Field Notes - ENGL 817AJ - Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald

Every time I picked up Rings of Saturn (1995) to read it I would get drowsy to the point where I actually fell asleep a few times! I needed to read one chapter at a time to make it through. And I don't know if it was because the book has an aura of dreaminess about it the way it meanders through the English countryside, or ... Regardless, and despite thinking about it critically the whole read, I was not able to contextualize it within the realm of the course material until it was discussed in class. Then things started making much more sense.

One thing that was talked about in class is how Sebald uses a location anchor somewhere in Suffolk at the start of every section before he reminiscences off into historical vignettes. I picked up on how the table of contents sort of maps out what to expect from the book's structure, but that the structure is introduced to the reader in a subtle way. The historical vignettes are slowly introduced with ones that are more closely related to the English countryside, such as manor house at Somerleyton and the history of herring fishing, before they get more broad in scope by adding Amsterdam, China, and Africa. This slow repetitive structure building of introducing the location anchor and then the vignette makes it less jarring for the reader as the transitions get more abrupt.

My classmate's paper on the Anthropocene present in Rings of Saturn was fascinating. I absolutely did not pick up on that connection at all. But as we were discussing it in class, and the idea of nature trying to reclaim abandoned places was brought in, my professor mentioned nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll and that just got me thinking about the current series of Godzilla films. While the titans in the films are radioactive and consume radiation as nourishment, the films also have a sub-storyline that empathizes with the fate of the planet and the creatures because wherever the titans go, destruction or not, their radiation prompts a regrowth in nature at the site. It is wishful thinking for science fiction to depict radio activity this way because it is actually a large contributor to mankind's decimation of the earth environment in the real world.

Another thread of discussion in class was regarding how format, or genre can inform us about how the text is a map. It made me think of three things:

1. Romance Novel Tropes
   Tropes like slow burn, friends or enemies to lovers, and sharing a bed, all set out an expected plot-path the the book is going to take. When a book is touted as a slow burn, it means there is going to be significant tension building between characters for the vast majority of the novel until things finally start to come to fruition unnervingly close to the end of the text.
   
   
2. Choose Your Own Adventure Novels
   These are very cartographic in their structure because they literally have you choose between options and then tell you where to go: page 4 for this option or page 15 for the other. Read result. Choose next path from set given. Not only are these books not able to be read front to back, but a road map during the writing process needs to be maintained so that all the story paths eventually lead to a cohesive ending, or multiple endings. These multiple threads need to make sense, be mapped, when they are weaving in and out of themselves.
   
   
3. Translated Books
   Often books in other languages don't follow western publishing standards, even when they are translated and published as an English version. This means expected conventions like chapters, that allow for a purposeful break in the reading to help ups navigate a book, are not always present and it may be harder to follow along with changes in characters or locations.

I am also obsessed with the potential link there may be between Thomas Browne's Urn Burial that Sebald mentions throughout his ramblings and a sci-fi book of the same name by Robert Westall that I have read multiple times!

Sebald writes on Browne: 

"Curiously enough, Browne himself, in his famous part-archaeological and part-metaphysical treatise, Urn Burial, offers the most fitting commentary on the subsequent odyssey of his own skull when he writes that to be gnaw'd out of our graves is a tragical abomination." (pg. 11, emphasis mine)

In Westall's novel, a country boy finds an alien creature buried in an ancient cairn and proceeds to continually investigate the body and its artifacts. Browne writes about his skull being passed around, and this boy in Westall handles the alien's helmet numerous times triggering flashbacks of the creature's life and conflicts. The boy doesn't seem to desecrating the burial, but he also cannot leave it alone. Something about this triggers within me about what Sebald noted about Browne's treatise. I might have to dig into this WAY more and see if there is actually something there. I'm so intrigued!

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My whole semesters worth of field notes are due in next week for grading, but I had to playfully chastise my professor about having them due before the last book is set for discussion. So, now I'm trying to fast track reading through Peng Shephard's The Cartographers (2022) and so far: I am loving it! I blew through the first 90 pages in one sitting and I'm so curious about where its going. I've already drawn a comparison with some of my final paper research that I can't wait to write about in my final field notes!

Field Notes - ENGL 817AJ - Muppet Treasure Island Update!

I finally watched Muppet Treasure Island (1996) in preparation for my final paper! 

First image of map from Muppet Treasure Island (00:14:48)

The film was surprisingly fruitful in comparisons relating to the original questions I had going into the film. Below are the questions I had prepped and a few notes about each that I took while watching:

• Is the map the same or different in the film?

- The map in the book and the film are VERY different. The film one does not even resemble the original map that Stevenson produced for the book.

- This difference may end up being quite useful for my paper and the analysis I'm leaning towards.

• Is the map used the same or differently in the film?

- The function of the map is similar in some ways, but also very different in others. One thing that stood out to me was Jim's connection to the map and how he clings to it in the film which is at odds with his relationship to it in the novel.

• How does the map factor into the story in the film versus the book? Same or different?

- In Stevenson's novel the map is well-known and familiar to many of the characters and eventually becomes a sort of toss away item. However, in the film, the map is very much used as a tool, an instrument in locating the treasure, but not the primary tool. Jim's father's compass actually becomes the key tool in locating the treasure for the pirates.

• Are the character interactions with the map the same or different in the film?

- This results of this question are going to make up a good portion of what I might focus on in my paper. 

- Not to give too much away, here are a few tidbits: Treasure mapping the treasure map; Jim is an active participant, not just dragged along; the map is still common knowledge of the pirates.

World map depicting the ship's trajectory in Muppet Treasure Map (00:40:42)

• Is the island the map depicts more real or fantastical in the film? Or is it a mix like in the book?

- To me, the island seems more fantastical in the film just because of the depiction of it on screen. Its more gothic, craggy and implied to be scary where as the book island is more like a tropical island with some beaches, trees and some rocky pillars.

- Furthermore, in the film, Jim doesn't go off on his own on the island, he is stuck with the pirates. This kind of reinforces the scary and fantastical quality of the film island.

• How does the film depict the 2D island from the map into a 3D visual for the screen?
• How similar is the visualization? Or, are there very glaring differences?

- This kind of ties into the last question. I noted down a few time stamps from the film in which the island is shown. Most notably is that key landmarks are missing, the island is shown mostly from sea, and the beach is really the only thing that matches the original book description.

• Does the film treat the map more like a treasure map or like a locations map such as the book?

- I think the map is treated very much like a treasure map in the film, specifically because the pirates use it to follow the trail and locate the treasure. The pirates in the text know how to read the map and follow its clues but they don't use it per se to locate anything. The novel's map is more used to orient the reader to the events of the story.

• Does the MTI map lend itself to the creation of the story on film like the drawn map did for the text? Basically, where were the creative liberties, often taken with film, evident and used?

- Considering the film map is nothing like the book one, the film map does not lend itself to the creation of the story. It is very purely an adaptation of the already existing story. Therefore, the film took MANY creative liberties with the story as it was adapted to the film!

- Pop culture references like Star Trek, musical numbers and commentary on it being a children's film.

- Jim is an orphan in the film and has Gonzo and Rizzo as friends, unlike the novel.

- The island is populated with a tribe of pig-puppets that have a culture, rather than with just goats.

- The marooned man is Miss Piggy but some of the details of backstory are kept, like being part of Flint's crew are kept the same.

- Jim, when rescuing the Hispaniola from the pirates, it is undamaged and he turns out to be an excellent sailor rather than fumbling along and barely making it to shore.

Under the umbrella that both the book and film are for kids, I'm going to focus on the differences between the text and film's maps, how characters from both sources interact with the maps, how the island is depicted in 3D from a 2D image and text description and add in some analysis on the cinematic world map the film included depicting the trajectory of the Hispaniola.

Field Notes - ENGL 817AJ - Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Finally, we get to Neverwhere! I quite liked it, and it was surprisingly my first Gaiman novel. So, for future reads of his novels on my TBR, I hope this is a good indication of more of his writing.

My copy of the novel interestingly did not have a copy of the London Underground in it. It seems most other copies do, so not sure why the version I had didn't. Regardless, my professor was kind enough to scan it and put it up online for use in the class. The image below of that map is not his scan through, I found this one online. Whomever uploaded it seems to have highlighted all the actual stations that are visited in the novel by the characters.

I'm not sure how coherent this post is going to be because I had random thoughts when reading the novel as well as trying think about the questions posed in class that we were to apply to the novel. Perhaps I'll do just little mini sections and not worry about how they transition into one another.

Personification of the Stations

I latched on to the convention of personifying the tube stations in London Below. Blackfriars was actually a collection of monks that were protecting a precious object. Earl's Court was the literal court of an Earl that was held on actual train car. And Richard marvels that there might actually be ravens in Raven's Court. However, Knightsbridge becomes Night's Bridge and is place of fear and disappearance. Not a personification but an inversion of the outcome of what might have been expected with the way elements are named and presented in London Below. The names of the station as known to the Above are lost to history, but in the below, they are real, keep something of the history. The stations become people, things, real and tangible. But they're also barriers. No longer are the stations just a way-through from one place to another, they have to be interacted with to move forward.

The Notion of Being "Lost"

This has come in the class a few times prior, but never has it made quite so much sense to me as it did in Neverwhere. Richard quite literally gets lost when he falls through the cracks of London Above and into London Below. He becomes invisible, lost to those he knew before, but even more unfortunately, no one in the Below wants to help him - at first. Richard has no cognitive map that makes sense to him in the Below because while he was obsessed with the tube map, it doesn't make any sense when he's navigating tunnels and sewers and not the actual train network. He only begins to orient when he starts to recognize the landmarks and tube stations they do pass through on their journey.

I actually think there is a little foreshadowing of this 'lost-ness' and what happens to Richard at the beginning of the novel when he gives away his umbrella that has the tube map on it to the Old Lady. He literally gives away his ability to navigate.

1996 London Underground Map

Authenticity of the Author
Who's surprised this is coming up again? Seems to be a reoccurring theme to me throughout the class and the texts we're reading though. The first map pictured above, the one from Gaiman's novel and the second one above - different authors. But the second official London Underground map influenced Gaiman's novel one. Now, there is no question that Gaiman produced the first map based on the official one, so, in a kind of sense, there are two authors. But, Gaiman adds in old historical information of stations into his map for the book that is not on the official map anymore. And who is Gaiman's map for? If its just for the reader to track and understand London Below, then I see Gaiman is the authoritative author. But if the map is, perhaps, to represent Richard's understanding of the Below based on the knowledge he had previous of the real tube system, then is Gaiman the sole author, or is Richard perhaps the figurative author as well? I made a similar connection/claim with the back-cover map in The Hobbit. 

Other Odds and Ends
These are not fully developed threads, but things that came to me in passing/reading:

• The Floating Market - it moves around and so the inhabitants of London Below pass around the location, but it also needs to be kind of deciphered in order to know where to go and how to get there. For example, the "Belfast" market. Richard seems really confused about where this one might be, same with the reader, that is unless you know about the HMS Belfast museum-ship.
  
  
• Old Bailey - he is a London Belower but he lives in London Above. In fact, he lives above London Above on the roof tops of the city. He is contrary to the contrary. He extends beyond the inversion of London that the below represents.

To leave off this post, I'm going to share a quote from the Foucault article "Of Other Spaces" that stuck out to me:

"To be sure a certain theoretical desanctification of space (the one signaled by Galileo's work) has occurred, but we may still not have reached the point of a practical desanctification of space. And perhaps our life is still governed by a certain number of oppositions that remain inviolable, that our institutions and practices have not yet dared to break down. These are oppositions that we regard as simple givens: for example between private space and public space, between family space and social space, between cultural space and useful space, between the space of leisure and that of work. All these are still nurtured by the hidden presence of the sacred."

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We have another week discussing Neverwhere, so this post may get updated with more thoughts, and then after that we still have two more novels before the end of the course: The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald from 1995 and translated from German, and Peng Shephard's 2022 novel  The Cartographers. I'm also hoping to sneak in a field notes post updating my approach and research on Muppet Treasure Island in comparison with Stevenson's Treasure Island.  

Field Notes - ENGL 817AJ - Mind Mapping: Part 2 - Extra Thoughts

After reading the O'Connor short story again, and doing the map drawing assignment, I have a lot of other thoughts that were brought up when one of my classmates asked for some feedback on their upcoming seminar for that exact reading.

The below is copied word-for-word from the email that I sent to said classmate:

"However, I am REALLY intrigued by this idea you have of "mapping murder" at the end of the story. It almost plays into the idea that while murders can be premeditated (planned out, like a map, thinking military almost), they are also crimes of passion or committed in desperation. But, it also calls to mind the spatial landmarks that O'Connor uses in the family's deaths to indicate where things are happening but also that some things are hidden - such as the actual deaths (aside from the grandmothers) that are 'off-page' so to speak. Plus all the events and choices in the way that led them to their eventual demise.

I also makes me think about how recreating crime scenes, or making a map of the scene and piecing together the events, is also a type of mental mapping for investigators. Perhaps that can be an alternate way for you to think of things and have a different take or edge to the idea of a mental map aiding in the analysis of a text. Like procedural crime shows, dramas, and mystery novels, isn't creating a map kind of like the procedures, specific steps used, in solving a crime? It can appear to be all very procedural in some cases.

Such as the case study reading, evaluating maps has steps, what is there, what isn't? Take the assignment: specific steps: read the short story then draw the map. What changes if the steps are out of order? What about drawing the map as the narrative unfolds, more procedure like: read, then draw, then read, then draw, step-by-step."

This thought process is still hanging out in the back of my mind, even weeks after the reading...