The Windup Girl

 Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl is an important book because of its vision of global warming and of food insecurity arising from food being corporate-owned. The novel also ties together a number of interesting subplots, resulting in an explosive ending (spoiler alert: the ending will be discussed). 

The novel is set in future Bangkok where dykes keep the rising oceans off the streets. "It's difficult not to always be aware of those high walls and the pressure of the water beyond. Difficult to think of the City of Divine Beings as anything other than a disaster waiting to happen" (7). Thus, the initial conflict is the setting itself and the difficulty of preserving life in that setting: 

The main character, Anderson Lake, runs a factory making power sources called kink-springs that substitute for increasingly rare fossil fuels. The factory is a front for Anderson's efforts to locate new foods on which his company could capitalize. Most foods are corporate-owned, which comments on the current threat of seed patents leading to the inability of individuals to grow food for themselves. 

Other key characters include Anderson's employee Hock Seng, who seeks to recapture his former wealth and status by stealing kink-spring blueprints; an android Emiko, the title character for whom Anderson conceives a passion, designed to pleasure Japanese businessmen and now working as a prostitute; the aggressive Environment Ministry Captain Jaidee Rojjanasukchai and his lieutenant Kanya Chirathivat, who plans to betray him in revenge for his destruction of her village; and businessman Richard Carlyle with government allies who wants to eliminate trade regulations such as pollution controls and quarantine. 

As the conflicting interests of the characters converge, it seems as if the Thai government will be forced to give up its precious seedbank to corporate profiteers, but Kanya rebels, kills the foreign corporate leader, and initiates a diaspora of monks carrying seeds. Of course, the dykes fail, and the city floods. The novel ends with an Epilogue where the reclusive scientist Gibson promises Emiko that she will have genetic offspring and that they will be fertile. 

These concluding images suggest hope but also the potential for future problems. The seeds and Emiko's fertility indicate that life will continue, despite humans' failings. The image of the deluge promises a new landscape and the potential to start again without the existing problems of corporate and government intrigue. But, the future is also clouded by the fact that Emiko is not human. The novel has taught readers to care for her, that she deserves respect and sympathy, as any other being, but the comparison between androids and cheshires, engineered cats that are fertile, suggests such fertility may be dangerous. The cheshires are a threatening presence in the cityscape, suriving off of carrion. But perhaps the key quality is survival. The seeds will survive, the cheshires will survive, and some form of quasi-human culture will survive at least through an android population.  

Work Cited: Pacigalupi, Paolo. The Windup Girl. San Francisco: Night Shade Books, 2011. Print. 

Image source: The Windup Girl Cover. Amazon.com. n.d. Web. 23 Aug. 2013. http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51CGcjNWkwL._SL160_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-dp,TopRight,12,-18_SH30_OU01_AA160_.jpg

A Princess of Mars

 My 10-year-old daughter and I read Edgar Rice Burroughs's A Princes of Mars out loud and enjoyed the adventure. 

Because I was reading it aloud, I also enjoyed the language: lush, complex sentences with the big words more common to the reading culture of the early 20th century. Here's an example of a single-sentence paragraph that impressed me: "It was a chance to fight, an opportunity to loot, and they rose to the bait as a speckled trout to a fly" (180). There's something about the rhythm of the repeated "to" phrases and of the first three sentence elements ending in a single-syllable word ending in a harsh "t" and then the lightness of the trout image in sense and sound that makes that sentence just leap off the page. Of course, the sentence also signals a key turning point in the novel where the Tharks join John Carter in going to war on behalf of Helium and the Princess of Helium, Dejah Thoris. 

I was surprised to enjoy the novel as much as I did. I am familiar with the pop culture depictions of Tarzan, including the various films and the Frazetta artwork depicting Burroughs's characters, which seem steeped in a stereotypical masculinity. And, John Carter is nearly a superhero with the way Mars's thinner atmosphere allows him to jump higher and hit harder than anyone else. But the novel includes more interesting gender depictions than I anticipated:

1. The Tharks are completely warlike, without softer, more "feminine" feelings. John Carter attributes their attitude to their communal lifestyle, which includes communal doling out of offspring once they have hatched. The fact that the only love arising among the Tharks does so in Tars Tarkus's illicit family where his partner secretly raises their daughter until she is old enough to insert into the communal selection of offspring suggests that the idea of love arises between parent and child. 

Of course, one might argue that this version of love relates to the patriarchal valuing of a man's biological offspring over any other children and to the patriarchal, heterosexual family unit where the father separates the mother and children from other similar groups in the community, demanding love focused on him and reciprocating it. 

But because the emphasis falls on "father or mother love" (42), on nurturing rather than filial relationship, and because nurturing is what permits friendship across racial barriers, such as that between Tars Tarkas and John Carter and that between the Tharks and Helium, the novel seems to value "feminine" feelings as important to individual and community life and to require that violence be tempered with compassion. 

2. The novel depicts Barsoomian culture as having a gender divide. Thark culture is divided into warriors and women, but women are trained fighters and have important work in addition to child-rearing, including making "everything of value" (51). Given that this novel was published in 1917, the valuing of women's work seems surprising. But perhaps the depiction of warfare and of women is influenced by World War I? Burroughs's first Mars story was published in 1912... 

While few female characters are depicted, the three main ones are key: Sola is the nurturing child of Tars Tarkas who is made miserable by Tharkian cruelty and takes care of John Carter when he arrives on Mars. Sarkoja betrays Sola's mother to the Tharks and later pits herself against John Carter. And then there is Dejah Thoris, Princess of Mars. 

Dejah Thoris is depicted as a prisoner and threatened with rape at the hands of Tal Hajus; the narration repeatedly refers to her as a "girl," although she is clearly a woman; and she is routinely rescued by John Carter as they flee from the Tharks and while fighting in the palace at Zodanga. But she is also a strong presence because she is honorable, brave, and well-spoken. Her first speech when addressing her captors indicates these qualities. She does not cower but faces her adversaries, states her name, reflects on the research task that brought her squadron into Thark territory (precursor of "We are on a diplomatic mission to Aldaraan?"), and challenges the Thark culture as uncivilized and ignorant in the extreme, as the Martian atmosphere requires scientific maintenance in order to support all life, including that of the Tharks (60). These qualities give Dejah Thoris a presence in the narrative that belies the stereotypical portrayals of Burroughs's work. 

3. I'm also interested in the egg in the golden incubator that John Carter leaves behind at the end of the novel. Apparently, Barsoomians reproduce through eggs rather than gestation. So the offspring of John Carter and Dejah Thoris is an egg. What interests me about this depiction is that early development of offspring occurs outside the female body, giving both parents the potential for an equal role. While the egg remains an egg at the novel's end, and while the Tharks clearly identify child-rearing as women's work, I am curious to know how Heliumites treat child-rearing when the responsibility for early development is not gendered female by the physical reality of pregnancy. I guess I need to read more of the series. 

Work Cited: Burroughs, Edgar Rice. A Princess of Mars. New York: Fall River P, 2011. Print. 

Image Source: A Princes of Mars Cover. Amazon.com. n.d. Web. 22 Aug. 2013. http://www.amazon.com/Princess-Mars-John-Carter-Series/dp/1435134486/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377181718&sr=8-1&keywords=A+Princess+of+Mars+Fall+River

Connie Willis, My Hero

Connie Willis is my hero. Wow! I listened to her novel All Clear as an audiobook and was astounded by her storytelling and also by the detail associated with the World War II-London historical moment. 

All Clear is the second in a two-book series depicting time-traveling historians from 2060 who go to World War II London for research purposes and get stuck there. I haven't read the first book, Blackout, but I have read another of Willis's time-travel books, Doomsday Book, about travel to medieval England, and Willis's Passage, which is about near-death experiences but involves at least mental time travel. Both of those novels are also very good. 

With regard to All Clear, I want to note a key sequence where the trapped characters are trying to meet up with another time-traveler at St. Paul's Cathedral during a December night in 1941 when much of the cityscape around the cathedral catches fire. The scene covers the night-time hours of one day, but the scene continues for many pages as the characters are delayed, delayed, delayed. The scene is particularly impressive because of the attention to historical detail. Because the sequence is long, readers feel as if they’re in the moment in the World War II bombing of London as the characters attempt to find their fellow time-traveler, find one another, prevent buildings and the cathedral from catching fire, and save lives, including their own. My experience of the sequence's duration was particularly powerful because I was listening to the novel read aloud, which slows down the storytelling, as the eye can't skip forward when the brain wants to see what will happen. I was totally immersed in the characters' desperation to reach the cathedral. 

Perhaps a more interesting aspect of the novel from the perspective of narrative theory (and here I should warn about revealing a detail that may spoil the impact of the sequence for folks who haven't yet read the book) is the fact that Willis integrates the delay into the actual plot. Avid readers will recognize that frustrating characters' goals is a great way to build suspense and keep readers reading. In other words, frustration is an effective narrative-marketing plot device. As I was reading, I was thinking, wow, Willis just keeps throwing barrier after barrier in her characters' way, yet I want more than ever to find out WHAT HAPPENS! I was glued to the story, despite the fact that I felt manipulated by it--very impressive. Then, Willis impressed me even further by making the delays of that night part of the plot: the characters start to realize that they are trapped in 1941 and experience repeated failures to return home not because they have interfered with history but because the Net by which they travel is protecting history. Even bigger wow. The delays that were starting to feel heavy-handed were exactly the clues the characters and readers needed to figure out what was happening, which turned what I thought was a narrative weakness into an unexpected and therefore impressive strength. 

I went out and bought several more Willis books. I'm not much of a short story reader, but her stories have won top awards, so I guess I'm headed in that direction, as well as reading the rest of the novels.  

Image Source: All Clear Audio Book Cover. Amazon. com. n.d. Web. 21 Aug. 2013. http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41zICyP89NL._SX260_.jpg

Textbook: Three-Day Return Policy, Full Cash Refund

Read pages 1-10 for Tuesday.

Buy the textbook. $59.95. Credit.

Feet up on desk.

Open textbook.

Heavy, slippery pages.

Page 1. I am reading. Chapter Heading.

First sentence, third word. What?

Back to Chapter Heading.

Skip third word. Reading.

Fifth sentence. What?

Slide to vocabulary insert. Not there.

Table of Contents. Glossary. Index.

Skip fifth sentence. Reading.

Second paragraph. Pretty chart. Reading. What?

Close textbook.

Return textbook. $59.95. Cash.

Feed by M. T. Anderson

I gobbled M. T. Anderson's Feed in a day, enjoying the texture of the future world depicted where about 70% of the population has a connection to the Internet wired into their brains. Language from the feed blends pleasurably with the voice of the high-school-age first-person narrator, Titus, to provide a sense of life in this context, the constant bombardment of multiple mental voices, from advertisements to chats, that constitute the setting. 

The invasion of the feed into the character's consciousness is appropriately but gently creepy. When Titus admires Violet before they have met, he is trying to figure out why he admires her. "Maybe it was her spine," he thinks, but he can't come up with an adjective that captures what attracts him, so "The feed suggests 'supple'" (11). It's creepy that the feed registers even the most intimate thoughts. It's also creepy that the feed adjusts to offer anything the characters need, from clothing to words. Even creepier is what seems to be the impact on the characters: many can't come up with words to express their thoughts because their world, while it may seem to have expanded in the quantity of information, has narrowed to focus solely on products. School itself has become a registered product, emphasizing instruction in using the feed. 

Another aspect of the book I enjoyed is the depiction of class disparity. Titus and Violet meet during spring break on the moon. While Titus visits the moon accompanied by his friends, and there's no concern about cost, just about accessing alcohol, Violet's dad has had to save up for a year to afford the trip. While Titus lives in a comfortable suburban bubble with his own upcar, Violet lives down at the bottom of the development, layers below the surface where disused asphalt roads still exist, kind of like the class-based stacking of neighborhoods in other science fiction stories such as Chung Kuo. In connection with the emphasis on control by marketing, the class discrepancy is important. The lower classes can't access all of the technology, and many don't want to, which means they are more likely to think critically about the feed but not have the ability to do anything about it. Violet's father, a college-educated professor, seems particularly ineffectual, which suggests the devaluing and also irrelevancy of real school. 

I was a little disappointed with the plot after about the halfway point: Violet, who had the feed implanted at age seven rather than at birth, begins to deteriorate. As the interface between the feed and her body breaks down, she loses control over her limbs, her brain, and any kind of bodily function. Tragically, Titus is bored by Violet's slow death. When she sends him her memories, afraid that she will lose them, he deletes them. When she takes him away for the weekend, hoping to include sex in the experiences she acquires before death, he is horrified. He tells her, "'I keep picturing you dead already'" (211), which is horrifying to her, too. Violet continues to attempt to interact with Titus while he moves on to another girlfriend. In the end, Titus does seem affected by Violet's approaching death, emptying his credit to order pants and sitting by Violet's bedside telling her a hackneyed version of their romance where "'two crazy kids grow, have madcap escapades, and learn an important lesson about love'" (234), but these gestures are shaped and cheapened by the marketing culture in which the feed maintains him. 

I think the plot fails on a number of different levels, but first, I should probably note that it could be me. Maybe like Titus, I, too, am bored by Violet's death, which is a sad state of affairs, given that the I don't even have a Smart Phone and don't visit Facebook often. But, if I am bored by Violet's death, there may also be an artistic flaw. It's possible that Violet comes across more as whining than interesting, but given her situation, she has a right to whine. It's probable that Titus is a disappointment, but that seems to be the point: he can't respond like a human being because he has become a purchasing machine living in an unimaginative storyline. So, given that these two characters should work to make the argument the book seems to make, why don't they?

Most of all, I think I was hoping for a bigger story. Violet seems an anomaly in her own culture rather than a key feature, which means that her death doesn't have the power to speak to the situation. I wonder if the storyline could have been stronger in focusing on the decline of a young person who had been connected to the feed since birth? That situation might have enabled the story to speak more to the feed itself, instead of about someone in whom the feed was imperfectly implanted. 

The tragedy of Violet's death also seems small in connection with the increasing antagonism toward America that the novel alludes to in the backdrop of the story ("the Global Alliance had issued more warnings about the possibility of total war if their demands were not met" [233]). I wanted more of that intercultural scope in the foreground to put emphasis on the dangers associated with the feed. The story's not just about an error in implantation. 

In addition, the larger tragedy associated with the feed seems simplistically portrayed: having the feed is bad; not having the feed would be good, if the world were different. This bleak theme seems to lash out at everyone using the Internet today and particularly at young adults, the likely readership of the novel, for their interactions with technology. While I am concerned about the profit motive behind much of the information on the web, I don't think all users are passive consumers in the way the novel suggests through the feed. The oversimplification risks having readers walk away from the story without connecting it productively to their lives. It's easy to say, "It's not like that." 

Ultimately, Feed is a novel where all resistance is futile, as Violet's father realizes that the feed is necessary equipment for navigating this culture, and as Violet discovers when her attempt at resistance plays a part in the corporations' unwillingness to help her. Total dead end. Other SF novels end this way, such as 1984, and  they feel more tragic. Perhaps because Titus lacks real human capacity to feel, the tragedy of Violet's impending death is more of a dud. 

Work Cited

Anderson, M. T. Feed. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick P, 2002. Print. 

Image Source

Feed Book Cover Image. amazon.com. 1996-2013. Web. 13 Jan. 2013. <http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=feed+anderson>.