Themes, deeper meanings, and literary and cultural references enrich readers’ experiences, but they can get lost in translation if the reader didn’t grow up with those traditions. Or, they can turn into a fun treasure hunt that keeps on giving.
Themes are the underlying inspiration behind a writer’s work. They are the big concepts one might be exploring, the thing at the back of a writer’s mind as they create characters and develop a story. Sometimes, even for the writer, a theme only becomes clear as the book is being written. Our subconscious has many hidden, dark corners.
I’ve been intrigued by the concept of identity and in what ways it will or won’t change with the AI revolution. I’m fascinated by how we might see ourselves individually and as part of the human species as our avatars grow in popularity and importance faster and more intensely than the people behind them. Our carefully crafted and disseminated social media personas aren’t who we are. Yet, in many instances, they are becoming more relevant than our true selves.
It took me an international move to appreciate His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. I read The Golden Compass/Northern Lights in Portuguese, called A Bússola Dourada, and loved it. I was enthralled by the imaginative fantasy and the straightforward criticism of organized religion. Splitting people from their souls, their sense of self, and turning them into confused, hollow beings… all in an effort to figure out a way to make folk easier to control, that was easy enough to get.
After moving to the U.S. I read somewhere that the series was inspired by Paradise Lost. After reading John Milton’s epic poem, I gained a deeper appreciation for Pullman. The way he flips the poem in its puritan values… now, that is epic. In John Milton’s Paradise Lost with an introduction by Philip Pullman (Oxford University Press, 2005), Pullman wrote, “My interest was most vividly caught by the meaning of the temptation-and-fall theme. Suppose that the prohibition on the knowledge of good and evil were an expression of jealous cruelty, and the gaining of such knowledge an act of virtue? Suppose the Fall should be celebrated and not deplored? As I played with it, my story resolved itself into an account of the necessity of growing up, and a refusal to lament the loss of innocence. The end of human life, I found myself saying, was not redemption by a non-existent Son of God, but the gaining and transmission of wisdom. Innocence is not wise, and wisdom cannot be innocent, and if we are going to do any good in the world we have to leave childhood behind.”
That’s one beautifully developed theme.
When I say cultural references, I’m talking about more mundane things. Maybe it is for that very reason they are so amusing. When I catch one, I smile mid-read. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline was such a book. It’s pop culture references go from Sesame Street to Monty Python and The Holy Grail. I had to research many American references that didn’t make it to Brazil, but even that was fun in itself. It was like a game, really.
My favorite cultural references add an extra meaning to the work though. I’ve already mentioned in this blog that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams was the first work of science fiction I ever read. Yet, only when I bought the Omnibus Edition and read Adams’s introduction, which he called “A Guide to The Guide – Some helpful remarks from the author,” did I understand Ford Prefect’s name. The character’s name has such a cool meaning. It’s based on a car produced by Ford UK between 1938 and 1961. That’s Adams’s way of exposing the fact that an alien had “misunderstood” Earth and thought cars were the dominant species. Come to think of it, seeing from afar, humans could easily be mistaken for some sort of cars’ parasite.
Then, there are the literary references that may not be connected to an overall theme but are used to emphasize a concept or express a writer’s deep connection to the genre of his work. The Bible and Shakespeare are the most referenced books in modern literature. But I love a tie in genre reference. One of my favorite books with this quality is To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, where the author’s love of mystery classics and her brilliant research shine as much as the time traveling plot. As a fan of mystery books, I loved seeing Agatha Christie and Randall Garrett’s references among other masters of classic mysteries.
I certainly don’t understand most of the references in books translated from other languages. That’s why I appreciate when translators take the time to explain the references, like Ken Liu did so brilliantly in The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu.
I don’t think themes and references are essential to make a book great. I certainly enjoy reading well written books with engaging characters and great plots even when I don’t get hidden meanings pertaining to the writer’s background and culture. But whenever I get one, or I learn about it and decide to revisit the book, I feel a special connection with the material and the writer.
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