LITERATURE OF HORROR, FANTASY & SCI-FI

  <Books read> - 41 points Week 1: Frankenstein - 6 points Week 2: Interview with a Vampire - 6 points Week 3: A Wild Sheep Chase - 6 points               Confessions - 5 points Week 4: Annihilation - 6 points Week 5: I couldn't finish read Akata witch...! - no points Week 6: The Hobbit - 6 points Week 7: The Night Circus - 6 points <Attendance> - 5 points  I missed the class on Sep. 14th, and the class on Oct. 19th. On Oct. 19th, I had a technical issue with my laptop. I apologize that I didn't email you about this earlier...!  <Total Midterm points> - 46 points

   The main background of ‘Confessions’ is a normal school. The homeroom teacher, Yuko, says her four-year-old daughter is murdered by her class at the school where she works. The story begins with the teacher confessing this murder case like a speech in front of her students on the day of the closing ceremony. Yuko is the parent who lost her daughter and couldn’t protect her daughter, and at the same time, she is a teacher who has a duty to guide her students in the right way. She confesses about the law and order, ethics, and moral ideas in a calm and grim tone, in front of the criminals in her class who killed her daughter. Everyone is quietly holding their breath.  The incident begins with the death of Yuko's only four-year-old daughter, Manami. Manami was found drowned in the pool, but in fact, it was done by Yuko's students Naoki and Shuya. Shuya wanted to get his mother's attention by killing Manami, and Naoki pushed Manami into the pool to show Shuya, who i...

      I grew up watching movies and was enthusiastic about Vampires, invisible men, wizards, and goblins, so they are like childhood friends in my imagination.     Among these imaginative creatures, my favorite is a vampire, because they have special abilities surpassing humans. Furious power, and immortal ability to live forever while maintaining youth. They can sustain life only by drinking human blood. This vampiric act may be scary, but also feel like a fatal temptation. They are attractive because of their distinction, but at the same time, I like vampires due to their familiarity. The fact that they have the same appearance as humans (except the colors of eyes and skin) and that they were humans in the past make vampires more intimate. They can fall in love with a human, and they can even make children with a human. These characteristics of vampires make me feel that they might exist.     Louis, who unwillingly became...

      There is an image that comes to mind when you think of 'circus.' Pierrot with a lot of makeup on his face, performers doing a risky performance on the trapeze, people spinning many plates at a time, a breathtaking show with animals, etc. Inside the large tent where the circus is performed, shows a world of fantasy that is different from the outside world. And there is also magic that makes people think outside the box, such as a person suddenly disappearing in a box, a body split magic, and the objects come from the hat seamlessly. These kinds of performances become more and more splendid to surpass the expectation of viewers that increases as time passes.      Le Cirque des Reves, the dream circus that opens at sunset and closes at dawn is the main background of this story. The lights that announce the opening of the illusionary circus begin to flash. And the entrance of the circus is opened, the world of fantasy and dream greets us. A special circus...

        <Hobbit> has praised that it is a novel everyone should read before we die, so I have always wondered about the story of Hobbit, and this was a great time to read it. As I read this book, I couldn't help but admire the story, even though it was written in the 1930s, is still entertaining and inspiring.        “In a hole, in the ground, there lived a hobbit.” The adventure story of The Hobbit, a race that is only half the height of humans, begins with this. The main character is the Hobbit named Bilbo. Like the other hobbits, he pursues a comfortable life living peacefully in a comfortable cave, however, I think Bilbo has a spirit of adventure at the same time.       One day, he meets strange visitors, the wizard and the 13 dwarves, tell the story of a mountain that a dragon lives in. The story of a gold-filled dwarf kingdom, a prosperous city, inspired Bilbo's curiosity, and the offer to get some of the tremendous...

   Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chas e has a lot of metaphors and symbols. Because of its implications, I even felt like I was reading a long poem, rather than a novel. The adventure of chasing a sheep is maybe about our life. The sheep can be seen as some kind of ‘desire’ in our life. The main character who didn’t know what the sheep was, was forced to pursue the sheep by a man in a black suit. He didn’t even think he wanted a sheep but ended up chasing the sheep. He didn’t want to live such a life, but society drove him to pursue desires such as wealth, glory, and power. If someone chases only material possessions, it can cause the loss of more valuable things in our life.    Rat said what makes us feel the gap between reality and ideal is the weakness of us. If we dream of 100 percent, we can achieve only 60 to 70 percent in reality. Maybe less than 10 percent. However, we strongly believe that we can close those gaps. I think it is inevitable to be pos...

    On March 14, physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking, who died on March 14, warned of sudden alien changes such as a comet collision and the possibility of alien life invading Earth. The point of the argument was that in the worst case, humanity could be extinct under such circumstances, and before that, new settlements other than Earth should be pioneered. Annihilation made me look back on Dr. Hawking's argument.      The novel can be summarized as a story about human’s responses to the threat of survival due to the spread of unusual phenomena originating from outer space. Five female expeditions consisting of a biologist, an anthropologist, a surveyor, and a psychologist enter an ‘Area X’ dominated by a peculiar phenomenon. After entering Area X, they set up a base camp in the area, and while exploring the surroundings, they discovered a tower that leads to the basement.      Biologists call the space she and the expedition discovered as a tower, but ...