Hannes Bok and the Lorelei

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan R. Eller
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Short Fiction ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Fantasy Literature ◽  
World War ◽  
Senior Year ◽  
The Universe

This chapter discusses Hans (later Hannes) Bok's influence on Ray Bradbury's short fiction “Lorelei,” which was inspired by a gift the latter received from the artist and writer: a tempura painting of a strange Bokian creature. In Los Angeles, Bradbury continued to write stories. In the middle of his senior year Bradbury met Bok at one of the meetings of Science Fiction League and was drawn to his tempura compositions. This chapter first looks at Bradbury's friendship with Hannes Bok and their shared fondness for fantasy literature and fairy tales before turning to “Lorelei,” a 10,000-word novella written in July 1938 that articulates Bradbury's fears that the coming World War would destroy him before he could become a writer. It also considers Bradbury's religious faith and experiences, along with his conviction that Man would eventually solve the riddle of the universe.

Draugos ar zinātni: zinātniskie aspekti Jāņa Veseļa daiļradē

2021 ◽  
pp. 77-84
Author(s):  
Edgars Lāms
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Active Imagination ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
World War ◽  
Artistic Style ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
The Universe

Writer Jānis Veselis is a classic of the Latvian literature, one of the most peculiar prose writers from the 1920s to 1940s. Initially, the artistic style of Veselis was heavily influenced by World War I poetics of collision and expressionism, later by the ideas about neopagan movements. The writer has an active imagination. His writing style is characterised by fabulous neo-mythical tendencies. Despite that, Veselis was friends with science. Many of his texts are filled with delight about the achievements of modern science. He is taken away by the explosive growth of the exact sciences, especially astronomy. In the centre of many of Veselis’s works (“Sun’s Cemetery” (Saules kapsēta, 1921); “People of Fields” (Tīrumu ļaudis, 1927); literary cycle “Soul of Steel” (Tērauda dvēsele, 1934–1946)), there is a representative of engineer’s profession. Scientific aspects in the most concise way are integrated into the literary cycle of novels called “Soul of Steel” (“Human Uprising” (Cilvēku sacelšanās, 1934); “Soul of Steel” (Tērauda dvēsele, 1938); “Big March” (Lielais gājiens, 1946)). The novels are interspersed with science-fiction motifs. The first two novels of the cycle revolve around an engineer-constructor named Rudājs. He postulates ideas about man’s ability to control natural processes, and he also dreams about expanding into the universe. The novels “Human Uprising” and “Soul of Steel” are saturated with reflections about different modern science problems. For example, about obtaining energy from splitting atoms, endless lengths of space, and the universe’s eventual border. Scientific concepts and terminology from physics, chemistry, and astronomy are all common in the novels. At the end of the cycle’s second novel, the main character goes into the vast universe in his self-constructed rocket. The trilogy shows the writer’s power of insight and his rich imagination. In the context of the time, that is considered a rather innovative occurrence in Latvian novel. The dissonant mixture of scientific and mythological elements is regarded as a misleading element.

scholarly journals TRANSFORMATION OF A FAIRY TALE IN «HYBRID» SCIENCE FICTION (BASED ON AMERICAN AND RUSSIAN PROSE OF THE XXth CENTURY)

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 99-109
Author(s):  
V. S. Malykh
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Hard Science ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Horror Fiction ◽  
American Authors ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Hard Science Fiction

The article introduces and substantiates the concept of «hybrid» science fiction, which combines the elements of science fiction and horror fiction. In «hybrid» fiction, science fiction surroundings cannot rationalize the text, but, on the contrary, they are replaced by motives of supernatural horror. «Hybrid» science fiction, in contrast to «hard» science fiction , develops the idea of ​​ unknowability of the Universe. It is worth mentioning here, that «hard» science fiction has been described well enough, but there is a shortage of research work in relation to its «hybrid» version, so this research can be considered as pioneering. We use E. M. Neyolov’s typology that describes the connection between a fairy tale and «hard» science fiction. Basing on this typology, we analyse «hybrid» fiction, in which science fiction scenery was replaced by the anti-rational principle. The research methodology involves a combination of structural, typological and comparative methods. As a material for the study, we use the works of such Russian and American authors as D. Glukhovsky, S. Lukyanenko, G. R. R. Martin, S. King, C. McCarthy, H. P. Lovecraft and others. The purpose of the article is to identify and describe the transformation of fairytale discourse in the works of these authors that leads to the genre transition from science fiction to horror fiction. The texts are being analysed from three points of view: system of characters, the structure of space and the direction of time. It is concluded that in «hybrid» science fiction the typological model of the fairy tale was distorted, reconsidered or destroyed, and it is the aberration of the fairytale motif that opens the gate for the genre transformation from «hard» science fiction to horror fiction. For example, the struggle of the superhero with the supervillain is traditional both for fairy tales and for science fiction, but it is replaced by psychologization of the hero and the extreme complication of the metaphysics of the Good and the Evil in «hybrid» science fiction . Besides that, the well-organized space of fairytale and science fiction as well as a close-cut separation of «ours» and «aliens», and also the mythologem of «threshold» are mixed in «hybrid» fiction and lose their symbolical unambiguity. Finally, science fiction and fairytale time in «hybrid» fiction ceases to exist and gives way to the tragic timelessness of chaos and nightmare. Thus, «hybrid» fiction destroys both the canons of «hard» science fiction and the constructs of the fairy tale genre.

Turning Aliens into Socialists

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-93
Author(s):  
Jessica Moberg
Keyword(s):  
Outer Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Swedish History ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Highly Evolved

Immediately after the Second World War Sweden was struck by a wave of sightings of strange flying objects. In some cases these mass sightings resulted in panic, particularly after authorities failed to identify them. Decades later, these phenomena were interpreted by two members of the Swedish UFO movement, Erland Sandqvist and Gösta Rehn, as alien spaceships, or UFOs. Rehn argued that ‘[t]here is nothing so dramatic in the Swedish history of UFOs as this invasion of alien fly-things’ (Rehn 1969: 50). In this article the interpretation of such sightings proposed by these authors, namely that we are visited by extraterrestrials from outer space, is approached from the perspective of myth theory. According to this mythical theme, not only are we are not alone in the universe, but also the history of humankind has been shaped by encounters with more highly-evolved alien beings. In their modern day form, these kinds of ideas about aliens and UFOs originated in the United States. The reasoning of Sandqvist and Rehn exemplifies the localization process that took place as members of the Swedish UFO movement began to produce their own narratives about aliens and UFOs. The question I will address is: in what ways do these stories change in new contexts? Texts produced by the Swedish UFO movement are analyzed as a case study of this process.

The Resilient City

2005 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
World Trade Center ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Oklahoma City Bombing ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
Trade Center ◽  
The City

In 1871, the city of Chicago was almost entirely destroyed by what became known as The Great Fire. Thirty-five years later, San Francisco lay in smoldering ruins after the catastrophic earthquake of 1906. Or consider the case of the Jerusalem, the greatest site of physical destruction and renewal in history, which, over three millennia, has suffered wars, earthquakes, fires, twenty sieges, eighteen reconstructions, and at least eleven transitions from one religious faith to another. Yet this ancient city has regenerated itself time and again, and still endures. Throughout history, cities have been sacked, burned, torched, bombed, flooded, besieged, and leveled. And yet they almost always rise from the ashes to rebuild. Viewing a wide array of urban disasters in global historical perspective, The Resilient City traces the aftermath of such cataclysms as: --the British invasion of Washington in 1814 --the devastation wrought on Berlin, Warsaw, and Tokyo during World War II --the late-20th century earthquakes that shattered Mexico City and the Chinese city of Tangshan --Los Angeles after the 1992 riots --the Oklahoma City bombing --the destruction of the World Trade Center Revealing how traumatized city-dwellers consistently develop narratives of resilience and how the pragmatic process of urban recovery is always fueled by highly symbolic actions, The Resilient City offers a deeply informative and unsentimental tribute to the dogged persistence of the city, and indeed of the human spirit.

Sacrifice and Modern War Literature

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Religious Faith ◽  
War Literature ◽  
Ford Madox Ford ◽  
Elizabeth Bowen ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Modern War ◽  
First World

Sacrifice and Modern War Literature is the first book to explore how writers from the early nineteenth century to the present have addressed the intimacy of sacrifice and war. It has been common for critics to argue that after the First World War many of the cultural and religious values associated with sacrifice have been increasingly rejected by writers and others. As the contributors to this volume show, though, literature has continued to address how different conceptions of sacrifice have been invoked in times of war to convert losses into gains or ideals. While those conceptions have sometimes been rooted in a secular rationalism that values lost lives in terms of political or national victories, spiritual and religious conceptions of sacrifice are also still in evidence—as with the ‘martyrdom operations’ of jihadis fighting against the ‘war on terror’. The volume’s fifteen chapters each present fresh insights into the literature of a particular conflict. Most of the authors discussed are major war writers (e.g. Wordsworth, Kipling, Ford Madox Ford, Elizabeth Bowen), but important writers who have received less critical attention are also featured (e.g. Dora Sigerson, Richard Aldington, Thomas Kinsella, Nadeem Aslam). Discussion ranges across a variety of genres: predominantly novels and poetry (particularly elegy and lyric), but also memoirs and some films. The range of literature examined complements the rich array of topics related to wartime sacrifice that the contributors discuss—including scapegoating, martyrdom, religious faith, tragedy, heroism, altruism, ‘bare life’, atonement, and redemption.

The Cosmic Mystery Tour

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Mee
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
Galactic Centre ◽  
Red Giants ◽  
Extraterrestrial Life ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Universe

The Cosmic Mystery Tour is a brief account of modern physics and astronomy presented in a broad historical and cultural context. The book is attractively illustrated and aimed at the general reader. Part I explores the laws of physics including general relativity, the structure of matter, quantum mechanics and the Standard Model of particle physics. It discusses recent discoveries such as gravitational waves and the project to construct LISA, a space-based gravitational wave detector, as well as unresolved issues such as the nature of dark matter. Part II begins by considering cosmology, the study of the universe as a whole and how we arrived at the theory of the Big Bang and the expanding universe. It looks at the remarkable objects within the universe such as red giants, white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes, and considers the expected discoveries from new telescopes such as the Extremely Large Telescope in Chile, and the Event Horizon Telescope, currently aiming to image the supermassive black hole at the galactic centre. Part III considers the possibility of finding extraterrestrial life, from the speculations of science fiction authors to the ongoing search for alien civilizations known as SETI. Recent developments are discussed: space probes to the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn; the discovery of planets in other star systems; the citizen science project SETI@Home; Breakthrough Starshot, the project to develop technologies to send spacecraft to the stars. It also discusses the Fermi paradox which argues that we might actually be alone in the cosmos

scholarly journals “Making Nonsense of the Little Categories”: Slaughterhouse-Five and The Memoirs of a Survivor as autobiographical science fiction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Georgia Hight
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Living Room ◽  
World War ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Traumatic Memories ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
Southern Rhodesia ◽  
The City ◽  
Second World

<p>Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) and Doris Lessing’s The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974) are both novels that blend autobiography with science fiction. In a review of Vonnegut’s Mother Night, Lessing writes that he “makes nonsense of the little categories”. The same applies to Lessing. These two novels live in the porous borders between genre—between fiction and non-fiction.  Vonnegut writes that he can’t remember much of his experiences in the firebombing of Dresden in the Second World War. The war novel he writes about them has a protagonist who is “unstuck in time”. I frame my discussion of Slaughterhouse around problems of temporal and narrative ordering. Through use of fractured time, repetitions, and the chronotope, Vonnegut finds a way to express his missing and traumatic memories of the war.  Lessing’s memories are of her early childhood in Persia and Southern Rhodesia. These memories are warped, claustrophobic, and difficult to articulate. Like Slaughterhouse, Memoirs fractures time and space. I organise my discussion of Lessing’s novel around the latter, focusing on a literalised porous border: her dissolving living room wall. Borders and portals between spaces in Memoirs blend the dystopian, science-fiction world of the city with the world of Lessing’s memories; dreams with reality; and the static with the dynamic.  I pose several answers to the question of why science fiction and autobiography. A shared occupation of the two authors was a concern for the madness and dissolution of society, and science fiction engages in a tradition of expressing these concerns. Additionally, Vonnegut and Lessing use the tools of a genre in which it is acceptable for time and space to be warped or fractured. These tools not only allow for the expression of memories that are fragmented, difficult, and half forgotten, but produce worlds that mirror the form of these personal memories.</p>

scholarly journals Fantasy in Literature: A Symbiotic Relation to the Real

Pravaha ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-123
Author(s):  
Lekha Nath Dhakal
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Real World ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
External Reality ◽  
The Real ◽  
Fantasy Fiction ◽  
Fantastic Fiction ◽  
Artistic Representation ◽  
Symbiotic Relation

This article attempts to explore the use of fantasy in literature and how it has attained the position of a literary category in the twentieth century. This work also concerns how as the form literature, it functions between wonderful and imitative to combine the elements of both. The article reveals that wonderful represents supernatural atmospheres and events. The story-telling is unrealistic which represents impossibility as it creates a wonderland. In the imitative or the realistic mode, the narrative imitates external reality. In it, the characters and situations are ordinary and real. Fantasy in literature does not escape the reality. It occurs in an interdependent relation to the real. In other words, the fantastic cannot exist independently of the real world that limits it. The use of fantastic mode in literature interrupts the conventional artistic representation and reproduction of perceivable reality. It embodies the reality and transgresses the standards of literary forming. It normally includes a variety of fictional works which use the supernatural and actually natural as well. The developers of fantasy fiction are fairy tales, science fiction about future wars and future world. A major instinct of fantastic fiction is the violence threatened by capitalist violation of personality that is spreading universally.

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