Archive for Joyce Carol Oates

Exhalation [book review]

Posted in Books, Kids, pictures with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 18, 2024 by xi'an

Exhalation is a diverse and original collection of (more or less) short stories by Ted Chiang, published between 2007 and 2015 in different journals including Nature at the time Nature had a weekly one-page short story (of varying quality). This is science fiction in a sense, given that all stories involve impossible situations and a connection with science at a low technical level (no space opera). However, it is much closer to philosophy in my opinion in that the author builds upon an alternate reality to question ours, sometimes with remarkable prescience and a remarkable kindness towards his characters.

So, there is the time travel portal story that does not lead to paradoxes, even with temporal loops, but to a reflection on human nature. (Not my favourite but this first story got the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and the Seiun Award!) They are doomed universes, either because the pressure is slowly getting away, or because a lack of communication and awareness pushes one species towards extinction (with the side sad coïncidence of being associated with the soon to fall Arecibo dish!). There are social media killing free will but calling for resistance. And a novella on virtual entities (digients) turning more and more real, while the company that produced them goes bankrupt and their universe is no longer upgraded, which also brings a well-balanced discussion on whether or not they should become legal entities and be given freedom, resonating in opposition to the recent doomsaying warnings about AI taking over humanity. Plus reflecting on the hardships of parenting and teaching. There is a Victorian story of building a difference engine nanny, with terrible consequences on two successive generations. There is another story about the potential horror of having one’s entire life stored on line and accessible by sentient interfaces, negating the very notion of memory since both remembering and forgetting escape the individual. There is a pre-Copernician universe where everything literally fits the Bible creation, until it does not. And there is the case of a quantic collection of universes where alternate paths could be consulted, to the point of interacting with alternate selves, maybe a bit fuzzy in the scientific details, but again leading to deeper reflections on human nature. I read the book around my trip to Melbourne and back, which may explain for my highly positive reaction as I had plenty of free time and sunny days to enjoy reading in the planes, on the trams (where I nearly lost my wallet, rescued by the kindness of another passenger!), and in my St Kilda comfy rental, but I do very much recommend it. Especially for those with a scientific mind. Joyce Carol Oates wrote for The New Yorker a much longer and better argued analysis of Exhalation. when the book appeared.

[Disclaimer about potential self-plagiarism: this post or an edited version may eventually appear in my Books Review section in CHANCE.]

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The Handmaid’s Tale [book review]

Posted in Books, Kids with tags , , , , , , , , , on April 1, 2017 by xi'an

Following a newspaper article where this book was referred, along Brave New World and 1984, as an essential novel for this time of trumpism, I read this 1986 book by Margaret Atwood of a dystopian America where Christian fundamentalists have taken over a region around Harvard and imposed a dictatorial society, plagued by pollution-induced sterility, inter-state wars, and the omnipresence of a fascist state. The central and brilliant idea of the novel is that the bodies of fertile women are no longer theirs to conceive babies [with the obvious and immediate question rising as to when they actually were…] and that the State allocate them to men from the ruling class, their babies been “adopted” by these men’s family once they are born. With a deadly dose of religious blather to justify this enslavement of bodies (and in most cases minds). Ten years ago, Joyce Carol Oates wrote a detailed commentary on the book that perfectly exposes its strength, using the almost mundane journal of one nameless handmaiden to describe the absolute horror of the Gilead Republic.

Since this book has become a classic, often in high school reading curricula (albeit almost as often challenged by conservative parents and organisations), I wonder why I did not read it earlier. Reading it today is however very much appropriate to stress the point that such extremes could essentially happen anywhere, anytime, not necessarily far from here or from now. And to also see the book as a warning parabola about the omnipresent threats on women and reproductive rights. Although the tale is set in the current era, the connection with the (first?) Puritan Massachusetts state through the (red) costume of the Handmaiden [acknowledged by Atwood] and the rigid control of the community over the individuals reminded me of Hawthorne’ Scarlet Letter, a beautiful book that keeps its relevance in present days.

In conjunction with the novel been adapted as a TV Series starting next month, Margaret Atwood wrote in the NYT a post-Trump analysis of the themes and prospects in The Handmaid’s Tale that is certainly worth reading. (I have no opinion about the TV Series, just hoping it keeps this feeling that such things could be just around the corner.)

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