiceovers. At least
once, I observed that the voiceover from one story continued into another story; to emphasise a common theme rather than any continuity in content. The trailer
emphasises the common thread in a mystical sense, yet, for me, that is not
what the movie is about. I thought the 2 future stories were the most
powerful, especially the near-future one. My advice to anyone viewing this is
just go with the flow; don’t try to analyse it while you’re watching it but just
treat each story on its merit.
Sunday 10 February 2013
Writing well; an art easily misconstrued
A friend of mine lent me a book, How to Write a Sentence; and how to read one
by Stanley Fish, which is a New York
Times bestseller according to its cover. It’s not a lengthy book and it’s
easy to read, but I’m unsure of its intended audience because I don’t believe
it’s me. And I’m a writer, albeit not a very successful one.
Fisher is a 'professor of law at Florida International
University' with an impressive curriculum vitae in teaching at tertiary level.
His deconstruction of the humble sentence reminds me of why I’m not a teacher;
though, at the risk of sounding self-indulgent, I think I make a good teacher,
with the caveat that the quality of my teaching seems to be more dependent on
the quality of my students than myself.
I recently watched a biopic on virtuoso
Dutch violinist, Janine Jensen, which I considered so good I’ve seen it twice.
At one point she’s asked why she doesn’t give master classes. Given her
schedule (200 concert performances in 1 year) she might have said lack of time,
but one of her close friends said she won’t teach because it would require her
to analyse her own method; deconstruct her technique. A lot of artists would
empathise with her, including me, yet I have taught writing. The point is that
I never analyse how I write sentences and, to be frank, Fish’s book doesn’t
inspire me to.
The human brain has the remarkable ability
to delegate tasks, that we perform routinely, to the subconscious level, so we
can use our higher cognitive facilities for higher cognitive tasks. We do this
with motor tasks as well, which is why we can walk and talk at the same time.
Other animals can also do this, but they don’t do it at the cognitive level
like we do. Young animals play in order to hone the motor skills they need in
adulthood to survive, whether they be predators or prey. Humans do it with
language amongst other things. And creating sentences is one of those things
that the brain delegates so that when we are having a conversation they seem to
come ready-made, pre-constructed for delivery as soon as the opportunity presents
itself.
Elite performers like professional
sportspeople and musicians (like Jensen mentioned above) are so good at what
they do that their brain delegates tasks that we can’t even do, which is why
they dazzle us with their brilliance. When it comes to writing fiction, the
same level of delegation applies. The first hurdle in writing fiction is to
create characters, and, in fact, when I taught creative writing the first
lesson I gave was to give an exercise in creating character. This is something
that most people can’t do, even though they can write coherently, yet writers
create characters in their sleep, sometimes literally. In other words, creating
characters becomes second-nature, something they do without really thinking
about it too much. Characters come into their head, complete with dialogue,
temperaments and attitudes, in the same way that melodies come into the heads of
tunesmiths.
Fish gives us two new terms, “hypotaxis” and
“parataxis”, both Greek words; technical terms for the 2 main sentence ‘styles’
that he discusses at length: ‘the subordinate style’ and ‘the additive style’
respectively. To be fair to Fish, he acknowledges, after referencing them once,
that we will probably never use them again. By ‘style’ Fish means structure,
and the subordinate style is effectively a main clause with subordinate clauses
added on. The best example he takes from Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963),
where King delivers a train of clauses describing the oppression of his people
at that time, ending with a succinct final clause that sums it all up: “…then
you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.” The entire sentence is
some 300 words long, yet it’s a rhetorical tour-de-force.
The additive style is where clauses are
strung together almost dissociatively and the examples he gives seem to ramble
a bit, which I suspect was a deliberate device by their authors to create the
impression of a disjointed mind. Then he gets to Hemingway, whom I think was a
master. I believe Hemingway was
such a significant influence on 20th Century writing that it’s worth
quoting Fish at length:
Hence
his famous pieces of advice to writers: use short sentences, write clearly, use
simple Anglo-Saxon words, don’t overwrite, avoid adjectives and leave yourself
out of it. The result was a style that has been described as realistic,
hardboiled, spare, unadorned, minimalist, and lapidary. The last two words are
particularly apt: a lapidary style is polished and cut to the point of
transparency. It doesn’t seem to be doing much. It does not demand that attention
be paid to it. It aspires to a self-effacement that allows the object to shine
through as a master stonecutter allows the beauty of the stone to shine through
by paring away layers of it.
I read somewhere last year, a reviewer
saying that Hemingway changed the way we write, and I agree. I had just read Islands in the Stream, a loosely
connected trilogy, published after his death, concerning the exploits of an
artist living in Cuba and performing undercover operations in the War. What
struck me was how he put you there, and you felt like you had experienced what
the protagonist had experienced, some of which was emotionally gut-wrenching.
As I said, Hemingway was a master.
So there are places in Fish’s tome where
our minds meet and concur. In other places he suggests exercises in creating
better sentences, which I neither promote nor condemn. If a writer is an artist
then they ‘feel’ their sentences without analysing them or dissecting them. A
writer of fiction should write as if they are the first person to read their
words, as if they were actually written by someone else. I know that doesn’t
make sense but anyone who has done it knows exactly what I’m talking about.
Reading Fish’s deconstruction of style (as
opposed to content) prompted me to re-read the opening page of my novel, which
stands pretty much as when I first wrote it, and they were also the first words
of that story I put down. What I notice is that it has an edginess and urgency
that reflects the content itself. In fiction you have to create a mood; there
is always an emotional message; but you have to create it in a way that the
reader is unaware of it, except subliminally. I used to tell my class that good
writing is transparent: readers don’t notice good writing; they only notice bad
writing. The reader should be so engaged by the character and the story that
the writing becomes subliminal. The medium of the novel is the reader’s
imagination, not the words on the page. The words are like notes on a music
score, which, without an instrument to play them, are lifeless. In the case of
a novel, the instrument is the reader’s imagination.
Before Hemingway, writers used long-winded
descriptions, though I think film has had a lot to do with their progressive
extinction. But Hemingway, I believe, showed us how to create a scene without belabouring
it and without ‘adornment’, as Fish describes above.
I’ve said on this blog before, that
description is the part of a novel that readers will skip over to get on with
the story. So, not surprisingly, I provide as little description as possible,
and always via the protagonist or another character, but just enough so the
reader can create their own images subconsciously, which they do so well that
I’ve had people congratulate me on how good my descriptions are. “I could see
everything,” they say. Yes, because you created it yourself.
Tuesday 18 December 2012
A master storyteller talks about his craft
This is a brief interview with Ang Lee, where he talks about his latest movie as well as his career and his philosophy. I've been a fan of Lee ever since I saw The Wedding Banquet and have seen most of his movies, including Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Sense and Sensibility and Brokeback Mountain, all of which illustrate his eclectic interests, extraordinary range and mastery of genres.
I haven't seen The Life of Pi, but I read the book by Yann Martel many years ago, after it won the Booker Prize, and was singularly impressed. Given its philosophical nature, one should not be surprised that Lee was attracted to this story, despite its obvious challenges, both technically and thematically.
This interview reveals, more than most, the relationship between the artist and his art. How his art informs him in the same way it informs his audience. All artists strive for an authenticity that effectively negates the pretentiousness and ego that is so easily obtained, especially with success. Ang Lee demonstrates this better than most.
Addendum: A very good review here.
I haven't seen The Life of Pi, but I read the book by Yann Martel many years ago, after it won the Booker Prize, and was singularly impressed. Given its philosophical nature, one should not be surprised that Lee was attracted to this story, despite its obvious challenges, both technically and thematically.
This interview reveals, more than most, the relationship between the artist and his art. How his art informs him in the same way it informs his audience. All artists strive for an authenticity that effectively negates the pretentiousness and ego that is so easily obtained, especially with success. Ang Lee demonstrates this better than most.
Addendum: A very good review here.
Tuesday 12 June 2012
Prometheus, the movie
Everyone is comparing Ridley Scott’s new
film with his original Alien, and
there are parallels, not just the fact that it’s meant to be a prequel. The
crew include an android, a corporate nasty and a gutsy heroine, just like the
first two movies. There are also encounters with unpleasant creatures. Alien was a seminal movie, which spawned
its own sequels, albeit under different directors, yet it was more horror movie
than Sci-Fi. But SF often combines genres and is invariably expected to be a
thriller. Prometheus is not as
graphically or viscerally scary as Alien,
but it’s more a true Sci-Fi than a horror flick. In that respect I think it’s a
better movie, though most reviewers I’ve read disagree with me.
Prometheus is a good title because it’s the
Greek story about the Gods giving some of their abilities to humankind. Scott’s
tale is a 21st Century creation myth, whereby mankind goes in search
of the ‘people’ who supposedly ‘engineered’ us. One of the characters in the
film quips in response to this claim: ‘There goes 3 centuries of Darwinism.’
From a purely scientific perspective, it’s possible that DNA originally came
from somewhere else, either as spores or in meteorites or an icy comet, but it
would have been very simple life forms at the start of evolution not the end of
it. The idea that someone engineered our DNA so it would be compatible with
Earthbound DNA destroys the suspension of disbelief required for the story, so
it’s best to ignore that point.
But lots of Sci-Fi stories overlook this
fundamental point when aliens meet Earthlings and interbreed for example (Avatar). And I’ve done it myself (in my
fiction) though only to the extent that humans could eat food found on another
planet. I suspect we could only do that, in reality, if the food contained DNA
with the same chirality as ours. The universal unidirectional chirality of DNA is one
of the strongest evidential factors that all life on Earth had a common origin.
But I have to admit that Ridley has me
intrigued and I’m looking forward to the sequel, as the final scenes
effectively promise us one. One of the major differences with Alien and its spinoffs is that there is
a mystery in this story and the heroine is bent on finding the answer to it.
She wants to find out who made us and where they came from and why they did it.
There is an obvious religious allusion here, but this is closer to the Greek
gods, suggested by the title rather than the Biblical god. Having said that,
our heroine wears a cross and this is emphasised. I expect Ridley wants us to
make a religious connection.
Good Sci-Fi in my view should contain a bit
of philosophy – make us think about stuff. In this case, stuff includes the
possibility of life on other worlds and the possibility that there may exist
civilizations greater than ours, to the extent that they could have created us.
We find it hard to imagine that we are the end result of a process that started
from stardust; that something as complex and intelligent as us could not have
been created by a greater intelligence. Ridley brings that point home when the
android asks someone how would they feel about meeting their maker, as he has
had to. So I’m happy to see where Ridley is going with this – it’s a question
that most people have asked and not been satisfied with the answer. I don’t
think Ridley is going to give us a metaphysical answer. I expect he’s going to
challenge what it means to be human and what responsibilities that entails in
the universe’s creation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)