Bookstore Moment

So, I've always heard tales of people requesting odd books, getting titles wrong in strange ways, and in general getting literary information very, very mixed up, but I've never really had to deal with these bizarre mistakes myself.

Well, I guess I can't really say that anymore. Today I was shelving a stack of graphic novels (all very mediocre and cheap) when a woman walks up to me and asks if we have a book by "Alex Scrub".

"Alex Scrub"? Well, needless to say, I'm not familiar with the author, so I ask if she knows what "Alex Scrub" writes. I'm assuming young adult, but she doesn't seem to know- she's looking for the writer for her brother. Ok then, we'll go ask the computer. Let's see what books "Alex Scrub" has written so I can help her find them.

Well, an Amazon search for "Alex Scrub" doesn't turn up any hits, so she calls her brother to make sure she has the writer's name right.

"Alice"? Alice? Alice in Wonderland? Is she looking for a title, not an author?

"Oh, no, no, Atlas!" Atlas? What? "Atlas Shrugged! Do you have a book called Atlas Shrugged?"

"Upstairs in classic literature, ma'am. You'll see it first thing on your right. Have a good day."

Currently Reading

Just Finished-
The Orphan's Tales: Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne M. Valente

This was every bit what I was expecting and hoping it would be. The mystery of the orphan girl's origin finally comes clean in this volume, and the story was beautifully told and just as mesmerizing as the first. I think the first is still my favorite book of the two, but that's due mostly to the fact it surprised me. I went into the second book knowing what Valente was capable of, and boy-oh-boy did she deliver!

On Hold?-
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

I'm not totally sure why I seemed to have stopped reading this book. I was enjoying it, but I didn't really click with it, you know? I'll give it a week or two and try to pick it back up once this semester's over and I have a little more spare time and energy. (And did anyone else find that the book wasn't nearly as gross as its reputation implied? I was expecting to be disgusted and appalled through the whole thing, but so far there have only been two or three little moments where I went "ugh!")

Reading-
Trouble on Triton by Samuel R. Delany

Actually, I only started this one this morning, but I've been moving along at a good clip (except for the little break from reading I took, where I watched The Corpse Bride and cooked lunch) and I'm nearly as far along in Triton as I am in Mainspring. It's much harder reading than Mainspring, too- damn you, Delany, and your complicated scientific and philosophical passages that make me slow down, read, re-read, contemplate, and play connect-the-dots in my brain. This isn't easy for me to do first thing in the morning! Delany, if you weren't so damn good at it and totally worth the struggle, I'd hate you.

Mainspring by Jay Lake

I've waited how many months now to get my hands on a copy of this fucker? Too many, that's certain. I've read a few of Jay Lake's short stories and browsed his blog (livejournal? don't remember now) a time or two...and I've waited. And waited. And waited. Every time I saw a copy at B&N or Half-Price- not that I ever shop at bookstores other than the one I work in, of course- I'd talk myself out of buying it (I can't support the competition, right?) because eventually- EVENTUALLY- we'd get a copy at my job and I'd get my employee discount and all that jazz. In fact, a copy came in a few months ago- and my coworker (it's a good thing I like him!) snatched it up before I saw it! So I waited. And waited. And Waited. And lo and behold, what comes in last Saturday but my very own copy of Mainspring! I even did a little victory dance for the benefit of my coworkers (especially the one who nabbed the other copy!) and I bought the little fucker before I left that night. I win. (And the book's been pretty damn fun, too!)

Awaiting-
Dark Reflections by Samuel R. Delany

Yes, there are still some Delany books I don't own. And yes, that number keeps shrinking. This particular Delany book is somewhat semi-autobiographical in that the main character- a probable stand-in for the author- is a black, gay poet, as Delany was before he turned to science fiction (and then to 'literary' fiction...but whatever). The character's life is told in reverse- that is, he starts out as a succesful older man and as the story progresses, the reader is gradually introduced to him as his younger and more ambitious self. At least, that's what all of the reviews and summaries I've seen have said. I'll have the book by the end of the week, and then I'll know more.

Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction edited by Andrew J. Wilson

This was a 2006 finalist for the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology, and holy hell but does it have a great line-up. Ken MacLeod, Jane Yolen, Charles Stoss, Neil Williamson, and seventeen others contributed to this collection, and I have no fucking clue as to how in the hell this thing is out of print. (Why? WHY?) After all, "forget, the Loch Ness monster, Brigadoon and all the usual tartanalia: Nova Scotia examines the Scotland of the 21st century and offers 22 unique insights on living in this New Scotland". And yeah, I totally stole that from the website.

New Additions to My Wish List-
The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia

My friend (the coworker who snagged that first copy of Mainspring, actually) swears by this woman's writing, and from what little I've seen I must say I'm excited. Hopefully I'll like her as much as my coworker does, which is frankly very possible.

In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss

This is a short story collection by a writer who I've read in Lady Churchill's (well, ok, I've only ever seen The Best of compilation), and every time I've fallen a little more in love with her work. Now that I've found a collection of her stories, I have to get it.

Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy edited by Ekaterina Sedia (not so new on my wish list, but it will probably be one of the next few things I order online)

Sedia again. This anthology contains works by Jay Lake, Hal Duncan, Anna Tambour, Forrest Aguirre, and Catherynne M. Valente, and I'm starting to see a trend in the authors whose short fiction I collect. Anyone else detect a trend?

There are a number of other anthologies that I've been eyeing, but I'm trying to keep my consumption level down for the time being. But just wait. They will be mine!

Kunoichi Says Hello

New (Online) Toy!

I recently joined LibraryThing.com, which allows users to keep an online record of their books (and allows for book voyeurs such as myself to peek at the shelves of other collectors without getting the cops called on us). Sadly enough, it's very entertaining, and you can check out the libraries of your friends and your favorite authors. I think there are even forums and such...though I've been so busy scoping out who has my favorite books that I haven't really paid much attention to those features. Neeways, my profile page is located at http://www.librarything.com/profile/bookjockey18 and I'd love to have company. Plus, I'm a book whore and I love to look at other people's shelves, and the more the merrier, right? Right.

Oh, and that shadow that's been hovering near your bookshelf... You know, the one behind you? It isn't what you think! I was just... Please don't call the cops...

(More) New Books

I was bad this week- I bought more books, even after my spending spree last week and after paying on my gigantic expensive layaway. I also adopted a few abandoned books from our donation closest at work, but that only makes up for it a little bit.

Anyway, this week's new acquisitions list contains-

Mainspring by Jay Lake

The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelazny


The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Shikibu (though I prefer this edition, which I also own)

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (Norton Critical Edition)


The Eternal Champions Series, Volumes 1, 2, and 3 (The Eternal Champion, Von Bek, and Hawkmoon)

And, because I'm a loser who can't kick the deadly habit...

Han Solo's Revenge by Brian Daley (sorry, no accurate Amazon image)

The Trouble With Tribbles: The Birth, Death, Sale, and Final Production of One Episode by David Gerrold

The Search for Meaning in "American Beauty"

Throughout the film “American Beauty”, the audience watches as the characters argue, fight, cry, and seduce their way through life, seeking to understand what it all means and why sometimes life has to be so difficult. As friends, lovers, and family members, they use one another as scapegoats and as modes of escape to avoid dealing with life- or, perhaps, to deal with life in the only way they know how. Most of the characters are self-obsessed, materialistic, and insecure to the point of neurosis and are completely unable to connect with other people, or really even themselves.

Carolyn Burnham is one of the neediest, most insecure characters in the movie. She spends most of the film trying and failing to find some source of reassurance to offset the isolation she feels. She chants mantras to herself, promising that she will do one thing or she will not do another, though she can’t fool even herself into thinking she has a chance of following through and finding happiness. The only character Carolyn connects with for even a little while is the arrogant Buddy Kane, who winds up abandoning her when her husband discovers their affair. Kane is far more concerned about his professional appearance than his romantic entanglements, and he selfishly leaves Carolyn behind to deal with the mess their affair has created. On the other hand, Lester Burnham, Carolyn’s husband, is not terribly upset about his wife sleeping with another man. He has felt isolated from his unfeeling wife for quite some time, and in fact finds it liberating that Carolyn is no longer trying to bend him to her idea of what a proper family is. He takes his new freedom from his wife’s control and runs with it. He starts smoking pot, working out, and quits his white-collar job to flip burgers, all in order to relive the happiest time of his life- his teens. He then takes the hunt for his lost happiness and youth a step further and seduces (and allows himself to be seduced by) his daughter’s best friend, a terribly insecure ‘beauty’ named Angela. Angela, meanwhile, is using both Lester and his daughter Jane to fuel her own search for herself. She puts up a front of confidence and success, when really she’s a scared little girl who is desperate for a way to feel special and loved. Angela feeds off of Lester’s sexual attention and off of Jane’s ‘plainness’ in order to separate herself from the ‘ordinary’ people she sees every day. The arrival of Jane’s new boyfriend, Ricky, makes this increasingly difficult for her. He calls her out on her behavior, declaring that Angela was never actually Jane’s friend but was really using her to increase her own confidence. Ricky also sees through Angela’s pretentious disguise and says to her face he finds her boring and plain. Ricky is himself an odd character. He toys with the emotions of other characters on several occasions, from egging his father on into two unnecessary physical confrontations to exposing Angela’s cruel method of finding self-assurance. On the other hand, he seems to be the only relatively happy character in the movie. His obsession with filming ordinary and sometimes gruesome things stems not just from a morbid sense of curiosity, but also from a deep-seated appreciation of the beauty that exists in the everyday world. He alone has a sense of self-confidence, and doesn’t feel ‘exposed’ or ‘naked’- even when Jane is filming him when he is very much physically naked.

Ricky is, sadly, the only character in the movie with a perception of his own self-worth. The other characters spend the entire movie flitting from one argument to another as they try desperately to find their calling, their soul mate, or their place in the crazy world they live in. Like families and neighbors often do, these characters have formed tight relationships- or perhaps just loose ones- which enable them to find new ways of learning about themselves and each other in meaningful ways. Even the missteps and missed opportunities offer lessons in how human beings interact with one another and how those interactions change the way people see each other and themselves.

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I wrote this one for a sociology class (Marriage and Family Relationships). Again, I had a two page limit, which I went over by just a tiny bit, once I put in the heading and everything. I'd never seen the movie before, and I've got to say- it's delightfully screwy.

Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman

Does this make the third post in a row that mentions Steve Berman? It does, it does! Berman gets a gold star!

So after spending the last two or three months waiting to come across a copy of any Berman book (I don't know why, but I had a huge aversion to ordering one used off of Amazon) I finally located a copy of Vintage: A Ghost Story. I've already complained in a previous post about how I feel about finding his YOUNG ADULT novel in the literature section- it's not that I don't feel young adult books can be literature, but rather that I have a horrible sneaking suspicion it was shelved among more 'adult' literature to avoid scandalizing anyone (parents, namely) since it is a gay ghost/love story. To make things worse, I found it there after hearing about the Amazonfail controversy. The whole thing just rubbed me the wrong way.

At any rate, I bought the book Friday night, started reading it Saturday morning, and had it finished by midnight Saturday. It's a fairly slim book and an easy read, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was a great book to help me recover from my hellish day at class and work- it's a very sweet love story between two boys (and between one boy and a ghost boy) that refrains from becoming too sappy and saccharine to stand. The main character and Mike, one of the main love interests, are simply too cute with one another, especially in the very early stages of their budding relationship when neither of them are too terribly sure of what is expected of them. I was not, however, too fond of Josh (the ghost and the main character's other potential love interest) and found him to be selfish and controlling. My reaction to him may be a complement though- I'm not totally sure Berman made him in order to be liked (or perhaps Josh just isn't my type). Forget the pig-headed jock, guys- the cute little artist boy is way, way better for you.

The story itself is fairly predictable. Goth boy meets ghost boy, falls in love, and realizes ghost boy may not be quite as good for his health as perhaps he'd like. Then goth boy meets (or actually realizes he's been there all along) the artistic little brother of his best friend, starts falling for him, and realizes that a relationship with a living person who can't kill you with a mere touch may be a much better thing overall. Did I mention this was a gay teen love story? In the 'grown-up' fiction section? Anyway. Cute, refreshing story, if a little simple.

What made the book was Berman's portrayal of what it's like to grow up gay in a small town. I'm not talking about all that coming-out, woe-is-me shit that every gay teen movie ever produced has tried to pass off as a tear-jerking story, I'm talking about how it feels to live in a constant state of anxiety and hope. Did that cute guy waiting on your table at dinner pay a little more attention to you than the diners in the next booth? Was that pretty girl looking at your shirt, or your...well, I'm sure we all have imaginations. Was that sharp look you got from the customer you just helped a disdainful glance because of your youth, or do they know and are they planning on waiting for you outside with a lynch mob? Maybe your parents know, maybe they don't, and wouldn't we all like to have an aunt like the main character's, who takes him in after he runs away from home and his angry parents? I have an aunt I like to think would have done so, if I had asked, and as a consequence whenever the character appeared in the book I pictured her as my own aunt.

The main character isn't ashamed of his sexuality- his reluctance to be open about his gayness stems rather from a fear of reprisal. He fears being attacked and targeted, though he doesn't at all feel that he deserves such treatment. The issue of being completely out in high school is also examined through one of Berman's lesbian characters- she's upfront about her sexual orientation from the start, and while she doesn't receive any shit about it from other characters she does unnerve the main character with her frankness. She lives on the edge of what he perceives as dangerous territory, and while he respects her for it and desires that level of honesty for himself he can't help but measure the costs against the benefits. His own experiences have taught him that other people don't always accept homosexuals- he told one student at his previous school about his sexual orientation, and within a week was turned into a victim of harassment and verbal assaults from a number of people in his community, including his own parents (every gay teen's worst fear- that Mom and Dad won't understand). At the same time, is slightly oddball aunt loves him no matter what he does or who he loves, and while she makes him agree to basic ground rules of behavior (his boyfriend is not allowed to spend the night- which is the same rule she would impose if he had a girlfriend instead) the rules are made in love, not for punishment. She parents and guides him, without trying to change something that is very integral to his nature.

Berman also explores teenage drug and alcohol use in a manner that neither vilifies nor glorifies getting drunk, huffing, or even trying out Ecstasy. That is to say he doesn't condemn kids for experimenting with things they really shouldn't experiment with, but he does look at the consequences of careless actions, from mild ones like hangovers to much more serious ones such as cheating on a partner while drunk or the tragedy of accidentally killing oneself while huffing. Parents probably wouldn't like this aspect of the book, but it's a more honest look at drugs and teenagers than the majority of young adult books I've seen would dare try. There are no scare tactics here, only a calm pointing out of the potential risks and an acknowledgement that kids will be kids, no matter what parents think.

I will be awaiting the next arrival of a Steve Berman book on my shelf now. He's edited several titles that intrigue me as well, and we all know what a whore I am for short story collections! I'll be sure to keep posting. (Also, my apologies if any of this isn't terribly logical. I'm rather tired at the moment and it's all I can do to keep my spelling somewhat accurate.)

New Arrivals

I went on a bit of a spending spree yesterday and came home with a few new books. Most importantly, I added to my Delany collection, and then I finally found a Steve Berman novel! It's amazing how hard it is to find his books around here. I can't believe Barnes & Noble actually had a copy, though I have a bit of a problem with how they had the book shelved in the general fiction section when the book explicity states "Young Adult" on the cover and is aimed at gay teen readers. After the Amazon fiasco last week (link is to Gaiman's journal on the subject), I'm not too pleased to see what could be construed as a form of censorship in my local B&N.

Anyway, on to the books.

Camp Concentration Thomas M. Disch


Vintage: A Ghost Story Steve Berman


Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia Samuel R. Delany



Babel-17/ Empire Star Samuel R. Delany



Ode to Walt Whitman Fredrico Garcia Lorca


In Search of Duende Fredrico Garcia Lorca

Also, I just realized that every single one of these authors is (or was) gay. What does that say about the prominence of GLBT writers and titles, Amazon?

Upcoming Releases- 2009

So instead of reading or writing or really doing anything remotely productive, I spent the evening browsing Amazon and checking out upcoming releases by my favorite writers. I already have Anne Bishop's new book The Shadow Queen (which I'm not as pleased with as I had hoped, unfortunately) which snuck under my radar until I stumbled across a copy at Barnes & Noble. To keep this from happening again, I decided to compile a list here for books I'm gonna have to order A.S.A.P!

First off is Jeff Vandermeer's Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer. Though I normally avoid books on writing like the plague on society they are, I think I'll have to break my own rules and check this one out. Vandermeer's non-fiction is, strangely enough, the reason I started reading him in the first place, and this book looks like it's going to deal with issues that actually are important for modern day writers including, as Amazon.com claims, "personal space versus public space, deadlines, and networking, [and] the benefits of interacting with readers through new technologies". This one is due out in October, so I've got a while to wait before I can get my hands on a copy.

China Mieville's new novel, The City & The City, is coming out this May. I'm fighting the urge to pre-order it...at least until it gets a little closer to the release date and my willpower breaks. I'm a little behind on my Mieville books, but this one looks pretty intriguing and I just might have to bump a few things down on my reading list to make room for it.

I was hoping to get a copy of Catherynne M. Valente's Palimpsest at one of my local bookstores, but once again I forgot how weak the fantasy sections in my Hastings and Barnes & Noble are. I'll be buying this one off of Amazon before long, I fear.

Neil Gaiman has another children's book (Crazy Hair) due out at the end of May. I already have a copy of his other new children's book, The Blueberry Girl, and I love it. Charles Vess' artwork is unbelievably beautiful in The Blueberry Girl, and I'm sure Dave McKean's illustrations in Crazy Hair will be as odd and wonderful as they always are.

Oddly enough (for me), I'm greatly tempted to read Drood by Dan Simmons. Like books on writing, I tend to avoid fiction about writers, but I think Simmons may be on to something with his novel about Charles Dickens and his last, unfinished manuscript, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Besides, this is one giant sucker of a freaking novel, which hopefully translates into plenty of reading entertainment for me!

I'm also looking out for a copy of Steve Berman's Mr. October's Naughty Bedside Reader, which doesn't have a release date yet, sadly. Like Valente, I'll probably have to order this one off Amazon, since my local bookstores don't know who he is, either (ugh! I need to have a chat with the people who pick stock. Whoever these Robert Jordan and R.A. Salvatore guys are, they need to quit taking up so much room on the store fantasy shelves!).

Bookmarks!

These are just awesome-
Stolen from
http://www.miragebookmark.ch/be_0_exhibition.htm

Marvin especially makes me squee!

Red Meat- Philip K. Dick Comic

Blogger's being cranky so I can't get the image to load, but here's a link. It's pretty funny.

http://bp3.blogger.com/_z5vpNAABjv8/RzyoTGVBInI/AAAAAAAAAY4/9sbJ86PlGio/s1600-h/index-1.gif

Parallels and Dissimilarities in Babylonian and Biblical Myth

Mythologies from around the world have a surprising number of similarities, from trickster characters to malevolent water demons and from sun gods riding through the skies to creatures ferrying the souls of the dead to the underworld. Two mythologies with obvious, though often ignored, parallels are Babylonian myth and Biblical myth. Though the two have their differences, as evidenced by their disparate creation myths, they have strong correlations with one another in several other major legends, especially through their flood myths and through their God resurrection cycles. These three myths- the creation story, the flood myth, and the resurrection of the God figure- form a trinity of mythological similarity and possible one of continuity, as the Babylonian version of these tales predate Biblical records by approximately a millennium and a half (Gilgamesh 99). Other mythical traditions from across the globe have their own varieties of these three stories, but rarely are the parallels as predominant as they are in the Babylonian and Biblical accounts.

The Creation

The creation story of the Babylonians starts out using very similar language as what would eventually be used in the Biblical version. Sandars’ translation states that “when there was no heaven, no earth, no height, no depth, no name…” the gods existed in an empty void with no humans to worship them, and proposes that the entire story reads more like a hymn than a work of literature or even a fairy tale, with no main character or plot tension (11, 16-17). The tale goes on to describe how the Babylonian gods battled one another to establish dominance over primordial forces- which they also created- and each other. Mostly at this stage, the gods are not concerned with intentionally creating the universe or mankind, but are far more concerned with establishing a sort of hierarchy between themselves and with carving out a niche of influence within the new world they will create. It isn’t until the end of the tale that one of the gods, Marduk, having achieved his victory over the goddess Tiamat, takes her remains and splits her body in half, using one half to create a roof for the sky and one half to make the earth to keep the subterranean waters below. He uses her saliva to make clouds and rain, her ‘poison’ to make fog, and her slit eyes to form the Euphrates and Tigris rivers (McCall 52-59). Having built the world on the body of the defeated goddess, Marduk calls for the creation of followers and worshippers to revere him and his compatriots in their victory. He also wants these followers to do the mundane daily work that is beneath the status of a god or goddess, such as growing crops and herding animals. Of course, these new creations are human beings, formed out of clay by the gods to act as servants (Sproul 114-116). Though a foreign idea to most people living with religious thought today, to the ancient Babylonians the idea of being created for the sole purpose of serving the gods was not only generally accepted by the Babylonian people, but was in fact the principle theology of the day (King 65).
The Biblical myth is very different in many ways. Springing from a monotheistic religion, the Judeo-Christian God did not have other deities to battle against in a primordial war for control. There were certainly other religions, and therefore other gods and goddesses, to contend with on the mortal plain, but as far as the Judeo-Christian tradition went their God was the only God with any real power over the world. Still, the language used to describe the Biblical creation of the world closely parallels the Babylonian tradition. Bierlien’s account of the Genesis story reads “[in] the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and God’s spirit hovered over the water” (73). This water may possibly be a throwback to the subterranean waters covered by the body of Tiamat, or it may be a reference to the primordial forces that the Judeo-Christian God was meant to rule alone. The reference to water as part of the creative process is not an uncommon one in mythology. Neither is the reference to clay- like Marduk, God creates mankind out of earth, first molding a bit of clay into the form of man then breathing life into the figurine (Gabel 114). Again, earth is a recurring element in creation stories from around the world, and in this case may be a bit of a stand in for the goddess figure- being the only deity in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God has no feminine force to correspond to his masculine principle, and most earth deities are regarded as female in nature. This includes the goddess Marduk killed in order to form the earth.
Though the stories themselves are very different, the presence of these creation myths is a powerful indicator of a universal truth- all complete mythologies have a creation legend. It stems from a worldwide need to explain the origins of humanity and the world itself, which is the strongest correlation between mythologies of any source. Often these stories share common threads, such as the presence of certain elemental or primordial forces influencing the formation of the world. These elemental forces can be men made of earth, rivers made of tears- the most human source of water- or the battle for order and civilization to emerge from chaos and wilderness (Stewart 11, 13). In any instance, the creation story is itself a sign of similarity between cultures which may have never been in contact with one another. In fact, it is a worldwide testament to human curiosity and the need to name and explore the unknown.

The Flood

Unlike the creation story, which varies in its explicit content, the flood stories shared by Babylonian and Biblical tradition have such direct, obvious parallels in the way they are structured and in the events that transpire within the tales that when the first tablets containing the Babylonian flood myth were discovered and then translated in the early years of the last century, interest in comparing the Old Testament story to the ancient Babylonian tale surged (King 58). The Babylonian story can be found today in the epic poem documenting the adventures of the ancient hero Gilgamesh. In one tablet describing his journey though the Underworld in search for a way to achieve immortality, Gilgamesh seeks out his ancestor, Utnapishtim, who received warning from the god Ea that the world would soon be flooded and destroyed due to the capricious whim of the gods. Utnapishtim, with the help of his family and a few friends, built a boat and filled it with all of the known animals of the world, then sought refuge within the boat themselves when the gods sent massive storms to drown the world (Gilgamesh 79-80). The floods were so severe that the gods themselves were frightened- Ishtar, or Inanna, whose complaints had convinced the other gods to allow the flood, was so appalled to see her ‘children’ killed she wept with grief and shame (Bierlein 126). Seven days and nights passed for Utnapishtim and his family in their boat before they came to rest on a mountain peak. Utnapishtim sent out a dove, a swallow, and a raven in succession over the next few days to see if there was enough land for his passengers to leave the boat and begin their lives again. The dove and the swallow came back, signifying that the floods hadn’t abated enough to leave, but the raven never returned and Utnapishtim allowed his family to leave the boat (Gilgamesh 79).
The Biblical story covers much of the same territory. Noah, who alone of the men of his day had ‘found favor’ with God, received warning from his God that a flood was on its way to wipe out the corruption, violence, and evil in mankind. God directs Noah to build an ark and fill it with all the animals in the world, and to take on board his family as well. Like in the Babylonian account, for seven days and nights it rains in a torrential downfall that wipes out all life on land, and when Noah’s ark finally lands it comes to rest on a mountaintop. This time, Noah sends out the raven first. The bird does not return, not because it found land but because it flies back and forth across the sky until eventually the land dried enough for the bird to find a roost. Noah then sends out a dove, which returns the first time it is released but not the second, showing that there is finally enough dry ground to live on (Bierlein 121-124). The reversal of the crow and dove’s roles in the Biblical account, if the writers of the Old Testament story were aware of the Babylonian account, could have been an intentional way to subvert the older myth. The dove is a popular symbol among Christians, while the crow is often viewed as a negative harbinger of death or at the very least an unattractive animal.
The similarities between the Babylonian story and the Biblical account of Noah’s ark are startling. Both are warned in advance by a god that tragedy is imminent, both build a boat to save their loved ones and the animals of the world from destruction, both are stranded on a mountaintop at the end of the flood, and both release birds to determine if it is safe to leave their haven. The greatest difference between the two stories lies in the reason behind the flooding- in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God sent the flood to wipe out evil men and corruption, while in the Babylonian tale the gods send the flood essentially because a goddess complained about having a bad day with the mortal servants. Though in both cases it is the folly and sin of mankind that causes the flood, it is only in the Biblical story that the sin is named and the punishment is sent for a specific reason. The Babylonian account also claims that the floods were sent as a result of mankind’s offenses, though what those offences are remain abstract (Heidel 225).

The Resurrection of God

Most of the world’s most exciting and enduring literature revolves around a hero or god descending into the Realm of the Dead and rising again, forever changed. Though it is impossible to tell if the story is the first of its kind, one of the oldest surviving stories of such a journey is the account of Inanna’s voyage into the Great Below. The Babylonian goddess, also referred to as Ishtar, sets out for the underworld to console her sister Ereshkigal, the ruler of the Great Below, over the death of Ereshkigal’s husband. Before she leaves, she instructs her servant to wait for three days and, if Inanna doesn’t return from her unpredictable and dangerous sister’s realm, her servant is to go to the gods Enlil, Nanna, and Enki to beg for help so Inanna does not die. As Inanna enters the kingdom of her sister she must pass through the seven gates of the underworld. As she enters each gate, another symbol of her office is stripped from her. Her crown, her lapis beads, a double strand of beads, her royal robe, her breastplate, her gold ring, and her lapis rod and line, all of her accoutrements signifying her rank and divinity, are taken from her before she is allowed into her sister’s presence. Ereshkigal rises from her throne upon seeing Inanna and “[fastens] on Inanna the eye of death. She [speaks] against her the word of wrath. She [utters] against her the cry of guilt. She [strikes] her” (Wolkstein 60). Struck dead where she stands in her sister’s throne room, Inanna collapses and is hung on a hook on a wall like a butchered sacrificial animal. When three days have gone by, Inanna’s servant goes to the three gods specified by Inanna. Enlil and Nanna refuse to help, claiming that by setting foot in the Underworld Inanna doomed herself to die and she deserves to get what she set herself up for. Only Enki takes mercy on Inanna’s plight and forms a plan to revive the goddess. He creates two creatures, the galatur and the kurgarra, who are neither male nor female. He sends them to the Underworld after Inanna with the water of life and the food of life, and with instructions on how to please Ereshkigal so they will be able to retrieve Inanna’s body. When they enter Ereshkigal’s throne room, they sympathize with her various pains and ailments, offering her their complete support and understanding for everything she wants to complain about. Pleased that these two strangers empathize with her so much, she offers them any gift of their choice. They ask for Inanna’s body hanging on the hook, and insist that it is all they will take. She complies, and the galatur and the kurgarra feed Inanna’s body the food of life and the water of life. When she rises, restored to life, the Annuna, or the judges of the afterlife, proclaim that if Inanna wishes to rise from the Underworld she must find someone to take her place. She is chased through and out of the Underworld by demons who scream out at her the names of people, all beloved to her, who could take her place in death. She refuses to surrender her closest friend and her sons, but when the demons turn to her husband, Dumuzi, she relents, and the demons snatch her husband and beat him mercilessly. Dumuzi escapes, but only by turning to Inanna’s brother, Utu, the God of Justice, and begging for help. Utu turns Dumuzi’s hands and feet into snakes, making it impossible for the demons to keep hold of him, and Dumuzi runs for his life (Wolkstein 52-73).
The Biblical story of resurrection differs from that of Inanna in a variety of ways, most notably in that Jesus’ story does not include a true voyage through the Realm of Death in the sense that the Realm of Death is a physical place, as in Inanna’s tale. Like Inanna’s Jesus’ body is left on display for all of his enemies to see his apparent defeat, and like Inanna, his loyal followers and companions anticipate his return. Jesus knows in advance that he will die and that some of his most trusted companions will turn on him or deny their connection to him. He tells Peter, one of his disciples, that before the rooster crows on day of Jesus’ arrest that Peter will deny three times being acquainted with Jesus. Jesus is arrested, Peter denies knowing him, and Jesus faces trial before Pontius Pilate, Herod, and the Jewish leaders of the day who demand his execution. Convicted of inciting rebellion, Jesus is condemned to die by crucifixion. After nine hours of hanging on the cross, Jesus dies and is placed in a tomb. When three days pass, the women who followed Jesus to Galilee enter the tomb with spices and perfumes to adorn the body of their Messiah only top find that his body is no longer in the tomb and only a few strips of linen remain. Excited about Jesus’ apparent resurrection, they spread the word to his disciples. Jesus himself then appeared to his disciples and instructed them one last time on the meaning of the Scriptures before ascending into the heavens (Holy Bible 584-586).
Though different in content and in purpose, both of these stories exhibit striking similarities in structure. In Jesus’ resurrection in the New Testament of the Bible, the act of dying is a metaphor. In Christian doctrine, bodily resurrection isn’t the same thing as immortality. Immortality is achieved by the soul, which goes on living even after the body has been killed (Gabel 179). Inanna’s death was meant a bit more literally. When Ereshkigal killed her, it was a complete physical death as well as the termination of her soul, and Inanna needed the help of a living god to rescue her from death’s grip. Jesus also relied on the power of living divinity to return from death in order to spread his final teachings before leaving the land of mortal humanity behind. Just as her journey through the Realm of the Dead forced the goddess Inanna to determine what the price of life really is, Jesus’ death was the final chapter in his own voyage through mortality and human suffering. Another interesting parallel between these two stories is the re-occurrence of the number three. Inanna’s servant is to wait three days for the goddess’ return, then she is to go to three different gods in search of help. When Jesus speaks of Peter’s upcoming denial, he predicts that his disciple will deny Jesus a total of three times. Then, after dying on the cross, Jesus returns to the world of the living after three days in the tomb. The number three is a popular, powerful number in myth and spiritual teachings, and its appearance in these stories lends a feeling of completion.

Babylonian and Biblical Myth

Though it is impossible to determine how much influence the ancient Babylonians ultimately had on the stories written into the Bible, it is obvious that despite contrary belief systems and religious origins, the two traditions have an astounding number of parallels in their teachings and stories. Naturally they have their differences, as do any two systems of belief and mythology, but, as according to Leonard W. King, a British classical scholar at the turn of the last century, the striking similarities between the two traditions “…leave no doubt that the Hebrew cosmogony…[is] derived ultimately from the same original as the Babylonian narratives…” (7). Other mythologies have stories revolving around the creation of the world, tales about floods that wipe out entire civilizations, and epics about heroes and gods who rise from the dead and return to the land of more ordinary mortals. These stories even take shape in modern literature and entertainment, such as in fantasy novels and disaster movies. Tales like these capture the human imagination, ensuring that they will be passed on from generation to generation and across cultural barriers. No matter what forms they take, some element of these myths will live on in the world’s mythology.

Works Cited

Bierlein, J.F. Parallel Myths. New York: Ballantine, 1994.

Gabel, John B. et al. The Bible as Literature: An Introduction. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University, 1996.

Gilgamesh. Trans. Herbert Mason. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,2003.

Heidel, Alexander. The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1949.

The Holy Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2001.

King, Leonard W. Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition. Forgotten Books, 2007.

McCall, Henrietta. Mesopotamian Myths. Austin: University of Texas, 1990.

Sandars, N.K. Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia. London: Penguin, 1971.

Sproul, Barbara C. Primal Myths: Creating the World. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979.

Stewart, R.J. The Elements of Creation Myth. Dorset: Element Books, 1989.

Wolkstein, Diane and Samuel Noah Kramer. Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer. New York: Harper & Row,1983.

Most Beautiful Bookstores in the World

I found this link on Bookfinder.com's journal. I think my favorite is the bookstore in Portugal (it's the one shown above)!

http://www.miragebookmark.ch/most-interesting-bookstores.htm

That link also lead me to a link for the most interesting libraries in the world. Here's one in Seattle.

http://www.miragebookmark.ch/most-interesting-libraries.htm

Good News on the Marriage Front!

For once, something positive to report! (And I promise, this is as political as I think I'll get on this blog)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090403/ap_on_re_us/iowa_gay_marriage

Now if California will just get the message...

Japanese Cinema and America

Japanese cinema has invaded the Western hemisphere, and most Americans don’t even realize it. Every year it seems there are more Americanized remakes of Japanese horror or science-fiction films, and not long ago samurai movies were a popular source of material for Western flicks. More anime and manga titles are translated and distributed every day, and the rising popularity of these mediums attest to the appetite Western audiences have for Japanese creations. That said, many Americans don’t even realize that what they see on the screen is Japanese in origin. When asked to name a Japanese movie, most Americans would answer Godzilla, but would be unable to name more than two or three movies out of the dozens in the franchise.

How could Japanese cinema permeate Western markets without Westerners being aware of it? To start with, many films brought over to the United States are remade to give them a more ‘American’ flavor, and since the majority of Americans aren’t aware of the Japanese film industry in the first place, these remakes fly under their radars as new movies by new directors. With the release of The Ring, this disregard for the original Japanese films began to dissipate. The American version was so popular and so incorporated into mainstream American cinema that the audiences began to wonder about what Ringu, the original, must be like. Though the popularity of the sub-titled Japanese film never quite rivaled its English-language remake in the States, Americans came away from both movies with a new awareness of the presence and quality of Japanese films (Mes, 261).

The most recognizable film product to emerge from Japan is, of course, Godzilla. Toho Studios, the same company that released such estimable titles as Seven Samurai and Spirited Away, found a cash cow in the King of Monsters. Godzilla has starred in nearly thirty films, including one released in America (Schilling, 20). Despite this proliferation of titles and Godzilla’s worldwide recognition as a huge Japanese success as well as his status as a popular character in Western pop culture, relatively few Godzilla titles have been translated into English or subtitled for release in America, and the American film based on the King of Monsters faced ridicule and critical reviews from the start. In fact, the entire franchise has become so well-known and been spoofed so often in Western culture that the films have unfortunately lost face. Few cinematic scholars will approach seriously the subject of the world’s most famous kaiju eiga (giant monster film) due to the stigma of pop culture (Mes, 309).

New movies with Japanese origins are released in the United States every year, from old classics like Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood and Rashomon to newer releases such as Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django and Hayao Miyazaki’s interpretation of Howl’s Moving Castle, and even more movies are remade for mass release in American theaters, including titles like Dark Water and One Missed Call. Japanese movies abound in modern American culture, indicating that there is something about these films that speaks to a part of American audiences that is otherwise ignored by Western filmmakers.

Works Cited

Mes, Tom. The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2005.

Schilling, Mark. Contemporary Japanese Film. New York: Weatherhill, 1999.

This was a small (2 page, double spaced) essay for an anthropology class. Not my favorite thing I ever wrote, but it was pretty fun to look into the history of Japanese film. I just wish I'd had more room to play with it!