Civil war at Chez Hergenrader. The wife insists that Pan’s Labyrinth is a movie geared towards adolescents and isn’t any scarier than The Dark Crystal or Labyrinth (the one starring David Bowie). And I’m arguing that she’s oh-so-wrong. Luckily, I’m right.
What a terrific movie though. I don’t think my attention wandered for a single moment, and like I said to Amy, that movie pretty much hits the nail on the head why I (and I would imagine countless others) bother reading, writing, and generally taking fantasy seriously.
And I could pick out a lot of the Spanish, especially from the Faun. But sometimes the Spanish accent threw me (making a th sound for the Z, and sometimes for the c, as in Tharagotha for Zaragoza, and thinco for cinco, which I think is only a Madrid/northern Spain thing.) I thought with all the lush greenery and Celtic-looking statues that the movie took place in Galicia, but it didn’t; it took place in Segovia and the Sierra Mountains outside Madrid.
The Devil’s Backbone is next, unless I’ve gotten too lippy and Amy bumps all my movies to the bottom of the Netflix queue.
My independent study for the fall has been approved. Now I need to come up with a book list (book-a-week) and rationale. I’m going to continue the sci-fi/utopia/dystopia theme but focus more on gender issues, body/humanity issues, and the American dystopia. Here’s what I’ve come up with in the order I’m going to propose to read them—other suggestions appreciated from the peanut gallery, if you’ve got them.
Mieville, China - The Scar
Mieville, China - Iron Council
Butler, Octavia - Kindred
Dick, Philip K – Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
LeGuin, Ursula – Lathe of Heaven
Ishiguro, Kazuo – Never Let Me Go
Sturgeon, Theodore – More Than Human
Lem, Stanislaw – Solaris
Piercy, Marge – Woman on the Edge of Time
Russ, Joanna – The Female Man
Atwood, Margaret – Handmaid’s Tale
Butler, Octavia – Parable of the Sower
Dick, Philip K – Ubik
Robinson, Kim Stanley – Gold Coast
McCarthy, Cormac – Blood Meridian
I see this list as moving from sort of slipstreamy fiction focused on societies, then shifting to books about the mind, body, and definitions of humanity and alienness, to more strictly gendered sci-fi dystopias, and finally winding up with a few American dystopias. Obviously the themes are somewhat fluid.
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Jackson, Shelley – Half-Life
What better body utopia/dystopia than a person with two heads, one of which has been sleeping for more than a decade. The definition of the self/individual is definitely addressed.
Thanks Jay, but new rule: you also have to choose a book to remove!
You don’t really. I’d probably drop the Atwood in favor of the Jackson.
I should post the long-list I was choosing from too…
Though it’s a second book of a series, it was designed to be read stand-alone: John Scalzi’s The Ghost Brigades. We’re talking human rocks here, for gosh sakes. (grin) Distopic? Well — there’s definitely some kind of conspiracy going on.
Wait, I have to do your dirty work and suggest dropping one of yours? FU and the horse you rode in on! But you’ve got two China Mieville’s — you don’t want to look like a fanboy.
Dr. Phil
Your long list probably has A Canticle for Leibowitz (sp?), which is always trotted out and has been overanalyzed to death. But it would certainly count.
Dr. Phil
I tried to put together a list of books I haven’t read. I read Canticle about ten years ago so I probably could stand to read it again, and you’re right about it fitting in on this list.
Thomas Disch’s 334–
Near future earth, relationships among the inhabitants of an apartment building, a modern sf classic.
Ooh, that could be a good one Eric. I just read this description on Amazon:
Millie…wants to have a baby but also keep her career. The answer? The child is gestated in an artificial womb and Millie’s husband gets mammary implants.
I know there’s a similar bit with breast-feeding men in The Female Man. I may drop the McCarthy as I’m not quite sure it fits. I also have the nagging feeling that I should have The Left Hand of Darkness on there as well…
By including TLHoD, you could develop a whole reading list around men who get breasts at some point in the novel:)
TLHoD is definitely one of the greats and a major mind-blower when I read it in high school, not just for the story but for how well it was told. It’s also a novel that could make a real good movie, but probably wouldn’t for all the usual reasons.
–Eric S.
Some of Doris Lessing’s science fiction series are also well worth trying–much of her work could use some pruning for length but she fits very well into the older use of science fiction as a way to explore different philosophical ideas.
“The Making of the Reprentative for Planet Eight” is one of her shortest and best novels but not sure it fits well enough into your theme.
–Eric S.