"I've not seen Naked Lunch or eXistenZ as yet, but I *do* like a lot of mind-screw anime. I'm a fan of Neon Genesis Evangelion, and of Serial Experimetns Lain...Ghost in the Shell to a degree... My guy discovered a really cool one that dealt with the nature of souls and memories on a fansub download site - Kaiba - It's not liscensed in the West yet. In fact, I’m such a geek - if you ever see me on here talking about the Internet as “The Wired,” I’m referencing Serial Experiments Lain.
That's probably one reason why I like ambiguity – all the anime I watch. Another reason is that I don’t want to write just for one audience (well, I am already in that I’m writing fantasy, and that’s a specific fanbase), but as far as worldviews and values, I want to be accessible to a lot of people – (i.e. While some of my own views are going to leak into my work, I don’t want to offend my non-religious/not-into-spirituality friends). Mostly, it’s just the way I think life is. It seems that no matter what “evidence” anyone has for something – whatever their experiences, not everyone is going to believe them.
I had a dream that is a perfect illustration for this not long ago. In my dream, I gained a sudden ability to talk to animals. I had dogs and birds going “Hey, yo!” to me. I could even talk to *meat* to a degree, which made it even weirder. In the dream, I had the distinct impression that this sudden ability was proof of the existence of God. The problem was, when I tried to tell anyone in the dream, I was labeled as lying and/or crazy. Then I realized that the “evidence was for me, personally, not for anyone else.” – When I woke up, I couldn’t talk to animals, but I felt like this dream echoed life, as in “The things I see as evidence for the things I believe in are evidence only for me.”
I’ve been cultivating the ambiguity thing for a while now. In the last novel I wrote (yet, without an interested literary agent, *sigh*) there were four main characters. Two of them were human. The other two mains were their companions, animal-like spiritual guides. The two human characters came from a town where almost everyone had these kind of guardians – and only people who believed in them could see them. “Non-believers” were unaware of them. All the same, the guardians themselves enjoyed telling their charges that they might, indeed, be delusions, products of the humans’ imaginations. And – that’s pretty much what the entire novel was about. "
Now see, I like that idea, but I did suggest Naked Lunch and eXistenZ, so, you know.
ReplyDelete(How are you accessing blogger? I had to switch to firefox to be able to comment on my own blog.)
Ambiguity exists everywhere, though I think most people don't like it. But really, is there proof of things like love or happiness? What about beauty? These things can be transcendental to me, and yet you won't see a thing, and vice versa.
That doesn't make me or you right or wrong. We both are- for ourselves. A lot of things don't have outside verification, they still exist inside the person experiencing them.
You like anime/manga, so it may not bother you, but the guy who does Naked Lunch, etc. is really into the visceral. A lot of the imagery/props are fleshy, somewhat living things that sometimes ooze or make squishy sounds. I like the "ew" factor of it, but I'm guessing some people would not.