{"id":630,"date":"2015-11-12T20:36:21","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T01:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/?p=630"},"modified":"2015-11-12T20:36:21","modified_gmt":"2015-11-13T01:36:21","slug":"binaries-in-hard-boiled-wonderland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/2015\/11\/binaries-in-hard-boiled-wonderland\/","title":{"rendered":"Binaries in Hard-boiled Wonderland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At the core of <em>Hardboiled Wonderland and<\/em> <em>the End of the World <\/em>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 between the Wonderland and the End of the world. The protagonist of <em>Hard-boiled Wonderland<\/em>, a calcutec, uses the binary property of his brain to process data, which is the main source of capital for almost everything in his world.<\/p>\n<p>The other narrative, <em>The End of the World, <\/em>introduces us to another unknown narrator who can\u2019t remember anything about his previous life. This is another interesting binary between the two stories, the Calcutec is struggling to preserve his identity while the <em>End of the World<\/em> narrator is struggling to discover his. The prose in the <em>End of the World <\/em>chapters is also markedly more fluid and poetic (almost dream-like), while the <em>Hardboiled <\/em>chapters tend to feel more cold and distant in its style.<\/p>\n<p>The idea of a fundamental binary of identity is on display front and center here, asking to what extent our idea of self-hood is defined by our logical nature versus our creative impulses. If you take away a person\u2019s ability to rationalize through prior memory, what do you have left? Would he still be human?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/2015\/11\/binaries-in-hard-boiled-wonderland\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4321,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wonderland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4321"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":632,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions\/632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/robot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}