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A stílusról Rajaniemi ugrott be, csakúgy mint az Extensa olvasásakor. De a finn ecset valahogy vastagabban, színesebben fogott, nekem ez a Dukaj-verzió túlságosan be volt zárva egy fémtojásba, egyetlen robot fejébe - aki hát valljuk be nem a legvagányabb indián a poszthumanista klubban.
In this review I put aside all the hype around the book in Poland, additional media content (3D printing, PI videos, etc.). These are additional elements I find supplementary at most. * Before I begin: I'm not a fan of Dukaj's newspeak - I find it hard and exhausting to follow. 1/3rd of this edition consist of footnotes explaining the wording used throughout the book. On positive side at least I'm understanding what I'm reading (which I couldn't say about "Król Bólu" - another book of this author). On negative one, it's a very lazy way of introducing a reader to a presented universe at best. In this sweet and beautifully designed small book, a little alien peers through a telescope at all the bedtime rituals on Earth. Using mixed media, Bondestam creates rich, layered illustrations featuring animals all across the globe…. Delicate pen-and-ink applied over the colors give the animals very expressive faces…. [I]t neatly resembles Margaret Wise Brown’s classic Good Night Moon, and fans of that book will appreciate the contrast.” Axolotl es un cuento escrito por Julio Cortázar, publicado junto a otros cuentos, en 1956. Algunas de las temáticas que aborda esta historia son: la obsesión del narrador hacia estos anfibios, la empatía, la relación de una persona con una especie marina y los privilegios de los seres humanos. But as the world gets hotter and hotter, the water gets murkier. Friends become harder to find, and the lonesome axolotl grows even lonelier. Until one day when, out of the blue, a colossal wave carries the axolotl into a surprising new future….
Books
De exemplu, în „Instrucțiuni privind urcatul pe scară” conștiința este plasată în afara corpului cu care se joacă apoi ca și cu o păpușă. Instrucțiunile preliminare privind întorsul ceasului” (și în cele pentru întorsul ceasului), totul este deturnat de la ritmurile și percepția normală și amplificat apocaliptic. În „Instrucțiunile privind întorsul ceasului”, dar și în alte povestiri, simt incantații nichitastănesciene. Yo creo que Axolotl es un cuento en donde nos muestran como son las diferentes perspecitvas de cada individuo, lo hace de una forma creativa e inovadora que impresiona al lector. What makes us human? Is it possible to copy a soul? Who really lives, fights and dies in those metal bodies? Who plays out the melancholy drama of physiology and the flesh? There are numerous references in the story to Aztecs and various phases of the Argentine history, the intentional usage of foreign words by the author perhaps underlines the invasion by foreigners who silence the local voices. The golden eyes of axolotls, their peculiar heads allude to the history of the country of the author. The author portrays the secluded, shifting and puzzling behavior of the axolotl to underline humanity’s loneliness and solitude of existence as we often struggle to fit into the world we live in, feeling as if we are trapped here and condemned to live. The quiet nature of axolotl may also be interpreted as humanity being an unintentional accomplice to the unfair things in life by mutely spectating them. The author ends the story the way he starts it by subverting the narrative through the infusion of metafictional element to its epilogue for giving a final but decisive twist to the story so as to create an art which might voice to those trapped in the hell of nothingness; but even then, as expected from Cortazar, the end of the story is left to multiple interpretations- the possible realities which may lie in a possibility.
Lumea lui Cortazar, cel puțin în aceste povestiri, este o lume în care ce trebuie făcut este să răstorni valorile comune/general_acceptate (exprimările pudice ale familiei, cutumele de la poștă). E un exemplu de gîndire „out-of-the-box”, un foc de artificii. Drowning in nostalgia for the lost world, the survivors create civilization after civilization, life after life, humanity after humanity. They form alliances and fight wars. They develop their own politics, ideologies and crazy hardware religions. And they face dilemmas no one has ever confronted before. Other fun questions are raised - how would voting in a democracy work if you can copy yourself, and your voice? Is copying someone else 'theft'? Is progress a myth? Indiviglio, Frank, " Newts and Salamanders: a Complete Pet Owner's Manual", 1997, Barron's Educational Series.Duellman, William E.; Trueb, Linda, " Biology of Amphibians", 1994, Johns Hopkins University Press. How do you go about making a picture book for children that touches on one of the most difficult and painful issues of our time—the climate crisis? Bondestam does just this, with heart and mind, in a breathtaking story that bypasses people (or ‘big lugs’ as they’re called in the book) and heads for the margins…. The language is flexible and inventive, rather ingeniously making the axolotl the narrator. Thanks to this irresistibly charming protagonist, the story is brimming with empathy and nerve. By reflecting the small in the big, the reader can recognize and get involved in the fragile globe that we all live on whose future concerns us all.” This was a book about the axolotl salamander that can be found down in Mexican canals although they are definitely rare now. As such I was actually amazed to see the amount of information included while at the same time noticing that the book was directed for a very much younger audience than I would think would be ready for this type of read.
Literature is a form of human expression wherein human beings have devised various forms which have evolved over the years to produce literary works which might bring it closer to real life, in a way that it mirrors our life. We have seen that the literature has evolved over the years from outside to inside, which means that we have turned inwards towards our existential angst and quest, and in the process we have witnessed the blossoming of modernism and other art and philosophical movements of 20th century; the postmodernism rises in response to it underlining the relativism, skepticism, absurdity, randomity and non-sense of life in association with post-structuralism, and some experts say that beyond post-modernism we have progressed towards meta-modernism. The various styles of literary fiction took birth in the advent of exploration and depiction of human condition- such as metafiction, surrealism, and magic realism which portrays realistic view of world by infusing magical elements to it. The writing is very basic, in large print and in really simple sentences, which would encourage me to suggest this book is for beginning readers. But being that it is an informative book and that there is no place that gives pronunciation for either Xolotl or the axolotl I would be a bit leery to recommend it for starting readers unless there is a willing adult who doesn't mind reading along.As we do deep down analysis to further explore our naïve curiosity, we find another dilemma waiting for us to rob us from the comforts and truths we might have devised for ourselves, and the mystifying dilemma is what should we read, or rather which authors should we devote our time to. Borges would say that everyone is writing the same thing then how does it matter who we should read or who not. Though all of us may be writing about the same thing (to quest the innate desire for peace and curb our existential angst) but perhaps it is the way we write which differentiates some exclusive ones from others. It may be that one would never undertake such a thing if one is not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand as Orwell maintained; but, I guess, an author may have an obligation, which is to not to freeze language, or to pretend it is a dead thing that must be revered, but to use it as a living thing, that flows, that borrows words, that allows meanings and pronunciations to change with time. Perhaps, that’s how the different art movements have graduated over the years and probably that’s why we have seen a plethora of authors, and we are still witnessing it, and perhaps would be seeing it in the future too. And in the same stream we find authors such as Julio Cortazar who experimented with the prose in a way to extend the supposedly boundaries of the literature and transformed the way it is being written. El cuento nos muestra a un narrador que se queda horas mirando a los axolotls en el jardín de plantas solamente observando su inmovilidad, hasta que se transforma en uno. Como empieza a ir todos los días al acuario se obsesiona con estos anfibios, por sus miradas y sus facciones. Él cree que ellos les piden ayuda y siente algo de humanidad en estos ajolotes. De igual manera él sentía temor, no dejaba de pensar en estas criaturas, era algo agobiante pero lindo a la vez, puesto que nunca había sentido una conexión tan grande con otro animal, quería saber absolutamente todo de cómo vivían y pensaban. Hasta que se transforma en uno y por fin puede sentir esa perspectiva. Estaba inmóvil, incapaz de expresarse, él solo con sus pensamientos. Condenado a moverse entre criaturas insensibles. Petranka, James W. " Salamanders of the United States and Canada", 1998, Smithsonian Institute Press. A kötet szokatlan szerkesztésmódjával nem egészen vagyok kibékülve. Eleinte nagyon tetszett a fura kéthasábos megoldás, később már erőltetettnek éreztem, ráadásul egy ilyen formabontásnak mindig nagy az ára is: fókuszvesztést, töredezett olvasási élményt okoz. Nem biztos, hogy megérte. Inkább érzem úgy utólag, hogy valamiféle naplózási fájlokat olvastam, mintsem hogy egy regényt. Persze lehet, hogy pont ez volt a cél.
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