Night Circus

Night Circus is one of my favorite readings so far in the course. I am a sucker for creativity and world building, and Erin Morgenstern did a really nice job at both in this novel. We talked a lot about spirituality and how it is represented in fantasy writing this week in class, and I think this is one of the best books to have chosen for the topic. The spirituality in this book is encompassed wholly in the "competition" between the two characters, Celia and Marco. And I put competition in quotes because, in my opinion, the competition is actually between old and new magic, or A.H. and Prospero. Celia and Marco actually have little desire to compete, and in the end it is their desire to save the circus and their love for each other that really makes the moral dilemma so complex and striking.

I really emjoyed how the situations the characters were put in, although dramatic and fantatical, felt very grounded in a spiritual truth, especially in the ending, where the whole story takes on an entirely new meaning. The ending can be interpreted in many different ways, but I think everyone can agree that it is far from a "traditional happy ending", and that's awesome!

Throughout the novel their are many lessons to be learned about competition, self-sacrifice, love and moral ambiguity, but above all their is a sense of the greater good that drew me into the story so completely. Overall, this book sort of opened a new door for me in terms of fantastical literature, which I originally viewed through a narrow scope of wizards and dragons and knights. There is a big world of fantasy literature out there, with a lot of different moral centers, that I can't wait to read and study.

The Hobbit

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien is definitely a genre defining novel. It was by no means the first, but it was one of the few that brought to life the fantastical elements that we see in stories like it today. In class, we discussed the concept of the heroes journey and its importance to the narrative structure of a fantasy. The greatest part about fantastical novels, especially Tolkien's, is how easily you can get lost in the expansive universe; almost like you're really there along side the hero, going on a journey of self discovery. 

I loved the lecture today about the journey a hero goes on, mainly because it is applicable to almost any story, though especially to fantasies. I found myself making allusions to stories across all genres as we heard about the path a character might go on in the course of a story. 

The Hobbit especially encapsulates this idea of reluctancy that plays a large role in a hero's journey. From the very beginning, Bilbo was as reluctant as anything could be to the idea of an adventure. This pull against the journey we knew he would end up partaking on is what opens the door to one of the most entertaining things to read about in any story, character development. A character that grows and changes is what lies at the heart of entertainment across the board, and Bilbo's attitude change is what makes him such an appealing character.

The hero's journey is such a fun concept to learn about, and truly what makes fantasy so compelling and structured. The Hobbit is a timeless novel that defined "fairy stories" and opened the door for authors to be inspired (especially one of my favorite authors, George RR Martin.)

Witches

Aunt Maria  or Black Maria was a witch story I definitely didn't expect going in. The stereotype of witches is a lot different from that of other classic horror characters in that the stereotype can go one of two ways, cute or ugly. There is almost a spectrum between the two that we can place a witch on, and in this case, I would say Aunt Maria herself falls somewhere in the middle. She seems, for all intensive purposes, to be a typical, if not adorable, old lady in the beginning of the novel. Her pushy personality aside, she seems pretty standard. It is only as the novel progresses that we realize how truly horrific she is. This makes the novel much more of a psychological horror than anything else.

We all know the stereotypical witch, but this type of character is easily shifted around,  and I believe that Diana Wynne Jones did a nice job creating a compellingly creepy witch that fit the tropes in a way I didn't expect as a reader. 

What Is "Weird"?

This week in class was focused on the weird. Specifically, what has changed between the old weird (Lovecraft, Stoker) and the new weird (Mieville)? And what exactly makes either of them weird in the first place?


I read from the novel Kraken by China Mieville for class, and it has been my favorite reading so far in this course, and a great example of the "weird".

The story itself is as highly creative as they come, with a worker at the Darwin Museum finding their most prized exhibit missing, a giant quid. The quest to find out what exactly happened throws us as readers into some strange situations that play on the tropes of the genre and the moral questions we have as humans.

This novel helped me put a scope on what exactly it is that makes something weird, and I can only hope to sum it up with one word: Mystery. After reading this novel, I firmly believe that most weirdness in these stories we have been reading has been rooted in mystery or something unknown. In the case of this story, there are a lot of mysteries I gathered from my reading. There is the classic "where is it?", and then from there the mysteries unfold into "why?" and "how?" and "Are they right?" In other novels from this course, the weirdness stems from other mysteries, like "How is Frankenstein going to find the monster?" or "How will the interview end?"

I think the fun thing about the mysterious qualities of these horror stories is truly what makes them so unnerving. The importance of horror, in my mind's eye, is to reflect on the questions we are afraid to ask in a normal way. Questions like "Can science go too far?" or "What if a giant squid actually could bring about the end of days?"

And what better way to ask these questions than with a good mystery?