Literature of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction

  Annihilation is as strange as it can possibly be. The narrator is the protagonist of the story and one of the four experts that goes to this place called Are X which is separated by an invisible gate and somehow they cannot use modern technology there and everything they take has to be at least thirty years old. Area X does something to the ecosystem which affects everything and changes things. Right from the beginning of the book I felt that there is something wrong and I should not be here and it was not even clear why these characters would want to go there if they know that various traumas happened to the people from previous expeditions. There is a great set up of suspense and foreshadowing of what is going to happen. The four women in the expedition are not supposed to know even each other's names which makes the whole thing impersonal but I think that there is more personality in here as it is written not from the neutral outsider’s point of view but as a diary of the biol...

  Although the lecture by Dr. William Tsuitusi is about Godzilla. I liked the research aspect behind the fantasy worlds and characters. Dr. Tsuitusi leads his lecture in a conversational form making jokes and involving students which is a good way to keep them involved in the theme. The Mosasaurs was a good discovery for me which turns out to be the core aspect in the name Gojira (Godzilla) which is a combination of words gorilla and whale. The origins of Godzilla is based on the success of the re-released King Kong and The Beast from 20.000 Fathoms which gave this idea of a giant monster to Japanese filmmakers. Godzilla was supposed to be a very serious film. The special effects during the world war were pretty simple and they were using miniatures but these miniatures were very detailed. Dr. William Tsuitusi also mentions the problems of American adaptations of original movies. He recommends to watch the 1954 film which includes the Hiroshima events and being a fairly serious m...

   Haruki Murakami creates these weird worlds where nothing should make sense and he does not even put an effort to explain or make things ordinary. In A Wild Sheep Chase the characters do not have names and the protagonist tells the story in first person narration. However, the characters have interesting nicknames that I think play a bigger role in describing them than just names such as “the girl who’d sleep with anyone.” While reading the book I had this weird feeling that was hard to explain but made me go a few years back when I was reading Murakami’s Kafka On The Shore. I guess all his books share the same energy and it is in the words. The way he describes morning and how tasteless everything seems because of the morning sun evokes hazy feelings.  Back to weirdness, the ears being the center of attention, a part of the body that is usually neglected as people mostly pay attention to the eyes, nose and mouth. We never heard somebody say “your ears are so beautiful”...

  The Interview With a Vampire was both predictable and surprising for me. One of the things that amused me was the emotional aspect of Louis. For me, he became more sensual after his transition to vampire than he was as a human. The way he describes his last sunrise, or the caring about other people, especially Claudia is very delicate and emotional. Living as a vampire for more than two centuries Louis decides to tell his story to a young reporter which for me sounded less of an interview than a monologue, a lesson for an audience. Unfortunately, at the end of the story the boy makes the opposite conclusions based on the story he just heard and wants to become a vampire as well. Lestat’s character is a curse itself let alone for the whole eternity. In my opinion, if Lestat was a human he could be considered as an emotional vampire as he keeps poisoning the life of Louis and drains his energy. There is a feeling of late motif throughout the story when Claudia and Louis start to ki...

  The lecture about the Gothic by Professor David Punter helped me understand the specifics of the genre and find similarities between stories that seemed completely different before. While explaining the theme Professor Punter discusses various books from the very first books written in the 1780s and 90s to more recent ones. Some of these books interested me due to this lecture, for example, The Castle of Otranto and The Monk. It was not very clear to me what the concept of sublime is but the phrase “the world is far more powerful than you” helped me understand the feeling behind it. I enjoyed learning about the reasons why people watch or read horror stories. One of the reasons brought by Professor Punter surprised me as he claims that watching something frightful may help people feel less frightened in the outside world as I usually noticed that after watching horror movies people become more scared of for instance, similar places they saw in the movie. It was easier to understa...

  Frankenstein is considered one of the most famous Gothic novels. The characters are typical to the genre with the protagonist, Dr. Frankenstein, a handsome, well-educated man that is sent to study and is about to succeed is very similar to a romantic hero but his actions lead to destruction of his life and the ones he loves, thus questioning his heroism. Frankenstein’s creature is an outcast that does not belong in this world which makes him a great gothic character. This novel belongs to the kind of Gothic where the author gives natural and scientific explanation of the events such as the scientific practices used by Dr. Frankenstein. The female characters fall into the frame of the genre as well; given the minimum significance, all three female characters of the story do not act much and die at the end. While reading the novel I enjoyed the “story within a story” structure that confused me in the beginning but made sense at the end wrapping up the story the same way as it start...

       The picture of Dorian Gray is a vivid example of Gothic text with its dark tone and the presence of the handsome, wealthy and mysterious male protagonist that has much resemblance to the romantic hero. However, Dorian appears to be more villain than a classic romantic protagonist. I was captivated by and related to Basil's character right from the beginning of the story through the misunderstanding between him and Lord Henry about his painting of Dorian Gray. It sometimes feels like the artists live in a completely different world where they have an alternative understanding of the reality. The inciting incident of the story feels hidden for while as it is just an innocent wish Dorian has after seeing his portrait. I think at some point everyone had wishes like that but Oscar Wild makes this wish come true which makes it not so innocent anymore. The immortal youth of Dorian Gray is in the core of making the story an example of a supernatural Gothic genre. Lord...