Book and Game: For the Unitiated

[Book and Game is a new feature for Cut Out & Keep. We select a book and a game that are somehow thematically linked with the aim of cross-pollinating their audiences. Bookworms, try the game; Gamers, give the book a whirl!]

Rather than these two being thematically linked, however, I'm simply going to recommend the poetry book and game I think are most likely to convert the deeply hesitant and challenge their preconceptions of the respective mediums.

BOOK: The Solex Brothers (Redux), Luke Kennard (Salt Publishing, 2007)

None of the poems in The Solex Brothers have line breaks. They are all multi-parter short stories taking place in strange, constantly shifting miniature universes. In almost every paragraph, Kennard attempts to subvert one expectation or another. In the title poem, the narrator is cajoled into murdering the Solex Brothers by the local townsfolk (who may be lying). The poison fails to work but instead turns the Solex Brothers into babbling poets. A year later, the narrator is still in contact with them, offering them advice:

"What are you supposed to do when someone doesn't like you?"

"Kill them," I said.

The line went dead.

Why is it poetry, then, and not prose? Because the lines, rather than simply providing a narrative function, can't help but make you aware of their texture and strangeness. Whereas prose is typically used as a means of conveying images and information into your head, poetry wants you to notice its language, the medium of delivery, the same way good food needs to be tasted as much as it needs to be swallowed.

GAME: Portal 2, Valve, 2011

You'll have seen me posting on this before, and if you're even vaguely aware of what's being talked about in the gaming scene, you'll have heard the hype. You might even have seen Charlie Brooker writer about it in The Guardian.

Portal 2 is a game in which you never shoot anyone, nor batttle in outrageous outfits, nor chat to bosomy, half-nude girls. Its levels are huge, three-dimensional puzzles that you solve by creating portals and messing with physics. It's also a comic sci-fi parable whose main antagonist is a scientific evangelist for whom the purpose of life (particularly human life) is to test. Your only quest: escape. Escape the endless testing any way you can. Like numerous Kurt Vonnegut stories, the moral behind Portal 2 is that even the most worthy cause eventually becomes absurd, authoritarian dogma when married to ego and obsession. So it goes that we're left to run a treadmill inside a vast and meaningless machine. And when humans make ideological mistakes, they don't do it by halves.

Did I mention that playing the co-op mode with a friend is some of the purest fun available to those with a networked computer (and a friend)? It encourages teamwork, collaboration and a playful approach to problem-solving. It makes you want to high-five each other - and then goes ahead and lets you do it into the bargain:

Oh, sorry. That's a hug. You can do that too.

Book and Game: Ludicrous and Lonely

[Book and Game is a new feature for Cut Out & Keep. We select a book and a game that are somehow thematically linked in the hope of cross-pollinating the two mediums. Bookworms, try the game; Gamers, give the book a whirl!]

BOOK: The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break (Steven Sherrill)

 


In this heartbreaker, the Minotaur of legend is now working in a busy American steak-house kitchen, almost mute with insecurity. His co-workers never seem to notice that he is a bull-headed man, so nobody understands why he feels so awkward and out of place. Physically immense but hamstrung with self-consciousness, he is an aching depiction of loneliness trapped in a labyrinth of normality, where every possible friendship is like a spark in a cave.

The dreams of the Minotaur are almost pathetically modest and achievable, yet prey to malicious sabotage. As he does not have a human face, he is a blank canvas, standing for anybody who is trapped in a job that hurts them, surrounded by cruelty and, despite their physical strength, afraid to fight for what they really want. He has existed for centuries and even he is unsure why.


GAME: Octodad




You're an octopus. You're also the father of an all-American family. As in Minotaur, there are no answers as to how you got into this situation. The developers set the scene thus:

"His existence is a constant struggle, as he must master mundane tasks with his unwieldy boneless tentacles while simultaneously keeping his cephalopodian nature a secret from his human family."

Suspicion meters, children's assault courses, a homicidal and perceptive sushi chef and nigh-on impossible everyday chores conflict with your goal of creating a dummy 'you' to escape your family and return to where you belong. One of the most tragic scenes is Octodad's attempt to help his wife by cleaning out the fridge. Controlling one tentacle at a time, you fling everything onto the floor. Bafflingly, this pleases your wife. For anyone who's ever felt out of their depth, weighed down by the expectations on their role, or simply that even those closest to them never really knew them.