Strange but Wonderful Stories.

     This blog was created for the 2018 spring class for Lit of Horror/Sci-Fi/Fantasy course at Ringling College of Art and Design. In this blog I will talk about the books we read and what they mean to me personally. If you have come across this blog and have not read the book I am talking about this week, I will warn you now that I will spoil it.
     This week we were asked to read a couple stories for "Literary Speculation". So I chose to read 2 short Stories by Italio Calvino. Those stories are All at One Point, and The Distance of the Moon. 
     All at One Point Was very strange to read. It is basically about the Big Bang that started the universe, but described using characters. Now the description for this story is complex and contradictory, only because it is a state of being we cannot possibly understand. All of space and time did not exist, so all that existed did so at one point. The analogy used was being stuffed in like sardines, but then followed up with that not being accurate because space did not exist. There also were people that "Came Later" which cannot be so because time also did not exist. it is a state of being where all happened simultaneously and everywhere at once, even though things still had a chronological order to them. This story is a perfect example of the advantages of literature over the visual medium. A story like this cannot be pictured visually, it is impossible to even imagine or understand the concepts put forth in this short story. Which to me is what makes it worth reading, It definitely expands one's way of thinking.
     The Distance of the Moon is more along the lines of something one would read in a mythology class. It is very imaginative and strange. The basic concept is that a group of friends/family would sail out to sea when the moon was closest to the earth, it brought the waves high enough to put up a ladder against the moon and climb up to it. On the moon the group would get buckets of moon milk that they describe as the sweetest milk of all. They also make a point to point out that the main characters deaf cousin is the best at everything when it comes to the moon. The story is honestly just a lot of fun, it's like something one would read to their child before bed, and makes me personally miss my childhood.