Dear Doer of Darkness
Sep. 5th, 2012 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretDear Doer of Darkness,
Thank you so much for offering to create a gift for me! Kaleidoscope went great for me last year and I'm sure this year will also be great. And if it's not, we'll blame it on me instead of you: I have notoriously bad taste. Just ask my friends.
I sit on an uneasy edge of fandom the colossus. I like weird source texts, I like strange crossovers, I like post-modernism. The source texts I've requested sort of demand self-conscious storytelling from the fan creator.
Some discussion of the fandoms I requested follows. I'll italicize the request I put on the prompt form, and then add some more thoughts.
The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith
I want more adventures with these characters, but in particular I would love Alex and Sarah sitting shiva for Li-Jin, Alex and Adam as teenagers doing hijinks, or something post-canon.
This is my favorite of Smith's three novels, even though I know it is generally her least critically acclaimed novel. Alex-Li Tandem is one of the most personally affecting characters I've ever come across, and his struggles with culture and community speak deeply and directly to me.
As Alex digs himself deeper and deeper into his taxonomy of Jewish and Goyish, he is pulled further away from his heritage. But at the novel's heart there is a religious object with sufficient gravitational pull to overcome his cynicism: Kaddish. Alex can't dismiss Kaddish, can't categorize it, can't encompass its mysteries and reduce them to a list of names. Instead, Kaddish turns his lists of names into a spiritual experience, the same way Kitty Alexander's autograph transforms from a stain of ink into a spiritual quest. It is an uplift.
So I would like another story about Kaddish. I am fascinated by the idea of Sarah and Alex sitting shiva for Li-Jin. It's the missing scene of my dreams, the dark matter around which so many of the novel's events swirl. It's a perfect moment of broken hybridity, cultural mismatches becoming absurd in the face of the universality of death.
If that doesn't appeal to you, feel free to tell me the missing scene of your dreams, or show me more about Alex and Adam or Alex and Esther or Alex and Joseph. I'm flexible.
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Something horridly over-metafictional. Let the wankers call it self-indulgent and twee all they want. Or, you know, anything else you want to make. This book is so big and overflowing with stories.
This book is so gigantic that I don't know what to say. There are so many stories begging to be expanded, so many characters I'd love to see more of. The Saleem/Shiva/Parvati dynamic strikes me as central, and fascinating in many ways. I enjoy bouncing Midnight's Children off against its literary inspirations, Tristram Shandy and the Arabian Nights and Hamlet and H. Hatterr, East and West in ferocious phantasmal collision. I'd also think it fascinating to update the history to accommodate later events in Indian history that Saleem's life continues to parallel.
Treemonisha by Scott Joplin
For Treemonisha, I'd love to see post-canon, her continued climb and struggle. With maybe a little more realism and less didacticism. For Zodzetrick, I just want him canonized with Oberon and the Queen of the Night and all of the other great mystical beings of opera.
A super obscure and brilliant ragtime grand opera, Americana meeting Mozart. It's only a couple hours long, so if you're struggling on another match, it might be worth checking out as an alternative.
I love Treemonisha the character and would love anything about her post-canon life. The Great Migration was taking place and she would obviously be torn between the community she has grown up with and the new communities forming where there were jobs. What kinds of choices would she make?
I'd also be interested in seeing something with Zodzetrick, who is such a neat character, in the Queen of the Night vein. Folklore and superstition battling against Enlightenment, given a clever 20th century polish. I'm a scientist and a rationalist most of the time, but I think there's something admirable about the way folklore and superstition always rises up to social fill needs when science falters.
Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
There are many crossovers that would delight me- none more than Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road.
I'd love to see a roc. I'd love to see djinns. I'd love to see all sorts of other Arabian folklore and how Raseed and Adoulla respond to it.
I'd love to see what Adoulla in retirement looks like. I'd love to see Raseed coming to terms with his feelings about Zamia, or Raseed realizing that he doesn't need the dervishes anymore. I'd love to see something super-scientific and alchemisty.
I want more adventures.
"The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu
Hm... I guess what I'm most fascinated with is the menagerie itself. Is it sentient? How do the creatures think, and how do they feel about the world?
This is a short story that won the Hugo Award for best short story this year, so if you're struggling on something else, this is a super short canon you can catch up on.
"The Paper Menagerie" is heartbreaking and lovely as a story about being separated from your culture and paying the cost for that separation, about how much it hurts to feel ashamed of who you are. But I want a focus not on the characters but on the paper animals in the menagerie. Fanart would be awesome. So would stories focusing on paper animal perspectives of events from the story.
Or, as with all of these, anything else that seizes your imagination. I'm trying to throw suggestions out there because I know I like getting some guidance, but I'm really not very picky.
Anyway, thanks so much! Best of luck!
Thank you so much for offering to create a gift for me! Kaleidoscope went great for me last year and I'm sure this year will also be great. And if it's not, we'll blame it on me instead of you: I have notoriously bad taste. Just ask my friends.
I sit on an uneasy edge of fandom the colossus. I like weird source texts, I like strange crossovers, I like post-modernism. The source texts I've requested sort of demand self-conscious storytelling from the fan creator.
Some discussion of the fandoms I requested follows. I'll italicize the request I put on the prompt form, and then add some more thoughts.
The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith
I want more adventures with these characters, but in particular I would love Alex and Sarah sitting shiva for Li-Jin, Alex and Adam as teenagers doing hijinks, or something post-canon.
This is my favorite of Smith's three novels, even though I know it is generally her least critically acclaimed novel. Alex-Li Tandem is one of the most personally affecting characters I've ever come across, and his struggles with culture and community speak deeply and directly to me.
As Alex digs himself deeper and deeper into his taxonomy of Jewish and Goyish, he is pulled further away from his heritage. But at the novel's heart there is a religious object with sufficient gravitational pull to overcome his cynicism: Kaddish. Alex can't dismiss Kaddish, can't categorize it, can't encompass its mysteries and reduce them to a list of names. Instead, Kaddish turns his lists of names into a spiritual experience, the same way Kitty Alexander's autograph transforms from a stain of ink into a spiritual quest. It is an uplift.
So I would like another story about Kaddish. I am fascinated by the idea of Sarah and Alex sitting shiva for Li-Jin. It's the missing scene of my dreams, the dark matter around which so many of the novel's events swirl. It's a perfect moment of broken hybridity, cultural mismatches becoming absurd in the face of the universality of death.
If that doesn't appeal to you, feel free to tell me the missing scene of your dreams, or show me more about Alex and Adam or Alex and Esther or Alex and Joseph. I'm flexible.
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Something horridly over-metafictional. Let the wankers call it self-indulgent and twee all they want. Or, you know, anything else you want to make. This book is so big and overflowing with stories.
This book is so gigantic that I don't know what to say. There are so many stories begging to be expanded, so many characters I'd love to see more of. The Saleem/Shiva/Parvati dynamic strikes me as central, and fascinating in many ways. I enjoy bouncing Midnight's Children off against its literary inspirations, Tristram Shandy and the Arabian Nights and Hamlet and H. Hatterr, East and West in ferocious phantasmal collision. I'd also think it fascinating to update the history to accommodate later events in Indian history that Saleem's life continues to parallel.
Treemonisha by Scott Joplin
For Treemonisha, I'd love to see post-canon, her continued climb and struggle. With maybe a little more realism and less didacticism. For Zodzetrick, I just want him canonized with Oberon and the Queen of the Night and all of the other great mystical beings of opera.
A super obscure and brilliant ragtime grand opera, Americana meeting Mozart. It's only a couple hours long, so if you're struggling on another match, it might be worth checking out as an alternative.
I love Treemonisha the character and would love anything about her post-canon life. The Great Migration was taking place and she would obviously be torn between the community she has grown up with and the new communities forming where there were jobs. What kinds of choices would she make?
I'd also be interested in seeing something with Zodzetrick, who is such a neat character, in the Queen of the Night vein. Folklore and superstition battling against Enlightenment, given a clever 20th century polish. I'm a scientist and a rationalist most of the time, but I think there's something admirable about the way folklore and superstition always rises up to social fill needs when science falters.
Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
There are many crossovers that would delight me- none more than Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road.
I'd love to see a roc. I'd love to see djinns. I'd love to see all sorts of other Arabian folklore and how Raseed and Adoulla respond to it.
I'd love to see what Adoulla in retirement looks like. I'd love to see Raseed coming to terms with his feelings about Zamia, or Raseed realizing that he doesn't need the dervishes anymore. I'd love to see something super-scientific and alchemisty.
I want more adventures.
"The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu
Hm... I guess what I'm most fascinated with is the menagerie itself. Is it sentient? How do the creatures think, and how do they feel about the world?
This is a short story that won the Hugo Award for best short story this year, so if you're struggling on something else, this is a super short canon you can catch up on.
"The Paper Menagerie" is heartbreaking and lovely as a story about being separated from your culture and paying the cost for that separation, about how much it hurts to feel ashamed of who you are. But I want a focus not on the characters but on the paper animals in the menagerie. Fanart would be awesome. So would stories focusing on paper animal perspectives of events from the story.
Or, as with all of these, anything else that seizes your imagination. I'm trying to throw suggestions out there because I know I like getting some guidance, but I'm really not very picky.
Anyway, thanks so much! Best of luck!