Re: the talk, I love that posing of the why question. And you / Mora? made an excellent point about how great sci fi pokes so well at that question. Honestly, it took me a surprising number of rewatches of Blade Runner to really get in touch with the "why" of that movie, about identity and children and love. Cyberpunk is perhaps one of those genres that is so appealing, so *fun*, that I can enjoy it on a visceral level for a while before asking myself, why do I enjoy it so much?
Coincidentally, Matt and I were talking today about how much we viscerally / thoughtfully engage with different tropes or genres, and I made the comparison of fries vs. ice cream: some tropes/genres for me are like fries, where I can almost always have another one. Perhaps it's not often that I ask the "why" question about these. Cyberpunk, eldritch/weird fiction, intellectual protagonists, found family. Other tropes/genres for me are like ice cream: extremely delicious, but very much a sometimes food, and perhaps compatible with more reflection. Horror, fast-paced / high-adrenaline action, isekai.
Anyway, just some food for thought (hah). Hope you get to have a bit of a break now!
When it comes to particular tastes like that, to subjects with visceral appeal—I think it’s best to approach them with some curiosity, which I might not have conveyed well in this post. There’s a temptation in therapy or close reading to diagnose or translate in a reductive way: I’m interested in Blade Runner because I’m interested in parents and children, say. That kind of reading can disenchant, & it can also close off possibilities. But there is a way to ask the why? question that keeps opening doors: what else is true about this? What other aspects of it fascinate me, or get me out of bed in the morning?
As far as breaks are concerned, we're doing our best!
Strong agree re: asking the why question. I remember lots of classes in undergrad about Marxist readings of text, or Freudian ones, and they can be very useful and interesting, but I very much share your feeling that the real value is asking "but what else?"
Makes me think of Funhome / Are You My Mother (spoilers, I guess?), where Bechdel goes through a lot of Freudian-type (and other psychological) analysis of her relationship with her family and life. What was satisfying to me about those books is that she doesn't seem content to stop at the psychological reading, because ultimately, she is not satisfied with it. It may be interesting (to use the example of Funhome) to think about how Bechdel's queerness is informed by her relationship with her father, but that reading falls short when she tries to use it to figure out what to do with her life post his passing.
That's it exactly—the psychological interpretations can be useful, even revelatory. But they don't capture the wholeness of a person. This is one important value of art, I think: it must represent ideas and emotions in specifics—and a specific point can always be a pivot, or a gateway...
Huzzah on final page proofs!!
Re: the talk, I love that posing of the why question. And you / Mora? made an excellent point about how great sci fi pokes so well at that question. Honestly, it took me a surprising number of rewatches of Blade Runner to really get in touch with the "why" of that movie, about identity and children and love. Cyberpunk is perhaps one of those genres that is so appealing, so *fun*, that I can enjoy it on a visceral level for a while before asking myself, why do I enjoy it so much?
Coincidentally, Matt and I were talking today about how much we viscerally / thoughtfully engage with different tropes or genres, and I made the comparison of fries vs. ice cream: some tropes/genres for me are like fries, where I can almost always have another one. Perhaps it's not often that I ask the "why" question about these. Cyberpunk, eldritch/weird fiction, intellectual protagonists, found family. Other tropes/genres for me are like ice cream: extremely delicious, but very much a sometimes food, and perhaps compatible with more reflection. Horror, fast-paced / high-adrenaline action, isekai.
Anyway, just some food for thought (hah). Hope you get to have a bit of a break now!
When it comes to particular tastes like that, to subjects with visceral appeal—I think it’s best to approach them with some curiosity, which I might not have conveyed well in this post. There’s a temptation in therapy or close reading to diagnose or translate in a reductive way: I’m interested in Blade Runner because I’m interested in parents and children, say. That kind of reading can disenchant, & it can also close off possibilities. But there is a way to ask the why? question that keeps opening doors: what else is true about this? What other aspects of it fascinate me, or get me out of bed in the morning?
As far as breaks are concerned, we're doing our best!
Glad to hear re: breaks!
Strong agree re: asking the why question. I remember lots of classes in undergrad about Marxist readings of text, or Freudian ones, and they can be very useful and interesting, but I very much share your feeling that the real value is asking "but what else?"
Makes me think of Funhome / Are You My Mother (spoilers, I guess?), where Bechdel goes through a lot of Freudian-type (and other psychological) analysis of her relationship with her family and life. What was satisfying to me about those books is that she doesn't seem content to stop at the psychological reading, because ultimately, she is not satisfied with it. It may be interesting (to use the example of Funhome) to think about how Bechdel's queerness is informed by her relationship with her father, but that reading falls short when she tries to use it to figure out what to do with her life post his passing.
That's it exactly—the psychological interpretations can be useful, even revelatory. But they don't capture the wholeness of a person. This is one important value of art, I think: it must represent ideas and emotions in specifics—and a specific point can always be a pivot, or a gateway...