Yonkers and History (and something else...)

The battle of Yonkers section in War World Z is perhaps the most visceral and shocking scene because of it frantic pace, intensity, choice of a common foot soldier as narrator; and the maddening frustration of the military command failure on display.  With so many of the stories in the book being about politicians, entrepreneurs and "idea men" and women ( remote agents in the war against Zack), I find these more personal tales of survival very harrowing and compelling.

The zombie, to me, has always been much more important as metaphor rather than monster.  The success of the zombie genre is surely due to the pliability of these cannibals as symbols.  They can represent nearly anything.  In the original Night of the Living Dead, it was racism, the new sciences of destruction emerging from WWII, and other things.  In 28 Days Later, it was rage and aggression.  At the Battle of Yonkers, I think they represent history's tendency to repeat itself. 

Great armies throughout history have been defeated through a failure to understand the nature and mindset of their enemies.  In War World I, the British military and T. E. Lawrence had a difficult time getting the Arab Revolt to understand the new tactics and destructive capabilities of emerging technologies.  In Vietnam, we failed to realize the commitment of the Vietcong and their brutal guerrilla tactics.  In the '80s, Russia underestimated the low-tech, high-return strategies of the Taliban. We did much the same thing in 2001. 

In Yonkers, the US military falls victim to their own technological sophistication and the complacency created by that over reliance.  Additionally, ingraining tactics into the minds of soldiers is a major part of today's massive, complex armies.  A conglomeration of thousands must think as one and move as one to achieve success.  But what do you do against an enemy that is utterly incapable of the same, a mass of independent soldiers immune to the confusion and pandemonium they create?  Training an entire army to respond to such new and unnatural tactics would require huge amounts of time and resources along with careful, outside-the-box leadership.  Today's modern system just isn't set up to handle that. 

As a last observation: Why is it that apocalypses always seem to be a victory for Thoreau-types dedicated to simple living, rejection of technology, and smaller communities?  Its always the old ways (bow and arrow, pointed sticks, isolationism, and the KISS method) that win out.  Is regression just the natural result of social collapse, or does apocalypse fiction fulfill some common desire to escape all the complexities and difficulties of the modern rat race?  Does everyone sitting down to watch the news at night who sees the nonsense and disharmony going on in the world secretly want to reset the clock?  Or are you more afraid of what would happen if it did?

My Preferred Databases

The UT libraries website has a number of great resources.  Conducting a few brief searches on some of the databases, I think that—in terms of this paper—the Literature Resource Center and MLA International Bibliography will be the most useful.  Both provide a number of search options and seem to have a large selection of scholarly sources.  The LRC includes many of the articles in PDF format on their site without needing to link to another outside database like EBSCO.  MLA International, however, does provide links back to the libraries' website for locating a hardcopy in the event that it is not available online, which is helpful.  And MLA seems better equipped for refining searches in-process and locating related topics through links in the descriptors.  So, I am leaning towards the latter database.

As an accounting major, ProQuest's accounting and tax database looks to be extremely helpful.  It is well formatted, clean without being overly simplistic, and provides nice advanced search options. There are journals on related topics as well as current news articles that with be extremely usefully to me during my career at UT following and exploring practical examples of accounting and business processes, principles, and important developments in the field.  

Dr. Strangelove and Childishness

I've seen Dr. Strangelove perhaps half a dozen times, and it continues to reveal new layers to its comedic portrayal of a nuclear apocalypse.  The main satirical focus of the film seems far greater than just a cataclysmic event like the cold war instigating an all out conflict between the U.S. and Russia. The target of the movies appears to be political and military power in general.

The film offers us two different military leaders in the form of the psychotic and conspiratorial General Ripper and the manic, child-like general Turgidson played brilliantly by George C. Scott.  Most men depict military leadership as being fundamentally dillusional and banal in their obsession with secret Communist plots and power grabs. 

Turgidson is continually shown exhibiting childish behavior.  There are more overt displays such as when he wrestles with the Russian ambassador over a hidden camera (that the General might have planted) and, like a young boy, mimes the motions of an airplane while joyfully describing the maneuvering capabilities of a B-52 bomber.  Also, their are more subtle clues like Turgidson's constantly chewing of gum which is reminiscent of a baby's oral fixation. 

General Ripper is, on the surface, far more serious, but displays a similarly immature mindset, absence of logic, and boyish obsession with the flashier elements of war: big guns and big military gestures. 

The difference between these two is that, while Turgidson's paranoia is tolerated, Ripper's is not.  The difference?  Ripper challenges political authority by sidestepping the President and starting war with Russian himself.  Turgidson, whether he likes it or not, plays the game. You see, the political leaders, the U.S. President and his Russian counterpart, are equally childish as evidenced in their silly argument over who is sorriest. 

The filmmakers are saying that childishness and foolishness are tolerated in military and government powers only so long as you don't step on the toes of the bigger, more important kids sharing the sandbox.

The film succeeds quite well at its depiction of power because in operates on overt and more subtle levels.  Much of the satire was lost on me the first time I saw Dr. Strangelove, but it reveals more and more levels as you watch.  This technique is very effective and almost necessary when satirizing such hot button issues as nuclear war and current institutions like our difficult marriage of government and military powers.

Hock Seng (The Windup Girl)

The character of Hock Seng stands out to me from the plethora of great characters in The Windup Girl for sheer resiliency and street smarts.  His story, more so than those of the others, weaves in and out of the upper parts of Thai society and the lower giving a perfect view of the detailed world that Bacigalupi has created.  He encapsulates the post-apocalyptic character, someone who has felt the effects of the collapse of society personally (the loss of his family and private empire) and adapted coming out the other side stronger, more capable, and necessarily ruthless.

No other character besides perhaps Emiko has as much going against them as Hock Seng who seems to face the potential for death around every corner.  He is a member of one of the lowest and most despised classes in society, his embezzling has him constantly in the cross-hairs of his boss, he's made a deal with the devil (actually organized crime), he even has to pretend to be something he's not just to survive in his own neighborhood. 

The result is that he's constantly on edge, constantly working things out in his head, planning his next move, looking around the room for the best exits.  Ordinarily, you would expect someone is his position to breakdown or make that final fatal mistake. Instead, his troubles hone his natural smarts and intuition to an almost predatory level.  Its a perfect example of Darwinian adaptability.  Like Mad Max or Robert Neville, he transforms to fit the post-apocalyptic landscape.  On the outside he is an unassuming character: small, aging, somewhat meek.  Yet he survives where other characters who are seemingly stronger and more capable (like Jaidee) fall under the complexities and demands of their strange and deadly society.

Every character in The Windup Girl has a compelling story.  Kanya is playing a difficult political game while dealing with her own past and trying to fill the large shoes of her disgraced Captain.  Anderson Lake is practically juggling chainsaws from page one while lying to everyone he meets.  Emiko's life is a living hell.  But I find Hock Seng's to be the most compelling thread, one that weaves through many of the others and connects all the various themes and tones of the novel.  There's always a hint of ruin around the bend, but you're also constantly wandering just how he'll get out of this scrape and on to the next one.

Impressions of The Windup Girl

The setting and atmosphere of The Windup Girl reminds me of Casablanca.  The city seems to be that same melting pot of individuals, that same combination of conspiracies and tensions that feels eternally on the verge of exploding into utter chaos. Every character seems to be wearing a mask and never really reveals their true objectives.  The location is described just enough and at the same time taken for granted enough that we aren't forcibly draw to any one detail but allowed to let it all wash over us.  Everything comes to life around us.

The setting doesn't really fit within the confines of a dystopia.  Sure, there is some obvious corruption and hints of tyranny in the government, but that isn't really too different from some nations today or in our past.  If anything, the world has regressed to a kind of 17th century blend of colonialism and monarchy only with modern corporate politics and power struggles. 

There has obviously been an ecological apocalypse and the loss of major energy sources has had some devastating effects on society, but human ingenuity under pressure has led to some interesting technological developments.  By genetically engineering stronger and larger beasts of burden in the form of these megodonts and perfecting high energy capacity spring technology to store kinetic energy, people have been able to come up with new ways of powering their world; and much more attention has been given to efficiency with regard to our energy usage. 

Sure things are difficult and a bit chaotic, but I think that this would be a challenging and exciting world to live in.  I don't feel like things are on the brink of collapse as they are in some of the other stories we have been reading, just in the process of starting to rebuild and figure itself out.  It would be a fascinating environment to live in.

The Windup Girl: Worth the First Frustrations

So, I'm going to be part of the group reading the Windup Girl. I actually read the book a while back, so this will be my second time through it. There's been a lot of talk about how difficult this book is to read, and I just wanted to say a few things about this: the early frustrations experienced at the beginning of this book (and they do fade after the first few chapters) are not as bad as some reviews you might read make them seem, and the whole story is definitely worth sticking around for.

The author creates one of the most detailed, believable, and lived-in worlds that I have ever read in science fiction. But he doesn't spend any time setting up the world or explaining the history/politics/sciences/terminology, you are just immediately thrown into the thick of things.  This can be a bit disorienting, but it also keeps you from getting pulled out of the story by outside-the-narrative explanations interjected for clarity, which is a problem in sci-fi that can ruin the flow or result in some very contrived scenes where characters stop to describe some piece of technology or idea that most people in that world are so familiar with that they would never think twice about it.  This kind of exposition can drive me nuts (I'm looking at you Robert Heinlein (read For Us the Living if you don't believe me, these explanations are the whole gosh darn book!)), but it does make the audience's job easier. You won't find any of that here.

And it wouldn't really work anyway with this setting. The richness and believability adds so much to the story, and it would suffer if overburdened by all of theses expository intrusions. And I think that Bacigalupi goes a good job at this. When done correctly (see anything by C.J. Cherryh) it allows the book to immediately pull you in.  So please don't be discouraged.  It will fade after the first few chapters. The story you will experience is worth the price of admission.

Wrapping Up The I-Search

I've spent a few days now hammering away at the very meaty research section of my I-Search project and laying out how I want to handle the My Conclusions and My Reflection sections, and I have had very mixed feelings.  On the one hand, I feel very much in a bubble.  I've been evaluating sources and analyzing survey responses to the point of going cross-eyed while also trying to reflect on and make sense of the project as a whole.  Right now, I'm wondering if everyone else is moving in the same direction with this as I am.  Is everyone else getting the same kinds of results with their surveys/interviews or have I gotten lost in the weeds and started taking my topic in the wrong direction.  Voluntary human extinction strays a bit from the usual apocalyptic themes, and I wonder if I've lost sight of the larger goal.  On the other hand, I am very proud of the amount of work I have done this far and excited by some of the things that I have found out.  I am relived that this is all coming to end, but also worried about how my final massive pile of data will hold up against everyone else.  Only time will tell I suppose. 

Rhythms and Rituals in the Road

Somehow my first time through The Road I didn't pay much attention to this business of keeping the fire going. I think I was reading more for the adventure, but today I started thinking about this and just thought that I would throw out an idea: what if we view the fire symbolism from a more literal angle?

A flame is something that requires constant attention, constant stoking to keep it alive. So what does this do for the man? Sure we could see it as a symbol for hope, but maybe it just gives him something to do. Retirees often take up detailed hobbies to fill their post-career lives, hobbies that often grow to consume much of their time and energies. To some outsiders, these hobbies may seem meager, petty, pedestrian.  Now we all do this to some extent or another, even us younger folk.  I bet some of us in this class were at least partly motivated to go to college because we were drifting a bit after high school and, hey, this gave us something to do. And there isn't a darn thing wrong with this.  If I wanted to be really bleak and existential about this, I could argue that all life is about is trying to find things to keep ourselves occupied, to keep us from noticing that hollow-eyed reaper whose sneaked up behind us and is about to whack us over the head with that hefty champagne bottle labeled EXIT STRATEGY. But I won't. But you probably get the point.

I'm sure the man loves his son.  Of course he does.  But I think that a large part of his obsession with the boy and his well-being is that it give him something to do. To care about. A purpose. Remember, this is a man who has watched his whole world die, seen his spouse give up utterly and surrender to suicide, and is carrying around a gun loaded with two bullets just for his boy and himself.  This idea of giving-up can never be too far away from him.  Trust me on this. When you're dealing with this kind of stuff, just having something to get out of bed for, little objectives and routines (like catching last night's Daily Show online or dodging the next pack of hungry cannibals) go a long way.

On a somewhat related topic, about religion again. I can't shake this impression that the man has the faith, but is a bit uneducated when it comes to the details. It's like he remembers the broader themes and impressions of religiosity but not the lessons or the morals. His approach is somewhat akin to a pagan discovering pages from a religious text, getting the pages out of order, and missing the overall context of the works. I really think he went to church regularly as a child (he may have been forced) but all that is left is the moods, the colors of the rituals, but precious little of the content. He invokes symbols (fire, ash personified as the Eucharist, angels, etc.) like crude mantras, techniques to center himself, to comfort, to try and inject meaning where perhaps none exists. If you're a child attending church regularly, what sticks out are the rituals. When you're young, it takes repetition to drive things home; that's what works. Kneel. Stand. Recite. Pray. Kick the pew in front of you and contemplate the topography of the finely-crafted crucifix decorating the back of the sanctuary while your parents go and receive communion. These can all seem boring when you're young. But rituals can provide conform later in times of need. The can help with centering. Rituals equal rhythm, rhythms help us divide measures into beats, separate time into quantifiable units and goals. They may also just give us something to do.

A Funeral Procession

This post started as a comment on Jordan's blog post entitled "The Road" (http://jwpuente.blogspot.com/2011/02/road.html) before it got out of control (yikes!) so please start there. It relates to the scene where the man kills a stranger on the road, part of a larger group guiding a diesel truck.

This scene really does feel like a turning point and seems to initiate a downward trend in mood (which was painfully bleak to begin with). When the man returns to retrieve what's left of their cart he sees the other man's remains, those that had had not been cannibalized.. He is haunted by the other man's death, the death of his brother. We're all related to some extent, but now that there are fewer of us in the world, this family connection is that much closer. Even though this other was a "bad guy" as the boy would say, the loss of life is regrettable. I think the ghost of this stranger stays with the man for the rest of the book, and is partly responsible for his darkening mood and the book's decaying tone.

I think all the world's ghosts are following them on this journey. The trip is like one long funeral procession, and they are gathering more and more lost souls along the way. They are heading towards the ocean in an attempt to find a warmer clime, and, I believe, in hopes of attained a kind of baptismal cleansing. And they carry these ghosts with them all the way. At one point, the man makes a flute for the boy. In the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, a flute is used to enthrall rats and lead them into a river to drown. In the Bible, Jesus casts a group of demons known as Legion into a herd of pigs that drown themselves in the Sea of Galilee. Both of these last events represent cleansing in their own way, though they cleanse disease and evil, respectively, rather than sin.  Either way, I think this journey represents a pilgrimage of burial. Burial of the old world. Burial of the human race.

There are lots of ways for an apocalypse to happen, but really only one way for an apocalypse to end. It ends when the survivors learn to let go. Let go of what was lost, let go of the dead, let go of the gone world. This story is about letting go. But sometimes that is a long, dark voyage.


So how the heck did I get here from my original topic? Oh well. There's something else I want to write about, something that I felt was the main "point" of the novel for me, but I'll get to that later when we reach the end of this book and I've gotten my thoughts together. I'll just leave it with this: I think the man is being punished. Thanks for reading. 

Researching. Refining. Questioning.

Today, I have been deep into researching my I-Search topic, making interesting (and often disturbing) discoveries, and refining/revising my argument and thesis.  The initial question that has been confounding me is just how should I be framing this paper? Should I be outlining a scenario for how the world might end? Arguing for an apocalypse? Justifying it? Trying to dismiss it? I know that my focus is on voluntary extinction, but how should I be confronting it? Weighing its pros and cons? Explaining why it is such a fantastic idea for us all to follow the dodo bird (I don't think it is)? I have been struggling with these broad questions, but with each hour of research, each new source discovered, each new angle on the issue investigated, I can see that amorphous blot on the horizon getting clearer.  Slowly.

This is a difficult topic for me tackle: willful destruction.  The milder voices supporting this argument are advocating birth control, a responsible end to procreation, while the more extreme ones are calling for mass suicide (by the way, if you have the opportunity to visit the website of the Church of Euthanasia: DON'T! SERIOUSLY!).  My grandfather died last year which has inspired me to delve deeper into my family history, and, while I have no children and no current plans to have any in the perceivable future, the idea of a 100% end to procreation, whole bloodlines, families, dynasties, nations disappearing off the face of the Earth willfully is quite upsetting.

And one thing that has been troubling me is a more philosophical question. It's kind of like the old conundrum of "If a tree falls in the forest but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" but instead the question is: if the world goes on, but there are no intelligent, sentient lifeforms around to mark it passing either on quartz watches or scrawled on cave walls, does any of it matter?  Sure, dinosaurs and other lifeforms existed long before us, and others will after, but wasn't it always in the cards for humanity to show up one day?  I guess this strays into the realm of religious, the argument between intelligent design and random chance, and I probably will not be coming to a solution anytime soon.  But it's definitely something I have been confronting while trying to imagine a world without us.

This post has been more for my benefit than for anyone else, but I just thought I'd share...

Selecting My Research Topic

Since I do not plan to cover this in my presentation, I thought I would take this opportunity to talk a little about my process for narrowing down my final research topic.  Reading through the Slate article, I was mostly drawn to subjects that piqued my curiosity and personal interests rather than stray to the more "likely" scenarios.  I was surprised that my choices favored the softer sciences (social, economic, political) rather than issues involving the physical sciences which we more closely associate with apocalyptic events.

I liked the idea of decadence destroying the world since we live in such a culturally divided time.  The Rome comparison that is usually associated with this scenario is a bit too cliched, however.  I would have loved writing a survey for this topic to find out people's opinions on where our culture is headed, and to see what some of their personal indulgences are (American Idol? Lord, I hope not).  Ultimately though, I decided against this.

The Suburban Slums idea sounded fascinating because it's very topical.  However, I did not really know how to approach this.  I expected that it would rely too much on conjecture instead of facts or any legitimate hypothesis.

Laziness sounded like an interesting scenario, and for a while I considered blending this with the Ted talk that outlined a mental health epidemic leading to an apocalyptic event.  I would have centered my paper around the subject of apathy (which is either a symptom of depression, of other illnesses, or a disease unto itself depending on who you ask) and the idea of society atrophying from pandemic-level disinterest.  The disadvantage of taking this avenue is that I felt it would have strayed too far from the initial topic, and that it would have been too difficult to find supporting material.

I considered looking into the Biblical apocalypse because it would have made for fascinating research, but decided it would be too hard to remain objective enough when dealing with a religious issue.

My chosen topic is voluntary human extinction focusing in particular on an organization called the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT) that is advocating a complete, willful end to humanity's existence.  What intrigues me about this subject is the sincerity of its advocates, the immediate emotional response I felt when reading about it and looking through the Movement's website, and the interesting research paths I could take.  Much of the meat of this topic lives in people's reactions to it, their willingness to listen to the Movement's argument and, possible, to agree to go along with it.  Much of my source material will likely come from news organizations and interviews, and I am really excited about exploring this angle.  Also, this seemed like the perfect subject to allow the survey (the hands-on part of this hands-on assignment) to really shine.  Gauging people's reactions to this extreme viewpoint, figuring out what they object to about it, what they can agree with it on and whether there is a middle road to find on the issue is critical to whether or not the Movement (or others like it) can succeed.  Making this research the center of my paper and argument sounds like a great way to have some fun with this assignment, and I look forward to it.  I am sure that results will lead to a few surprises.

Anyway, I thought I should get that out of my system here rather than in my presentation. It has been interesting to hear about everyone's chosen topics, and good luck with all your research. I am sure that fascinating discoveries will be made. 

On The Road

    Cormac McCarthy's The Road is a sparse post-apocalyptic allegory that give the reader little in direct opinions or ease interpretations, instead relying on the reader to supply his or own meanings to the many haunting and strange images provided.  Yet, it seems to be the more subtle moments where the most is left unsaid, left to wide personal interpretation.  The terse conversations give us minimal insight into the character's moods and inner workings, especially the boy whose point of view we are rarely ever provided.
     Particularly vexing to me is a scene that begins on page 25 in which the pair arrives at the man's childhood home.  The man seems excited and anxious to explore the interior of the house, but the boy's immediate reaction is fear.  When the man asks, "Don't you want to see where I used to live?" the boy's simple response is NO.  He is afraid of finding anyone inside, a fear that is lost on the man.  This is a rare moment to see the man so quick to rush into danger when throughout the novel he is commonly urging caution.  Perhaps we could simply attribute this to him being blinded by his enthusiasm, but this also seems to be a somewhat out of character moment for the boy.
     While the boy grows more cautious and weary of leaving the road as the novel proceeds and the dangers around them seem to multiply, such an instantaneous visceral reaction at this stage in their journey to something so seemingly benign strikes me as odd.  Throughout the story, the man tells the boy numerous stories about the old world, and they share nostalgic moments with relics from the past, everything from a Coke to a flaregun, but the boy never shies away from these icons of the dead world.  Perhaps these are too harmless to cause a reaction, but when confronted with something that holds real elements of the past, real history (his father's history, in this case) the boy responses quickly and negatively.
     And the responses of the boy and the man to what they encounter on their journey only grow further apart from there.  We are reminded again and again that the man's world and the boy's world, the one he will grow up and survive in, are very different places.  The old world, the one, that no matter the cause, populated the countryside with savage cultists and cannibals, is as alien to the boy as this one is to the father.  There is hope there, I feel, that the boy and others like him, those that are born into this world and will live there for years to come, will not repeat the mistakes of their predecessors, will be at peace with their world and learn to survive within it.

Choices, Choices

I've been spending some time this weekend looking over the four books available for our reading group assignment, and I am surprised by how difficult this decision will be!  First, The Windup Girl is a novel that I've already read and really enjoyed.  The setting is one of the most well thought-out and realistic I have come across in science fiction in a long time (comparisons made to William Gibson's Neuromancer are well founded; another book worth checking out, by the way).  I know that there is plenty I can talk about and analyze here, but I'm also curious to check out the other three selections after investigating them further.

Uglies has an interesting premise that, like The Windup Girl, is very topical.  I've heard very good things, and enjoy the directness and lack of pretensions in YA novels.  The plot also sounds very similar to an old Twilight Zone episode I remember watching as a kid!  And I'm not the only one to notice the similarity (http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/2008/01/number-12-looks-suspiciously-familiar/). 

Boneshaker is something that's been on my radar for a very long time thanks to Amazon.com recommendations, but has kept getting pushed down further on my reading list.  I love both steampunk and weird fiction, and the description reminds me a little of China Mieville.  This one's currently leading the pack for me!

Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America (quite a mouthful) is the one I know the least about coming into this course. I'm intrigued because it just sounds like such a fun read, but some of the mixed reviews are an area of concern. I think that New York is a very overused setting for fiction, and compared to such vivid locales as an overcrowded Thailand, a quarantined, zombie-infested, steampunk Seattle, and a world of forced beauty, this seems a little short on imagination. But then maybe this book has the greatest opportunity to surprise me. That's certainly worth considering...

There's a lot to think over here, but it looks like I win with all four choices.