J-Horror Kwaidan

Our fourth week of class has brought us the genre of j-horror. Its essentially the name for the modern Japanese horror film derivatives, but it originates in the traditional Japanese ghost stories. Contrary to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre type of “slasher” movies, j-horror deals more with creating an overwhelming mood of despair or emptiness.

I decided to read the alternative Kwaidan collection of traditional Japanese ghost stories, because it’s the source of what j-horror has evolved into today. In Lafcadio Hearn’s recollection we find beautifully narrated stories, almost with a far east poem feel to them, existential. For example, in the story of “Oshidori” we are told about a hunter, Sonjo, who wasn’t able to find any game to shoot and eat. Then he came across a pair of a male and a female oshidori ducks. Even though he knew killing oshidori brought misfortune, his hunger took the best of him, and so he shot and killed the male duck with his arrow. Later that night, after having the duck for dinner, he dreamt of a beautiful woman who sat by his pillow weeping, so sorrowfully that it caused him a great deal of sadness. She cried out, “Why did you kill him…do you know what you have done?”, “Me too you have killed—for I will not live without my husband!” Before leaving she told him that the following day he should go back to the pond where he shot him. Wanting to find out the meaning, if any, of his dream, Sonjo went back the next day and found the female oshidori in the water. It swam up to him, and with its beak it tore open its body and died before Sonjo’s eyes. After that he shaved his head, and became a priest.

I think that would’ve made any skeptic turn priest. Reading through Kwaidan I noticed the very strong Buddhist concepts of karma and reincarnation. The narrations are very intertwined with that aspect of Japanese and Asian culture. I read a book once called Graceful Exits by Sushila Blackman. It was a compilation of passed-down stories of how great Buddhists and Zen Buddhist teachers have passed away. It relates extraordinary events, beautiful spiritual moments, that most people would never believe, and I feel these type of accounts, deeply rooted in Buddhist culture, might be part of the influences of the Japanese ghost stories.

Vampires

Last week’s reading sucked…literally. Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire brought a completely new reading experience to the vampire genre. Long gone were the days of Nosferatu’s leg-sliding walk and ugly mug, as Rice took a more romantic and humanly connected take on the matter. Not a bad move on her part considering the fact that most readers of such stories are mainly female, and merging romance with steamy neck blood sucking narrations would almost guarantee her book great success.

In Interview with the Vampire tells the story of Louis, a vampire who through an off-the-record meeting with a journalist, recounts the events in his life as an immortal. Louis tells us of his life in rural New Orleans, and how he eventually came to encounter Lestat, a powerful vampire, who turns him into one and schools him on the vampire way of life. He continues to relate how he encountered the little girl Claudia, and how he regretted to convert her because he inevitably imprisoned her body into the young state it was, yet her mind would continue to develop her vampire behavior. Through out the story, Louis struggles with his desires to drink blood and his human conscience which prevents him from willingly causing harm to others. On the other hand we are also presented with the antagonist Lestat, who is clearly in command of his train of thought and his actions, and couldn’t care less about the pain his survival caused to humans.

Anne Rice clearly, among other themes in her novel, presents us with a good and evil clash. Even though the story is about vampires, most of us non-blood-sipping humans can relate to the fact that we have two sides of our brain that are conflicted when we might want to do certain things that our other side of our conscience doesn’t approve of. Anne Rice had some tragic events in her life pertaining to her child, similar to Mary Shelley, and this story filled with tragedy and mental conflict was probably a reflection of her feelings and her coping with her own conscience.

Monster Island

The second week of class dealt with the theme of zombies. Originally derived from ancient African and Haitian voodoo beliefs, zombies were reanimated corpses, brought back to life by way of witchcraft and sorcery. Nowadays, perhaps because of the times we live in, zombie stories tend to go for a more epidemic or virus type of explanation.

At least that was the case in this week’s 2004 blog novel by David Wellington titled Monster Island. In this story set in a modern post-apocalyptic Earth, the world’s big economic powers have all crumbled, and some viral disaster in the recent months has created a global population of zombies who fiend insatiably for satisfying their hunger for flesh…specifically live human flesh. The main character Dekalb, is an American and ex United Nations weapon inspector who was stuck in a Somali refugee camp with his seven year old daughter Sarah, with a number of other survivors. At the time, Somalia is controlled by Mama Halima a woman commander in chief with a national army comprised of mostly girl child soldiers. Due to his knowledge of New York City, Dekalb is forced to leave his daughter in the care of the Somali army, and mission out to New York by boat with a team of girl soldiers to find some medicine for Halima who apparently had been infected with aids. Because of the scarce supply of aids medication in Africa, Dekalb’s knowledge of New York City was there best and fastest option. After arriving in the city, Wellington describes, in an almost graphic novel type of way, the visuals of street battles, gore, blood, a.k-47 rifles and zombie body parts, as the group made their way through the city to complete their mission. The novel also goes back and forth between the simultaneous storyline of Gary, an ex med student living in New York who had recently made himself into a zombie because of his fear of being the only one around who wasn’t. This was a very interesting and particular aspect of Wellington’s work which was nice because it gives a perspective from a zombie who has kept his conscience and is dealing with the struggle of his new undead existence.

I’m not a particular fan of the zombie theme, but as a way of understanding the rise in popularity, maybe it’s an attempt at speculations of possible futures for humanity where the field of science, which in reality is advancing incredibly fast every day and has been used for horrible experiments, gave way to the rise of mindless flesh eating freaks. I just think a lot of people have a thing for fantasizing about being in dangerous situations, but its not the same to tell a story than to live it, I bet it wouldn’t be so fun if tomorrow’s news told you about the arrival of real live zombies in a city near you…or real dead I mean.