Narratives from the Multi-verse: We Can Remember It For You Wholesale

     So this week was all about narratives from the multi-vers and the reading I did was "We Can Remember It For Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick. 

     I really wish I got more into the story, but about halfway through the story I just couldn't do it anymore. Part of the reason why I couldn't finish it was mainly due to the layout; it was formatted in a really weird way, which was hard for me to read. Coupled with the fact that some of the words were written likethis, the whole story was really hard for me to read. Besides that, the story was a little bit slow on the start. 

    It was interesting to think about the concept of having a memory, burying it with another memory and then having it resurface is a pretty cool idea. It kind of reminds of the movie "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" a bit, in the way that the main characters in the movie try to erase memories. Overall, the ideas in the short story were pretty cool, but this particular story just wasn't my cup of tea. 

Space Opera - The Star

     This week is all about Space Opera, and I read "The Star" by Arthur C. Clark.


      And what a mind fuck this was.


       "The Start", in a nutshell, is about how a Jesuit priest astrophysicist tries to cope with his now faltered faith, due to the fact that the same star that marked the birth of Jesus was the same star that killed off an entire planet of people that were extremely similar to the people of earth.


          When I first finished the story, I had to reread the last page. I had never thought about faith in this way. It was a staggering realization, to say the least. Beside this mind blowing idea that the universe is linked together, what was interesting to me about this short story was the use of scientific terms. I've never been good at science, so reading the first page of this story was difficult to say the least. However, Clark does do a good job in taking the scientific terms and making them more understandable. By the end, I realized how big of a deal that was, and felt the same sense of loss and mind blowing realization that two separate worlds were so connected. That, although the feeling itself wasn't enjoyable, was what I enjoyed about the short story. It made me feel the hollowing loss of an entire planet and race. I've honestly never felt such emotions after reading a short story like the before. And that, I think, makes this story so successful, next to the plausibility of the two worlds being connected by this one supernova star. Just thinking about how an entire population was completely destroyed in order for the birth of one small child that would kick off the start of a religious movement that continues today is really mind blowing to me. And that caused me to think, "well, if that happened to them, that could most certainly happen to us!" even though it never factually happened. Just the possibility, the thought that something like that could happen and be intertwined with a whole other world is just....wow.

      This short story definitely gives you something to think about, long after you've read this story.

The Spiritual Education Part 2 - The Magicians

  I enjoyed "The Spiritual Education" unit so much, I have two blog entries about two different books from this week.

 So this blog post, I'm talking about The Magicians by Lev Grossman.

 Very briefly, The Magicians is about a boy (Quentin Coldwater), who unknowingly is a wizard, and how he deals with learning that he's a wizard, that he is accepted to a prestigious wizard university, and all the problems that come with entering into the whole wizarding world...


 Sound familiar? It should...since it sounds a lot like another popular book about a boy wizard, the Harry Potter series.

 However unlike the HP series, The Magicians isn't as..happy and uplifting. If anything, it's a shocking dose of reality that most people don't hit until after college. Initially, I strongly disliked this book; I couldn't help but compare everything that I encountered in The Magicians to the HP series... thoughts such as:

"Harry found out about being a wizard way cooler then Quentin."

"Hogwarts is wayyyy better then Breakbills, especially since Hogwarts is British"

"The classes are wayyy cooler then those at Breakbills."


 These were just a few of the many, many thoughts that crossed my mind while reading this book. However, after really getting into the book, I slowly started changing my mind about this book. At the end, it dawned on me why I started relating more and more to this book now, as an adult, then I probably ever did with HP as a child: it was based in reality.

 While HP is truly an escapist series, in the sense that you're able to completely lose yourself and reality while reading the books, The Magicians is definitely based in a more truer reality. The setting is in a college, some of the problems Quentin faces while being at Breakbills were either very similar to my own experiences while in college or ones that I've seen my friends faced, and the way Grossman depicts the use and learning of Magic is more or less similar feelings I've had about certain subjects in both high school and college. Besides that, it's all the cold hard truths about growing up, maturing into an adult, and those realizations about oneself and the world surrounding them after learning said hard truths that really spoke to me, as a reader. The ultimate realizations that Quentin comes to at the end are feelings that I know many, many people have had after entering into the "real world"/business world.

 All of these feelings are ones that I can either indirectly or directly relate too. HP, especially now as a young adult, I can't really say that I do. Perhaps that's maturity showing, or perhaps it's simply because I've changed since first reading the series; either way, after reading The Magicians I'm definitely more aware of the fact that I'm becoming an adult, and that I'm slowly, but surely, cutting off those ties to childhood. And honestly, I'm not too sure how I feel about it.

Spiritual Education - The Golden Compass

This, is honestly what I've been waiting for in this class.


When I was younger, I absolutely love love LOVED the Harry Potter Series, as well as His Dark Materials (A.k.a. The Golden Compass Series). I mean, who wouldn't want a wand that could pretty much solve all your problems (cleaning, cooking..) and who wouldn't want their soul to be in an animal form for their entire life span? Especially for me, considering that for all of my childhood and most of my adolescent years, I was highly allergic to anything with fur and/or feathers. But I digress...

Witches. Daemons. Giant fighting polar bears.

 That is the world of the Golden Compass.

 I first read this series when, I believe, I was in either the third or fourth grade. It was the journey, the fighting, the action, and adventure to other worlds that drew me to these series like a moth.

Since the third or fourth grade, I haven't revisited the series. However, I was curious to see how the more adult (since I still don't consider myself to be an adult adult) me would view the book.

Boy, was I surprised. 

In the same theory that as children, we relate more to Jerry, from the popular animated TV series, Tom & Jerry, while as adults we relate more to Tom, His Dark Materials, I've found, work in the same way. When I was younger, I focused more on what Lyra had to say, and what she was thinking more so then the adults that she'd interact with. But as an adult, I've really started paying more attention to what the adults were saying and doing, rather then Lyra. The keyword here is "attention"... I'm not sure if it was because I was a child, or if I simply focused and remembered Lyra more, but when I reread the series, I found the adults more interesting then Lyra. A majority of that being due to the fact that I never realized what exactly the adults were saying, which completely blew my mind.

Elementary Particles, applied physics, dark matter... these are all common words and phrases that come up in this book series. Looking back, I'm not sure how I understood these very big and complex ideas. Maybe it was pure ignorance, maybe it was because I just accepted these ideas for what they were, ideas, but now as an adult...I'm shocked that I actually got through these books and understood them so well as a child. Now, while reading, it was harder for me to really grasp what they were saying, and even some of the scenes where these words were being focused on, I had to reread certain passages simply because it's harder for me to understand what's going on. Plus, I never actually realized how much religion plays in this series, it's amazing that I didn't realize it sooner. I wonder if the adults who've read these series as children, lose a certain quality that I can't really place my finger on. Perhaps it's like original sin, in that once we've eaten the apple of knowledge (as in, matured as adults) we gain one point of understanding, while losing another (see Adam and Eve's view of nakedness).