cahn

So nolly linked me to an interesting article about gay sex and death in Orson Scott Card's work. ...I definitely agree with some of it (probably more than not) and roll my eyes at other parts of it :)

I state the author's conclusions in italics and my own conclusions afterwards:

Homoerotic desire is one aspect of the human condition that Card represents frequently and with a great deal of poignant detail.

Hm. Not sure I'd say frequently? But more so than the vast majority of writers in the 80's. I agree about the poignant detail. And an interesting point she raises about the, er, gay male gaze -- I only recently became aware of the "male gaze" as a thing, and... yeah, that's very interesting, you hardly ever get descriptions in Card's work of female breasts and hips and whatever; it's something that I (subliminally) actually rather liked about his work when I was snarfing through it in high school. But there do seem to be a lot of beautiful young men described in a lot of detail.

Though gay sex is thus figured as intensely appealing, it is a resolutely forbidden fruit. Characters who “give in” to homosexual impulses are punished—and not merely by the villains of the novel. Villains, heroes, the dictates of the plot, the biological imperative to reproduce, even God: all conspire to torture, maim, shun, kill, and genetically annihilate any gay character so “misguided” as to be true to his feelings.

...I mean, this is true, I guess? Except that maiming, killing, and general physical and emotional torture seems to happen to men in general in Card's work, regardless of their sexual orientation. Let's see. Tortured to death without anesthetic? Two heterosexual humans and one heterosexual alien. All limbs cut off and genetically annihilated? The sexuality-undetermined protagonist of "Kingslayer." Head cut off, forced to live, and tortured with mental bladder pressure? (Really -- minor character in Wyrms.) Heterosexual, again. Forced to kill your own son (speaking of genetic annihilation)? Heterosexual. I mean, basically, if you're a male character in a Card novel, your odds are not good regardless of your sexuality. I am not sure I can think of any books I've read by him where at least one male character, of various sexuality and marriage status, was not tortured/mutilated/messily-killed. (This propensity was strongest in his earlier work, and has decreased over time, so it's possible that some of his recent stuff doesn't have it. But his recent stuff is also high on the crazy and the bad-writing, so I don't read it anymore.)

Actually, this is an interesting article because it makes me realize that this almost never happens to women in Card's fiction. I can think of exactly one example where a (heterosexual) woman is (physically) tortured/killed/genetically-annihilated: the wife of the slavemaster in Prentice Alvin.

…I could say a lot of things about what this might say about torture as homoerotism and/or the way women are placed on a pedestal in Mormon culture, but I won't.

As I've noted in a previous post, there is a part of Card, suppressed in his later years, that is deeply ambivalent about biological reproduction vs. other kinds of contribution to the world. Gay/bisexual boy gets to be -- spoilers, but I don't care anymore -- emperor of the universe AND give his non-genetic artistic heritage to the entire universe, which is presented as a much better (and more poignant) alternative than either being emperor or reproducing genetically. Yeah, fine, it would be better if he also had hot gay sex on the side, but let's see what happens to the other characters in the same book: gay guy is mutilated and tortured and hangs himself, okay, but let's look at the other characters: guy who kills the gay guy (of indeterminate sexuality) self-mutilates himself to death (random thought based on propinquity of reading: oh hi there Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons, I hadn't made that particular connection before, though I've known for years that Card's early work is littered with ideas he stole from Cordwainer Smith); het guy is driven insane and shot to death; woman who plays by the (sexual) "rules" and has het sex only within the confines of marriage is NOT tortured physically (probably because she is female, lucky her) BUT has already been condemned to exile and knowing she can't do what really matters, and is presented as possibly one of the most unhappy characters in the book... Oh, and a happy ending for four characters (two females (one het), one undetermined-sexuality male, one the gay/bisexual) in the book: three of them die of cold exposure and the fourth gets a job she hates which will one day culminate in her dying of cold exposure. Yes, those were the happy endings.

The thing is, you just don't want to be in an OSC book, period.

There is only one alternative for gay characters who wish to avoid genital mutilation and/or genetic death: to repress their desires, to get married and to father children, taking what comfort they can in the joys of parenthood and their passionless partnerships with women.

...yeah. I agree with the author's analysis of the Ender novels (and the Memory of Earth books, man) that way. It's true that Songmaster (and to a lesser extent Ender's Game) gives one more alternative: to transcend genetic death through artistic life. But in general yeah, and this message sort of gets stronger with time (until it turns into the crazy we have today).

No matter how hard the narrative tries to pound home this last, official-policy message (repent and repress), there remains a lingering sense of the impossibility of ever finally killing desire. Individual bodies may be mutilated and torn apart, whole generations of buggers exterminated, yet in novel after novel, the longing returns, resurrected, and with it the choice: submit and sublimate, or die.

I can't argue with this one, actually. I find this kind of an interesting analysis, and rather perceptive.

I also like how the author ties it in to Card's being an outsider (which he also is in Mormon culture). I find that observation a perceptive connection that I didn't make myself but which I think is very interesting. (I've noticed before that his books with strongest Mormon explicit text -- The Folk of the Fringe, Lost Boys -- tend to be his best work, because he's sort of working counterpoint to the party message.)

3/5. And this is a pity 3. So remember how I was talking about how really good writers try new things? Card used to do this, but now he has become ... the antithesis of this; apparently he now has nothing better to do than to write increasingly irrelevant (and what's worse, boring) fanfic about minor characters from a spinoff of his most popular work. It's frankly quite surprising to me that the same man who wrote the brilliantly disturbing Ender's Game and the incredibly moving, thoughtful, and subtle Folk of the Fringe, not to mention the layered Memory of Earth series, is putting out this kind of shallow garbage.

I mean, I was expecting the terrible dialogue where all the characters come across as OSC clones. That's par for the course. (Although even there, you don't find this kind of dialogue in Fringe.) But this tale of Bean in space with his genius mutant kids fails not only on a tired-tropes-are-we-still-talking-about-this-why level but also on a basic writing level, which is really surprising to me because I've always relied on him to at least get that right. ( Mild spoilers, but really, do you care? Mostly cut for rantiness: in which I make fun of various things, solve the characters' problem for them, and am angry at retconning. ) So, I mean, I think this was a book he needed to write, and that maybe he didn't think he had time to really do it justice, and I get that. I understand that things come to writers and they have to put them down. But I do not think this is a book you necessarily have to read, unless like me you are an OSC addict.

And even then, I swear to you, if he writes a book about Bean's grandchildren, I am not going to read it. Even I have my limits.

The little food machine (whom I shall also probably refer to as Princess Baby The First) is quiet right now for once, so I shall indulge myself with a quick post instead of doing the sixteen other things I really ought to be doing. (By the way, this post is dedicated to Harvey Karp's Happiest Baby on the Block, without which you would not be getting a post at all. YAY SWADDLING.)

Once again Deaver was alone on the boundary between the pageant wagon and the town, belonging to neither-- yet now, because of the show, belonging a little to both.

From Orson Scott Card's Folk of the Fringe, which I reread the first week post-delivery. Dystopian-future-SF short stories featuring Mormons and non-Mormons. I think it's amazing stuff, and reads much better now I'm in my 30's than it did when I was in my teens. I wish Card had gone more this way-- I enjoy hearing what he has to say about community (and family as a subset of community) and belonging, but he doesn't do nearly as much of that anymore, choosing instead to focus explicitly on Families Forever. Mind you, I do think Card is at his best when he writes about Mormons, in fact, because it frees him up to actually, you know, think about ideas (and almost all of his Mormon-centric stuff has stuff that contraindicates theology for a True Believer), as opposed to Giving You a Lecture.

"Powers preserve me from thickheaded, self-centered, cocky teenage wizards!"

Diana Wynne Jones, The Merlin Conspiracy. If this isn't a shout-out to Harry Potter (the publication date is 2003) I'll be very surprised, although of course in context it has nothing to do with HP. I really, really liked this one. (Though nolly, I suspect this is the DWJ you read which made you decide you might not like DWJ. If so, all I can say is, yeah, you're probably right.) Any other author would be content with one-tenth of the imagination DWJ has, and it's in full display in this book, which pulls in Arthurian tropes, Welsh tropes, a world with a lot of hard radiation, the Little People, and an elephant, among other things. It's a sort of vague sequel to Deep Secret, which I didn't realize until after finishing it, and honestly it stands rather better on its own than as a sequel (where is any mention of Maree?) - but I just love the mad rush of ideas, plus which DWJ has that elusive quality that I absolutely love, where her descriptions can go between prosaic-English to wild-elegant-Welsh, with humor as well:

"Forgive me," [the King] said, looking up at the Count of Blest. "I haven't exactly done well, have I?"
"Others have done almost as badly," the Count of Blest said, quite kindly, riding on.

Speaking of humor, I just reread the Attolia trilogy-so-far (Megan Whalen Turner). My favorite bit has always been

"...and I threw an ink jar at his head."
..."I had not pictured you for a fishwife."
"Lo, the transforming power of love."

These books are The Best. Oh, well, The Thief is mildly entertaining, but I don't love it with overwhelming passion the way I do Queen of Attolia (though YES, I have vast trouble with the relationship) and King of Attolia (which I just love, partially because I pretend like some of the relationship from the previous book does not exist, or is tamped down a couple notches), though one must read The Thief to get to the good stuff in the later two books. Although, as julianyap points out, Gen is rather a Gary Stu, I love them madly anyway -- Turner has a precise, elegant way of writing; and her elegant plots remind me of Bujold's or Brust's in the neat way they hang together. Really, these are some of my favorite books (maybe top 20 or so) I am SO psyched for Conspiracy of Kings, due out at the end of March. If you have not read them you should go read them right away. Just be warned about The Thief not being quite as good, and Queen having the somewhat disturbing relationship thing (though, when I think about it, somewhat less disturbing than Twilight).

I've been rereading the Memory of Earth (Card) series lately. I think these books are utterly amazing-- I feel that they were written at the height of Card's powers, before he lost his trademark utter compassion for all characters, even the stupid and/or evil ones, but after he figured out mad writing skillz. And these books are written for grownups. Ender's Game was an adolescent book; its themes resonanted sharply with me as a geeky teenager, though now that I'm a bit older they seem a little less important. The Memory books talk about civilization, and gender roles, and how those interact, and how people cope when gender roles are overturned, and what it takes to build a society, and... yeah. I read these first in high school, and all of that went over my head, and now I get it.

And yet... although I adore them, and think the series is the best and most interesting stuff Card ever wrote, and am planning to give them to at least three people for Christmas presents, I am not sure they are not for everyone. In particular, I would describe these books as "Card's response to Narnia, on SF steroids and with actual women characters"-- that is, possibly not as interesting to those who are not into Christian theology/ethics. They've got plot and sociology and biologically-altered organisms and cool technology, yes, and all that is very well done and worth reading for, but underneath that Card is interested in talking about Christianity, and how that interfaces with theology and ethics. (And if you're Mormon, of course, they have yet another extra added layer of resonance, but as I don't think anyone Mormon reads this LJ, I'll defer that discussion.) What if God told you to kill someone? Why would you want to do what God wants, in general? What's the point of religion if religion gets half the stuff wrong? What is the role of government in religion? What (as nolly pointed out to me when we read this first) could have been going through Saul of Tarsus's heart as he changed? Plus analogues of prayer, baptism, scriptures, etc. etc. Also, the third book in the series should be read by anyone who thinks Card hates gays (you may, instead, come away with the idea that he doesn't think about marriage in at all the same way many do, which would be far nearer the truth, but I will also defer that discussion unless someone wants to hear it). Anyway, highly, highly recommended for anyone who really liked Curse of Chalion, which has got some of that same "let's have plot and sociology and think about theology at the same time!" vibe, though used in a less Christian-centric way.

As part of the great rereading orgy I had over Christmas (including all of the John M. Ford books I've been missing since his death, and some old Star Trek cuddly favorites) I reread Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card. Wow. I had forgotten how much I love this book. It's one of my favorites.

Let me digress here to say a couple of things about Card. I've talked to several people recently who don't read him because they don't agree with his viewpoints, especially on homosexuality. To that I say:
1) If I only read authors whose opinions I always agreed with... I wouldn't read anybody, including any of my favorite authors and *definitely* including anything written before, oh, 1980. In fact, if I only read authors whose treatment of women I agreed with... that's basically nothing before 1960, at least.
2) He doesn't write about gay politics in his novels, and his gay characters are actually really cool, nuanced characters. (So actually he gets slammed by both the right and the left, which I take to mean he's doing *something* right.) He does write about it occasionally in his essays... but... it's actually possible to boycott, you know, his essays without boycotting the books.
3) He's Mormon. This means he utterly believes, perhaps even knows, that there is a latter-day prophet who speaks the commandments of God. And, you know, you can't really argue with God. Well, you can, but you won't get anywhere, fast. You can argue that he's stupid for believing the prophet thing, but not that he ought to break away from Mormon teachings... because then he wouldn't be Mormon. It's kinda like Dante and the unbaptized babies going to hell (which honestly I think is a LOT more offensive than someone thinking homosexual sex, or even sex in general, is a sin, especially if you have the Mormon take on the afterlife)-- he was a great man and a great poet, but he believed absolutely in Catholic theology, and that meant he had to make sense of a great many things I personally believe to be senseless.

Anyway. That particular rant aside, I must say that although I used to adore his books (and still adore the earlier ones), I have not been excited about one of his books in some time-- because he's started to talk about his particular beliefs in his novels, instead of showing us through the characters, and that. Just. Drives. Me. Nuts. Heck, I even agree with most of his points-- but I just hate it when a character is all, "Listen up, youngsters! Families are good!!" Which basically happened in one of his Shadow books.

Pastwatch, however, was written before he started this trend and when I believe he was at his peak as a writer. (Lost Boys is the other ultimate Card, but one which I rarely reread as I find it painful in its intensity.) It does have the Card trademark (I used to like this, but it's semi-annoying now) where all the dialogue is between two snarky wise-guy Card-clones-- but it's got loads of ideas, being a story of history, alternate history, parallel universes (sort of), time travel (sort of), and the end of the world-- it's the sort of book where abolishing the institution of slavery and finding the historical basis of Noah's flood are corollaries of the bigger ideas; this book is on a very grand scale-- but without losing sight of the essential humanity of some great characters, most notably Columbus himself who just awesomely rocks and makes me want to research his life. And it made me cry in, like, five different places (though to be fair I hadn't had much sleep so was more emotional than usual).

Because it has the Card trademark I adore-- his vast compassion for his characters, something that I feel hasn't been as prominent in his recent books. In this book it's especially strong, because there are no villains-- oh, perhaps the occasional small-minded or petty person, especially in Columbus's time, but usually just people trying to do the best they can in the face of impossible odds, sometimes having to change themselves into something new and strange in the process-- and sometimes they fail, and sometimes they are wrong, but sometimes they succeed beyond hope.