Book: Native Tongue
Jul. 25th, 2009 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livAuthor: Suzette Haden Elgin (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ozarque)
Details: (c)1984 Suzette Haden Elgin; pub Daw 1984; ISBN 0-88677-121-8
Verdict: Native Tongue is high quality SF.
Reasons for reading it: I have been readingozarque's excellent blog, and have been looking for this based on what she says about it.
How it came into my hands: I finally found my copy in one of the marvellous second hand bookshops I visited withrysmiel in Montreal.
Native Tongue is essentially The handmaid's tale, but written by someone who is actually a science fiction author. There's a lot less pretentious literary showing off, and a lot more actual exploration of how the premise, of a sudden legal act depriving women of their rights, might affect society. I don't really buy that premise, or several of the others on which the book stands, most notably the idea that women are so radically different from men that we need a separate language to express our concerns. But the way these ideas are used to drive a complex and interesting plot and associated worldbuilding really impressed me a lot, so I was prepared to take them as starting points like FTL or magical nanotech or whatever and just enjoy the book.
The idea of the households of Linguists, and how those interact with wider society, is really fascinating. I think the concept that only young children can learn languages properly has been debunked a bit, but possibly this happened since the publication of NT, and it's a reasonable enough starting point. It's an old trope, but often an effective one, to portray society by using the perspective of a small and rather weird subgroup, and it's particularly well done here. I like the political issues too, the way that the Linguists are essential to humanity's interstellar trade, yet publicly despised, and how that plays out. I do think the book leans a bit too heavily on the near-magical abilities of trained Linguists to manipulate people through the power of rhetoric, but it's a nice conceit.
Also, Nazareth (geddit?) is a very powerfully portrayed messianic figure. Her experiences are just the right level of awful, horrifying without being mawkish. And I do like the fact that she's brilliant at the academic side of linguistics but can't master the human interaction side nearly as well as most of her fellow Linguists. It's also good that the story focuses on her retirement in addition to presenting some scenes of her youth, and hints at some possible lesbian leanings though that's miles away from being the point. In general NT has a very positive view of middle aged and old people, which is something I might have expected based on readingozarque's blog.
It's feminist polemic, yes, but there's a good balance between story and feminist point. I would probably like the book better if it were somewhat more balanced in its portrayal of men, but it's a dystopian story and as such could be a lot worse. And the abuses NT is highlighting seem much more connected to real sexism in our world than those in The handmaid's tale. I think the ending is fascinatingly ambiguous too; it seems to be tending towards some kind of separatism, but leaving it to the reader to decide just how positive this is. I also thought the ironic final chapter was rather delicious.
I used the last bit of convalescing, when I was too ill for anything requiring major brainpower or energy, but not ill enough to just spend the afternoon asleep, to write up a few of the books I've read recently. So here are reviews of:damned_colonial's piece on women in Open Source. As much as anything I'm impressed by the level of rhetorical control; she presents a feminist topic, concisely and clearly, for a not especially feminist audience. I think it's worth reading (and short) even if you're not interested in the specific subject matter. Plus she's doing a really awesome job in general of archiving and researching Dreamwidth (and the fandom archive thingy OTW) as women-friendly Open Source projects.
ozarque)Details: (c)1984 Suzette Haden Elgin; pub Daw 1984; ISBN 0-88677-121-8
Verdict: Native Tongue is high quality SF.
Reasons for reading it: I have been reading
ozarque's excellent blog, and have been looking for this based on what she says about it. How it came into my hands: I finally found my copy in one of the marvellous second hand bookshops I visited with
rysmiel in Montreal.Native Tongue is essentially The handmaid's tale, but written by someone who is actually a science fiction author. There's a lot less pretentious literary showing off, and a lot more actual exploration of how the premise, of a sudden legal act depriving women of their rights, might affect society. I don't really buy that premise, or several of the others on which the book stands, most notably the idea that women are so radically different from men that we need a separate language to express our concerns. But the way these ideas are used to drive a complex and interesting plot and associated worldbuilding really impressed me a lot, so I was prepared to take them as starting points like FTL or magical nanotech or whatever and just enjoy the book.
The idea of the households of Linguists, and how those interact with wider society, is really fascinating. I think the concept that only young children can learn languages properly has been debunked a bit, but possibly this happened since the publication of NT, and it's a reasonable enough starting point. It's an old trope, but often an effective one, to portray society by using the perspective of a small and rather weird subgroup, and it's particularly well done here. I like the political issues too, the way that the Linguists are essential to humanity's interstellar trade, yet publicly despised, and how that plays out. I do think the book leans a bit too heavily on the near-magical abilities of trained Linguists to manipulate people through the power of rhetoric, but it's a nice conceit.
Also, Nazareth (geddit?) is a very powerfully portrayed messianic figure. Her experiences are just the right level of awful, horrifying without being mawkish. And I do like the fact that she's brilliant at the academic side of linguistics but can't master the human interaction side nearly as well as most of her fellow Linguists. It's also good that the story focuses on her retirement in addition to presenting some scenes of her youth, and hints at some possible lesbian leanings though that's miles away from being the point. In general NT has a very positive view of middle aged and old people, which is something I might have expected based on reading
ozarque's blog. It's feminist polemic, yes, but there's a good balance between story and feminist point. I would probably like the book better if it were somewhat more balanced in its portrayal of men, but it's a dystopian story and as such could be a lot worse. And the abuses NT is highlighting seem much more connected to real sexism in our world than those in The handmaid's tale. I think the ending is fascinatingly ambiguous too; it seems to be tending towards some kind of separatism, but leaving it to the reader to decide just how positive this is. I also thought the ironic final chapter was rather delicious.
I used the last bit of convalescing, when I was too ill for anything requiring major brainpower or energy, but not ill enough to just spend the afternoon asleep, to write up a few of the books I've read recently. So here are reviews of:
- Sarah Katherine Lewis: Indecent
- Lois McMaster Bujold: A civil campaign
- Connie Willis: To say nothing of the dog
damned_colonial's piece on women in Open Source. As much as anything I'm impressed by the level of rhetorical control; she presents a feminist topic, concisely and clearly, for a not especially feminist audience. I think it's worth reading (and short) even if you're not interested in the specific subject matter. Plus she's doing a really awesome job in general of archiving and researching Dreamwidth (and the fandom archive thingy OTW) as women-friendly Open Source projects.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-27 02:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-30 01:29 pm (UTC)However, it's also worth considering that some open source projects are actively sexist, some are neutral and some are fairly hostile to most people but in a fashion that probably puts off women more than men.
An active problem is that there are never enough people to do everything, and the end result is that spare developers aren't available to tutor people. This may ultimately be a poor policy decision and seem excessively unfriendly to the stereotypical woman, but men don't necessarily think much differently.
Yes it *is* daunting getting the attitude of 'you want to help? fine - download some code and do it', but whilst that's possibly expressing a stereotypical male approach, it's not inherently sexist. Some of the projects I've seen using that approach appear to be very respectful of women with technical ability.