Category Archives: Virtual Forums

Ghost in the Shell (1995): Who is the “Other”?

For reference in this post (please use AdBlock): http://www.upstreamis.tv/ghost-in-the-shell-1995/ Humanity is portrayed in two distinct lights in Ghost in the Shell:  the existence of human beings as “ghosts,” and the existence of the Puppet Master.  The Puppet Master says, “The advent … Continue reading

Posted in VF for Ghost in the Shell | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World as a Celebration of the Unconscious Mind

In Murakami’s novel, two concepts of mind, the conscious mind and the unconscious mind, are juxtaposed as different worlds in the main character’s plane of existence.  In Hard-Boiled Wonderland, the protagonist’s work environment, big data rules every aspect of life. … Continue reading

Posted in VF for Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Virtual Forums | Leave a comment

Magical Realism Image

http://www.lionesswomansclub.com/dat/content/image/rob-gonsalves-illusion.jpg  

Posted in VF for Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World | Leave a comment

Hard-Boiled Wonderland as a Metaphor for Life

I immediately saw this book as a metaphor for the way we live. While we exist consciously in our reality, we subconsciously exist in a world inside our heads, represented by the parallel of the even (End of the world) … Continue reading

Posted in VF for Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Murakami’s Calcutec-Semiotec Dichotomy

The mirror-like interplay and tension between the System-affiliated Calcutecs and the Factory-aligned Semiotecs is another example of the cerebral, insular-minded emphasis that our class has encountered in a number of the texts we’ve read in class. In novels such as … Continue reading

Posted in VF for Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World | Leave a comment

Dichotomies within the whole

One of the most interesting parts of this book for me was the presence of dichotomies, as presented in multiple ways. The first is perhaps the shifting narrative between even chapters and odd chapters. As discussed in class, the odd … Continue reading

Posted in VF for Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Virtual Forums | Leave a comment

Juxtaposition of Stories

This novel differs from most in its structure. The two distinct stories told in alternating chapters is jarring at first for the reader and causes discontinuity in the stories being told. It seems to me that one of the chief … Continue reading

Posted in VF for Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Virtual Forums | 2 Comments

Murakmi’s Visual Foreshadowing; Paying Homage to Michaelanglo’s Artistic Antics

As we discussed in class, when reading Murakami one must pay special attention to even the most trivial details, even if they’re external to the story itself. The styling and thought behind the chapter names, which alternate in the use … Continue reading

Posted in VF for Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Contrasting Rates of Change

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is unique in that it presents two separate, though connected, narratives. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two worlds are rates of change. Hard Boiled Wonderland moves remarkably quickly, like the world … Continue reading

Posted in VF for Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World | Leave a comment

Binaries in Hard-boiled Wonderland

At the core of Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the idea of the binary, two separate objects slowly coming together as one. This can be seen immediately from both the title and the chapters, which alternate … Continue reading

Posted in VF for Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World | 2 Comments