What is the Prowler Project?
The Prowler Project is based on
and dedicated to Harlan Ellison’s short story,
“The Prowler in the
City at the Edge of the World.”
It is intended
to help explain and demonstrate themes and ideas contained within the story.
Whether or not I am actually successful in this lofty goal remains to be seen.
Note that I decided to eschew all time-tested and boring web design tenets as
creating a boring, sterile web page would in fact eliminate the whole
point of these pages.
As
a disclaimer of sorts, know that the short story is incredibly violent and
explicit and some of these pages reflect that intentional part of Ellison’s
work. As a result, a few of the pages or the pages linked within them may not
be for all tastes. Simply use your discretion in viewing them.
Many
quotes contained around this project are either taken from Ellison’s story
itself or from the interpretive essay I have written offering another telling
of the story. I won’t bother to cite exact quotes as little footnotes and
“(Ellison, 12)” appearances would take away from the aesthetic appeal of
the project.
If
you are intrigued by the information within these pages, I would highly recommend
that you read Ellison’s story. It appears on the Internet, courtesy of my
English professor, Tabitha McIntosh-Byrd, at this link. It will
not be around forever, though, so I suggest you print it out as soon as
possible before it leaves the world of 1’s and 0’s. I also give my highest
recommendation to the definitive collection of Ellison’s works available now, The
Essential Ellison. It contains this story and over a thousand pages of
other stories. Harlan Ellison is an absolutely amazing writer that deserves as
much credit as he can get. You owe it to yourself to seek him out immediately.
If you are really interested in the story, you may also find my essay
interesting. It offers a retelling of sorts of the story mainly through the
viewpoint of the city, itself. Write me an e-mail and I will send the essay to you for your (hopeful) enjoyment.
So, this is a humble attempt to try to
explain my Project to you. I simply hope that you gain a better respect for the
story out of it. At the very least, if you are driven to look at the story
again or for the very first time, then I’ve succeeded admirably. If you have
any comments or ideas to share with me, please feel free to send me an e-mail. I am a Computer Scientist, so I spend much time alone in front
of my computer so make my life a little more interesting and write something to
me. Thank you very much.
The
Creator
February
24, 2000