All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders is difficult to classify and has often been listed as genre-bending. One of the main character, Patricia, is a witch but the other character, Laurence, is a scientist trying to save the world from destruction.
All the Birds in the Sky contains magical realism, science fiction, and romance. A post-apocalyptic storm, artificial intelligence, and a ground-breaking project to create a wormhole give this novel an exciting edge.
Some of the themes in All the Birds in the Sky resemble the ones in Iain Pears' Arcadia--the ethical ramifications of creating a device that could repopulate the earth's inhabitants in another world.
All the Birds in the Sky, though, is more tightly focused than Arcadia. It appeals to readers in their early twenties because it has elements of what Molly Wetta calls "new adult" fiction or "twentysomething" fiction.
According to Wetta, new adult fiction follow teens "the summer after graduation, on into college, and beyond."
New adult fiction is often wildly inventive, with a focus on technology, relationships, and finding one's place in the world.
Other examples of fiction for new adults that Wetta lists are Rainbow Rowell's FanGirl and Stephanie Danler's Sweetbitter.
Moonrise Kingdom is a strangely dark, yet funny story set in New Penzance island, a fictional island that Wes Anderson based on his trips to Naushon, off of Cape Cod.
Much of the movie operates as a framed narrative. At the film's outset we are given a glance of Suzy (Kara Hayward) looking at the world through a pair of binoculars. This scene implies that the movie will be from her point-of-view or that she is a lonely observer.
Though the narrator, another outsider, seems detached from the action in the opening scenes, he later joins the rest of the cast and interacts with the other characters.
The narrator later proves to be of vital importance. He provides key information about the possible whereabouts of middle schoolers, Suzy and Sam, who have run away.
This is what I like best about Wes Anderson's films--an outsider whom everyone devalues suddenly rises in importance and surprises everyone.
Of course, Suzy and Sam are also outsiders. Suzy has anger issues and Sam is a bullied orphan.
By the film's end, though, the two misfits and star-crossed lovers have risen in importance. The whole island is looking for them and the search has caused adult to rethink their behavior.
Anderson claims he was influenced by Alan Parker's Melody (aka S.W.A.L.K.) and Ken Loach's Black Jack.
Soucres consulted:
The Wes Anderson Collection, by Matt Zoller Seitz, Anderson
Whenever anyone became too close, Samuel Hawley and his daughter and move to a new place. Wherever he goes, he sets up a shrine for his decease wife in the bathroom.
After years of traveling Hawley finally settle in Olympus, Massachusetts, where Lilly had grown up. He has forsworn life on the run and becomes a commercial fisherman.
Readers hear about Hawley's criminal past in a series of flashbacks. Twelve chapters for the twelve bullets Hawley took while still involved in crime.
As was bound to happen, Hawley's criminal past intersects with his present when his ex-partner Jove comes to visit.
Hawley's teenaged daughter has already suffered a break-up with her star-crossed love. Like a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, Lilly and Marshall are an ironic pairing. His mother is a staunch environmentalist who opposes Marshall's relationship with Loo.
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