A readers’ pick of favorites, so much new and
diverse (5/5)
The first collection of Japanese speculative
fiction—before speculative fiction was a nomenclature—was back in 1989:
Martin H. Greenberg and John L. Apostolou’s The Best Japanese Science Fiction Stories
(which was entirely translated by Grania Davis and Judith Merril). Eight years
had to pass before it was republished in 1997 without any new material added.
The world would have to wait another decade for another collection to
materialize in order to sate the appetites of readers who like speculative
Japanese fiction.
In 2007, Kurodahan Press released Speculative
Japan (edited by Gene van Troyer and Grania Davis), which includes five
stories from the former collection. Kurodahan’s collection had ten new stories
and opened a door of fascination to the microcosm of speculative literature in Japan
Teasingly, Kurodahan took four years to release the
second book in the now running series: Speculative Fiction 2 (2011).
With this collection, all thirteen stories had never before been published and
all but one author had never before been included in either of the prior
publications (Shinji Kajio is in both of Kurodahan’s collections). That means
there are twelve new authors! And as a bonus, each story is translated by a
different translator, too. This gives the collection a broad range of content
via the authors and style via the translators.
With Speculative Fiction 2, though I haven’t
been as generous with the 5-star ratings as with the first collection, you
really can’t fault the collection for having (in my opinion) only two
under-4-star stories. My three favorites are (1) Issui Ogawa’s “Old Vohl’s
Planet” for its combination of hard science with alien identity and a human
message; (2) Shinji Kajio’s “Emanon: A Reminiscence” for its speculative
shattering of the emotional barrier of what could be to what should
have been; and (3) Yasumi Kobayashi’s “The Man Who Watched the Sea” for its
combination of the other two stories: hard science, love, and endurance.
If you’re an eager reader of similar stories, then
you’ll be satisfied to know that Speculative Japan
Aside: All of these stories were individually reviewed and analyzed at other blog Tongues of Speculation and there on SF Potpourri they are collected. That's why this post is about 5,400 words long.
A Gift from
the Sea (shortstory, 1977) – Naoko Awa (4/5)
Synopsis: Little
Kanako receives two fifty-yen coins from her bedridden mother so that she can
buy something at the village’s market festival. The paltry sum can buy her very
little, but she’s determined to buy one thing for herself and another for her
mother. An out-of-place woman sells a bag of “sakura shells” to her, which
clatter in her pocket as she walks, yet they also whisper her toward the sea.
There at the sea, women gamble with the shells and Kanako learns of her own
naivety. 6 pages
Analysis:
Kanako’s intentions were pure; she was grateful for the money as she knew they
could barely afford the wastefulness. While eyeing the market, only the
glittering shells were within the reach of power to spend. With a bagful of
beautiful shells, she learns that all that sparkles and clatters isn’t
necessarily worthy of its own beauty. Naivety
strikes her upon losing all of her shells in the marble-like gambling near the
ocean’s tideline when Kanako returns to the market to buy another bag so that
she can win all her shells back. Upon finding the shell vendor absent, another
vendor tell her of the thieving “old woman from the sea” who steals children’s
money.
Immediately, Kanako is
offended with the theft and runs back to the shore. There, without shells in
hand or a physical gift for her mother, she confronts her innocent senses of
trust, ignorance… and generosity.
Freud (shortstory,
2007) – Toh Enjoe (4/5)
Synopsis: An
elderly woman dies and her extended family gather at her isolated house to
witness its demolition as it’s an onus to them all. When removing the twenty
floor mats, they find a lifeless and life-sized Freud under each. They haul and
line the Freuds out, discussing what it meant to the old woman and how it affects
them. None have a deep understanding of Freud but they all agree that they’re
living some sort of dream, but what does this dream mean to the dreamer? 11
pages
Pre-analysis: In
Freud’s Die Traumdeutung, later abridge in English as On Dreams,
Freud’s main concept is that the subconscious drives imagery in dreams to
reflect its wish fulfillment, the unconscious mind distorts the meaning of
information so images in dreams aren’t what they appear to be. Within the first
page, Freud writes, “[E]very dream will show itself to be a senseful
psychological structure which may be introduced into an assignable place in the
psychic activity of the waking state.” He also said there are three kinds: (1)
direct prophecy, (2), foretelling, (3) and symbolic.
Analysis: The
English idiom skeletons in the closet refers to a secret that, if
revealed, would be damaging to the secret-holder. While reading “Freud”, I
liked to think that Freuds under the tatami mat was the Japanese
equivalent phrase. The dreamscape in which the narrator finds herself is in
grandmother’s house. She and her family agree that since she knows most about
the psychology of Freud, that she must be the dreamer. The responsibility lies
on her to save their grandmother by changing the paradigm of the dream—make
grandma undead. But as she considers on her responsibility, she also reflects
on the interpretation of the dream: Why had her grandmother slipped near the
pond? Why are they destroying her house? Why are there Freuds under her tatami
mats?
At this point in the
story, the reader must analyze the speculative relationship between the woman
narrator and her grandmother. She died in the garden because of a shared secret
hidden there? There are destroying the house to hide that secret? Are the
Freuds the crumbs of truth, lined up for all to see among the family?
The Whale
that Sang on the Milky Way Network (shortstory, 1984) – Mariko Ohara (4/5)
Synopsis: The
backwater planet of Hulftvahl is home to petty grudges, simple puppy love, and
limited aspirations. Most of the youth find themselves plants roots on the same
planet or flung far abroad with Space Command. Though adventure and exotic ways
of life are distant from their everyday lives, The Gardus Show occasionally
brings them a tatse of both. Young Joshua and his crush watch Whale on stage;
impressed with the sight, they seek friendship with the giant, only to learn
about their own urbaneness. 19 pages
Pre-analysis: I’m a
small town boy. I understand small town aspirations, also known as a lack
of horizon or well, this is good enough for me. Call it the lack of
opportunity or the leash of abidance, the apathy of a small town bent of
zero-growth doesn’t exactly inspire the banally jaded townies. Kegs in a
cornfield are a source of excitement as are stealing ceramic dwarves, shooting
bottle rockets at each other, and discovering new items in the frozen foods
aisle. Love here is complacency, finding someone who won’t murder you in your
sleep or insist on wearing matching outfits while shopping together. If two
things are simple, they are so-called aspirations and so-called love.
Analysis: Joshua
and Ligarde are young, naïve and, conforming to all small town clichés, stuck
in the rut in which they were born. Both of them see a chance to discover
something otherworldly by befriending Whale. The Whale’s extraordinary story
and its promise of interstellar travel titillate the couple’s backwater minds.
Whale’s lonely existence amid interstellar vacuum pulls the strings of sympathy
from their hearts. After they conspire to publicize Whale’s existence on the
Milky Network, they find themselves as small town folk on a larger scene, yet
still stuck in their small town ways.
Even the most exotic of
circumstances and the blessing of the most exotic of characters have difficulty
penetrating the mental complacency of the small town mind.
Old
Vohl’s Planet (novelette, 2003) – Issui Ogawa (5/5)
Synopsis: A
turbulent gas-giant orbits its sun and is ravaged by both punishing winds and
temperatures, yet an alien species still thrives in its seas, forever
planet-bound. One large amoeba-like member optically views an incoming body
that destroys most of its species, but not before transferring its knowledge to
the rest of the species. Thereon, all remain vigilant toward skyward peril—and
one body is seen that is sure to destroy their lives, their world. With their
remaining time, the species collectively attempts to contact another species,
if there are any. 26 pages
Pre-analysis: The
gears of bureaucracy are weighty, ponderable, and largely immovable. Regardless
of warnings or research, most governments simply shrug in the face of
statistical danger while cladding themselves in their warm blanket of ain’t
a problem yet, won’t be a problem later. With both manpower and money at their
disposal, the gears still grind their steady decadal tunes, accommodating very
little that’s new into their orchestra of maintaining the status quo. And yet,
with each passing year and the ridiculous news items that summarize our state
of affairs—as a country or as a planet—very little gets done, yet most can
foresee the result of the government’s perpetual inaction.
Q: End America’s nuclear weapon program?
A: Nope, not with others wielding the same
weapons.
Q: Cut carbon dioxide emissions?
A: Nope, not when fossil fuels are so
profitable.
Q: Put an end to weapon ownership?
A: Nope, we glorify war too much to end that.
Q: Use alternative sources of energy?
A: Nope, nature will balance out the actions
of seven billion people.
Q: Fund the search for near-Earth objects?
A: Nope, the likelihood is far too remote.
Analysis: As much
infighting as the aliens did in their history—based on size and age—, they have
very admirable qualities which span their history until the conclusion of the
story: (1) they share knowledge of the their immediate demise realize its
gravity, (2), they unify to seek out other such world-shattering objects, and
(3) they unify to search for civilization that may assist them when the end
nears. This is all possible due to their unique physiological trait that allows
them to pass on and store knowledge passed down through the generations.
The amoeba-like aliens can
unite and progress with their own millennium-long salvation because they objectify
knowledge, share knowledge, accept knowledge, and react to
knowledge. Their alien-equivalent eyes are tinted or tainted by self-interest
or lobbied interest; their only interest is for their own long-term
survival—for their race.
Aside from the elimination
of the small pox virus, has there ever been another altruistic drive to benefit
human life since then?
For being able to pull
together for the benefit of the greater common good, these aliens deserve any
respect or solace given to them. They may not be human-like in any physical,
cultural, or governmental regard, but their actions and ambition definitively
echo what’s best of who we ought be.
The Big
Drawer (shortstory, 1994) – Riku Onda (3/5)
Synopsis:
Mitsunori has the incredible ability to memorize everything he ever reads,
including sheet music—but everyone in his family can do that—; however, he is
forbidden to reveal their family secret to anyone. As his parents prepare to
sift through their stored information while in a self-induced coma, the boy
experiences his first boom, or a sudden realization of reality. As he
kneels next to a dying man, he witnesses the man’s lifetime of tribulations.
Come the man’s funeral, Mitsunori aims to put things right. 16 pages
Pre-analysis: The
traditional view of intelligence is based on book knowledge, that a good
student who earns high marks is generally regarded as an intelligent person. I
like to think they “play school” well. I’ve known some school-smart people in
my life; people who could easily pass a prepared test with some studying… yet
they would easily fall victim to the most blatant scam on the street.
Street-smart and school-smart aren’t the only kinds of intelligence though. We
would need to look at knowledge and wisdom to understand more about humans and
information—knowledge is static and quantifiable; wisdom is fluid and dynamic.
Analysis:
Mitsunori’s parents are terribly proud of their ability to remember and recall.
The boy knows that he has also has the ability, but hasn’t reach the age of
maturity where it begins to affect him. His parents demand that they move
around a lot so as to evade suspicion due to their supernatural gift. Mitsunori
is a good student, but he’s also a good boy. When he experiences the death of
the man, he does more than store the knowledge—he uses the man’s knowledge to
mend the man’s history of family misunderstandings. Where his parents were
proud of their knowledge, Mitsunori can now be proud of his wisdom.
Emanon: A
Reminiscence (shortstory, 1979) – Shinji Kajio (5/5)
Synopsis: Scorned
by age-long unreciprocated love, a young man steels himself against further
pain from raw emotional wounds. On a 17-hour ferry ride, a beautiful girl
befriends him. As they begin drinking beer together, she shares her “believe it
or not” story. The man, being a fan of SF, takes her story to heart and
analyzes it for relevance: Though her body is young, her mind contains the
memory of three billion years of direct evolution. As he wakes, she is gone.
Thirteen years later, their mutual memories of each other linger. 17 pages
Analysis: Before
the age of social media, you never knew anyone virtually—everyone you knew was
direct (family and friends) or indirect (friends of friends or distant
relatives). If you wanted to find someone you didn’t know well, you either used
the white pages or asked around. If you met someone in passing while on holiday
or in transit, that person would likely be lost to you forever, leaving only
the tenuous memory. When that person made an impression on you, the mark was
indelible and the memory could remain vivid, regardless of never having met
again (wouldn’t they love to know of that indelible imprint that has been
carries around for years or decades?). It sucks to linger on what could have
been, but only the human mind can attempt to grasp at the impossible.
Our ability to ponder what
could have been has created the genre of SF—or what could be. The
lonely man in the story is a fan a SF, so he knows all too well what could have
been and what could be. After meeting Emanon (“no name” spelled backwards), he
dwells on his stagnant longing for the girl. He mulls her unreal story of
having the memory of three billion years of evolution and tactic knows one
thing: she’s out there, she’s real, and he loves her. Yet, his longing has
limited his mind from what could be to what should have been.
When, finally, the man
meets Emanon again, she isn’t as he had expected and the impression he had made
wasn’t as tenuous as he had expected: “[H]alf an hour or a few decades, it’s
all the same … either is but an instant” (103).
Midst the
Mist (shortstory, 2007) – Koji Kitakuni (4/5)
Synopsis: Lee’s a
seasoned investigator while Sakaguchi is the novice, both of who discover a dog
axed to death. A nearby cowbarn raises their suspicions, so they drive to the
homestead where a family of three are about to sit down to dinner. Lee asks
detached questions to the man, which makes Sakaguchi uncomfortable. When the
man accepts and chews a piece of pre-chewed gum, Lee shoots the man’s face off
and runs to kill his wife. Meanwhile, Sakaguchi holds the boy, hoping he isn’t
one of them, too. 18 pages
Pre-analysis: I
remember once reading, long ago, that there were many types of love, not just
the four, five or six attributed to the Greeks. If a modern word like love
can be analyzed and broken down into constituent parts and contextual use, it
clearly isn’t the simple, pure emotion we think it to me.
On the opposite side of
the coin, there is hate. If love can be divided into types, surely hate,
too, can be divvied up… or are we too proud of love to treat it like hate? Is
the word so loathsome that it shouldn’t be treated like its opposite emotion?
As there are different
realms of love/hate, there are also different degrees of love/hate. Each can
span the spectrum from passive to active or maniacal to peripheral, but when
the love/hate becomes logical, it transcends its own definition.
Analysis: The
premise of the story is that an insect-like alien species has invaded Earth and
taken control of their human hosts, simply for sake of their own survival.
Because of their willing inflicted harm on humankind, they exhibit a kind of
hate—an active yet tame hate. Meanwhile, Lee is an investigator who relishes
hunting down and killing these human hosts and, thereby, the alien parasites—his
hate is active and borderline maniacal. His partner, Sakaguchi, is shocked by
Lee’s aggressiveness, only going through the motions by following Lee—his hate
is passive and tepid. Toward the end of the story, Sakaguchi’s passive form of
hate morphs into an active form of love.
The Man
Who Watched the Sea (novelette, 2002) – Yasumi Kobayashi (5/5)
Synopsis: The
region called Mountain holds a festival every year in which they parade around
floats pulled by members of the village. Each year, many people make the trek
from the region called Shore to see the exhibition; this is when boy meets
girl. As she departs, she promises to return “next year”, but she fails to
remember that each region—Mountain and Shore—have different temporal speeds.
Through their respective telescopes, the girl lives very slowly while the boy
lives very quickly. Eventually, they reunite only to separate once again to
experience the pain of departed love. 22 pages
Pre-analysis: We all
have the story of the one that got away or what could have been. Like
Kajio’s short story “Emanon: A Reminiscence” (1979), a boy quickly falls in
love with a girl after a brief but memorable first meeting, only to be
separated by time and longing. Almost all emotions can be summarized into a few
words at least pictured in a facial expression, but love is the only one that
escapes definition, never mind that the Greeks could number the types of love.
No one can tell you what it is, only what it feels like—a rough analogy, a
logical exploration/explanation of the purest emotion. Again like the Greeks,
this love change; in this case, it’s a change from longing to appreciation.
Analysis: In
Kaijo’s story, the pang of love is one of separation by time. Here in
Kobayashi’s story, however, the boy and girl are separated by more than just
time, and even beyond the fundamental natures of time and space, but also by parental
chiding—the live apart, they live at different speeds, so their lives are
incompatible. Regardless of their differences, they still seek each other out
in order to fulfill their emotional motivations. When thy reunite, it’s a
bittersweet moment as they know they must leave one another yet again, a
division of space and time.
Here, again like Kaijo’s
conclusion of a timeless kind of love, the boy gets to realize that the girl’s
love is timeless, too, in one sense. In Kaijo’s conclusion, the love the two
had shared is carried by the woman through time as an indelible memory of an
immortal soul—the relic of their love is a timeless memory. This is similar to
Kobayashi’s conclusion, though the memory of their love isn’t an intangible
memory; rather, the relic of their love is a light that everyone can see;
though this light is visible to all, it’s the boy who knows the source and
meaning of the light.
Melk’s
Golden Acres (shortstory, 2006) – Nobuko Takagi (3/5)
Synopsis: The
Melk Abbey has a long and rich history amid the vineyard it’s surrounded by,
yet it’s the library that holds the abbey’s true historical wealth in the
centuries’ old documents and frescoes. Also, there’s an emotional element with
the placement of the window and the security of the rhombus of sunlight as the
only sense of warmth. Seeing a red vase in the fresco, a visitor is made aware
of a woman standing behind the same vase. The old man spins a story of having
the woman as his wife and growing a vineyard together. 18 pages
Pre-analysis:
Thailand is a place studded with ancient history with its well-manicured
temples from days of yore—stoic monoliths of erect stone and receding mazes of
ruddy rock. Walking amid the temples, upon the stairs, across the lawn, and
through the doorways, one can’t help but think of who inhabited this plain—What
lives did they lead? What sorrows had they experienced? What joys did they
share?—and how it affected the city. The all the people have passed away from
this once great city, do their emotions still course through the porous rock?
Surely, any region on this earth can offer a similar experience, such as the
German abbey in “Melk’s Golden Acres”.
Analysis: An idle
mind can create a focus for its stirring prowess; these objects of focus can
become idols or obsessions. As minutes whittle away, so too do the hours, days,
and years, the focus of the mind makes this object a center point of its existence.
If intangible emotion can be imprinted into something tangible, surely the
age-long fixation of an idle mind could effuse the sensation into the very
walls, the very fresco that had held its attention for so long. Could it effuse
so much of its own vitality to imbue volition upon the once static image? It
would take a rather fragile mind or an incredible mind to believe that its
object of obsession had come to life.
Q-Cruiser Basilisk (novella, 1984) –
Koshu Tani (4/5)
Synopsis: Aboard
the Gurkha 107, Ozaki is just a lackey with a few of the other crew.
When they get a call to intercept a fast-traveling object in the Sirius system,
they discover the Basilisk, last seen in the year 2100. The mystery is
how it came all the way to Sirius with its weak propulsion. As a lackey, Ozaki
is volunteered to investigate the ship’s interior, where he finds a log. In
this log, the ship’s demise during the war is chronicled as well as the
captain’s bizarre experience outside of Sol’s system. 48 pages
Pre-analysis: This is
a hard-SF story that offers to simply tell its story in the most direct manner
possible; while it may have the least overtones of emotion, theme, or moral, it
does contain some elements that I identify as intrinsically Japanese. Usually, an overarching theme is obvious or
subtle, yet it tends to percolate eventually. With “Q-Cruiser Basilisk”,
I had to dig a few layers deep to find an appreciable theme and the one which I
found is as noble as the others.
Analysis: As
mentioned in the synopsis, Ozaki is just a simple lackey on the ship. When the
ship approaches the mysterious derelict of Basilisk, the
skipper—Ming—sends his lackey into the face of danger while he’s safely secured
in his own ship. Ozaki knows his lowly place and so ventures into the
dislocated and ancient craft to find about its origins. This is Ozaki’s story,
but within the ghost ship of Basilisk, he finds another story.
A ghost ship, like the Flying
Dutchman or the Basilisk, is a relic of the past. It’s an island
into itself, a separated body untouched by the recent past. While some ghost
ships are mere days, weeks, or months old, the Basilisk is an ancient
relic some-150 years old. Its physicality is a relic, but so are the cultural
norms that it used to carry with its living crew. The story that surfaces from
a document found by Ozaki highlights that key cultural norms have changed in
regards to hierarchical obligation.
Nils Hellner was the last
survivor of his ship, he the Master and Commander. Early in his crew’s campaign
to avoid capture, Nils had the judgment call to escape straight out into open
space with suspended hope for rescue; sadly, for the crew, the judgment was flawed
and their hopes quashed. As their hopelessness persists, they realize they need
to maintain focus, so they continue to shoulder the yoke of duty as they stay
busy taking measurements of space with various instruments. Eventually, they
also realize that their individual lives mean very little and that their
collective continuance must endure; therefore, sacrifices must be made. As Nils
has relieved their crew of official duty, they make decisions based on honor
rather than duty. By ones and twos, the crew off themselves through the airlock
leaving Nils the singular soul on board; the remaining oxygen, provisions, and
space are all his. With his enduring solitary life, the crew invested the
shared hope for their story to be known.
As Ozaki finishes reading
the Basilisk’s tale of heroism and sacrifice, the skipped of his own
ship yanks them from their duty. They must abandon the derelict ship, forever
leaving its story and solitary crew to drift through open naked space, its
story never told, its sacrifices never shared. Instead of respecting the noble
crew and their sacrificial efforts, Ozaki’s skipper decides to cut loose and
fly off toward another emergency, one that reeks of self-interest, convenience,
and egoism.
Mountaintop
Symphony (novelette, 1989) – Norio Nakai (4/5)
Synopsis:
Higashikoji Kojiro wrote a symphony once, but it took him eighty-three years of
relentless copying from the music in his mind. It filled over one hundred
warehouses and only began to see the light when Ujihara Tamotsu urged that the
symphony be played in its entirety, which may last as long as ten thousand
years. A mountaintop amphitheater was constructed and the eight daily
orchestras have been playing for over a hundred years without pause. Now, the
800-Person Movement approaches but no one is quite ready for it. 27 pages
Pre-analysis: Most
people can’t draw, paint, sing, or write worth a damn; their creativity is
limited to making lines at the Apple store during a product launch. Not all of
us can be gifted in any of the arts (while I love to write, I don’t have the
time, patience, or talent). There are a few things I love and would love to be
included in organizing a event for any of them: running, craft beer, science
fiction, and teaching. If I were to organize an event for any of those, I would
feel privileged to work among other fans/aficionados/professionals toward making
an event we would be proud of. We’ve all probably even volunteer and end up
losing a bit of our own money just for the sake of doing it right.
Then there are those
events that are organized by others, like a 5km race organized by bureaucratic
university heads or a local craft beer festival organized by an art gallery
(speaking from my experience in August, actually). How can you fluff up
something as simple as serving beer? The love obviously wasn’t there; more
likely, the all-holy dollar signs (or, here, the basking radiance of the baht)
influenced their every move.
Analysis: Be it
solos or ensembles, the musicians of the neatly-infinite symphony all know
their parts. Each cherishes their part with their very heart, reveling in the
sense of community (with fellow musicians) and the project (with time, itself).
However, due to their level of direct involvement, they don’t have the
necessary time to organize themselves on the more general level, like preparing
for the mass ensemble. Along each of the bureaucratic steps toward achieving
the ensemble, their progress is snared because of human error (the
transcriptions), human limitations (the 800-shaku instrument), or human
indecisiveness (the amphitheater).
As each of these parts was
not headed by musicians that were directly involved in the playing of the
symphony, each part resulted in it being fuddled one way or another. While the
playing of the music is a well-polished clock face, the scene behind the music
is a tumult of springs and gears, each with an increasing fallacy of what we
call human error. The 10,000-year symphony could very well be completed by
immortal human musicians, but the only snare in their plot is the organization,
an organization by outsiders likely to throw a spanner into the gear works.
Open Up (shortstory,
2007) – Akira Hori (4/5)
Synopsis: Their
ship entering the warp channel with its inertial drive, a pilot feels the
twinge of a bowel cramp and, thus, enters the toilet. Being the only person
aboard, they are quite surprised to hear a knock at the bathroom door. Inside,
they ponder upon the spaceman’s tale of the “space doppelganger” when in the
warp channel, a similar yet sinister ponderment of the same pilot just outside
the bathroom door, who hears someone within. They each consider a stowaway;
each considers themselves as Schrödinger’s cat. 4 pages
Pre-analysis: I
remember when I was young—around 13 or 14—when I tried an experiment. While
looking at strangers passing by, I tried to think of my father as a stranger:
What if he were just another face? What would he look like? Would he look like
Dad? To my astonishment, I was able to see his face as not my father’s. I
remember a warm wave of reality like a tide rush over my mind, yet without the
foam of uncertainty… only the wet settling of experience. It’s hard to put into
words as it was an absolutely jarring moment that I’ve never been able to
verbalize, but since then, it has put so many thoughts about perception in my
mind: objectiveness, aesthetics, and love among them.
As a science fiction
reader, many parallels of the same theme have crossed my mind: What if I see
myself on the street? What if I wake up next to myself? What if I had an hour
to spend with my exact twin? What if see my female counterpart? All are variations
of impossible speculation, yet the shadow of the thought remains. Thankfully,
speculative fiction addresses these same questions in different lights, yet
they all share the same form of shadow: What would happen when confronted with
my counterpart?
Aside: The
synopsis skirts the narrator’s gender as it’s unmentioned in the story. So, for
the sake simplicity, I will assign the male gender (though any would be equally
as valid).
Analysis: The
narrator stands on a fulcrum between two counterweights: himself as
functionally human (in the bathroom, as human nature has intended) and himself
as conceptually human (in the cockpit, as human society has dictated). As he
faces the impossibility of confronting himself, which form of self will
continue to exist and which will vanish from reality? According to
Schrödinger’s experiment, there’s a 50% chance that either will occur… but what
if, when confronted with the actual situation of confronting one’s own
doppelganger, that subconscious impetus could push probability beyond the precipitous
bell curve? When the conscious choice must be made, would you identify yourself
as a flesh-and-bone human prone to error and luck, or would you identify
yourself as role-and-command pilot adaptive to pitch and speed?
Perspective
(shortstory, 1982) – Yuko Yamao (4/5)
Synopsis: From a
vantage point of a stone cell, other stone cells wrap around from the right all
the way around to the left; below, more floors of cells and the Perspective;
above, more floors of cells and the Perspective. The world within the Sausage
Universe is all the inhabitants know—the stone walls belong to them and the
vast space between the cells belongs to the passing sun, moon, and the comical
Gods upon the cloud. With no knowledge of their history or of their destiny,
myths are abound and hope clings to mere whims. 21 pages
Pre-analysis: Some people never
leave their country, state, or town as they’re content with what they have,
what they see, and who they are. Anyplace could be the setting for someone with
such a narrow perspective. Regardless of the internal comings and goings,
regardless of all the news from afar, regardless of the crazy transients, the
so-called content seem to be more deprived than happy. Do caged birds sing
because they miss the freedom of flight, or it is a voice of deprivation?
Analysis: When the world you
have always known as an insular and hermitic as the Sausage Universe, there is
very little to ignite curiosity. Through the shared come the Sun, the Moon, and
the only oddity in an otherwise odd universe: The Celestial Family upon the
Cloud with it mechanical comedy. But none of this is odd because it’s all they
now between the walls of their lives—the physical confines of their universe. Imagination
has only two directions, which might as well be the same direction because they
offer the same perspective: up and down. Those who venture the climb are none
the wiser.
The conclusion offers a fatalistic result
of being confined to a closed system: a slow decay where the very core consumes
itself. As the body itself cannot survive on sunlight alone, not can the
Sausage Universe survive on repetition alone. Knowledge of its extremes simply
limits its possibility of infinity, progressively making it more like a closed
system than ever before; names and numbers only reinforce its confines.
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