Like Tears in Rain: Meditations on Science Fiction Cinema (6 page)

While science fiction may seem the most boundless canvas for exploring the implications of Buddhist thought, authors working within the narrative frameworks of fantasy and even mainstream fiction have managed to illustrate the concepts of compassion, karma, and the bodhisattva ideal with equal nuance. For example, the novels of Joe Hill may at a glance seem to be fairly conventional examples of popular horror fiction: suspense-based, often terrifying, and with an emphasis on mystery, atmosphere, and character. All these things describe his works accurately enough—but they are also so much more, beneath the surface.

Loy and Goodhew suggest that when looking at Buddhist teachings, it is more practical to view them with a skeptical, modern eye; that to question whether or not the teaching is literal does nothing to diminish it, so long as human psychology is kept in mind (34). They explain, “Karma need not be viewed as some inevitable calculus of moral cause and effect, because it is not primarily a teaching about how to control what the world does to us. It is about our own spiritual development: how our lives are transformed by our motivations” (36). For instance:

The traditional “six realms” of samsara do not need to be distinct worlds or planes of existence through which we transmigrate after death. . . . They can also be the different ways we experience this world, as our character, and therefore our attitude toward the world, change. For example, the hell realm becomes not so much a place I will be reborn into later, due to my hatred and evil deeds, as a way I experience this world when my mind is dominated by anger and hate. (38)

Ignatius Perrish, the protagonist from
 Hill’s novel 
Horns
, is the embodiment of this understanding of karma. Ig’s fiancee Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered a year before the start of the story, serves as the catalyst for Ig’s nightmarish experiences throughout the book; as a source of goodness in Ig’s life when she was alive, she has become for him a fatal attachment—a wellspring of suffering, or 
dukkha
, that can best be described as 
hell on earth
. In the beginning of the novel, after “[spending] the night drunk and doing terrible things” (3), he wakes “the next morning with a headache, [puts] his hands to his temples, and [feels] somthing unfamiliar, a pair of knobby pointed protuberances” (3).

Ig Perrish is given the ultimate test of human compassion when his new horns grant him the power to hear the sinful thoughts of complete strangers, and not long after, the darkest, most guarded secrets of his friends and family. His spiritual journey begs the question: In the face of the gravest tragedy, of a total lack of compassion from one’s childhood best friend, and almost no external incentive for justice or closure—other than simplistic, personal revenge—what good are his parents, siblings, and friends, when they all believe him to be guilty of murder? Can they truly be seen as sources of love and compassion for Ig? As the novel proclaims, “It was difficult to maintain close friendships when you were under suspicion of being a sex murderer” (9).

During a conversation with his father, not long after the horns appear atop his head, Ig asks his him if he had ever considered the possibility that Ig might be innocent of Merrin’s murder, and his father replies, “No. Not really. Tell the truth, I was surprised you didn’t do something to her sooner. I always thought you were a weird little shit” (50). Things do not get much better for Ig; by Chapter Ten, he learns from his brother, Terry, that his best friend—“tall, lean, half-blind Lee Tourneau” (21)—was in fact the one who killed Merrin (55).

The story’s greatest challenge for both Ig and the reader is the prospect of sympathizing with Lee, despite all the evil things he has done. As if it were not bad enough that the reader is made to feel sympathy toward Ig throughout his transformation into the devil, a vengeful Judeo-Christian Satan, Hill, in what may be the novel’s boldest and most ingenious bit of storytelling, offers us an explanation for Lee’s murderous tendencies and objectifying regard for women: he was not born a sociopath, but instead made one through the misfortune of a single childhood accident.

A feral cat, we learn in Chapter Thirty-Six, stalked the perimeter of Lee’s home as a child, and at one point even slashed his mother’s hand open. The tom is described as having “ribs . . . visible in his sides [and] black fur . . . missing in hunks . . . and his furry balls were as big as shooter marbles . . . One eye was green, the other white, giving him a look of partial blindness” (271). This is an obvious parallel to Lee himself, who several years later loses sight in one eye when a cherry bomb explodes near his face. Lee’s mother warns him that “He won’t learn to like you . . . He’s past the point where he can learn to feel for people. He’s not interested in you, or anyone, and never will be” (271). This bit of advice foreshadows Lee’s own monstrous fate shortly before he sets out to befriend the cat, to tame it and disprove his mother’s hypothesis about the animal’s antisocial nature.

When Lee finally gets close enough to pet the cat, he’s balanced atop a fence, and when he moves to touch it, the cat “[lashes] out with one claw” (274), and Lee “[falls] sideways into the corn” (274). Falling six feet from where he stood on the fence, “The pitchfork that lay in the corn had been there for over a decade, had been waiting for Lee since before he was born, lying flat on the earth with the curved and rusted tines sticking straight up. Lee hit it headfirst” (274). Even though the pitchfork may be seen as a symbol of the modern, traditional Satan, this scene establishes that Lee’s future misdeeds are not the product of some abstract, cosmic evil, but rather the eventual tendency of one who has suffered from childhood head trauma. Loy and Goodhew write that the essence of compassion is that “we commiserate with the suffering of another because we share in it, because we are not other than it” (32). If Hill has been successful in convincing the rest of his readership, one may argue that we feel Lee’s suffering in this one chapter of tragic insight with the same intensity that we experience Ig’s suffering throughout the rest of the novel.

Perhaps the most potent example of Buddhist philosophy in mainstream Western culture, however, is the cult success of both the 1996 novel and 1999 film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s 
Fight Club
. In his introduction, Palahniuk describes the novel as “‘apostolic’ fiction—where a surviving apostle tells the story of his hero. There are two men and a woman. And one man, the hero, is shot to death . . . a classic, ancient romance but updated to compete with the espresso machine and ESPN” (xviii); but one could argue that the narrative, and the “rules” that propel it, are really a kind of Dharma, or sutra, intended to show white-collar American males a new way to live their lives free from the dissatisfaction of an empty, consumer-driven existence.

Take the ideology of the protagonist’s “apostle,” for instance: Tyler Durden is the embodiment of the bodhisattva ideal, if one can overlook the necessity for consensual violence in the novel. Mitchell explains that the “bodhisattva life begins with what is called the ‘arising of the thought of Awakening,’ or
 
bodhicitta
 . . . the altruistic desire, or heartfelt aspiration, to attain Buddhahood so that one can help others gain freedom from suffering” (104).

In
 
Fight Club
, Tyler Durden’s motivations for starting fight club, and later Project Mayhem—a kind of Zen monastic society within a soap production company within an urban terrorist organization—all stem from the most basic desire to jar hard-working, dissatisfied individuals out of their complacency and into a position where they can regain control of their lives and of their spiritual paths. Of the actual violence, the narrator explains that “Nothing was solved when the fight was over, but nothing mattered” (45). Fighting, for Tyler Durden and our unnamed narrator, is an enlightenment in itself; an escape from that which causes our suffering. The narrator describes fight club as a means of overcoming the fear that leads to 
dukkha
: “Most guys are at fight club because of something they’re too scared to fight. After a few fights, you’re afraid a lot less” (45). In other words, a member of fight club is not really fighting his opponent, but is conquering his own inner turmoil. It is not a contest of violence so much as it is a therapy session.

The sense of community within Project Mayhem is strengthened through mantras chanted by Tyler and then parroted by his followers. He chants, “You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile” (126). This sounds dismal, but perhaps that is precisely why Buddhism has had such a difficult time gaining widespread appeal in the Western world; we overemphasize things like individualism and identity. Without them, we would have no capitalism in the way we have capitalism today, and we would have a vastly simpler society overall.

For many, this is no doubt the true appeal of Buddhism—it is simply the opposite, more or less, of the ideals that dominate our civilization at present. But we would do well to acknowledge the foundational truths of Buddhist thought, and the merit they carry, and apply them to not only our daily activities and interactions but also to our myths—because after all, stories are quite often the templates by which we pattern our lives. Our lives are impermanent, true, and they are by nature filled with suffering; but through compassion, nonviolent discourse, and seeking to impart kindness to those around us, we may one day cure some of this world’s many social ills.

Works Cited

Bacigalupi, Paolo. “Pocketful of Dharma.” 
Pump Six and Other Stories
. San Francisco: Night Shade, 2010. 1-24. Print.

Dick, Philip K. “Beyond Lies the Wub.”
 
Paycheck and Other Classic Stories
. New York: Citadel, 1990. 27-33. Print.

Hill, Joe.
 
Horns
. New York: William Morrow, 2010. Print.

Loy, David, and Linda Goodhew.
 
The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons: Buddhist Themes in Modern Fantasy
. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004. Print.

Mitchell, Donald W.
 
Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience
. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.

Palahniuk, Chuck.
 
Fight Club: A Novel
. New York: Henry Holt, 2004. Print.

Postcards from the Future: The Chuck Palahniuk Documentary
. Dir. Dennis Widmyer, Kevin Kölsch, and Josh Chaplinsky. Perf. Chuck Palahniuk. Kinky Mule Films, 2003. DVD.

Ka
iju Rising

An Interview with Nick Sharps, Editor of
Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters

. . . [When] there was a sound, it carried; the skirl of RAF jets circling high, the faint and irregular rumble of buildings collapsing. And now and then, animalistic shrieks echoed off the low cloud. Sounds made by unnatural things, things with lungs the size of football pitches and throats wider than railway tunnels.

—James Swallow, “The Turn of the Card”

Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters
, released by Ragnarok Publications earlier this month, is a standout project among our industry’s countless Kickstarter-funded fiction anthologies. Inspired in part by Guillermo del Toro’s latest blockbuster, 
Pacific Rim
, the book takes all the excitement—and cosmic terror—that comes with the 
giant-reptilian-monsters-ravaging-urban-cities
 territory and establishes a foundation for what could very well be a resurgence of the genre. Especially with a new 
Godzilla
 flick on the way in 2014. Project creator and co-editor Nick Sharps kindly agreed to an interview.

Thanks so much for taking the time to drop by and answer a few questions about the book, Nick. I’ve been a fan of creature horror for as far back as my memory goes, and while the kaiju tend to go overlooked here in the U.S., del Toro’s homage to the old monster films and anime of the East was a tremendously fun reminder of the full breadth of the form.

And it is an art form, I think; there is nothing so fundamentally terrifying as the monster that speaks to our most deep-seated fears, both physical and psychological.

I’ve been fascinated by 
The Creature from the Black Lagoon
 for years, and reserve a special place in my heart for the 
Creepshow
 segment “The Crate,” adapted from a Stephen King novella—itself an excellent work of horror fiction. Do you have a favorite monster film, and can you articulate for us what it is you find so compelling about the beast itself?

I know that J. J.’s
 
Cloverfield
 has its fair share of critics, but it will always be a favorite of mine. I remember reading an article about the origin of the project before the film came out. It said that Abrams visited a toy store in Japan with his son; he saw a bunch of Godzilla toys and decided that America needed its own kaiju. That struck a chord with me.

After all, our attempt at a
Godzilla
movie was a failure. Why drag another monster’s name through the mud? We should have our own. I admired the logic.

In a lot of ways, J. J. Abrams planted the seed for
 
Kaiju Rising
 long before Guillermo del Toro’s 
Pacific Rim
 would rekindle that interest in me. I’m going to have to add that I’m a huge fan of 
Monsters
, a film from the director of the new 
Godzilla
 movie—Gareth Edwards. If there’s anyone who can do a faithful Western adaptation of Big G., it’s Edwards.

There are a lot of great creature-horror novels and short stories, as well, obviously—any you’d care to recommend?

James Maxey’s Dragon Apocalypse series has some fantastic creatures in it. Sure, dragons are a mainstay of fantasy, but Maxey’s dragons? They are integral to the functions of the world he creates. I wouldn’t signify just any dragon as a kaiju, but Maxey’s elemental dragon of fire, Greatshadow, definitely deserves the honorific.
 When sending out invites to authors for 
Kaiju Rising
, Maxey was towards the top of the list.

A lot of people took issue with the playful tone of 
Pacific Rim
, or just didn’t seem to “get it.” What do you think made the film work for you on an artistic level? Any particular character or moment that stuck out to you as especially memorable or clever?

You know,
 
Pacific Rim
 isn’t a cinematic masterpiece. Charlie Hunnam isn’t going to win an Oscar for his performance (though Idris Elba should win
all
the Oscars). The script isn’t brilliant by any means, and there are plot holes big enough to pilot a Jaeger through. But you know what? None of that matters to me because it’s freaking fun.

I could discuss the artistic direction, the visual stimulation, but other people have done so first and better than I possibly could. No,
 
Pacific Rim
 works for me because it taps into my two biggest childhood fantasies: giant robots and giant monsters. As far as favorite characters go . . . I’d have to say Newt Geiszler. We’re all kaiju groupies at heart, right?

The mecha and the kaiju go hand in hand, it seems. Both are associated with anime and Japanese science fiction—the series 
Robotech
, for example, presents mecha going up against giant, if intelligent, monsters—and when they come together, the result is often made of unparalleled levels of awesome. Do mecha symbolize some kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy of gaining extraordinary power, you think? Or are they just a means to keep up with the awesome might of the kaiju?

Mechs are totally wish fulfillment (for me, anyway). As a kid, I had asthma. I was overweight. I had bad eyesight. I was a dork. I watched
 
Gundam
 and fantasized about piloting my very own mech. I viewed those large robotic suits of armor as the greatest of all equalizers. The military has been working on its very own “Iron Man” suit for some time now. Maybe this is a fantasy I’ll get to one day live out—and if not at least I’ll always have the upcoming Ragnarok Publications anthology, 
Mech: Age of Steel
. . . .

What about the exo-suits in a game like 
Titanfall
? I recall you geeking out about the beta almost as much as I was. Do you think there’s a valid reason to introduce mecha into a story whose worldbuilding lacks giant, all-consuming monsters?

Titanfall
 is a blast! Just putting it out there. I don’t recall the last time I had that much fun with a game, especially with online multiplayer. The fact that this was just a beta—I have high expectations for 
Titanfall
 when it releases March 11. I suppose if 
Terminator
taught us anything, it’s that our own creations can be our undoing—or salvation. I think there’s definitely overlap between mechs and kaiju, and it’s not just a matter of size. I’ll also add that 
Titanfall
 is apparently going to feature some giant hostile creatures, according to online sources. Even more reason to pick up the game!

With the 
Godzilla
 reboot right around the corner, and 
Kaiju Rising
 climbing the Amazon bestsellers lists with a slew of 4- and 5-star reviews, what’s next for our beloved kaiju in the world of mass entertainment? Are they prepping to take the world by storm, or have they simply always been here, lurking unseen just beneath the water?

I think that you can expect a surge in popularity for the kaiju genre.
 
Pacific Rim
 was a good start, but I expect 
Godzilla
 to really ramp things up. I have my fingers crossed for a sequel to 
Pacific Rim
, and if 
Godzilla
 is as good as I’m hoping then a sequel to that isn’t out of the question.

Meanwhile, Ragnarok Publications may be expanding the
 
Kaiju Rising
 franchise with a series of novellas; and there’s always 
Mech: Age of Steel
 in the works. Oh!—and I just found out today that my favorite big-five publisher, Baen, has its own kaiju anthology in the works, called 
The Baen Big Book of Monsters
, edited by Hank Davis. And Bob Eggleton did the cover! It’s a good time to be a fan of kaiju.

Thanks so much again for your time, Nick, and best of luck with your future endeavors at Ragnarok! It’s an interesting time to be involved with publishing, and I look forward to seeing what you guys do next.

Thanks so much—it was a pleasure!