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Escapism in Coraline

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This week I read Neil Gaiman's children's novel, Coraline.  I had previously seen and loved the movie but never sat down to read the book. The thing that struck me about this novel is the same thing that struck me in the film; not the fact that it's pretty scary for a children's book, something Gaiman is now known for, but the sadness of how ignored by her parents Coraline feels. It's incredibly relevant to many people and it just hits you in such a way that you can't shake it. The entire novel then turns into a form of escapism. Coraline uses this alternate world or dimension as a form of escapism from her seemingly uncaring parents. Why else would she just blindly accept another mother and father with buttons for eyes if not for the fact that they are everything she wishes her parents and world to be like? I certainly can't chalk it up to her being a child as Coraline seems to be pretty smart. Despite all of the adventure and horror in this novel, it's...
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Annihilation and Anxiety

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Jeff VanderMeers' novel, Annihilation, does an excellent job in depicting what anxiety feels like and dealing with human-kinds fear of the unknown. It does an especially good job at making you feel perpetual uneasiness by never identifying any of the characters by name, making it even easier for you to project yourself onto them and their fear. Throughout a large portion of the story, the main character, the biologist, takes note on how it feels as though she's being watched even though no one is there and how everything feels "off" or "wrong" but she can't ever really explain why. This is a good representation of what it's like to live with anxiety. Sure, most people experience anxiety in the way that one would before giving a very big important speech to a huge crowd of people, but having an anxiety order is another thing entirely. You experience anxiety over everything. Over nothing, really. You make things up in your head or you just get the sens...
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The Tale of the Porcelain God: Pouring Yourself Into Your Work

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For this blog post I'm deciding to focus on the short story The Tale of the Porcelain God from Lafcadio Hearns' Chinese Ghost Stories Curious Tales of the Supernatural. The main thing that struck me about this story is that for the first few pages it seems that all this story is is just some guy gushing about how much he loves porcelain. He goes on and on listing "this porcelain and THAT porcelain and who could forget about THIS porcelain" and you start to wonder if this is even a supernatural tale at all. Finally, towards the end of the story you get to see what the supernatural element is. Unto Bu literally pours his heart and soul into his work and sacrifices his human life so that his artwork may be perfect. I think it's pretty straight forward what this story is trying to say; that if you put your all into your artwork then you will be rewarded with a great product. Unto Bu does, after all, end up becoming a god after achieving what he believes to be the impo...
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