Tag: game of thrones

Concerning Umberto Eco

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So the Italian author Umberto Eco died a few weeks ago. It was a big enough event to have made national news. I have never read the novel which made him famous, The Name of the Rose, and if I’m being frank, I’m not likely to. However, he is worth a mention from me here because his work as an academic and essayist has massively influenced my own choice of studies and professional interest, both as an undergraduate, and a post-graduate.  I came across his work when I was asked to write an essay on medievalism and modern-medieval culture as an undergraduate. I, as anyone who knows me won’t be surprised to know, decided to write an essay on Dungeons and Dragons. What better way to sneak gaming into something real. My lecturer at the time insisted I make use of an essay by Eco. The essay was entitled ‘Dreaming of the Middle Ages’ in which Eco talks about the different ways that society reinvents the ‘middle ages’ for its own end. It was definitely interesting and for me, it set me down a path that for most of my time in education, I clung to.

So let’s add a few years. When I started my masters’ degree it was hard to

Umberto Eco, 1931-2016

ignore Eco. In fact he was so relevant I referenced him in nearly every piece of coursework I did. For anyone wanting to have a good, insightful read about how the stories of our society are constructed, look to Travels in Hyper-Reality, which is the collection that ‘Dreaming of the Middle Ages’ comes from. It’s wonderful. I managed to track down a copy for myself a few months ago which alas wasn’t easy, partly to do with the fact I don’t think it’s in print anymore. His essays about what academics like to refer to as ‘medievalism’, that is the use of medieval tropes and things that are perceived as ‘medieval’ to create a narrative that people are immediately comfortable with. I suppose the modern, most relevant equivalent of this would be HBO’s Game of Thrones. Eco’s arguments were that things like Game of Thrones are not medieval at all, and instead use a mythologised version of the medieval to map modern thought and storytelling onto. Ergo, Game of Thrones is not medieval at all; it’s simply what we as an audience perceive to be medieval. Continue reading “Concerning Umberto Eco” →

Concerning Conan

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I find myself drawn ever back to the murky, monster filled jungles and deserts of Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age. A few years ago I got my hands on a collection of all the Conan Tales and read them from back to front. At the time I was an undergraduate and my interest for the vile sorceries of Conan’s world grew so passionate I largely based my undergraduate dissertation on it (along with several other pulp stories). I find I constantly want it to be considered literature, and often wonder why it isn’t by most people. I imagine it’s partly to do with the low brow nature of it; it’s escapist, easy fun about a strong warrior who saves countless damsels from the clutches of gibbering demons and mad wizards. I find another part of Howard’s rejection from scholarly discussion, when compared to similar writers of the time like H.P Lovecraft, is partly to do with the reinvention of the Continue reading “Concerning Conan” →

Concerning Dune

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Dune, the novel, was originally published in two volumes over the years of 1963-1965 and has helped define some of the most core aspects of hard science fiction ever since.

Written by Frank Herbert, Dune follows the story of a young boy named Paul Atreides, the son of Leto Atreides, a powerful planetary duke who has had his planetary fief changed, by order of the Padishah Emperor  of Humanity to the arid, hostile planet of Arrakis, also known as Dune. 

Herbert does an almost ludicrously good job of detailing the ecology of the planet as well as the behaviours of the indigenous fremen, a mysterious group of humans who inhabit the planet.

Continue reading “Concerning Dune” →