http://www.bookchickcity.com/ is doing a Stephen King reading challenge for 2011. Just read six or twelve Stephen King novels during 2011 (for more details click this link http://www.bookchickcity.com/2010/12/sign-up-2011-stephen-king-challenge.html). This challenge crosses over into the Horror and Urban Fantasy Challenge so the Stephen King books you read here will count for that contest. I'm a big Stephen King fan and I now have an excuse to read more of his novels. It doesn't get much better than that.
Thank you to Book Chick City for another awesome challenge.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Book Chick City Horror and Urban Fantasy Reading Challenge 2011.
http://www.bookchickcity.com/ is hosting a horror and urban fantasy reading challenge starting in January 1, 2011, and running through December 31, 2011. The challenge is to read twenty-four horror and/or urban fantasy novels in one year. If you would like to join the challenge, go to http://www.bookchickcity.com/2010/11/sign-up-horror-urban-fantasy-reading.html for all of the details. I read tons of horror and urban fantasy so this one is a no-brainer for me. I will likely post some reviews on whatever I am reading throughout this challenge along with my usual random thoughts on whatever subject happens to be bouncing around in my head at the time.
Thank you to Book Chick City for hosting this challenge.
Thank you to Book Chick City for hosting this challenge.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Skulls, Vampires, and Emo: The Modern Deification of Death
During the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, my older (fifty-something) sister stopped by for a visit. She lives in the South and we seldom get to see one another so we spent some time chatting about all sorts of things. Eventually our conversation turned to trends in fashion and she asked me "Why do young people like to wear things with skulls on them?" I thought about her question for a moment, but found that I was stumped for an answer. I replied blandly, saying something about the skull fashion reflecting some of the current trends in music and entertainment with the popularity of emo music and all things vampire in literature, television, and movies. The week before the conversation with my sister, a coworker (also fifty-something) asked me a similar question. He told me that his neighbours were very nice people but they always dressed in black, were tattooed, and listened to the same "goth-sounding" music that I listen to. He wanted to know what they (and, I assume, I) believed in and why did we wear clothes that were covered in skulls. I gave him the same stock answer that I later gave to my older sister. I am not satisfied with my answer to either query.
The fascination with death has roots that go deeper than the current emo and vampire trend. I won't go into a history lesson, but if you look at past civilizations like those of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Celts you will notice that they deified death. Anubis, Hades, and Morrigan were the embodiment of death. Gods and goddesses of death were seen as part of the natural order of the world. They not only symbolized death in the traditional sense, but were metaphors for change as well. Death was represented seasonally by autumn and winter; the movement of the sun reflected the life cycle: birth at sun rise, growth through adulthood as the day moved on, and finally, death at sun set. The cycle of life, including death, were ever present in the lives of both the primitives and the ancient civilizations.
Modern western culture no longer feels the pulse of the life cycle. Because of the miracles provided to us by technology, we have lost sight of the significance of death. Our culture is constantly striving to extend our lifetimes to the point that we have become obsessed with living forever. While this preoccupation with extending our lives is understandable, and no doubt that our ancestors would have made similar choices with earlier access to medical technology, it has also caused us to lose our respect of death and our understanding of the role it plays in our lives.
The flip side of this coin is that we constantly live with death. We see friends and loved ones die. We watch our televisions and see thousands die to war, to famine, to disease, to disasters, then we change the channel to watch our favorite sitcom while our subconscious deals with the trauma of seeing so much death. Death is still a constant in our lives, but death is no longer an acknowledged force as it was for the ancients. The ancients celebrated death as a deity, there were festivals in death's honor, they recognized death as a force of nature and dealt with its impact on their lives. Modern humanity does not do this on the same, conscious level.
This is where the skull t-shirts, grim reaper necklaces, and vampire novels come into play. Emo, skulls, and vampires are the way that many of us deal with the concept of death. This is not a conscious decision. We do not put on a t-shirt emblazoned with a flying skull and say to ourselves This is my way of coping with the death I see all around me . Instead, we find ourselves drawn to symbols of death, like the skull or the vampire, and through those symbols, acknowledge death's role in life. In effect, this unconscious acknowledgement is a modern deification of death.
The fascination with death has roots that go deeper than the current emo and vampire trend. I won't go into a history lesson, but if you look at past civilizations like those of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Celts you will notice that they deified death. Anubis, Hades, and Morrigan were the embodiment of death. Gods and goddesses of death were seen as part of the natural order of the world. They not only symbolized death in the traditional sense, but were metaphors for change as well. Death was represented seasonally by autumn and winter; the movement of the sun reflected the life cycle: birth at sun rise, growth through adulthood as the day moved on, and finally, death at sun set. The cycle of life, including death, were ever present in the lives of both the primitives and the ancient civilizations.
Modern western culture no longer feels the pulse of the life cycle. Because of the miracles provided to us by technology, we have lost sight of the significance of death. Our culture is constantly striving to extend our lifetimes to the point that we have become obsessed with living forever. While this preoccupation with extending our lives is understandable, and no doubt that our ancestors would have made similar choices with earlier access to medical technology, it has also caused us to lose our respect of death and our understanding of the role it plays in our lives.
The flip side of this coin is that we constantly live with death. We see friends and loved ones die. We watch our televisions and see thousands die to war, to famine, to disease, to disasters, then we change the channel to watch our favorite sitcom while our subconscious deals with the trauma of seeing so much death. Death is still a constant in our lives, but death is no longer an acknowledged force as it was for the ancients. The ancients celebrated death as a deity, there were festivals in death's honor, they recognized death as a force of nature and dealt with its impact on their lives. Modern humanity does not do this on the same, conscious level.
This is where the skull t-shirts, grim reaper necklaces, and vampire novels come into play. Emo, skulls, and vampires are the way that many of us deal with the concept of death. This is not a conscious decision. We do not put on a t-shirt emblazoned with a flying skull and say to ourselves This is my way of coping with the death I see all around me . Instead, we find ourselves drawn to symbols of death, like the skull or the vampire, and through those symbols, acknowledge death's role in life. In effect, this unconscious acknowledgement is a modern deification of death.
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