J.A. Bender

Surrealism

jabender — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 01:15:50 +0000

Sometimes I feel compelled to write things that are, best described, as loosely based in reality. I feel more comfortable including the fantastic or phantasmagoric in my writing, and while I am sure some psychologist can explain why I have these compulsions in greater detail, I consciously do so because it interests me. I’m a pretty logical guy, who sees the universe as one defined and dependent on natural law. Physics, chemistry, etc. But I am also a Romantic at heart, and love that I can violate and undermine these laws in the things I write. Perhaps it was a diet of Stephen King and Tolkien that shaped this drive. Or the discovery of Magical Realism as a young adult that helped strengthen the interest. But if there is one thing that fiction can do that movies, video games, and art cannot succeed as well in, it is the ability to create complex worlds guided by their own physical laws.

So that is where I am going know with my new story. Talking bundles of wood, vivid dreams that have an effect on the real world, and characters driven by other experiences that we’d see as delusional can exist and have their own internal working logics.

Book vs. eBook

jabender — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:12:22 +0000

I was pretty set against eBooks when they were first going mainstream a few years back. I’d been clinging to paper since I can first remember, with some of my best memories being late night reads with a musty-smelling paperback or hardcover at my knees. The smell. The feel. The sound of pages turning. I thought such things couldn’t be replaced by electronic devices.

My home is decorated with books. A whole wall is bookshelves. I have boxes of books that still hide away in my parents basement because I have no room to store them in my tiny home. I love books. But once I started commuting regularly by train, I discovered their limits. It isn’t easy reading a book with one hand, especially when the other hand is keeping you from falling ten feet across a crowded subway car.

So I got a Kindle. And now, I couldn’t imagine not having one. I can do several things with the Kindle that I can’t do with a normal book—or at least, can’t do as easily. 1) I can hide what I am reading. No one has to know what trashy fantasy novel or space opera I am reading, or if I decide to read something controversial, I don’t have to hide the cover from wandering eyes. Yes, shallow of me, but that’s how it is. 2) I can read one-handed. This became especially helpful when I had to wear a cast on my left arm over the summer. 3) I carry a small library within the reader. I can go away on vacation and only pack the kindle and still have a number of books to read. Or, I can always have my favorite books with me if I feel inclined to read one of my most loved passages. I wonder if I am the only one who really does that. . .

I’m not sold on back-lit readers, however. They hurt my eyes, and my eyes suck. I have a hard time driving at night because headlights from incoming cars cause my eyes to water and hurt. Doesn’t feel very good to stare at back-lit stuff. My eyes tend to cloud over when I do. Can’t stand staring at computer screens for a long time, even though work requires it. Nice to rest those eyes sometimes, and eInk is nearly as good as real ink on paper. Especially when not back-lit.

I still buy real paper, but save it for when I find a book I want to live permanently on my shelf. This all will/does probably make me sound really pretentious. Oh well.

Books I need to finish

jabender — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:39:17 +0000

Sitting on my shelf, full of bookmarks, waiting as the dust slowly rises. . .

Some of these will be difficult (I am looking at you, Murakami. I like your weirdness, I like your language, but I wish you’d actually come up with a story or at least try to wrangle in the mess you spill out onto paper), but I will finish most of these! I swear.

Deciding the direction of a story

jabender — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:19:21 +0000

I am working on a new story which takes bits and pieces, characters and ideas, from other failed projects and recycles them into a new tale. It’s kinda strange, to be honest. Some of these failed projects went over a hundred pages or so and I had invested a lot of effort and thought into developing the characters in those stories before realizing they just weren’t meant to be. And now they are as if a part of a circle of reincarnation contained only within the “library” of my writing. A minor side character is suddenly the star, while a previous protagonist is shuffled to the background.

Anyway, there’s the new story and it has been going along pretty well. Only about fifteen pages long over three chapters (with each chapter covering a different character, so far. I think I am going to cap it at four main characters) and I had just started the third chapter staring what was originally going to be a minor character (the Taiwanese grad student assistant to the original protagonist), when I, in a random half-asleep hallucination, have decided to make the story more interesting by giving her something odd to interact with. In this case, something that I haven’t yet decided will be imaginary or real: a half-wooden, half dirt foot-tall being that she has been friends with since she was a little girl.

If I make it real, then it would add a supernatural element to the story. There are strange things going on, but the world of the story, so far, had not traveled into that type of surreality. And I am not certain if I want it to go there. There are hints at a strange cult, newly discovered siblings, and a man overly obsessed with the failures of his recent past, but nothing at the level of a real, living magical being.

It is so early in the story that this decision will be very important in deciding how grounded things are. But then I wonder if I can isolate that surrealness to only one branch of the story. Can I still maintain some degree of realism in a world where such a creature can really exist? And what would it mean if it did exist, but that it remained the only magical piece, at that level, in the story? Or would it say more about the character if her friend was imaginary? I hope this doesn’t trip me up and that I can move forward with the story. Or perhaps, I won’t resolve whether it is real or not until later in the story, letting me play around a bit more before I have to decide how things are.

Pulp

jabender — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:59:15 +0000

I’ve been reading the Barsoom series (John Carter of Mars) as I’ve been branching out my reading into pulp over the last few years (already have torn through Robert E Howard’s Conan, read a number of Loftcraft stories, Dashell Hammett’s Red Harvest, and a number of Raymond Chandler Philip Marlowe stories). The stuff is quite fascinating. Edgar Rice Burrows (also of Tarzan fame) first penned the series back in 1911, and the first few novels read like wild serials. Action, action, action. Twist, twist, twist. One-dimensional characters, point-a to point-b plots, set in exotic worlds with strange creatures and simplified morality. I’m now reading the fifth book in the series, The Chessmen of Mars, written in 1922, and it has been very interesting watching Burrows’ style develop, mature, and change. This, so far, is the most elegant of the novels. Much better thought out then the willy-nilly nature the original three stories (basically swashbuckling 101), with more detailed descriptions, better developed characters, and more mature philosophical overtones.

And also, clearly a book from 1922. Women are beautiful objects to battle over and often exist solely for the hero to defend the honor of. Virginity and purity being prized within Martian culture. The heroine of Chessmen is the daughter of John Carter (a “human” transplanted to Mars sometime after the Civil War–he is a southerner and fought for the Confederacy), Tara Carter, and despite being the most strong-willed female character yet in the series, is incapable of physically defending herself as valiant men rise to protect her “sex” so that she can stay a strong, Martian woman. Or something.

Robert E Howard was also misogynistic in his Conan stories (written about 10 years later), but at least he managed to create several women who were more than capable of defending themselves against aggressive men, and several of his heroines were sexually empowered (I’m thinking of the Queen of the Black Coast).

That aside, I am fascinated with the style. These are exciting stories that feel casual and breezy and when done well, aren’t simply just candy. Pulp can do something that a lot of other fiction cannot, that being the ability to probe the depths of the wilder, darker aspects of human behavior and desire. Violence. Sex. Adventure. All out there naked and willing for the reader to discover. A lot of modern-day “pulp” writings (I am thinking of thrillers and mysteries) often have a sterile polish (I thin of you, DiVinci Code), even when there is romance or action. Pulp Fiction, while often juvenile, has a purity that I’d at times be willing to defend from this months’ maundering mad warlord.