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I'm bringing you something different today. A post made by the talented Dylan Callens author of the novel Interpretation.
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Interpretation
Blurb:
Carl Winston
awakens to find his son, Liam, screaming with fear. Trying to understand why,
Carl tries to soothe him. Neighbors gather in front of Carl’s apartment to help
– until they see him. The crowd cowers back, afraid of this monster.
Carl runs. His life of luxury is ripped away. Forced beyond the city limits, Carl sees a land bereft of life. Traveling in search of answers, his quest comes to a sudden halt when he collapses. As darkness shrouds him, a figure hovers from above.
Traveling along the same route, Eva Thomspon finds Carl and nurtures him back to life. Together, they continue the journey, finding out that their lives have too much in common to be a coincidence. As their affection for each other deepens, an unknown nemesis attempts to remove their only source of happiness – their love for each other.
Interpretation is a dystopian fiction that explores hope and happiness in the bleakest of conditions and what happens when it’s torn away.
Carl runs. His life of luxury is ripped away. Forced beyond the city limits, Carl sees a land bereft of life. Traveling in search of answers, his quest comes to a sudden halt when he collapses. As darkness shrouds him, a figure hovers from above.
Traveling along the same route, Eva Thomspon finds Carl and nurtures him back to life. Together, they continue the journey, finding out that their lives have too much in common to be a coincidence. As their affection for each other deepens, an unknown nemesis attempts to remove their only source of happiness – their love for each other.
Interpretation is a dystopian fiction that explores hope and happiness in the bleakest of conditions and what happens when it’s torn away.
Dylan
Callens Bio:
Dylan Callens
lands cleanly. That would be the headline of a newspaper built with an anagram
generator. And although Dylan is a Welsh name meaning god or hero of the sea,
he is not particularly fond of large bodies of water. His last name, Callens,
might be Gaelic. If it is, his last name means rock. Rocks sink in the sea.
Interestingly, he is neither Welsh nor Gaelic, but rather, French and German.
The inherent contradictions and internal conflict in his life are obvious.
Excerpt:
Carl closed his eyes and tried to laugh at himself. Barely
a squeak left his mouth. What was he thinking, trying to enter this
godforsaken wasteland by himself with no supplies? Still on his back, he
dreamed about opening a bottle of Ocean Surge. Wet bubbles danced against
his tongue, bathing his taste buds with refreshing fruit-infusion – small
bursts of happiness made his lips sing an ode to joy.
But forget that fantasy; sulfur-ridden tap water would be just
as good. Carl knew the taste would not equate, but its effect would
invigorate. Carl smiled, his eyes wide open, staring into the dimming
sky, into the nothingness that surrounded him. Gulp after glorious gulp
of imaginary liquid until he couldn’t keep up, showering his face with it until
a puddle formed around him. That puddle turned into an ocean and Carl
sank to the bottom, his faint breath weakening further. The light grew
dimmer. He tried to reach up, to reach out of the depths of his
hallucination, but his arms felt too heavy, as if the pressure at this depth
couldn’t be overcome.
A shadow hovered over him. Carl tried to speak to it, but
words didn’t make sense. The shadow spoke back with a meaningless,
muffled slur. Water entered Carl’s mouth, nearly choking him.
Nonetheless, the delicious wet felt so good, like ocean refreshment in every bottle. That was the slogan, right?
Carl laughed or cried, he couldn’t tell. For all he knew, he was
dead. The shadow grew, saying something that he couldn’t work his mind
around. Darker. Darker. Clock,
what the hell was that clock song? Darker. The shadow drew
nearer. Or maybe it was the darkness. It was bought on the morn of the day
that he was born, And was always his treasure and pride… Ah yes, there it is. But it stopped short – never to go again
– When the old man died. That’s the one. Darkness.
Inspiration
for Interpretation
As a media arts teacher, every year in
March I supervise a group of high school students that compete in a skills
competition in southern Ontario, Canada.
Last year, while sitting on a bus, a few of them started to discuss
their favorite scenes from science fiction movies. Some of them were surprising – scenes from
Soylent Green, the original Planet of the Apes, Total Recall, and the
Matrix. To name a few.
And that’s where my mind began to
wander. I was a pretty big fan of the
Matrix. Originally, I enjoyed the movie
for its fresh cinematics (which have been re-hashed to death at this point),
but its lasting power, in my mind, is because of the Cartesian philosophy that
drove the story. The complex question of
what is illusion versus what is real. I’ve
always been someone who comes back to this question. And their conversation brought me back to ask
it again.
I started thinking about different scenarios
where we wouldn’t be able to decipher the difference between what’s real and what’s
illusion, which led me to write a short descriptive piece while on the
bus. You can read the original chapter
on Cosmic Teapot here: http://www.cosmicteapot.net/dylan-callens/interpretation-the-first-intro. I liked what I wrote, so I outlined the rest
of the book. I had the entire story
mapped out (I later made a number of alterations, but that’s to be expected)
within two days. Considering that it
took me nearly a year just to decide on the story for my previous novel, Operation
Cosmic Teapot, I felt accomplished. I
finished the first draft of Interpretation
in under a year.
A number of dystopian classics also
inspired me. I wanted, in some ways, to
write an homage to Nineteen Eighty-Four.
I wanted to include little easter eggs from Brave New World. And the barren wasteland that the
protagonist, Carl Winston, enters is inspired by The Road.
But the biggest source of inspiration came
when I happened to come across a man named Dr. Jose Delgado. Dr. Delgado was a neurobiologist who
researched physical mind control devices.
He even implanted some of these devices in animals’ heads, the most
significant being a bull. This man went
as far as to say, “The individual may think that the most important reality is
his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks
historical perspective. Man does not have the right to develop his own mind.
This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electronically
control the brain. Someday armies and generals will be controlled by electric
stimulation of the brain.”
I started to wonder what logical ends this
kind of thinking could produce, which is where the story really took off. Not only with the ‘what if’ of having a
civilization with mind control devices implanted in them, but also ‘what if’
other psychological experiments were brought to their extreme ends.
But back to the beginning. I wish I knew who those students on the bus were. They were from a different school and I had
never met them before. I wasn’t a part
of their conversation but it was the moment that sparked this book. I’d definitely like to thank them for that.
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Já participei :D Nunca li nada do género, fiquei bastante interessada!
ResponderEliminarBeijinhos
Joana
https://curlyhairandlipsticks.wordpress.com/
A participar!
ResponderEliminarBeijinhos :)
Ana | http://momentosliterariosml.blogspot.pt