Gothic Fiction and Victorian Detective Fiction

I'm not a big fan of British Raj in India, but one thing I'm a fan of that is British is gothic and Victorian literature. In Victorian literature I particularly like Victorian detective fiction. Sherlock Holmes is one of my favourite detectives ever. British literature of 19th and 20th century was some actual great stuff capable of transporting you in a whole another realm. Literature is dead now, and only good and readable stuff is now from 19th and 20th century with stuff before that becoming too archaic for the common reader to enjoy. There has been some great gothic stuff too, like Frankenstein, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dracula. Gothic and Victorian setting and atmosphere is something that I enjoy reading and all the props go to skillful writers who wrote these works. I am a big fan of Arthur Conan Doyle and he is the reason I like Victorian literature so much. The settings and atmosphere developed at that time are still utilised by the comic books and media till date. Gothic fiction is a legitimate genre now with numerous comic books and media referencing and portraying it. Victorian detective fiction and gothic fiction provides an escapism and takes us into a world that is simple and away from political reality and yet complex enough to subtly make us understand the social reality during that time. The literature be it gothic fiction or victorian detective fiction despite having macabre and gory details still manage to keep the feel of reading warm and feel good, a thing that is missing in the media of today. 

Maximum Profit (and pleasure)

One has to adapt their life to the political truth of the country they live in, and the world. It's not an optional thing, if one is intelligent enough, one has to invariably do that post their 30s. When the political arrangement of a country wants to do a hitjob on you you would be blamed of having and ideology opposite to the one that is generally accepted in that country. Like if it is a communist arrangement, you'd be blamed to be a capitalist, and if it is a capitalist arrangement you would be blamed to be a communist. It's advisable to steer clear of tags though, because they don't matter. The only truth is that the ones who are in power would like to stay in power no matter what, and whether the political system is capitalistic, communist or socialist, it makes no difference. Power structures are same throughout the world, and they operate in a similar fashion or probably in the same fashion. I don't believe in tags, and I really find myself leaning towards capitalism when it comes to purchasing and consuming, but imagine a world where a bunch of corporations influence your thoughts directly to make you needlessly buy the products they produce. And I don't mean the influence to be advertising with sex, and naked women, I still consider that a fair form of advertising. To put things into perspective, companies are developing chips that can be implanted into heads of people that can help them communicate with others with chips in their heads and with computers. Imagine a world where people with chips in their heads, whose minds, thoughts, neurology and neuromuscular system can be controlled externally are made to buy things by companies needlessly just for increasing their profits. It sounds improbable, right? People who know the truth of the world would disagree. It's all about intent, and the intent is not right. Imagine I have a company of shoes, and I have neurological control over your body and mind, and my products are not selling. So, I control your mind through the chip you got implanted in your head for interfacing with your computer and directly make you feel like, or even obsess about, buying my unsold product. The truth is technology is only as good as people controlling it. People all over are complaining that their phones are listening to their conversations and are showing advertisement related to their conversations. These people are in for a surprise. What runs this country and the world has a very dehumanised view of the general population and when you dehumanise someone, you can do anything with them. So here is the gist, you are made to work, earn money and then forced to buy shit you don't need with your hard earned money, and when you become aware of the arrangement of forced consumption and try to bounce from the planet, you are blackmailed about the well being of your loved ones to stay and suffer, because you are not only a consumer but also a resource to be harvested. What is my political ideology? It's preservation of culture and happiness and happiness doesn't need much money, the problem is that happy and trauma-less childhoods make the process of harvesting difficult. You'd ask, what is it that is being harvested, and I'll leave that on you to find out, I know it, but I just do not want to be so politically incorrect to write about it. 

Noir Revisit and Staying Back

I love noir as a genre. I love hardboiled. I thought noir and hardboiled are passé but it is in past few years I realised that noir and hardboiled would probably live as long as humanity and politics live. I used to love reading and watching noir and it's just in the past few years my interest in it dwindled only to make me realise that noir and hardboiled is here to stay just because morally speaking humanity is irredeemable and it has always been so, there are just pockets or islands of happiness in which people reside as long as they can do it. I have seen that when people have absolute power, things more or less follow Murphy's law. It's not like the situation is like this only in this country, it's a worldwide phenomenon, situation is worse in this country only because of poverty, mismanagement, incompetence and needless gatekeeping and when you realise that it is all intentional then you realise that this country is actually at par with other countries. I find it funny because when I was sixteen I wanted to leave the country and go to the US and it is past my thirties I realised that it is better to be discriminated against in your own land than be discriminated against somewhere else. This realisation doesn't work for people who went out of their land or country in search of greener pastures unless they learn about the invisible arrangement of the world which only shows itself in two cases, if one is too fortunate or too unfortunate. In my case it had been both, I have been too fortunate as well as too unfortunate and finally I realised that my desire to go to the US when I was sixteen wouldn't have done me any good personally, except keeping me in a feel good delusion which could have lasted as long as it could last. Now, I know the truth of the arrangement of the world and I'm in my land and on my soil. I prefer suffering with the majority than being with a minority that enjoys abundance by actively depriving people of the basics just for the sake of it. This country is ripe for noir and hardboiled, and many media, film and television have adapted the approach. In fact a lot of media, film and television take inspiration from noir. I personally like stylized noir and hardboiled which basically means American noir and hardboiled from around mid 20th century. A good example of the kind of noir I like would be the graphic novel and the movie Sin City, and the game Max Payne. There is a Spiderman Noir television series under production and it is exactly the kind of thing I like. I have written quite a bit of noir stuff and have read a bit too. The short story collection A Baum Plan for Financial Independence by John Kessel, if I remember clearly, has a bunch of noir stories, the kind of which I like. I have books of American noir pulp but I haven't got time to read them, guess I should visit them in free time.