Serial Reader

[cerealfictions]

Serial Project Finale: Reflections and Confessions

Rather than blog again about Luther (which I did finish watching, even though I was lousy at blogging about it), I want to take a step back and simply discuss what serialization meant to me, and how I choose/prefer to consume fiction.

Over the semester, I attempted (quite pathetically) to watch a completed show (i.e. Luther) in a serial manner, 1 episode per week. Needless to say, I failed after episode 3 (or rather, I ended up marathoning episodes 4-6 in one sitting, and completed seasons 2 & 3 while flying to and from San Diego during a med school revisit weekend). Long story short: I'm not very good at consuming fiction in a serial fashion. At least, not Western television shows. Perhaps, I should clarify.

At the start of this academic year, Luther was one of many "live action" Western television shows I started watching. Others included Elementary, the Mindy Project, BBC's Sherlock, and Scrubs (although, I was for the most part marathoning this series as well). With the exception of Sherlock (which probably succeeded only because there were three episodes in each season), I failed to finish watching any of these shows in a serial fashion. I ended up marathoning Luther and Scrubs (not even to completion), and I gave up following the Mindy Project and Elementary. It wasn't that the stories were bad, or the plots were boring; but in a way, the thrill of watching these shows wore off.

I was actually surprised by my own growing disinterest in these television shows. I always considered myself to be fairly good at following a series, in large part because I have been successfully following serial fictions in the form of anime and manga for several years now. Every "season," I pick up 8-10 shows of anime to follow to completion (although, I tend to drop 2-4 shows each season out of growing disinterest). I don't know what it is about anime and manga, but I find these stories far more interesting and compelling (even though they are as cliche-ridden as any other form of serialized televised media).

Perhaps, the reason I enjoy these more is because of the length of the episodes, which averages to 24 minutes, as opposed to the ~45 minute episodes of most Western programming. In an hour, I can easily consume three episodes of anime, whereas I may get through an episode and a half for Western shows. In a sense, I felt like Western shows had less bang for the buck. Anime is something I can quickly start and finish in the window of time between classes; Western serial fictions are not as easy to consume. There is usually more plot explored per episode of Western television compared to anime (in which an arc is explored over several episodes), which means that Western shows also required a greater mental investment for me to enjoy it. Additionally, the big draw for me towards anime is knowing that the series will end. Western shows (especially U.S. shows) are always attempting to get multiple seasons of a show, which means that there is no telling when the plot will end. And if a particular show gets axed early, then the ending is usually an unsatisfying haphazard resolution of the plot. With anime, where a typical season is either 12 or 26 episodes long, there is a level of certainty that a plot will be explored in its entirety within a set time frame. Even with shows that get aired for multiple seasons, usually each subsequent season is a "sequel" to the original plot, with new goals and story, as opposed to a continuation of a previously established plot (this is even true of long term cash-cow shows such as Bleach, where each subsequent season presents new characters and new dilemmas).

This season, I failed to serially watch 4 different Western television shows. I did succeed in watching seven different anime. Perhaps, for the purpose of consuming serial fictions, I should stick with what I follow best.

[cerealfictions]

How Frozen should have ended. - Imgur

Imgur is home to the web's most popular image content, curated in real time by a dedicated community through commenting, voting and sharing.

Lol.

[cerealfictions]

Google Doc Guys!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18_CzTKSnctUrpgOGNWRvL2ZVQbtUeAjUs5wscxI2_z0/edit?usp=sharing

[cerealfictions]

Fanfiction: an expansion on the established literary universe

I still remember when I got first hooked onto fanfiction; you could say it's all Nickelodeon's fault. My first venture into fanfiction was through the series Avatar the Last Airbender. When the first season was being aired, I managed to watch episodes here and there at my friends' house because my family did not have cable television. But the show was everything I wanted in a series - action, a well-developed world, character development, comedy. The one thing it o for me lacked was accessibility, and watching episodes sporadically was not enough to satisfy my desire to immerse myself in that world.

Cue my discovery of fanfiction.net. Through the internet, I was able to keep up with the world of Avatar, and see past what the creators had invented in their original stories. And what was particularly amazing about the Avatar fandom was that it influenced the main series to some degree. It was no little secret that while the canon ship (e.g. pairing) would eventually be Katara and Aang (Kataang), but there was overwhelming support for a more edgy pairing between Zuko and Katara (Zutara), and for those with an eye for queer reading, there was always Zuko and Aang (I think it's called Zukaang?). The creators of the series, DiMartino and Konietzko, knew damn well that their audience had their own theories about which pairing was better, and frequently, the series threw in jabs at these various shippings (the entire arc about Zuko finding Katara's necklace and the subplot when Katara offered to heal Zuko's scar were both examples in which the creators chose to tease their fans; and then there's Toph who openly asks whether Zuko and Katara had a thing for each other). 

The Avatar fandom had the opportunity to directly interact with canon fiction because the show was actively being created even as the fandom churned out new material. And due to the nature of the show, there were plenty of "holes" in the plot that remain unaccounted for (usually, periods of time when the Gaang and enemies were moving from point A to B). And then, there's that humongous 60 year time gap between the end of The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra, which have given fans plenty of loose ends to play with and create stories within. Arguably, even the creators generate their own miniature fanfictions; throughout the time when The Last Airbender was being released, the creators released short 5 minute non-canon animations that parodied canon arcs. Following the end of The Last Airbender (and even after Legend of Korra started airing), the creators even actively released canon comics aimed at tying up the loose ends of The Last Airbender, and in writing these comics, they have actually created more twists for the fandom to explore. In the more recent comics, the canon pairing of Sokka and Suki appear tenuous, and Zuko's canon relationship with Mai has completely shattered. These comics have given fanfic writers the opportunity to explore different character pairings while remaining within canon.

[cerealfictions]

The Creevey Bros.

Remember that kid in the Harry Potter books that followed Harry with a camera? Yeah, Colin, that was his name. He also had a brother, Dennis. They were Muggle born siblings that shared a deep admiration for our hero Harry Potter. Of the two, Colin definitely is more relevant in the books (he gets petrified by a Basilisk in his first year), and ends up being killed by an unnamed Death Eater in book 7. Colin is one of those characters whose death exists simply to jar Harry as he prepares to face Voldemort. As a Muggle Born, Colin and his brother are both involved in the magical world thanks to "pure, dumb luck." It's unfortunate that Creevey the Elder had so short lived a magical life (6 years, which puts his age at death at around 17), but it does appear that he serves as a literary "extra" to be thrown away for instant dramatic effect. As for Dennis? His status is unknown. He is essentially MIA, having withdrawn from Hogwarts as a result of the quickly escalating anti-Muggle violence, and unlike his older brother he apparently was a no-show during the Second Great Wizarding War. Creevey the Elder is survived by his milkman dad and muggle mother (job status unknown). He may also be survived by his younger brother.

Fun fact, the Creevey brothers were essentially replaced in the film by another "annoying" underclassman, Nigel Wolpert. He also apparently dies in the Second Great Wizarding War, as depicted in a deleted scene.

[cerealfictions]

He's looking very good.

And after a week off for spring break, I'm back to blog about Luther! This week is season 1 episode 4. I recall vaguely stating that I found Ep. 3 really freaking weird because the killer of the week had an obsession with drinking random body secretions (ok, not that random: if we take serial killer with a love for body fluid, the answer is almost always going to be blood). This week's killer was also really...strange. Actually, if I had a word to describe him, it'd be "pathetic." But that pathetic tendency is probably what made his murders more terrifying.

Our murderer appears to be a sexual deviant of sorts - he gets off on sniffing dead women's handbags (and in the scene when they speak with his "wife," she admits openly that her husband had some really bizarre aberrant sexual behaviors). Sadly, this was an episode where the "investigation" was really short lived. The entire "murder mystery" side of the episode was almost entirely about the thrill of the chase. No fancy Sherlock-like deductions, nothing. What we instead see is a sexual deviant who is unable to satisfy his wife; we see this man kill other women to get trinkets to give to his wife, in order to win her respect. We see the wife taking the trinkets while partaking in an affair that was secret to nobody. And as the wife comes in for questioning, the sexually frustrated husband does the only logical thing and goes after his wife's lover. A love triangle in the most disturbing fashion.

The "goal" of the investigation was to catch the husband before he took any other lives. Thanks to the wife's lover's decision to call up a prostitute, there was another life at stake. Luther and his team desperately attempt to save the prostitute before the sex maniac murderer adds another body to the corpse count. Spoiler alert, they succeed. And you would think, at this point, all is well. Luther's team cleverly used the wife (who was also the murderer's source of emotional and sexual frustration) to draw out the murderer from the crime scene, thus saving the prostitute's life. And then comes the mind-numbing twist: the wife, revolted by the actions of her husband, silently and unpredictably takes a hammer to her husbands skull. I like to think that I'm pretty immune to blood and gore and what not (good old desensitization, I guess). But holy crap, that scene stunned me - in a terrible way.

I could end this week's recap right here, but that would be boring. And besides, my drawing looks like it has nothing to do with this week's episode, right? Wrong. This week was the fateful week that Henry Madsen (aka Luther's worse nightmare) woke up. And while he's still more or less incoherent, there was one word the ex-coma patient knew damn well: LUTHER. Prospects were looking good for this man to eventually regain his full faculties. Worst case scenario would be that he destroys Luther's career by revealing Luther's secret: that the detective allowed Madsen to fall (and in doing so, committed a very passive attempted murder).

Luckily (or not), this wasn't going to be a problem for more than half the episode. Alice, our favorite Moriarty/Irene character, disguised herself as a doctor, set a hospital on fire, and finished what Luther failed to do during the following commotion. It was interesting to see the writers set up a potentially very dangerous thorn to Luther's plans, and then trim it away with nearly half the episode to spare. One would almost beg to ask, what was the point of waking up Madsen (as a plot device) only to kill him immediately thereafter?

The answer would most likely be that once again we have an opportunity to see the really unusual relationship between Alice Morgan and John Luther. Clearly, at this point there is no denying that Alice is in "love" with Luther. I put love in quotes, because this is less like love and more like an obsessive compulsion. She is like a child who seeks attention from Luther; she wants his validation. She means well, but at the same time she means ill. She wants to help Luther, but in the worst way possible. Because while she seeks to win Luther's attention, she also seeks to push his buttons and see what makes him tick. She truly is such an amazing villain.

[cerealfictions]

Mulan: How about a girl who's got a brain, who always speaks her mind?

Oh, Mulan, how I have missed you! In the current Disney scene where all films are 3D animated, it was good fun to relish in an old-school Disney film.

In talking about gender portrayal in the media, I can't help but feel that Mulan is Disney's perfect "Woman Power" film. As a child, I wanted to be Mulan - I wanted to be the girl that carelessly cut away her hair, and rode away gallantly on a horse with nothing but my arthritic father's armor and sword (and while the armor and horse were unattainable, I made do with a plastic Mulan sword replica, one of my most cherished childhood toys). Something about Mulan called out to me; I saw myself in her character. As a child, I was anything but the girly-girl. I hated dresses, and often ended up buying clothes from the boys section because I preferred the styles and colors. I wanted to be the Red Ranger whenever the other kids in my class play-acted out the Power Rangers series (and I was often mocked by my male classmates, who told me I wasn't allowed to like the Red Ranger because I was a girl, and by that logic, the only characters I was allowed to like were Yellow and Pink. Boo.)

What really also struck me about Mulan as a character was her sheer wit. She was, undoubtedly, the smartest character in the entire film. She clearly proved this during the "Soldier in the Mountain" scene, when Shang demanded that the last cannon be aimed at Shan-Yu. Mulan defied that order and instead aimed the last piece of arsenal at a freaking mountain (much to Mushu's despair: "How could you miss?? He was three feet in front of you!").  In doing so, yes, she let Shan-Yu survive, but in exchange, she wiped out all but five of the Huns (admittedly, the strongest five).

Her intelligence also played a major role in the final battle, when her old war friends were trying to bust into the Emperor's chamber (unsuccessfully). Her wittiness (and genre savvy knowledge about feminine charm) allowed her and her disguised friends to seduce their way into the chamber (although, I will admit that I had no idea what the Hun meant when they described the "women" as "Concubines...ugly concubines"). The key point about Mulan's intelligence (as opposed to, say, Belle who tends to get pinned as the bookworm) is that her knowledge is practical. Mulan knows her strength can't match a man's one-on-one (the whole training montage in "I'll Make a Man Out of You" made this clearly evident); however, her sharp wit and analytic mind more than overcompensates for what she lacks in brawn (heck, she was the first person to climb the wooden pillar with the weights, and she managed to beat Shan-Yu with nothing but a folding fan). In Mulan, intelligence isn't just a fancy piece of window decoration; she uses her intelligence in almost every part of the film. For her, intelligence and wit is her most useful weapon.

Now to counter people's criticisms:

*SHE GETS THE GUY. BOO: This is an actual criticism. Really? So what? Romance was clearly not the primary motive for this girl's story. And to be honest, this was one of the more interesting scenarios where she caught the Shang's eye due to her brilliance and damn-care disregard for traditional gender roles. If anything, Shang is clearly overwhelmed by Mulan's independence and (dare I say) feminine power. It takes a few wise words from the Emperor ("A girl like that doesn't come every dynasty") to give Shang the courage to face her as an equal.

*She had to become a guy to show her merit: Yes, she did. And then when her disguise came off, everyone attempted to cast her aside. But the key point is that Mulan's greatest victory comes when she wasn't in disguise. She takes down Shan Yu at the Emperor's palace as a woman. Arguably, it's because she was a woman that she succeeded (how else was she supposed to sneak into the palace?). And, as far as anyone is concerned, Shan Yu clearly didn't give a damn that the Soldier from the Mountain who took away his victory was a woman. He fought against Mulan with the same ruthlessness with which he attacked Shang. Mulan beat Shan Yu one-to-one as a person. Not as a man or woman.

1. Stories are everywhere.

Well yes. Mulan specifically drew from both Western and Eastern ideas - the key plot for Mulan clearly comes from the Ballad of Hua Mulan. The talking dragon was Eddy Murphy's add-on. Actually, much to my surprise, the original plan Disney had was a typical Prince Charming story, where a Chinese oppressed orphan was whisked away to happiness by a British Prince. Thankfully, that wasn't the final product.

2. Not only do we tell stories, but stories tell us; if stories are everywhere, we are also in stories.

Mulan was a story that I could relate to, even if I wasn't a Chinese girl impersonating a soldier. I was able to relate to her on a level that I simply could not duplicate with any other "princess."

3. The telling of a story is always bound up with power, property and domination.

Oh, yes. Just take a look at the dialogue between Shan Yu and the emperor:

Shan-Yu: I tire of your arrogance, old man. Bow to me!  The Emperor of China: No matter how the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it.  Shan-Yu: Then you will kneel in pieces! 

And that's not even one of the important power struggles.

4. Stories are multiple: there is always more than one story.

True; Mulan could be the story about how a girl impersonated her father in the army. It could be about how she saved China. Or it could be about how Mushu and Cricket tried to win the respect of the dead. Or it could be about how Shang tried to prove himself to his father (and failed). Or it could be about a little girl who watched an epic Disney film. Lots of stories.

5. Stories always have something to tell us about stories themselves: 

This film may have been Disney's first successful attempt at portraying a "powerful" female lead. Produced in 1998, perhaps the timing of its release tells a tale in and of itself. Not unlike how Frozen was released in 2013, when our society is overflowing with the idea of feminism.

[cerealfictions]

Speaking of dressing Disney... http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelzarrell/this-4-year-old-and-her-mom-make-incredible-paper-versions-o?bffb

[cerealfictions]

There is a difference between evil as an absence of good and evil as a calculated transgression.

This week on Luther, we’re following our protagonist as he attempts to bring down a man whose vile tendencies are essentially protected by the media. Our criminal of the week Burgess is a man who holds that all bodily fluids are powerful – ALL BODILY FLUIDS (take that exactly as it sounds). Honestly, this episode really made me squirm with distaste, and it’s not often that a television show manages to do that. Our criminal takes particular pleasure in capturing women and exsanguinating them (while they are still alive) before freezing the body. The blood is then used for what can only be described as a horrific beverage scene. Truly, the cinematography for this episode was really over the top – although, I wouldn’t necessarily call that a bad thing. For, what made this episode so incredibly disturbing was the fact that the media is portrayed as an impediment to Luther’s attempt to apprehend the criminal.

In this episode, an unnamed woman is kidnapped, and her home is defiled with text written in fresh, ten-year-old blood. The crime is disturbingly similar to a case from ten years ago, and it turns out that the blood used to leave messages in the victim’s home belonged to a woman who was kidnapped ten years prior. This leads Luther and his team to believe that the same person is committing the same gruesome crimes in intervals of ten years. Unfortunately, the last time the police tried to get their hands on Burgess, the latter made laughing stock of the police inspection, and ended up gaining widespread popularity from the media as a novelist. Despite the particularly dark nature of his novels, Burgess continued to remain famous and popular for the next ten years, such that although Luther and team is convinced that Burgess is committing crimes again, the police chief warned her crew not to go directly after Burgess, and to avoid causing a second media and political shitstorm.

In the meantime, Alice is still up to her antics despite promising she wouldn’t go after Zoe (Luther’s ex-wife) anymore. Alice is interestingly involved in this episode from two angles. On one hand, she is trying to complicate matters between Luther and Zoe’s new boyfriend Mark North (in a way that nearly sidelines Luther as a result of Mark’s legal complaint to the police). On the other hand, she’s also providing a whiteboard of sorts upon which Luther can bounce his ideas. As with the previous episode, Luther comes to Alice seeking advice on how to get the upper hand on Burgess, as well as to understand why Burgess commits such atrocious forms of murder. Alice chides Luther for collectively viewing all murders as equal. She claims there is a difference between calculated transgression versus absence of good. Alice also notes that Burgess is the kind of man who gets a high out of showing off: he can murder without getting caught, all the while winning the heart of the media.

One last note: Henry Madsen is still an important (if silent) force. In this episode, it becomes very clear that he's on the verge of waking up. This may serve to further hinder Luther's definition of justice in the future.

[cerealfictions]

Todorov's Classification of Detective Fiction

This week’s reading talks about detective fiction as a genre. Or rather, detective fiction as being composed of three genres: whodunit, thriller and suspense.

The story of the whodunit fiction is one that encompasses two plots that are separated by a good deal of time. The first plot is that of the crime, while the second plot is the act of the detective playing a game of Clue (Colonel Mustard, in the Billiard Room, with a Candlestick). To present these two stories simultaneously, the investigation story must deconstruct the crime story and provide bits and pieces of it across the piece of fiction so that at the end, the reader has one fluid story about how the crime was solved, and another story that, although initially in shambles, eventually is put together by the “brilliant” mind of the detective. Todorov describes the crime story as being “real but absent” while the investigation story as “present but insignificant,” since nobody really cares about how the crime was solved, but rather who committed the crime in the first place.

Then we get into Thriller Fiction, a subclass of detective fiction that falls separate from whodunit type mystery novels. Thriller novels care less about the crime story and more about the investigation story. Additionally, it is the act of investigation that drives the action. Detectives in the thriller up for bodily harm and the threat of death hangs close. This form of detective fiction is spectacularly characterized by violence – violent crime, violent passion, threat of violence upon both the victim and the detective! As for the mystery, it is but a key to Pandora’s box of vile violence that is to follow.

Then there is the third and (as far as this reading goes) final form – the Suspense novel, which aggregates aspects of both whodunit novels and thriller novels. Again, there are two stories at hand: the mystery of the crime, and the story of investigation. However, this latter component is not merely a literary tool to explain what happened in the crime. The investigation plot is as rooted in danger as the victim in the original criminal story, and as with the thriller novel, the detectives are placed in a dangerous situation as they attempt to divine the history of the crime.

I would happen to argue that perhaps most of our “modern” detective fiction falls into this last category. In police dramas, the whole point of the investigation is not only to find out what happened, but also to apprehend the criminal – who may very well still be criminally-inclined against the detectives of the story. Police dramas may even go so far as to add a layer of complication, as well, by throwing in the legal side of criminal investigation – what is acceptable evidence in the court of law? It is not enough to know that A killed B; the detective must also show that A killed B beyond a reasonable doubt. And as long as this has not been proven in a legally acceptable form, A is very much free to escape unscathed. A couple weeks ago, I reviewed the first episode of the British crime drama Luther where this exact scenario happened. We are told of a crime’s occurrence. We are asked to find the killer – and midway through the episode, we successfully accomplish this. But the evidence is simply not evident; and when the murderer is a sociopath, trying to get a hand on evidence is not just hard, it’s impossible.

I would also argue that a current theme in detective fiction is the lack of immunity faced by the detective. For some reason, it has become something of a popular trope that the detective is anything but immunized – whether it’s a madman shooting at the detective in the heat of the climax, or outside pressures threatening to silence the detective (as can be seen in modern renditions of ACD plots, such as Elementary), it appears as though the goal behind most televised crime serials is to find (and legally trap) the criminal before s/he silences the detective.

[cerealfictions]

I already let him go, just not far enough to do the job properly.

Let’s talk Luther S1 Ep2! It seems fitting that this week’s topic is detective fiction and ACD-type stories. As I mentioned in a previous post, I really do hold the notion that Luther is a Sherlock-esque show, even if the main character does not possess asocial tendencies, and even though Moriarty is both a woman and an Irene Adler figure (I see you, Elementary!).

This week’s episode (or rather, last week’s episode, as I am a week behind) was rather Freudian in nature (and I really hate it when plots are Freudian). As always, Spoiler Alert. Here we go.

Episode 2, we are introduced to a man who is actively Cop Hunting. An ex-military man, Owen Lynch has a particular interest in shooting men and women in uniform as a revenge ploy for his father. The plot goes on to tell us that Lynch’s father Terry had also served in the military. Following his release from active duty, Terry had gotten into a drunken altercation at a bar, ultimately killing a police officer. This murder led to Terry’s incarceration – and subsequently became motive for Owen Lynch’s vendetta.

We eventually learn that Owen was not so creative as to come up with this ploy on his own; he had been in contact with his father, who sought nothing more than absolute revenge. Terry devised the whole scheme to get Owen on his murder spree. He had eventually planned to negotiate a bargain with police to reduce his sentence in exchange for telling his son to stop killing people. And his son, who had always struggled to be the kind of man his father expected him to be, clearly suffers from the Freudian complex I like to call “Daddy Issues.” Thus, Owen is willing to bend over backwards and bark three times for his father.

We’ll wrap up this summary short to say that Luther manages to play his psychological game to eventually find and talk Owen into behaving sensibly. The end.

But enough of the crime of the week – let’s talk about the other major plot that has less relevance to Owen Lynch’s crime spree. As I described in my previous post, Luther was a detective who damn well nearly lost his job thanks to an event that occurs 7 months prior to the current events. A good bit about this previous history comes out in this episode. As was depicted in episode 1, Luther (with his anger management issues and black-and-grey morality) used intimidation tactics to coerce a criminal (specifically a sexual predator) to give up the location of the latest victim. Throughout this coercion, the criminal Madsen was hanging off the edge of precarious scaffolding, and Luther lorded the threat of letting the man fall to his death unless the victim’s location was revealed. Needless to say, even after getting the victim’s location, Luther still did not help Madsen off the scaffolding, and instead let Madsen fall to what was presumed to be his death.

He didn’t die. He fell into a coma instead. And now, Luther must live with the concern that should Madsen awaken, the man could testify and cost Luther his job. Interestingly enough, when we see Luther interact with his “Watson” character Detective Justin Ripley, we see that Luther has no regrets about the Madsen incident, except perhaps that the drop didn’t kill Madsen (see post title).

To make things worse, Alice Morgan, our Moriarty character, is doing whatever the hell she wants just for kicks and to see Luther’s reaction. This includes intimidating Luther’s ex-wife’s. Alice is still deeply interested in Luther’s history and personality – perhaps because he was the first person to see through her perfect crime in the previous episode. She is willing to use scare tactics against both Zoe (Luther’s ex-wife) and Mark (Zoe’s new boyfriend) to figure out what kind of man is Luther. In this episode, we see major evolution of Luther’s and Alice’s character. The prior’s history (and the effect it has on his close friends) is clarified, namely thanks to the latter’s interference. We learn that Zoe is at a loss regarding what Luther did to Madsen: she accepts that Madsen was a “freak of nature,” but she is unsure if Luther’s claim that the man fell by accident is true or not. Furthermore, if Luther did allow Madsen to drop (which he did), she’s not sure if she can accept Luther’s actions. For these reasons, she has chosen to end their marriage, despite remaining extremely proud of Luther’s strength of character. Alice, awed by Zoe’s character, decides that she finds Zoe admirable, and promises Luther that she would not hurt Zoe again. Luther and Alice make a tenuous pact, and, to celebrate the ceasefire of their psychological warfare, get coffee together “as friends.”

[cerealfictions]

All is fair in sales and war (Working Titles)

I don't know the first thing about sales; I don't understand business, and to be honest, I don't know how much I'd care to learn about it. The world of business and industry always seemed very alien to me, as I am steadfastly rooted in science and academia. I never really considered how much there was to industry besides buying and selling stuff. So for me, it is absolutely mind blowing that in China there is an entire literary genre more or less dedicated to the sole purpose showcasing characters (typically inspired by real world experiences) focused on climbing the industrial ladder. These stories showcase ambitious characters, with plenty of aphorisms (that sometimes dance on the line of ethics) to help guide the equally ambitious reader through the real-world of industry.

This trend in Chinese “financial dramas,” Chang explains, reflects a very unique culture that is overwhelmingly present in China – the desire to rise in socioeconomic status. To become wealthy, by whatever means possible, has become something of a goal in China, according to Chang. This has led to a dog-eat-dog business world with absurd pressures. While Chang does not specify it in the article, it appears to me as though these novels give readers the opportunity to escape into a literary world where a career-oriented person’s business endeavors (regardless of morality) lead to a finale in which the protagonist gets everything material thing he or she desires. Such climaxes are very materialistic; Chang notes that many of these stories' climaxes occur when the protagonist is able to buy a house or something else that screams, "I have economic status." And should our heroes find a romantic partner, the significant other appears almost tacked on as an afterthought, irrelevant to the overall plot that is so entirely entrenched in selling a story about characters finding financial success. For the reader who personally wishes to attain financial status, reading financial novels were “common man” becomes CEO probably provides vicarious pleasure to the reader. I suppose this would be like me reading a novel about someone in college successfully going into the field of medicine (which would explain my addiction to medical dramas/comedies).

This phenomenon is not unlike how many stories in the United States dance around the idea of the American Dream. Granted, our Dream is slightly different: yes, the original Dream played with the idea of the self-made man, but “success” was not limited to only financial gain. The unnamed Hero of the American Dream was he who not only attained socioeconomic status, but also social and personal happiness (such as getting married or finding a meaningful love). However, it appears the American literature on the American Dream is a bit more cynical than the Chinese counterpart. Top “American Dream” literature tend to be books like  The Great Gatsby,  or Death of a Salesman – stories that, instead of celebrating, pointedly criticize the Dream as being unattainable. Rather than trying to sell the idea of how to win the Dream, American literature seems more bent on reminding the readers that dreams are meant to remain as fantasies, or that chasing blindly after a dream can lead to more than just financial failure. It is interesting that the popular American novels on attaining some abstract definition of success focus more on the “bad” parts of the Dream, rather than the good. Perhaps, it is because our definition of success is more abstract. More than just wealth, the American Dream consists of finding some intangible happiness, and that the act of finding this “happiness” may often be at odds with finding financial success.

[cerealfictions]

She doesn't leave evidence - just an evidence-shaped absence

So, I've settled on focusing on the British crime drama "Luther" for this semester's Serial Fictions course. Each week, I intend to watch an episode and (probably) draw up a quick sketch that represents the central dilemma of the episode. Why? Namely, because I have finished Sherlock and Elementary, and I'm still craving crime shows.

I suppose you could say that I became a bit engrossed with ACD-type stories, and Reddit told me that Luther would be a good way to fill up the emptiness that came with finishing season 3 of Sherlock,  so I figured, "This could work." Now, watching this series will definitely be a work of restraint, as the show is complete, and I am habitually prone to "marathoning" television shows. Oh, and as this is a serial project that involves a television show, I assume that the natural disclaimer is that there will be spoilers. Starting at Episode 1.

Luther is a hot-tempered Detective Chief Investigator (with a penchant for breaking things) who has just been reinstated into police work after nearly facing permanent suspension (for suspicion of passively allowing a criminal to fall instead of properly catching/capturing him). Luther, who has a very black and grey view of morality, returns to the world of detective work when he tries to figure out who killed a young woman's parents and dog, as well as how the crime had been committed.

Luther is very much a Sherlock character - we are introduced to a very sharp mind that has the excellent skill of alienating the people closest to him. As Sherlock is capable of throwing off people with his impersonal tendencies, Luther scares off people with his unpredictable nature (he is something like a bomb that's just waiting to go off). And arguably, both have an Irene Adler/Moriarty character.

I say arguably, because the Adler/Moriarty characters in Sherlock are presented as two separate entities, whereas in Luther, Adler/Moriarty is a single person (it's good to note here that another Sherlock series "Elementary" pulls the same stunt, albeit somewhat differently). In the first episode's crime, our suspected (and eventually confirmed) criminal is Alice Morgan, a woman who killed her parents out of hatred. She hid the incriminating smoking gun in the stomach of her parents' dog (the stomach acid destroyed most of the gun, and the subsequent cremation of the dog obliterated the rest of the evidence). Morgan is presented as a sociopathic woman, who's described to be like a black hole. Luther goes so far as to state that Morgan "doesn't leave evidence - just an evidence shaped absence." Hence, this week's drawing is our dead dog, with the evidence shaped absence of the Glock 26 that Morgan used to murder her parents.

[cerealfictions]

What an opening paragraph.

So, I will admit, the first paragraph of Hughes & Lund's essay threw me off way into left field. I have no idea what I missed last class, but I was certainly quite amazed by how sensual this first paragraph was; however, shock factor aside, it did set the stage for a very interesting discussion on what is classified as masculine vs. feminine writing and what distinguishes the two types of writing.

I understand the analogy being made here. Simply, writing that appeals to men is supposedly similar to how men achieve sexual pleasure - a driving, powerful, contained story with a fierce climax and ending in a resolute finish. Alternatively, feminine writing is all about rhythm, where the pace of the story is not a journey from A to B, but a route that meanders through the highs and lows of a plot before ultimately reaching an end. This analogy does suggest then that "feminine" writing lends well to Victorian serials, especially since the readership at the time was predominantly female. This form of writing also gave the author liberty to form an intimate relationship with his/her readers; for example, the paper cites that some authors felt pressured to direct the plot a certain way based off of "'little scraps of newspaper criticism...'"

However, as an avid reader of serialized fiction (ahem, manga), I never once considered serializations to be masculine or feminine but rather one big scheme to milk the cash cow (or follow the pressures of capitalism, as Hughes and Lund may suggest). Especially in the world of manga, where serializations are largely dependent on reader support and series can easily fall off the grid, the only stories that seem to have the luxury of having a rhythmic plot are those that are well established cash cows that are in no danger of getting the ax. Now, for any smaller/newer publication, I can't help but feel that the plots are literally one driving cliffhanger leading up to another driving cliffhanger, each chapter desperately trying to grab the attention and interest of a reader population strong enough to support its serialization.

Of course, there is huge differences between what I've observed in reading manga today compared to what Hughes and Lund describe as serials in the Victorian era. Publication was not entirely dependent on readership popularity. Rather, in the case of Dickens' papers in which Gaskell was published, the continuation of stories depended largely on Dickens' preference.

Ultimately, I am still confused (or rather unfulfilled) by the analogy of sexual pleasure and text. I find it too simplistic to define writing as being a dichotomy of what is feminine and masculine literature; writing and fiction can come in many forms, and can be consumed in several ways. Just as Hughes and Lund suggest that writing can be masculine and feminine, then so to must be the act of consumption (marathoning a series versus waiting for new releases). So what does it mean for a piece of literature that was released in a "feminine" manner, but consumed in a "masculine" manner (where masculine consumption would be analogous to the driving style that Hughes and Lund attribute to masculine writing)? Does that make that piece of literature masculine or feminine? If we are to analyze a piece of writing as being masculine and/or feminine, then we must also analyze the act of consumption; and both the act of producing and consuming should be considered as one entity when describing literature as having certain masculine or feminine traits.

[cerealfictions]

Taking the world of serialized fictions and throwing it at the world of marketing.

It worked. Would buy.

[cerealfictions]

Sun Wukong and Journey to the West

So…this is a spoiler disclaimer for “Journey to the West” (Wasn’t sure if we were expected to read the Anthony Yu translation or the Waley translation, but the latter includes many more chapters of the story.)

I found this tale to be exquisitely interesting. The story of Sun Wukong (a.k.a. the Monkey King) drew my attention throughout this week’s readings as I had always had a slight curiosity regarding the influence of Hindu mythology on this legendary Chinese literary figure. I suppose, in the first 7 chapters, we do not actually get to see the Monkey King make his way to the “West,” as his story at the end of the seventh chapters entails in vague detail the story of the Monkey’s entrapment by the Bodhisvatta.

As I had expected, there are many parallels between the story of the Monkey King and character Hanuman, a well-recognized monkey deity in Hindu mythology. From the mischievous behavior, to the attainment of immortality through multiple means, the influence of the literary figure from the religious figure is markedly evident. However, Wu Cheng does do justice to the Monkey King in giving the character its own unique story that is clearly different from the origin story behind Hanuman. We see the Monkey King as being born from stone. Yet, for his stone disposition, the early part of the Monkey King’s tale depicts the character as more like a sponge that quickly attains much knowledge and power over a short period of time. The King, having earned the respects of his kin, learns the way of immortality out of fear for his own mortality.

Yet, somewhere along the way, the King changes from being a monkey fearful of death to a powerful warrior with a bite strong enough to back up the bark. Our Monkey King grows an ego that throws the residents of Heaven in to “havoc.” It was interesting to see how Wu Cheng developed this idea of a character that gets drunk (literally and figuratively) off of power; what I had not expected was for the Monkey King to command so much strength for so much time. It was almost funny to read how various members of Heaven boasted their strength and demanded submission from the King only to be overwhelmed. The presence of Erlang Shen was a well-received break from the Monkey King’s invincibility.

Narration in this plot is also interesting; of course, in reading a translation and not the original text left me wondering how much liberty was taken in the adaptation. A line that repeatedly caught my attention throughout these chapters was one that went along the lines of “if you are curious about the story that follows, read on to the next chapter.” Quite frankly, it almost felt like a television show, where some narrator leaves the slightest hint of “Next time, on Journey to the West.” Judging by the fact that both versions of the translation incorporate this type of language, I will assume here that Wu Cheng did truly intend for his novel to be read in an almost episodic fashion.

[cerealfictions]

I thought about doing comics as a serial project for this serial fictions class. But that's probably not gonna end up happening. Anyway, I spent way too much time doodling this to let it go to waste, so here's a silly comic about cliffhangers.