#literary reflection

Damn, what a title.

So this is my busy month. I’m barely getting any fictional writing done but that’s okay because I’m doing birthdays, work conferences, presentations and most all back to back to back to back. But one thing I do have time for is audio books.

Enter Dungeon Crawler Carl.

Now, I’m not going to try to explain the LitRPG book series. I’m not going to tell you that you should or shouldn’t read them. But I want to talk about two small scenes in the seventh book “The Inevitable Ruin” that can’t leave my brain.

The first is a reflection scene, and not really a special one. At several moments in the series, the MC Carl reflects on his companion, Princess Donut, his ex-girlfriends cat whose been granted sapience, speech, magic, and so many hats.

Anyways, at many times in the series, Carl worries about her mental health and equates her to a child who’s still coming to term with complex ideas and the reality of their situation.

That’s important. Remember that.

In book 7, there’s a moment where, during an enemy invasion into their castle (Faction Wars, don’t worry about it.) Carl calls for Tina to be released.

Tina is a little girl who likes to dance, has a sparkly wand, and is a massive bloodthirsty dinosaur who’s killed hundred.

Long story, book six, believe me, that’s not the weirdest part. (That’s probably when Mongo bangs her mother)

Anyways, he calls to release her onto the battlefield and Tina’s mother objects. She points out that earlier, Carl had tried to separate the other children from the fighting and keep them out of the conflict. Why is Tina different? Why does Carl get to take her daughter and put her into that fray? Why does her child has to fight Carls war? To be the solution to the adults problem?

Carl… agrees. He’s angry, stressed, trying to figure out how to save everyone on his side. But he agrees. It’s the mother’s choice. Not his. Never his. The situation doesn’t matter.

He’s about to say that. To pivot his plan and call on others to repel the invaders. But before he can… Princess Donut speaks.

“WHATS TAKING SO LONG? GET TINA OUT HERE, NOW!”

And Tina arrives. She saves the day. And the plot move on, racing forward like always.

But I just can’t get this moment out of my head. In many ways, Carl’s a paragon in the story. He decisions are the right ones to never turn back on people, never stop trying to help save people, to bite the hand of the oppressors and to keep going forward.

This could be seen as lazy writing. A way to keep Carl as the moral center and letting other characters make the calls the actually move the needle even if their morally abhorrent. But for me, I think of climate change.

Millennial’s and Gen-Z were told that we were the solution to climate change. “This will be your generations problem to solve.” “I can’t believe what we’ve done to the planet.”

And it burned. The general resentment was real on a level that’s hard to describe. But, I’ve accepted it, others have as well. The next generation trying to step up because it’s what we were told was our problem to fix.

Child soldiers are seen as the worst sin in conflict. An act of weakness to throw your next generation into your conflict and have them fight for you.

But.

At the same time. The Young Adult fiction genre and many of our calls to action are about youth who step up and meet the moment. Harry Potter, most anime, the Pendragon Series, and so many that I can barely remember and count them all. Stories where the younger generation, a child, a teenager, someone gets involved and makes a difference. And the difference there, is that the call to action, the request, is generally peer to peer.

This moment. This watershed moment feels like it encompasses all of this.

Jury is still out on how “deep” the rest of the series is. On whats its main message and if it’s a good one. Hell, I’m still in my busy month and I still have 30% left on book seven. But I do know that this small section, in between runaway AI and gods, as this book covers so much death and detail in how an oppressive system can take and take. This moment right here, is significant.

I used to hate Nesta. Like, actually hate her. I’d skim her chapters, mutter “get over it” under my breath, and wonder why Sarah J. Maas was wasting pages on this bitter, angry older sister. She was cold, selfish, emotionally constipated—and worst of all, she didn’t even seem to feel bad about it.

And yeah, I’m an older sister too. Which meant I judged her even harder. I watched her shut down, lash out, disappear—and I swore I’d never be like that. That I’d show up for my siblings, no matter how bad things got. That I’d be soft. Safe. The one who keeps it together.

Except I haven’t always been. And the truth is, the more I hated Nesta, the more I think I was trying not to see myself in her. That same rigidity, the need for control, the avoidance, the shame so thick you pretend not to feel anything at all—I know all of it. I’ve lived all of it.

Nesta doesn’t heal gracefully. She isolates. She hurts people. She spirals. She doesn’t want to be saved; she just wants to be left alone, even when that’s clearly making things worse. Watching her made me uncomfortable because she acted out all the things I’ve done or wanted to do in my worst moments. And I hated her for it. Because hating her was easier than facing the parts of myself I haven’t figured out how to forgive.

But when she starts to soften—slowly, awkwardly, with a lot of resistance—I felt something shift. Not just because it was redemptive or satisfying, but because it made me feel like maybe I’m not beyond that either. Maybe I can be a mess and still be someone worth loving. Maybe I can be a sister who’s trying, even if I haven’t always gotten it right.

I was today years old when I realized that by reading Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, I’m engaging in a kind of shadow work. Reading the firsthand perspective of a unreliable narrator predator character like Humbert Humbert is helping me process and understand some of my own trauma better. It’s obsession with Lo as well as his reactions to her defiance and simply being herself that get to me. He’s well aware that his actions are wrong and harmful, but he doesn’t care. Honestly, based on my encounters with people I’ve either suspected or known to be predators, I get the same vibe from them. It just drives home the fact that the people who’ve preyed on me in the past *coughcough men coughcough* knew what they were doing and just didn’t care about how it affected me. In a weird way, I found a weird sort of comfort in giving them the benefit of the doubt. But thanks to reading Lolita, I’m finally putting that toxic tendency to sympathize with my abusers to rest and I’m so grateful for this type of healing.

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will." Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë.

reading jane eyre felt less like turning pages and more like witnessing a long, winding journey of the human spirit. i cannot exaggerate: it has quietly claimed a place among my favorite books.

what strikes me most about jane is her mind. sharp, opinionated, and unapologetically honest, she refuses to shrink herself in a world determined to remind her of her lowly status. jane is not a people-pleaser (love that for her); she values truth more than approval. 

perhaps that is why mr. rochester finds her compelling—not just her heart, but her intellect, her unyielding sense of self. their connection blooms first in thought, in understanding, before ever touching the tender threads of romance.

her childhood was utterly cruel—mrs. reed and her cousins left scars that could have hardened her—but instead, they shaped her. jane emerges with a deep understanding of injustice, a steadfast grasp of dignity and self-respect. the hardships did not break her; they refined her, molding her into someone recognizable yet extraordinary, relatable across every generation of readers.

i admire her independence above all. even in love, she refuses to compromise her moral convictions. leaving mr. rochester was heartbreak and it made heartbreak tangible, yet it is also a triumph of integrity. because love, for jane, is never enough if it demands the surrender of conscience. and i agree, what is love when you're losing your autonomy, right? that's co-dependency...

furthermore, the contrasts the novel presents deepen its power. rochester grows through his flaws; st. john rivers demands obedience (that i find controlling, at some point, maybe because he was using the ways of God to marry jane. he was demanding jane to submit to him, forcefully. which i believe submission from a woman does not require force, it is freely given, once it is earned.) love and faith, the story suggests, can either nurture the spirit or attempt to dominate it. and through it all, charlotte brontë reminds us that true belief is not in authority or rigid piety, but in humility, in character, in transformation.

jane eyre is larger than romance. it is about social class, morality, the subtle and complicated ways faith and love intersect. but above all, it is about staying true to oneself. jane’s greatest triumph is not finding love—it is never losing herself along the way.

now, understanding why jane eyre is jane eyre, i see it now with much clarity: what was meant to break her, made her. not into someone unrecognizable, but into someone enduring, someone whose story resonates with each reader, in every age. and given that this was written in the 1800s, i can only marvel at the courage and vision that brought her to life.

I started reading Love in the New Millennium by Can Xue, and even when I am having a hard time reading, I find it really cool. I sometimes wish I could write just like her. I learned she started writing when she was 30. She did not get any formal education in writing; in fact, her education was truncated at a very early age due to the political turmoil in her country, China.

I like how philosophical her writing is. She doesn't just describe moral conundrums, she dissolves them. She writes about things like people having a relationship and still finding sexual pleasure in other people, or should I say with other people. The behavior, which is common enough to be unshocking, is presented without the expected emotional or ethical friction. What shocks me is how these characters don't seem to be bothered by partners engaging sexually with others, and sometimes they even incentivize it because they just want their peers to find happiness, more than they want them to find love. There's a strangeness in their being with someone and seemingly excited with their current partners, but suddenly you realize they have other people in mind they actually want to be with.

I love how her writing is making me excited. It makes me think deeply about my own reality and how I connect with other people. It adds this mystic aspect to it, as though we’re bubbles about to merge with others, and when it happens, it seems like a door to another world, one that is a combination of our realities. And even when from the tired way of living things may seem inconsequential, in Can Xue’s view it’s the opposite. It’s full of meaning and charged with so much symbolism.

I like how her book is making me go back to journaling. This is the first time in a while that I decided to write on the white page. It happens when I read a book that shakes my brain, one that questions my beliefs. I’m about to go out and share a meal with a man I pursue. The very fact of meeting with him makes me think of all the possibilities for our encounter. It makes me think of it in a very esoteric way, as if I were about to open a door to a world that could remain closed if I didn’t commit to it today. That choosing to meet with him would take my journey on a new path, and I am not aware of what that path holds for me. Part of me wants to believe in the esoteric world of Can Xue, a place where morality holds no sway, consequently allowing for connections between individuals that are utterly unconstrained and bound only by possibility. I’m fantasizing of a moment where we can be extremely intimate with our bodies and not feel shame. One where once the encounter is over, we both go back to our regular lives and nothing is thought of what happened other than the experience was fulfilling and informative to understand more of ourselves.

This is the other side of green. After my being was altered by my sitting next to him, I realized there’s not much I wanted from him. To be honest, it is facing my fortune more than anything that brings sadness or some type of melancholy to my essence at this hour, at this place where I’ve dragged myself. I don’t want to explain things, but what is the purpose of my writing if not a channel to process the mundane—the esoteric series of events that shape the hours of my living here in this strange, cold place in Maine…in America. In America, like in any other place, love doesn't come to me in a way I think of. Sometimes I want to believe that there are parts of me, parts that I've fostered over years of living, that they somehow will work as powerful magnets to seduce men I’m interested in with such force they won't have any option but to stick around. I wish I could live in Can Xue’s world —I want to have that captivating feature that is only developed over years in the trenches while at the bottom of a muddy hole, fighting darkness and disappointment.

“So she spoke, and the proud heart in me was persuaded, / and I went back down to my fast ship and the sand of the seashore, / and there I found beside the fast ship my eager companions / pitiful in their lamentation and weeping big tears. / And, as in the country, the calves around the cows returning / from pasture back to the dung of the farmyard, well filled with grazing, / come gambolling together to meet them, and the pens no longer / can hold them in, but lowing incessantly they come running / around their mothers, so these men, once their eyes saw me, / came streaming around me, in tears, and the spirit in them made them / feel as if they were back in their own country, the very / city of rugged Ithaka, where they were born and raised up.” (Odyssey 10.406-17)

The Odyssey by Homer follows the journey of Odysseus’ homecoming. After much hardships and the loss of a lot of men, Odysseus and his companions finally arrive at Circe’s island. A group of men go the house of Circe but get turned into pigs. Odysseus escapes Circe’s traps, persuades her to turn the men back into humans and returns to his ship to meet with the rest of his companions. In this passage (Odyssey 10.406-417), the theme of home is explored through Odysseus’ eyes in an epic simile comparing the way his men come running to him to calves running to their mother. This simile, narrated by Odysseus, compares the men with calves to highlight their deep longing for home and the importance of Odysseus as a representation of their home, though it hints at a more complex relationship between them.

The comparison of the men running to Odysseus with calves running to their mothers makes the reader feel the longing and the importance of home for them. The vocabulary associated with Odysseus’ companions : “pitiful” (10.409), “weeping” (10.409),” lamentation” (10.409) evokes distress and sets a highly emotional tone to the simile. The image of cattle and green pastures contrasts with Circe’s island seashore and evokes their home country. Comparing the men to farm animals also points out the intuitive need of home that they are feeling, as animals are seen as instinctive beings. The importance of home is also highlighted by the use of “their own country” (10.416): the possessive is emphasized three times, country already implying a sense of belonging. Additionally, the mention of  “born and raised up” (10.417) possibly indicates that the men never left their country until the Trojan war and therefore strengthen the importance of home for them.  The mention of the calves running from the pastures to the farmyard is also interesting: even though the calves have been filling themselves with grazing and have had their bodily needs satisfied, they still have a deeper need for their mothers. It hints at Odysseus and his men relentlessly trying to find the way to their home even when they find other generous lands and riches. At Circe’s house, they are treated like princes, eating and drinking to their heart's content. Yet after a year has elapsed they decide to leave, answering the call for home.

The fact that Odysseus narrates the passage shows how identified he is with his country Ithaka. Speaking of his companions, he says that “these […] came streaming around me […] as if they were back to their own country” (10.416). The joy of seeing him is paralleled with the joy of reuniting with their home. This correspondence between Odysseus and Ithaka is apparent when Odysseus presents himself to the Phaiakians: after naming himself, he directly names and describes Ithaka as if his country was equivalent to himself (9.19-28). Odysseus’ narration also informs us about his own view of his men, and adds a layer of complexity to their relationship as established in the text before. Multiple passages of The Odyssey show instances of the men questioning Odysseys’ authority or disobeying him. Just a few lines after this simile, Eurylochos mistrust him, refuses to follow him back to Circe’s house and urges the other men to disobey as well, accusing him of the deaths of his companions in the land of the Cyclops: “it was by this man’s recklessness that these too perished” (10.437). However this simile implies that Odysseus is the mother figure for his men, which shows the affection he must feel for them and for their memory and portrays a much deeper and more tender bond between them.

In conclusion, this passage narrated by Odysseus explores one of the most important and omnipresent theme of The Odyssey : home. It is here explored through the bond between the men and Ithaka and between the men and Odysseus, which in Odysseus’ eye seems to be identical.  Odysseus narrating this story several years after their deaths may tint it with nostalgia and with a hint of guilt for not having been able to fulfill his role of leader and bring his companions back home. We could say that, for Odysseus, believing that he was an equivalent of home for his men during their adventures is the only comfort he has for their deaths.

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