Author Topic: Pseudopod 326: Bunraku  (Read 18298 times)

Bdoomed

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on: March 24, 2013, 07:03:49 AM
Pseudopod 326: Bunraku

By David X. Wiggin.

“Bunraku” was originally published in BETE NOIRE MAGAZINE #8

DAVID X. WIGGIN spent the earliest years of his childhood in Japan and was lucky enough to see a bunraku show live. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his very much flesh-and-blood wife. His fiction has appeared in STEAMPUNK MAGAZINE, STEAMPOD, THEAKER’S QUARTERLY FICTION and ALT HIST MAGAZINE.

Your reader this week - John Chu - has had short fiction published in markets including BOSTON REVIEW, ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION and TOR.COM. He blogs HERE.



“’They make her look like just another beautiful young woman,’ the old man said, ‘but really she’s more beautiful than any woman could be. I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to expect a drawing to capture what even photograph couldn’t. She’s at her most beautiful when she’s moving. When she’s still, it’s like admiring an unbent bow or an unsheathed sword.’

Now Shizuo recognized the old man as Kinoko’s puppeteer. The thought of this shriveled crab with his claw in her back, pulling strings and turning knobs, filled him with loathing. He wanted any reminder of that ugly truth out of his sight. He kept his eyes on the poster. The old man went on.

‘I noticed you in the crowd. You caught my attention immediately- your eyes did. I saw real love in them for Kinoko. I’ve always said that the truest proof of her perfection would be if someone fell in love with her. I’ve seen all sorts of eyes in the audience. Lustful, admiring, jealous, curious… but your eyes were the first I ever saw with love.

‘Would you like to meet her?’

Shizuo still could not bring himself to look at the puppeteer but he nodded.”



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Frungi

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Reply #1 on: March 26, 2013, 01:57:35 AM
I’m sorry, but I found this reading simply unlistenable. The way the dialogue is read makes it sound like all the characters are brain-damaged or something, and every Japanese word sounds like it belongs on a language-learning CD. Does anyone have a link to this story so I can read it?



Sgarre1

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Reply #2 on: March 26, 2013, 03:01:49 AM



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Reply #3 on: March 26, 2013, 12:48:27 PM
I agree that there were some issues with the narration -- mostly that it sounded like he was yelling whenever the old man was speaking.

The story was interesting enough.

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Frungi

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Reply #4 on: March 26, 2013, 04:49:50 PM
I decided to give it another chance, and fortunately, I’d already gotten through most of the dialogue by the time I first stopped listening. Most of the rest of the story was narrative, which the reader read just fine (except for the odd Japanese word). I wish I knew the story behind the reading. Like, does he think that’s how Japanese people sound or something?

As for the story story, it struck me more as weird fantasy than horror, might fit better on The Drabblecast than here. And aside from the fact that the woman was a puppet (which ended up being somewhat less of a factor than I might have expected), it was just a run-of-the-mill love triangle crime of passion.



Sgarre1

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Reply #5 on: March 26, 2013, 06:58:31 PM
Quote
As for the story story, it struck me more as weird fantasy than horror, might fit better on The Drabblecast than here.

I'll mention that to the DRABBLECAST guys sleeping in the next bunk in our enormous gymnasium/co-ed dorms.



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Reply #6 on: March 26, 2013, 07:24:20 PM
HEY! KEEP IT DOWN OVER THERE! SOME OF US ARE ON UK TIME!;)

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Reply #7 on: March 27, 2013, 12:23:45 AM
Loved the story (though I really wanted it to delve a little more into the intriguing conceptual space of a consciousness that arises as an emergent property of the interaction between the puppet and the puppeteer).

But ye gods, I almost couldn't make it through the reading.  I'm not sure what Mr. Chu intended (and it was clearly intentional, as he sounded perfectly pleasant and normal in the narration and when reading the other characters) but the old man SAID.  EVERYTHING.  WITH A.  DIAPHRAGM.  PUNCH.  AND IT.  WAS.  REALLY.  HARD.  TO LISTEN.  TO.  It was doubly a shame because the old man was quite a central figure, and if he'd had some more expressiveness, it would have really made that early part's beauty shine through.  Those of you who pay attention to me know that I really, really don't normally comment on the readings, as I tend to focus heavily on the words rather than their tone (unless the reading is particularly skillful).  This one emphatically did not work for me.

Story was still tops, though.



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Reply #8 on: March 27, 2013, 01:16:12 AM
Y'know, I didn't find the narration that bad. In fact, I felt it added to the oddness of the story.


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Reply #9 on: March 27, 2013, 03:32:45 AM
he sounded perfectly pleasant and normal in the narration and when reading the other characters
Are you sure? I seem to recall every character shouting staccato syllables. (Whee, alliteration.) I don’t remember much of the main character’s dialogue, but I know the old man’s apprentice was read the same way.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2013, 03:44:10 AM by Frungi »



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Reply #10 on: March 27, 2013, 04:14:22 AM
What I found particularly interesting was how the apprentice found that once he was puppeting the girl, he couldn't make her love him, any more than, say, your amygdala can plot against your dog.  But he could "make her kill" the husband, just like a mental illness can make you act against your own interests.  In a way, the apprentice was Kinoko's depression, giving her insomnia and taking away her interest in her daily life without altering her fundamental inclinations...



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Reply #11 on: March 27, 2013, 12:28:22 PM
he sounded perfectly pleasant and normal in the narration and when reading the other characters
Are you sure? I seem to recall every character shouting staccato syllables. (Whee, alliteration.) I don’t remember much of the main character’s dialogue, but I know the old man’s apprentice was read the same way.

The narration was handled very well. The dialogue is where I had trouble.

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Reply #12 on: March 27, 2013, 02:26:27 PM
I'm easily taken out of a story by SFX or "bad" narration but for some reason the oddness of this one worked for me.  It was like he was speaking English as a second language.  I was afraid it would run throughout but the rest of the narration was "normal" and the odd voice of the old man just seemed to add something to his character...



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Reply #13 on: March 27, 2013, 10:07:16 PM
I too did not mind the narration. I found parts of the story difficult to follow. I do not think that was the narrator, but rather some awkward flow in the story. Overall, I enjoyed it.

The narrator sounded similar to that used in an espcape pod episode a while back regarding Chinese New Year and a plague... but I did not catch the narrator's name on that episode.

People mentioned the story sort of had a drabblecast vibe... which is true, but I think there was no mistaking it for anything but horror.



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Reply #14 on: March 28, 2013, 05:43:19 PM
it's been a while since I listened to Pseudopod due to a number of circumstances, and it's a shame that this is the first story I listened to to get back into it.  The story itself was hardly of the horror genre, more of a bizarre fantasy, yet not Podcastle material.  The narration wasn't horrible, but it did take a little bit to get the feel for the story.  The dialog, though, oh, the dialog!  I felt like someone was poking an ice pick in my ears every time the old man spoke - or rather, WISHED someone would poke an ice pick in my ears!  Although, in retrospect, it's a good thing no one did otherwise the last thing I would remember would be that horrid affectation of a voice.



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Reply #15 on: March 28, 2013, 07:48:34 PM
Mr. Chu, if you’re out there, please tell us what was up with that!



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Reply #16 on: March 29, 2013, 05:30:50 AM
it's been a while since I listened to Pseudopod due to a number of circumstances, and it's a shame that this is the first story I listened to to get back into it.  The story itself was hardly of the horror genre, more of a bizarre fantasy, yet not Podcastle material.  The narration wasn't horrible, but it did take a little bit to get the feel for the story.  The dialog, though, oh, the dialog!  I felt like someone was poking an ice pick in my ears every time the old man spoke - or rather, WISHED someone would poke an ice pick in my ears!  Although, in retrospect, it's a good thing no one did otherwise the last thing I would remember would be that horrid affectation of a voice.

Oi.  This is a warning.  Posts like these are NOT tolerated.  This is purely mean-spirited and useless in terms of constructive criticism.  I'd like to point you to our One Rule.  Read it, follow it, or you're out.

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Reply #17 on: March 29, 2013, 05:32:15 AM
[SPOILERS AHEAD - YE BE WARNED]

So am I the only one who was skeeved out that the protagonist repeatedly had sex with a wooden doll whose every action was controlled by either an old man or a 10 year old boy?

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Well, okay, except for the clearly illegal register-as-a-sex-offender-for-the-rest-of-your-life part. If the overly forced dialogue style didn't kill it for me, that certainly did.

I couldn't help thinking that Kinoko’s puppeteer needed some transgender counseling, since he stayed in character while Shizuo was at work all day. And wasn't this story done better by Lars and the Real Girl (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805564/)?



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Reply #18 on: March 29, 2013, 05:47:01 AM
For some above - not enough to be a horror story...

For others - too much disturbing implication to be enjoyable horror...

Thus, in some inverted way, we have achieved our goal!



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Reply #19 on: March 30, 2013, 05:41:55 AM
So am I the only one who was skeeved out that the protagonist repeatedly had sex with a wooden doll whose every action was controlled by either an old man or a 10 year old boy?

No. No, you are not. And I imagine that was one of the factors that put it into Pseudopod. =P



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Reply #20 on: April 01, 2013, 12:51:05 AM

I couldn't help thinking that Kinoko’s puppeteer needed some transgender counseling, since he stayed in character while Shizuo was at work all day. And wasn't this story done better by Lars and the Real Girl (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805564/)?

clearly in rural japan the only acceptable way to express ones true gender identity is via life-sized wooden puppet.



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Reply #21 on: April 04, 2013, 09:49:47 AM
Loved it. I found this story so interesting and beautiful, with just the right amount of creepy and sad. Really well done, and I don't recall minding the narration/dialogue. 


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Reply #22 on: April 05, 2013, 05:22:53 AM
Yeah, hate to say it but I was not digging the narration. The old man's voice and the "out of place" pronunciations kept cracking me up (which killed the atmosphere). It'd also help if microphone were of higher quality.




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Reply #23 on: April 19, 2013, 10:50:59 PM
This story was very uncomfortable. I don't understand the folks who say this is not horror, as it elicits serious amounts of discomfort. Also this:

For some above - not enough to be a horror story...

For others - too much disturbing implication to be enjoyable horror...

Thus, in some inverted way, we have achieved our goal!


I also had no problems with the dialogue and narration, as I recall it being only the old man who had the very staccato presentation. I took it as reader differentiation and characterization.


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Reply #24 on: April 24, 2013, 03:42:55 AM
Y'know, I didn't find the narration that bad. In fact, I felt it added to the oddness of the story.

I find myself agreeing. I struggled with it at first, but I do believe the narration did add an element to the story.

[SPOILERS AHEAD - YE BE WARNED]

So am I the only one who was skeeved out that the protagonist repeatedly had sex with a wooden doll whose every action was controlled by either an old man or a 10 year old boy?

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Well, okay, except for the clearly illegal register-as-a-sex-offender-for-the-rest-of-your-life part. If the overly forced dialogue style didn't kill it for me, that certainly did.

Ummmmm, no...no you're not!  ;D That kept going through my mind even as the boy grew up...which became even weirder! The puppeteer having carnal thoughts about, um, himself? (the puppet) OK, almost over the top for me.

I saw the end coming very early on, but I took the ride away. It reminds me of a patchwork quilt. There were so many odd elements that shouldn't work together, but they did anyway. The narration, the storytelling itself, the extremely odd concepts in the story...but as a whole they became a beautiful thing.

Overall I enjoyed the story in spite of myself.

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Reply #25 on: April 25, 2013, 01:53:01 PM
Uuuughghh, this one was creeepy!  I think I liked it though.  It's one of those that I'm not entirely sure.  Definitely plenty to think about here, which is definitely good.  To me, I never really believed that there was an emergent personality from the puppet, and so it was a story about 3 people who are completely F-ing nuts all interacting with each other in a way based on their shared delusion that the puppet is alive, no doubt in part due to the mastery of the puppeteer's craftsmanship.

I thought it was really interesting how the puppeteers faded into the background for long portions of the story as they faded from the protagonist's mind, only to arise to the forefront when something incongruous happened.  I found it really interesting that the young puppeteer could not make her love him but could make her kill her husband.  Very cool, very creepy, very fun.  It would indeed work very well for Drabblecast's audience too, but it fit perfectly here as well--there's no reason it can't run over there too, I'd listen again.

I won't go on at length, but I did find the narration style very distracting.


So am I the only one who was skeeved out that the protagonist repeatedly had sex with a wooden doll whose every action was controlled by either an old man or a 10 year old boy?

No, you're not the only one at all.  But, um, that was what made the story fit this podcast so well, that WTF-is-wrong-with-you creepy factor.  That reminded me in a small way of the Southpark episode where Cartman makes his hand act as a Latina pop-musician Jennifer Lopez to face off against the real pop-star Jennifer Lopez, and along the way his hand ends up sleeping with Ben Afflec.

Quote
And wasn't this story done better by Lars and the Real Girl (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805564/)?

Other than the passing similarity in the premise of a man who appears to be in love with an artificial woman, they have very little in common.   

Lars and the Real Girl was about a man with crippling social anxiety using a doll as a coping mechanism to help him relate to his friends and family, and to understand that they care about him very deeply.  Although he acts as though the girl is real, I never felt that he really had a delusion that she was real.  While, yes, the image is creepy, the story is not about sex, nor does he aim to have a lifelong relationship with the doll, because by the end of the movie he has become comfortable enough in the company of others to begin dating.  Although he

The people in this story, on the other hand, are all just plain demented and delusional.  The protagonist has no compunctions about another spending his entire life animating his supposed wife, or having sex with her as the other is animating him, and so on.  And neither of the puppeteers is any more sane.  If anything, it opposed Lars and the Real Girl by using the fake woman not as a tool to help the person become more well-balanced, but as a crutch that causes them all to spiral down into insanity.



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Reply #26 on: July 16, 2013, 01:00:26 PM
I agree that there were some issues with the narration -- mostly that it sounded like he was yelling whenever the old man was speaking.

The story was interesting enough.

There were also some times when he kept doing the old man voice when he switched to Shizuo's lines.

When I see a story having to do with Japan or China (or Korea if it it ever happened, I expect) coming up on Escape Artists (or anywhere) I'm usually like "Oh, god, here it comes/fuck this shit not again."  This is because I speak the languages.  The pronunciation here was better than usual.  As a semi-fluent Japanese speaker, the narration didn't bother me very much on the language front, which is high praise:  narrators, even some good ones, really bone up the pronunciation in Asian languages (and judging from some comments, more obscure non-Asian ones) a lot.  And authors often mess up on usage, which can really screw with my suspension of disbelief (though it'd sail past most people). 

The problem I had with it was the characterization.  Shizuo and the old man were a little too similar, I think.  I could buy the old man talking that way...one crazy old obsessive dude who is clearly as socially awkward as you'd expect sounding like he just had a stroke and was having his first real conversation in a decade, I buy that entirely.  The self-centered student sounding almost the same (or when the narrator got confused for a moment, exactly the same), I'm not sure I buy that. 


As for the story, again, I'm usually like "oh god, what is it this time," when it comes to Asian-themed sci-fi/horror.  I was pleasantly surprised.  First of all with what seemed to me as a non-expert, but passingly familiar with the subject to be a pretty reasonable treatment of Bunraku, not going overly MYSTERIOUS ORIENT with it and not getting bogged down in the details.  Second, there was that moment where it just went from "okay, this is a rather charming moment between a couple of weirdos" to "uhh, what?" which led inevitably to "welp, that sure is a thing." 

Here is my "this story is REALLY about" analysis:

Shizuo represents modern Japanese otaku culture, particularly the last decade or so of it.  Take a walk in Akihabara, and go into the most unsettling crypto-pedo shops you come across and you'll see what I'm talking about.   Large numbers of mostly young Japanese men cannot relate to women (or life in general in many cases) in any meaningful way.  They construct their mental ideal of femininity and project it onto fictional characters, toys, and dolls.  Some of the more extreme cases have fantasy dates or marriages with their anime-character pillows, and they DEFINITELY copulate with them.  They celebrate fictional characters' birthdays.  They have the same level of devotion that Shizuo had for Kinoko. 

And behind mentally-predefined as perfect, utterly unattainable in reality 2D loves are armies of other hopeless men like themselves.  The images of their ideals of femininity are created by other men, animated by other men.  The only place where actual women enter this world is in providing the voices; and with Hatsune Miku even that involvement has been more or less removed.  No real woman could ever satisfy a man so obsessed with ideals of femininity utterly unconstrained by actual physical femininity. 

And like Shizuo, it's going to...if not kill them, at least ruin their lives.  It isn't an obsession that one can lose oneself in and come away intact.


I've also kind of been contemplating the idea for the last few years that there is more than one version of a person.  There is the you as perceived by you.  There's the you as perceived by others...they have mental models of you, more or less detailed depending on how intimately they know you (or think they know you) that they use to anticipate your behavior and reactions.  Among those who share their opinions of you there is a consensus you...the common aspects of others mental models of you.  There can be completely fictitious personas attached to physically real people.  And fictional characters have individual and consensus mental versions hanging around just like you do. 

Anyhow, Shizuo and Aoki's conflict was fascinating, because of this.  The character they're obsessing over does not exist except in their heads.  They should have complete control over it, but they don't.  The consensus version is stronger than their desired version.  I suppose that's the difference between fantasy fiction and just fantasy, like personal fantasy.  Neither Shizuo nor Aoki could make Kinoko be the latter.  They, particularly Aoki, had to let Kinoko be as Kinoko would be if she were real, and as the character had been described to them; rather than as they wished she would be.

Great...fucking...story.



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Reply #27 on: July 16, 2013, 10:38:47 PM

Here is my "this story is REALLY about" analysis:

Shizuo represents modern Japanese otaku culture, particularly the last decade or so of it.  Take a walk in Akihabara, and go into the most unsettling crypto-pedo shops you come across and you'll see what I'm talking about.   Large numbers of mostly young Japanese men cannot relate to women (or life in general in many cases) in any meaningful way.  They construct their mental ideal of femininity and project it onto fictional characters, toys, and dolls.  Some of the more extreme cases have fantasy dates or marriages with their anime-character pillows, and they DEFINITELY copulate with them.  They celebrate fictional characters' birthdays.  They have the same level of devotion that Shizuo had for Kinoko. 

And behind mentally-predefined as perfect, utterly unattainable in reality 2D loves are armies of other hopeless men like themselves.  The images of their ideals of femininity are created by other men, animated by other men.  The only place where actual women enter this world is in providing the voices; and with Hatsune Miku even that involvement has been more or less removed.  No real woman could ever satisfy a man so obsessed with ideals of femininity utterly unconstrained by actual physical femininity. 

And like Shizuo, it's going to...if not kill them, at least ruin their lives.  It isn't an obsession that one can lose oneself in and come away intact.


I've also kind of been contemplating the idea for the last few years that there is more than one version of a person.  There is the you as perceived by you.  There's the you as perceived by others...they have mental models of you, more or less detailed depending on how intimately they know you (or think they know you) that they use to anticipate your behavior and reactions.  Among those who share their opinions of you there is a consensus you...the common aspects of others mental models of you.  There can be completely fictitious personas attached to physically real people.  And fictional characters have individual and consensus mental versions hanging around just like you do. 

Anyhow, Shizuo and Aoki's conflict was fascinating, because of this.  The character they're obsessing over does not exist except in their heads.  They should have complete control over it, but they don't.  The consensus version is stronger than their desired version.  I suppose that's the difference between fantasy fiction and just fantasy, like personal fantasy.  Neither Shizuo nor Aoki could make Kinoko be the latter.  They, particularly Aoki, had to let Kinoko be as Kinoko would be if she were real, and as the character had been described to them; rather than as they wished she would be.

Great...fucking...story.

As if this story wasn't creepy enough. Thanks for the nightmare fuel.

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Reply #28 on: July 17, 2013, 12:29:19 PM
Wow, thanks for posting SonofSpermCube.  That totally makes sense as a parallel for this story.



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Reply #29 on: July 17, 2013, 08:53:22 PM
To me, the narration seemed as if he had been translating as he read. I felt it added a theatrical atmosphere.
The story was great!



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Reply #30 on: September 03, 2013, 07:14:15 AM
So am I the only one who was skeeved out that the protagonist repeatedly had sex with a wooden doll whose every action was controlled by either an old man or a 10 year old boy?

No. No, you are not. And I imagine that was one of the factors that put it into Pseudopod. =P

Are you sure?


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Reply #31 on: August 21, 2014, 01:18:23 PM
I named this my #7 favorite Pseudopod episode:
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2014/08/podcast-spotlight-pseudopod/