Literary Speculation - The Aquatic Uncle

    So this week, we discussed in class Literary Speculation, and distinguish between writing in genre and writing that may use elements of genre but that is essentially literary. What was more interesting to me this week was the in-class reading we did, which was "The Aquatic Uncle" by Italo Calvino. What really stood out for me in this short story was the way in which Calvino wrote the short story. Although the main idea of this story, which is about a family who lives on land, but deals with a "crazy uncle" who refuses to come ashore and live with the family on land.

    Calvino based this story off of "The first vertebrates who, in the Carboniferous period, abandoned aquatic life for terrestrial descended from the osseous, pulmonate fish whose fins were capable of rotation beneath their bodies and thus could be used as paws on earth". When I first read that, I thought that it would be a lot of long, scientific names and references, such as time periods and specific land and sea species. However, I was sorely mistaken. The story read more like a friend telling another friend a silly antidote about this crazy thing that happened with his crazy uncle. I was pretty shocked at how easy and enjoyable it was to read, even though he did use some scientific language.

     So, does Calvino write in genre or uses elements of genre but is essentially literary? I'd have to go with the latter than the former. Mostly, I think because he creates a fictitious time, place, and set of characters based off of fact. Besides that, he makes these beings have human qualities to them that I don't think they'd actually have: a tradition of visiting one uncle, thinking about things other then food, shelter and procreating (which, they do think about in the story), the struggle between land and sea...All these plus countless other thoughts are ones I highly doubt the beings during that time in history would actually think about. Overall though, I definitely enjoyed this short story, and would love to read some other works by Italo Calvino.

   

Diverse Position Science Fiction - I Live With You

 So, this week, I decided to read the short story "I Live With You" by Carol Emshwiller.


 What a short story it was!


  "I Live With You" has to be one of the most horrifying short stories I've read thus far in my life. What makes it so horrifying? Besides the plot, which I'll get into in a bit, the most horrifying thing about this short story is the lack of resolution at the end... I digress, I'm jumping the gun a bit I suppose.

 The story of "I Live With You" is simple, short, and to the point: a being, most likely a female anyways, describes how it lives with a human and tries to make the human's life better. It seems simple enough, but boy is it way more then just that. How, you might ask? Well to start off with, the narrator, who I'm assuming is of a female gender, pretty much stalks, watches, and lives within the life of a poor female girl. And by poor, I mean I feel sorry for. Why? Here's the kicker:

       This female being apparently lives inside the woman's apartment, without the woman knowing for certain that another thing is living with her.


                    Just stop and take a second to think about that one.

                            Seriously. Think about it.


       At first, I thought this being was a ghost. It made sense, since this thing could pretty much blend into any surrounding it came across (it lived in a coffee shop book store before it chose to live with this woman) and not be noticed by anyone. However, as the story picked up, the being did things, like ate, drank, ran into people in the supermarket while buying food....that, made me realize it wasn't a ghost. Which, made my hair stand up on the back of my neck. This...being, was living in this woman's house, taking and using her own clothing, eating her food, petting her cat all while the woman was in her apartment. It got even weirder when the narrator started describing how it would take food off this poor woman's plate as the woman was eating. The worse part was that the woman, had some kind of idea that something was living with her. So, imagine living on your own, and having all your shit fucked with, your food constantly being eaten by someone other then you, some clothes missing while others aren't...it's just a scary thought. Besides that, for me, the other scariest part was that the being/narrator is never identified. Both, in the idea that what the being/narrator is, is never fully explained as well as the fact that the woman who's being terrorized never actually learns for certain that she is. Well, she plants traps and such, but what I mean is that the woman never actually sees or confronts this being. The story just ends and the being moves on to something else. That's pretty terrifying, at least for me.

     Although this thought completely scares the living bajeezus out of me, it's actually a really well written, well thought out story. I'm not sure that I couldn't stop reading due to either the story being so well written or just the idea that someone could be fucking with your life and you really couldn't prove that it was really happening. Either way, this was such an interesting short story. I can see how it's considered to be a diverse position science fiction. In some ways, I feel like this could be considered sci-fi. With the unidentified being, you could argue that it was an alien, especially since the narrator/being is never fully identified. In other ways, like the lack of any real science or technological influences, I don't think this is really sci-fi. Regardless of whether it's sci-fi or not, it's one helluva creepy short story and I know I'll be sleeping with ALL my door close (and maybe even locked) tonight. 
   

Cyberpunk and Steampunk - "And I Awoke And Found Me Here On The Cold Hill's Side"

    So, this week is all about Cyberpunk and Steampunk. For this week, I read "And I Awoke And Found Me Here On The Cold Hill's Side" by James Tiptree Jr..


      The questions asked for this week's writing assignment were: what ideas or mind experiments were explored in the works you read for this week? what were some of the implications or consequences of those ideas for those of us living today?


      Well, this week's reading was far from the positive, bright future that I think most people associate with cyber and steampunk. "And I Awoke And Found Me Here On The Cold Hill's Side" is pretty much a warning about what happens when the human race meets aliens. It's not a pretty insight, at least according to a slightly intoxicated station engineer. As he stated in the story:

      "What I'm trying to tell  you, this is a trap. We've hit the supernormal stimulus. Man is exogamous-all our history is one long drive to find and impregnate the stranger. Or get impregnated by him, it works for women too. Anything different-colored, different nose, ass, anything, man has to fuck it or die trying. That's a drive y'know, it's built in. Because it works fine as long as the stranger is human. For millions of years that kept the genes circulating. But now we've met aliens we can't screw, and we're about to die trying..."

     
         Like I said earlier before, just a peachy outlook on the future. But this idea that the only thing that man (as in the human species) wants to do is find and impregnate the stranger. As I first read this line, I could not believe how true it was! Just think about who's been the "stranger" in history...people of color. People who hold different beliefs than the norm. People who don't look "normal". They're the ones who've continually been persecuted by man. Although, I do think that the engineer forgot about how much man likes conquering other people too. But, I feel like within the story, at the time and place where this is all happening, something else changed: the fact that man could no longer conquer. The aliens, all of the different species that were mentioned and even the ones that weren't mentioned, all have the upper hand on us humans in the story. And that is why there's such a huge emphasis on the whole "fuck it or die trying" part, because that's the last place where humans have power. And, since they can't breed with the aliens in the story, they're losing their power and worth...it's a whole lot to think about when it comes down to it.

 
          From the prompt, I believe that this short story is a cautionary tale. Just looking back at all the different kinds of people we use to and even continue to still persecute today, it all makes sense that we want to conquer and reproduce with those that are different from us. However, if those who are different from us hold even more power then humans, such as having better and more advanced technology as well as not being able to reproduce with humans, it will be disastrous for us. They'll hold the power, they'll call the shots. That's why I think if we ever come into contact with beings from another planet, we need to control ourselves and really work with them to form a peaceful universe.

       If not, we'll all go to hell in a hand basket. And I hope to god I'm long dead by then.