Nalo Hopkinson, “Brown Girl in the Ring”

In class, I had the impression that everybody seemed to really like the novel. I didn’t like it quite as much. First of all, the language annoyed me at times. It was understandable, but sometimes a little hard to get through. I do, though, agree that it helped to convey the personalities of the characters, but then again I didn’t like the characters too much. Or maybe it wasn’t the characters that I did not like, but the whole plot in general. Iam not really a spiritual person and I do not understand all this importance that is given to the spirits. I do acknowledge that it is an important part of some cultures and please don’t get me wrong here, I am not against people practising their culture. It just doesn’t mean anything to me and that is probably why I did not really like the story. After all, it is all about spirits.

What was interesting about the novel was the setting. It was an interesting idea to set it in Toronto, which is isolated from all its suburbs and thus creating a kind of little world with the people trapped in it. That was also interesting because usually people tend to think that life in the city must be better than anywhere else (and since I am a big city kid, I would agree with those people), but this story looks at it from a different perspective. Maybe it can even be seen as a metaphor for how people in the big city are really trapped in it in our real life. And I do agree to some point that big cities are anonymous and maybe not always fun to live in. In the story Toronto is a pretty valueless place. Politicians are corrupt, the whole city is dominated by cruel and violent criminals who deliberately and very brutally kill other people for their own profit. Of course, in the end, Ti-Jeanne manages to fight “the evil forces” and order is reestablished. Even the premier becomes much more social after the transplant… But that was really predictable. I mean, all the time someone gets a heart implant in a story, they always adopt some of the charcateristics, features or values of the dead person who donated the heart. At least that is my impression and that is also why I didn’t think the ending was a very good ending. It was not surprising and in fact too happy (Gros-Jeanne sort of lives on in the body of the premier, the baby is named and everyone lived happily ever after). Maybe I am exaggerating and I do see that it is not a complete happy end. Too many people have died. But after all, I thought the end was a little cheesy…

John Kessel, “Invaders”

We didn’t really talk much about this story in class, but I think I liked it best out of the last short stories we had to read. It was funnily written and I really enjoyed reading it, but it was also interesting to have it told in three different little stories: the Inca world of the 16th century, the alien story of the 21st century and then the metafictional comments by the author.

Still, I am not really sure what the story was about. Of course, there is a parallel between the Spanish invading the Inca territory in the 16th century and the alien invasion of the earth in the 21st century and I do see the point about imperialism. However, in general I had the impression that there are a lot of topics mentioned in the story and I don’t really know how I could connect all of them to get a more or less coherent plot out of it. For once, there is the importance of God. In the Inca part of the story it’s the Spanish invaders who justify their actions with their belief in God and his orders that are allegedly given to them. In the alien part of the story, God is no less important. The aliens claim that they can move their spaceships through the power of prayer and it’s their God who tells them about the cocaine. What does this mean? God doesn’t stop talking aobut cocaine? Is this supposed to be a criticism of religion? An “opium for the people” kind of thing (or how you guys call that…)? I mean, when we talk about imperialism in the 16th century, we know that the invaders believed in God and believed that he gave them the right to invade. And it is easy to criticize that in terms of cultural oppression of the colonized people. The aliens inade earth and also culturally oppress the people their and they also justify it with their God, I guess. So far, that’s more or less clear to me.

But then, there is the art part about the pictures and everything. Of course, art is culture (so that might be a hint at cultural oppression?), but I did not really understand the significance of that (but maybe I also didn’t get all the details because I read the story pretty late in the night). I just see the connection that the aliens pretty much buy all the important works of art that humankind values as great art and that they in that way “steal” it. But then again, they want to make it visible for everyone, which makes it less selfish.

Then there is the thing about language. The Incas are impressed by it, but do not really value it that much. And they also point out that the commander should not be allowed to give orders to anyone without being “superior” to him. The aliens do not read, because they say that it gets out of control once you start it and that that finally leads to oppression. That was an interesting thought, though I do not think that it is true. I don’t really think that reading fiction leads to oppression. I mean, usually education and the ability to read are the most important things for being able to build and express your own opinion. Why else would dictators and despots try to keep their people from reading?

You see, there are a lot of interesting aspects in the short story and they are maybe all significant in themselves. But I still need some help to combine them all to one meaning (if that’s possible at all…)

Language, la langue, die Sprache…

I really liked all of the stories for this week. Sometimes it happens that you read a story and your thoughts start drifting away and by the end of the story you don’t remember anything at all and you have a hard time telling what it was about. But this week that did not happen at all…Maybe it’s because I knew the topic was “language” and I am not only a literature student, but also a linguistics student, so the topic sort of fit my interests. However, I must admit that the stories were not quite like what I expected under the label “language”, but nevertheless, they were interesting, because they drew attention to several aspects of it.

If we take “For the Sake of Grace”, I first thought that it is rather a feminist story than one about language (although of course, one doesn’t exclude the other). And I still think that you cannot read the story without the feminist aspect. Isn’t the story supposed to point to the fact that literature and poetry are associated with men rather than with women? Language  as the (I’d say) most developed form of communication and literacy have for a long time been the domain of men. This is a common feminist argument, but just look at the canon and the works of literature that our society has agreed upon as being great works. We were just talking about that in another class, saying that even today – although we pretend that we are comfortable with women writers – we’re really not and we still tend to think that men are the better writers. And this is of course something that the story focuses on: for men it is possible without (greater) difficulties to apply for the Major in Poetry, which is the most honorable profession you can get. For women, however, there are severe restrictions and if a woman fails she has to spend the rest of her life in isolation (because it is considered as blasphemy or whatever). Pretty unfair, eh? That is clearly a patriarchal society (and think about how women are treated in general in the story)… Nevertheless, on the other hand, IF a woman passes the examinations, that’s really a sensation and she is truly honored and accepted by society. The fact that Jacinth reaches level seven is of course supposed to show that a woman is able to write poetry as well as a man. This story was written in 1969, so before the great feminist movement in the 70’s. Moreover, Jacinth’s behaviour is also a kind of political rebellion. The title “For the Sake of Grace” has a double meaning. Not only does it refer to the religious aspect of the story and the importance of language as a kind of religion, but also Jacinth’s aunt, who has claimed to become a poet and because of her failure has to spend her life in isolation, is called Grace. So, Jacinth’s motivation behind her own application (and probably even for practising over a long period of time) was to become a poet to – in a sense – liberate her aunt from her fate (though not physically, then at least psychologically). After all, at the end of the story she is the one able to exert power over her father and tell him what to do, which demonstrates her power over the patriarchal structure, arrived at through excellent use of language.

“Tauf Aleph” was a little more complicated for me. To be honest, I am not really familiar with Jewish terminology and religion, which is a shame, but what struck me about that story in terms of language was the use of names. At least, I had the impression that there must be something behind it because a great part of the story deals with the problems of naming. And this is linguistically very interesting, because in the process of language acquisition, this is one of the first and central steps. How does language come about? We simply need to name things in order to talk about them. By naming things, we then give an identity to the things (or to the people), which maybe even enables us to catgeorize things. Although, it can of course be argued that categorization takes place before that and that it is basically a mental process that is then expressed by language (and I think I would go with that theory). However, it is clear that naming things is one of the central aspects of language. I do not want to go into detail with all the names in the story, because that would probably take ages, but just consider the name of the machine. It starts off with being called O/G5/842. There is a logical and technical explanation behind it (thus making it a quite technical name as might be appropriate for a machine). This then is abbreviated into O/G, which sounds less technical, but the pronunciation sort of suggested to mean “Oh gee!” to me. I’m not really sure what that could mean in the context and at that stage of the story and maybe I’m overinterpreting it, but isn’t it a possible reading. Later on, the machine is called Golem, which is Hebrew and according to my German dictionary means something like “shapeless mass”, but is also a mute creature within Jewish religion that is created out of clay and is supposed to be the saviour of Jews in times of persecution (If I got it right). In any case, this makes sense, as the machine really functions as a kind of saviour, not only for Begelman, but also for the Cnidori. What seems to be important for this, is his use of logic. I was wondering if that is supposed to have anything to do with language. Of course, the machine learns a lot of languages, but can we also assume that logic and language are necessarily intertwined?

Now the last story. This was in so far interesting as it really focuses on the practical use of language (or rather the loss of language and the implications of it). To me, the story suggested that language really is a key component of human life. It is hard to communicate without verbal language (at least if you’re not capable of sign language). The story portrays that there are a lot of misunderstandings, because people cannot communicate adequately with each other. If they were able to, would they have experienced the same amount of violence? Would the people have been killed or gotten into fights that easily? I read the story as a  kind of glorification of language, telling us that a world without language would be a lot more complicated and isolating. You would not be able to tell anyone your name (thus parts of your identity). Nevertheless, the story could also be seen as a metaphor, not for not having language at all, but for not using language (or not communicating enough). And although I think that language is important, I do not necessarily see it as crucial (as maybe in contrast to the story). Don’t get me wrong here: I like languages and this is why I’m studying English, but I have also made the experience that sometimes language does not really matter in interpersonal relationships. Of course, language makes everything (especially communication) easier, but you can still have a kind of inner understanding with someone, even if you do not speak the same language and you sometimes do not know how to express what you think. Basically, the important things are your thoughts, not the way you express them…

Arts vs. Science

I must admit, I am not a physics genius. I had my last physics lesson in 10th grade, which is now more than 5 years ago, and it was the one subject I dropped as soon as possible. I was simply not really interested in it. Then, a couple of years later, I read an article about Black Holes, which was really interesting, but I think, I didn’t quite get it (though I really wanted to!). However, maybe my interest in physics was slowly coming back then. And then last term, my roommate (who is a physics student) one day said to me: “Hey, do you have five minutes? I’ve got an interesting theory for you…” And what followed was…Schrödinger’s Cat! I hadn’t heard about that theory before and the five minutes turned into at least 30 minutes, the discussion turning from Schrödinger’s Cat to Black Holes and all this quantum mechanics stuff. Okay, I still have problems understanding that, but now I wish I had put more effort into my physics lessons at school, because it really IS interesting. So, when I read the title of Greg Bear’s story, I was both surprised and a little amused. Do you know that situation when you learn a new word or concept that you’ve never heard before and then WHEN you know what it means you encounter it everywhere? It was a little like that.

Not surprisingly, I liked the stories about hard sf, although I have to say that “Exposures” and “The World As We Know ‘T” weren’t quite as good – and I think, here I agree with most of you. But actually, all of these stories were like I imagined science fiction to be like: a lot of weird technology concerning space that no one really understands. And though I know it better now, those stories are still the epitome of science fiction for me. I guess, this is because I can somehow see why it is science fiction…But now about the stories – or rather the story, because (as I said) “Exposures” and “The World As We Know ‘T” weren’t that good and my essay is gonna be about “Schrödinger’s Cat” and “Schwarzschild Radius”, so that leaves me with “Half-Life”.

What I liked about that story was that apart from all the scientific stuff in it, it was still very much based on the real historical persons of Marie Curie and her family. The interesting part about that was also that, as I don’t know much about Marie Curie, I was always wondering if the information about the persons was real or if it was made up by the author. Of course, there are fictional elements in it, but at least the basic steps of her life seem to be “real”.

As was mentioned in class, I would also say that this story serves as a warning against scientific experiments. Well, maybe not scientific experiments in general, but surely against experiments with radioactive material. Not only do we see what this leads to physically (a lot of the characters die of one form of cancer, which very likely has been the consequence of working with these rasioactive materials), but the story also talks about the human aspect of it. It really is a family story, telling us about the problems and tensions within a family. Eve, who is the daughter who is not really interested in physics and is much more an artistic person than a scientific person, seems to be secluded from the rest of the family. She is the one who watches her mother die, whereas all the others seem to have a life on their own, together with their partners – and which are to a great extent devoted to science. The relation between her and her sister Irène does not seem to be too good. Eve does not want to allow the rest of the family to see Marie, because she says that that might look like saying goodbye forever. However, I was still thinking that that was not the only reason (or maybe it was really just an excuse) and that the real reason was much more the relationships within the family. Maybe there was a little jealousy in play? Or maybe a little revenge, because Irène seems to be more successful than Eve? However, this hints at another aspect I was thinking about while reading the story. To me, it seemed as if the story portrays a quite clear division between science and art. Why does it have to be like that? I know quite a few people who study arts and sciences at the same time. Surely, that is possible, but still, they often have to answer questions like: “How is that possible? How can you study English AND physics?” Of course, most people have their tendencies and are good in one area, but not in the other and maybe that’s natural. But I still don’t think that there should be such a contrast between arts and sciences. They are not the same, I agree, but why does it have to be this either/or decision? Or is my perception here totally wrong? Anyway, although I am exclusively studying arts, I’m still interested in science – and I don’t think that’s contradictory at all.

And this proves: sf is not always unrealistic…

Candas Jane Dorsey, “(Learning About) Machine Sex”

Wow, I thought that was a great story! Definitely the best one for this week. And actually, I know, this is an sf class and doesn’t that mean we’re dealing with stories and topics that are somewhat utopian, futuristic; at least we imagine them as highly improbable, if not impossible, as “untrue” in the sense that they describe scenarios that could not have happened or that are not likely to happen anyway (just because somtimes they don’t seem to be realizable). This story, however, proves our assumptions to be wrong. As strange as it might sound to have sex with a computer, scientists are actually really thinking about that right now. A couple of months ago I read an article in a serious news magazine, which was reporting about an AI expert who is all about developing sexbots as replacement for humans. His vision is to make them as human as possible, with achtual emotions like love, empathy, humour and so on (of course without features like unfaithfulness and all the other human flaws). If you have such a sexbot, you are supposed to be able to download sex techniques from all over the world… Doesn’t that sound strange? It sounds like a science fiction story and yet, it is going on in our real human world.

This story really reminded me of that article, because basically it is about that notion of preferring sex with a machine, exactly because they are not moody, they don’t just do it for their own benefit and just don’t care what the partner thinks. In essence, though, I would say, that the story basically is not about sex in the first place, but rather about love (of course, they are kind of interdependent). But the issue that is raised in the story is that – and this is maybe especially true for women (and that was even mentioned in my news magazine article) – people don’t feel loved but much more used as sex partners (actually, my newspaper article finished with the amusing idea that women might really love sexbots as an alternative for their sweaty husbands and that for men – since they are already willing to have sex with inflatables – everything that moves would be an improvement).

I especially liked the last pages of the story when Angel meets the gay guy and they talk about love, because the author really tries to break down what it means to be in a relationship, or what it can mean to be in a relationship. Unfortunately, Angel really has a negative view of that, but considering her history with men, this is not really surprising. And here we see the analogy with the real world. Of wourse, I would not argue that every relationship is really just about sex and getting the most out of it for yourself without caring for the other, but I think that it might actually be true for a lot of couples. At least, I can easily imagine those scenarios that Angel describes in the story, which basically end in unfulfilled marriage (and this can be proven by all the divorces nowadays). However, I would agree with the gay guy that there is something else out there, such as love, which really means someting else than what is desribed by Angel. Nevertheless, I got the impression that the story has a really dark ending. If the option is either to stay and accept the human relations that are just about selfishness or to get out and have sex with a machine, that doesn’t really sound very uplifting to me… But then again, I like dark endings, because they much more motivate you to think about what you have just read and to think further, which was hopefully one of Dorsey’s intentions for writing the story. The way in which the criticism of human relationships and sexual exploitation, I would argue, is conveyed, should really make us think about what our society is drifting towards. And especially, when we see that the topic taken up in the story is not utopian anymore, but has become rather realistic.

So, I know, that won’t be much help to you, because the article is in German, but for the sake of referencing, here is the link for the news magazine article about the sexbots.

Habemus Papam!

Robert Silverberg, “Good News from the Vatican”

Yes, I’m a little late with this blog entry… I waited for the white smoke to tell me the outcome of the papal election, but it just wouldn’t come =)

However, now I can say: Habemus papam! We have a Pope! (The most popular German tabloid actually titled “We ARE Pope” when Cardinal Ratzinger was elected, but I think that kind of identification with a robo-Pope is a little more difficult.) It is interesting, though, to think about the possibility of having a robot as Pope. Of course, it is highly utopian and even if it was possible to create robots that are really human (and as far as I know, they are already able to do that, but I’m not up-to-date on that topic), then I still don’t believe that the Catholic Church would be up for that. And to be fair, no other church would be up for it, either. But then again, would it be desirable to have a robot as pope? I’m personally not a fan of the pope at all, but isn’t he supposed to be a mediator between God and the people (and the people here meaning: real humans?) And as I said before, they would not necessarily identify with a pope that is a machine. The question then is: Would a robo-pope at all make sense?

On the other hand, if you really want to access that problem (because you think that that might really be an option in the future or just because you like speculation), would it make any difference if the pope was human or a machine? If the machine is created like a human, does that mean that it possesses all human qualities, including emotions and drives or would it just be a kind of a rational being, functioning like a computer, with some human characteristics such as speech and maybe motion? If it was the latter, it would certainly make a difference, because such a robot would lack the spirituality that certainly makes up a great part of the idea of a pope. Such a machine – I think – would not be able to be a “real” pope. He would maybe make less mistakes (if at all) and that would certainly support the notion of the papal infallibility, but it would definitely lack the human aspect (and isn’t the church supposed to be for the people?) If it was a machine that had all the characteristics of a human, however, then it wouldn’t really make much of a difference, because in that case the robot could maybe even be considered as a real human. In that case, I don’t see why a human would be better than a robot.

However, those are a couple of hypothetical questions, which may be interesting to pose, but are probably not really relevant, because they will most likely never have to be applied to real life. So, let’s move on to the (as I would say) more abstract notion of the machine as a pope. You could argue that in that story, the robo-pope is intended to represent “the other”. It is not a white male Christian (as all other popes have been so far), but something different. I think, it is interesting to see this as a criticism of the insitution of the pope as such, not in that it necessarily denies the importance of the pope in itself, but in that it criticizes the restrictions that are connoted to this role. Why can’t we have a female pope? Or a gay pope? Or a black pope? Or rather, why is it so unlikely that we will have one of those? I must admit, I haven’t read the Bible from beginning to end, so I don’t know where (and if at all) it says that females can’t be pope or that being gay is a sin. Or is this just something that the Church as the institution has come up with? Even if not (and I’m speaking here out of my own personal belief and do not want to offend anyone), the Bible should be read as a series of stories actually written by men with certain intentions (for example, to promote human values) and not as God’s word dictated into their pen. That’s what I think and that’s what leads me to the conclusion that the story actually criticzes the way religion or the church works and shows that it has not yet managed the transformation to modern times but is  still stuck somewhere in the past (maybe not in the Middle Ages, but certainly in a period too far away from our present time).

Presentation: Joanna Russ, “A Few Things I Know About Whileaway”

Joanna Russ

Biographical Information

 

- born February 22, 1937 in New York City

- studied English at Cornell University in Ithaca and Theatre Studies at Yale University of Drama

- married in 1963, was divorced six years later in 1969

- in the same year she openly declared to be lesbian

- taught Rhetoric, English and Creative Writing at several universities until 1990

- writes science-fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism /also playwright and essayist

- was recognized as a science-fiction writer in early 1970s, up until then the genre had been male-dominated

- she is said to be one of the most outspoken authors criticizing male dominance and a leading feminist science-fiction writer

- suffers from chronic back pain and chronic fatigue syndrome

Publications (selection)

- The Female Man (1975): told from four different points of view from four women living in different parallel worlds; one of the women lives on Whileaway

- Souls (1989)

- “When It Changed” (1972)

- On Strike Against God (1980): the only non-science-fiction novel; the topic of the novel is Lesbianism

- What Are We Fighting For?: Sex, Race, Class, and the Future of Feminism (1997): non-fictional study of feminist criticism

Awards

- Nebula Award

- Hugo Award

- Locus Poll Award

- SF Chronicle Poll Award

- SFRA Pilgrim Award

- Tiptree Award (respectively)

Lesbian Feminist Literary Criticism

In “What Has Never Been: An Overview of Lesbian Feminist Literary Criticism” (1981) Bonnie Zimmerman declares that “the sexual and emotional orientation of a woman profoundly affects her consciousness and thus her creativity”, which makes it necessary not only to look at literature from a feminist point of view, but particularly from a lesbian point of view. She criticizes that lesbians are not represented enough in literature (for example, they are rarely mentioned as influences in biographies, even if they were influential) and that basically everything is based on heterosexism. According to her, lesbianism is even neglected in general feminist criticism. However, she states that “the notion of ‘woman-identification,’ that is the primacy of women bonding with women emotionally and politically, as well as the premises of separatism, that lesbians have a unique and critical place at the margins of patriarchal society, are central to much current lesbian literary criticism.” Thus, Zimmerman emphasizes the political and emotional aspect of lesbianism.

The question, however, is “What is a lesbian text? Who can be considered to be a lesbian writer?” Some critics suggest that lesbianism is reduced to sexual intimacy, whereas others also include general female bonding, for example on a political level or bonding against male tyranny. Faderman occupies a position in between those two extremes and defines having affectionate attachments with other women as lesbianism.

The problems that remain for a lesbian criticism are that it lacks tradition and in fact suffers from being silenced. Consequently, what lesbian criticism should do is to establish a lesbian canon. What is more, Zimmerman also states that “we need to integrate lesbian material and perspectives into the traditional and feminist canons”. In the 1970s, lesbian critics started to analyze the stereotypes of lesbians, who were most often seen as “monsters” and “that which has been unspeakable about women”. Zimmerman, however, promotes the idea that critics should not see lesbians as “other”; it is much more important to gain a historical and cultural specificity, which means that historical circumstances have to be taken into consideration when analyzing lesbian relationships, because definitions of lesbianism have shifted over time.

Some of the aims of lesbian criticism are: resisting dogmas, expanding the canon, creating a non-racist and non-classist critical vision, transforming our reading of traditional texts, exploring new methodologies and defining a lesbian aesthetic. As these are also aims of general feminist criticism it might be useful to turn to a statement by Judith McDaniel, who is quoted in Zimmerman’s essay: “Perhaps lesbian feminist criticism [or literature, I would add] is a political or thematic perspective, a kind of imagination that can see beyond the barriers of heterosexuality, role stereotypes, patterns of language and culture that may be repressive to female sexuality and expression.”

Although Zimmerman shows the implications and problems of lesbian criticism, the question of what texts or writers can be called lesbian is not clearly answered. In her later book The Safe Sea of Women: Lesbian Fiction, 1969-1989 (1990), however, Zimmerman mentions three criteria, which might help to define lesbian fiction:

1. written by an author who has declared herself lesbian
2. containing a main character who acknowledges her lesbian orientation
3. a story that puts love between women at its centre.

“A Few Things I Know About Whileaway”

A few aspects about the story related to lesbian/feminist criticism:

1.) The story is set in Whileaway, a planet with only female inhabitants. All men have been wiped out by a plague hundreds of years ago. Still, the human species does not cease to exist as the women have found a way to reproduce without a male counterpart: the merging of two ova, which means that children have two mothers, the “body-mother” and the “other-mother”, but no fathers. Of course, all offspring is female, too. The framework of the story clearly focuses on a feminist approach: What would a society be like without men (and without the repressions for women created in a male-dominated world)?

2.) On Whileaway, words like “he” and “man” have been banned. This indicates the complete rejection of anything reminding the women of men, thus promoting a society without any male references. However, it could be argued that this also implies a moaning for the loss of men, as Whileawayans do not want to be reminded of the fact that there have been men within their society before.

3.) The women on Whileaway are not the stereotypical women our society has created. They are not passive and helpless creatures depending on the strength and protection of men, but manage all areas of their lives alone. What is more, they are intelligent and scientific, which is demonstrated by the fact that they invented genetic surgery and the induction helmet, which allows them to work more efficiently and to reduce their workweek to the length of sixteen hours. Russ obviously wants to show that women can be as successful and as intelligent as men by creating a society in which the stereotypically male-associated field of science is revolutionized by women.

4.) In the interview between the newspaper and Janet Evasdaughter, Russ parodies the gender assumptions and stereotypes of our (terrestrial) society. The interviewer, which comes from “our” world, cannot understand that the women on Whileaway do not care about men and are not excited that they might have to welcome men from Earth on their planet. The views adopted by the interviewer are extremely male-focused: “Don’t you want to return men to Whileaway, Miss Evasdaughter? […] One sex is half a species” (339). This implies that for us a world without men seems to be unthinkable.

5.) Language reflects the domination of men. The interviewer says: “There have been no men on Whileaway for at least eight centuries – I don’t mean no human beings, of course, but no men” (339). Russ shows that (at least the English language) does not differentiate between men and humanity as a whole. This can easily be read as a criticism of the suppression of women through language.

6.) The dominating opinion about (and rejection of!) lesbianism is mocked in the short story. The interviewer assumes that sex is not possible without men and that Whileawayan “marriages” are not about love, but about economic necessities. The fact that lesbian love is not accepted on Earth is shown when Janet Evasdaughter wants to talk about sex between women and is interrupted by the commercial break. Russ points to the rigidity of these heterosexual assumptions using Janet’s reaction towards them. Janet seems to be puzzled and confused by the interviewer’s questions (“Huh?”), which shows that the human male-dominated frame of mind does not correspond to her.

7.) God is female. Of course, nowadays we are familiar with the feminist notion of a female God, but we still tend to see God as male (as the Father). However, it could also be argued that Russ does not approve of the concept of God at all as the statue of God is described as “an outsized female figure as awful as a classical Zeus” (344). “She becomes in turn gentle, terrifying, hateful, loving, ‘stupid’ (or ‘dead’), and finally indescribable” (345).

8.) Men are mocked by mentioning that “this double-lollipop-on-a-stick [the eight lying on its side] is both the Whileawayan schematic of the male genital and the mathematical symbol for self-contradiction” (343). This basically says that men are self-contradictory.

Some discussion questions

1.) What do you think: Is the interviewer male or female? Would it make any difference?

2.) What do we make of the story the girl tells at the end?

3.) What does the sentence “Anyone who lives in two worlds at once is bound to lead a complicated life” (347) mean? Is it a reference to women (or lesbians) living in a male- (or heterosexually) dominated world?

4.) Do you think the short story has a lesbian touch at all or is it simply feminist?

5.) Look at section 14 (on page 348): Does this imply that a Whileawayan society is unthinkable for us humans?

References:

- http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/r/joanna_russ/

- http://www.feministische-sf.de/einzelne_autorinnen/fsf_joanna-russ.html

- http://www.nndb.com/people/553/000029466/

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Russ

- Zimmerman, Bonnie. “What Has Never Been: An Overview of Lesbian Feminist Literary Criticism.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. 2340-2359.

Brett vorm Kopf…

…or “being a blockhead”. Seriously, is “Brett” a name? To me it’s something on which you cut your bread or the long wooden things you need to build a tree house… (Well, now that I think about it, “bread” indeed has something to do with “After the Days of Dead-Eye ‘Dee”, but I don’t think that’s why that guy is called Brett…)

Anyways, everytime I read that name in the story, the nice little expression “Brett vorm Kopf” (= being a blockhead; for the literal “translation” just look at the picture) came to my mind and I thought that it perfectly describes my feelings I’m having while reading science fiction stories.  The stories I read before didn’t really make much sense to me (falling in love with a strange presence in space called Lucifer or an equally strange bubble).  This story, however, seemed to me to be the first one out of this week’s readings that I could almost completely understand. There is a woman who used to be a strong and probably fearless girl and is now trapped in her life “after the days of Dead-Eye ‘Dee”. Basically, her marriage seems to be responsible for her feeling of — is it loneliness? is it boredom? is it dissatisfaction? is it lack of loving? Probably all of those. I am not surprised that Merridee is looking for something else than her very ordinary, never-changing every day life (which she feels has already lasted for a million years, although she really is just 58). Her husband Brett obviously does not want her to see something else of the world (if we want to call a camping trip “seeing something else of the world”; but really, that doesn’t matter, because it would mean a lot to her just to get out).

Instead of getting the chance to make her life more interesting she stays at home and starts believing that she is going mad. I would not, though,  see talking to yourself as a sign of madness, but it could be argued that she really becomes mad, which is why she sees that strange thing in her garden. The other reading, of course, would be that this thing is really there (as it is sf, anything is possible). However, whichever version you prefer, both of them can lead to the same interpretation: Merridee, who is so dissatisfied with her life, is looking for something that might help her to get out of it. In her case, the solution seems to be to let the thing into herself, which showed her “all those wonderful things, touching her, making her feel different and letting her believe it would take her away, take her out of the house of white bread and Brett and sweepstakes” (614-615). Doesn’t this just express her desire to go, to get out, to leave her life as it is behind (and maybe to go back to her old life)? Considering going away with that thing shows how desperate she is (because, who would rather go away with a potentially dangerous alien than stay at home safely?)

Up until that point, the story really made sense to me and the parallel to our “real” human life is obvious. BUT: Why does Merridee shoot the thing when she is so eager to change her life and knows that this would be her chance to do it? Why does she refuse to let the alien inside of her? Is there any hint in the story that tells us that there is a reason for her to stay? Or do I have to assume that she realizes that the thing is not real and that it’s just part of her imagination triggered by her dissatisfaction and desires (which wold support the argument that she really starts going mad)? You see, that’s the problem with those sf stories: even if you think you’ve understood them, in the end you are still left with the “Brett vorm Kopf” feeling…

Alien invasion

High Weir

To be honest, I’m not sure if I got that story. Or at least, I didn’t really get the alien part of it. I would rather read this story as an “alienation” story and that Rimkin’s alienation from the others (or maybe even from Earth (= society)) is exemplified by him thinking that he is a Martian. But there are no real aliens showing up in the story, except for the aliens in the holograms. That is, there is no direct encounter between aliens and humans (at least if we assume that Rimkin just thinks he is an alien, which I’m pretty sure of).

As far as I see it, Rimkin’s alienation is based on an inability to communicate through language. He is a linguist, and more specifically a semanticist (semantics being, at least in my perception, a rather difficult and “hard-to-pin-down” branch of linguistics), but he does not seem to be able to use his skills to connect to the other humans on the expedition. He is never sure who speaks and he cannot tell his fellows apart by the means of language. Is this supposed to mean that we cannot rely on language anymore? That we cannot adequately express our thoughts through words? Rimkin seems to be more attracted to the aliens he sees in the hologram, who do not use any verbal language, but rather gestures to communicate. Another thing that strengthens this is the mentioning of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein and the quote “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann.” (p. 190), meaning “whatever we cannot speak about”. This hints at the fact that there seem to be things we cannot express with our verbal language, which probably is the reason why Rimkin (as he is a linguist!) is so much affected by this and turns insane. As a linguist, his life is designed around language – now he discovers that it is not reliable or not efficient enough for his purposes, it does not seem too far-fetched that he cannot cope with that.

Feather Tigers

In this story the aliens are more foregrounded, as they are the protagonists of the story. Still, I think that they serve as a means to reflect on humans. It is not really important where they are from, it is just important that they take on an external view on mankind. Jessie said on her blog that the story is supposed to warn us about cloning or about using too much technology as it might lead to a bad end. I totally agree with that. But still, there seems to be another aspect to the story. What do we make of the whole superstition part about the feather tigers? What do they really mean? Is it a comment on different cultures and a request to accept them. After all, Quoquo did not really believe in the existence of feather tigers and during his research he couldn’t see them either. But then, when he was threatened by the real tigers, he could suddenly see the feather tigers and was very frightened by them. Maybe this is supposed to tell us (in our Christian view of the world that we grew up in, no matter if we actually believe in God or not) that there are also other cultures that might have different views of the world and that they do not necessarily have to be wrong or worse than the Christian one (or whatever other religion/worldview we have). So, this story could not only be about the dangers of technology, but also about the diversity of human culture and history.

The Mountains of Sunset, the Mountains of Dawn

I’m not going to write much about this. The story simply didn’t appeal to me at all and I didn’t really find an access to it. I didn’t really like the Shakespearean language of the old one (although of course, it strengthens the conflict between the generations and is supposed to show that she’s really old), but for me, it doesn’t really fit into a science fiction story. The topic might have been interesting (generational conflicts, how do we pass on our values/desires or should we in the first place, death and dealing with death as the one left behind), but again, the way in which it was presented didn’t appeal to me.

Strange Wine

I really liked that one. Although I am not sure if it is supposed to be hopeful or not. But maybe that’s just why I liked it… First of all, you think about how much grief Willis Kaw has to endure (his daughter is dead, his son is paraplegic, his wife doesn’t really love him), which really paints a depressing picture of life (on earth, if you want). And to be honest, probably everyone has at some point in his life thought that life sucks. So, we cannot blame Willis for feeling the same. He is dreaming about his old life on the other planet, which he cannot really remember, except for the green sky, which seems to be a pleasant image. Maybe this is mirroring human belief that “in the good old days, everything was better” and we tend to forget that it actually wasn’t (I just realize that that sounds really weird coming out of my mouth, I’m just 21; but I hope the point is clear). Still, isn’t it human to long for a better life, especially in times where everything seems to go wrong?

So, what does the story want to tell us? It certainly tells us that (to stay in the image that some of you have already used) “the grass is not always greener on the other side” and that suicide is not an option. It also picks up on the notion that humans tend to think that their misery in life is some kind of punishment for something and then the story rejects that notion. It tells us that although life might be miserable, it can still be worse for others. Is this supposed to give us hope? Is it supposed to help us embrace life no matter how bad it is (and maybe hope that it might get better)? Is it supposed to show us that we should be carefull about wishing to be somone else and to be somewhere else (and here I see the function of Willis as an alien, who in this story is the mediator between two different worlds: the bad one and the – supposedly – good one) Maybe the story does all this.

But then on the other hand, it doesn’t sound that optimistic and hopeful to me. Is it really comforting to know that we’re not punished, but that life is simply cruel? And is it really comforting to know that others might be worse off? I don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong here (as I get the feeling that my post sounds slightly depressed), I don’t really see it as a manifestation of how cruel life is and that we should just accept it as it is, but rather as a study of the human psyche, taking up issues that probably everyone has to deal with at some point. It tells us something about how the human mind works and it should be clear that that is not always optimistic and hopeful.

Homelanding

I also liked that one. When I read it I thought: Well, that’s a pretty accurate description of humans (or Canadians?). But at the same time I was wondering: And where is the alien? At the end of the story, I got it, though. And I still think that it is a funny piece and the observations are true if you think about it. Definitely, in this story the alien is used to reflect on mankind. Imagine you would have to explain to a total stranger (an alien), who doesn’t have a clue about anything you take for granted, what humans are like. How would you do that? Maybe just read that story out to that person. Isn’t it a nice way to reflect on yourself? I have to admit that I was smiling almost all the way through while I was reading it. It might not be the most original thing and maybe not very sci-fi, but I think the purpose is very well served.

Confusion

As probably everyone else, I am also confused about the story and I can’t really make sense out of it. However, I read Lisa’s post on her blog and she mentioned the name “Heinie” and that no one would name his kid like that. I couldn’t help but think about the names either. I wasn’t aware of the meaning of “heinie” in English until I looked it up (and here I agree: Why would someone give that name to his kid?). In German, it could, though, simply be the short form for Heinrich, but then again “Heini” (without the last e) also means something like “idiot”. Even more interesting is Gott’s name, which contains this nice little almost-contradiction : Gottfried Helmuth Adler. “Gott”, of course, being the German word for “God” and then the particle “Hel(l)” on the other hand. Leiber even makes more of that name. Later on in the story Gott mentions: “I’ll have you know I am not only Gottfried but also Helmuth – Hell’s Courage Adler!” (p. 181), “Muth” (without h) being the German word for “courage”. And then of course the last name “Adler”, which is the German word for “eagle”.

I apologize for the little German lesson here, but I couldn’t help but think that these names have to mean something and I was wondering why Leiber chose German names. Then I read Lisa’s blog entry and she mentioned something that she had done some research about Leiber and had come to the conclusion that the story might be a criticism of right-wingers. At that moment it sort of made “click” in my head and I was wondering if in that case the story might even allude to the Nazi regime. Maybe I am overreading the names here, but taking everything together almost inevitably leads to that association in my mind (plus the fact that the eagle is the symbol in the coat of arms of the German Reich).

However, this is only about the name of the protagonist, but I still can’t make a real connection to what it means in the context of the story. Of course, we have the notion of “blackness” in all the black figures that Gott creates, which might point into the same direction (as in what the world or America might be like in the future), but then again, there are so many other things that I can’t really explain, for example the connection between the story and its title. I know that there are several allusions to flies throughout the text, but what is their significance? If we want to read criticism of right-wing trends into this story, then what does it have to do with flies? And if it is not at all about politics but about flies, then what does the rest of the story mean?

The women in the story (but I don’t want to go into detail, because this aspect might be mentioned in the presentation and I don’t want to spoil that) might have something to do with Carl Gustav Jung’s influence on Leiber. But then I have to ask myself again how that connects to the rest of the story…

Obviously, I’m still confused about “The Winter Flies”, but thankfully, I don’t seem to be the only one and I also hope that the discussion in class might clarify some things!