From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Tue Oct 19 13:30:04 1999 Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 11:10:02 -0500 From: "L-Soft list server at University of Illinois at Chicago (1.8c)" To: Laura Quilter Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF-LIT LOG9909B" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 16:41:41 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Margaret McBride Subject: BDG-Slave & Free MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" What I remembered about these books was that the characters were not divided into bad/good (and that is still my reaction upon rereading). Even the male characters that we see much of have explanations for their behavior which make them seem human and non-villainous (the boys are raped when young too, etc.) The women in the fem pits, free fem camps, and riding women tents are all human with good traits/bad traits for all of them. I like the way Charnas gives little bits of history for individual characters which give me some sense of motivation. I like the fact that the characters argue especially about what I call moral issues--how do we resolve differences, how do we treat others, etc. I'm not quite sure how you're using the term "ironic detachment," Janice. Please explain more. I agree that no one character seems like an author "mouthpiece" although in some ways how the main character changes allows Charnas to sugggest some authorial opinion (particularly some of the self-doubt she has in the 3rd book.) I have 2 questions for everyone: 1. What do you think about the way children are raised in the books (especially the girls)? What the Fem slaves do makes sense to me--although obviously horrific. It has echoes of African-American, Native American, etc. parents teaching their children to be meek/keep quiet, etc. around whites. Often keeping the children safe from physical harm got/gets precedent over keeping them from a psychological negation. I imagine parents often made a game of it (see how you can fool those dumb whites, etc.) which isn't suggested much in the book. However my real question is about the way the Riding Women treat the girls. Charnas does suggest a philosophy of survival of the fittest (the way the women treat the grain silos and the predators who will steal from them), but I'm still bothered by how the girl-groups fit into the larger story. How does the separation of the girls fit into their philosophy/societal make-up? What comments do you think Charnas had in mind with regard to allusions to our world? 2. Has anyone ever taught these books or been in a class/reading group where these were focus of discussion? I am particularly interested in classes that are mixed sex. I have taught Gate to Women's Country and Native Tongue on the college level and each time some students (both male & female) have so much trouble with what they consider to be male hatred that they can't read/react positively to some of the issues. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 11:06:09 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joyce Jones Subject: BDG Slave and Free The Holdfast series offers the best of feminist writing. First of all there's the captivating story of Alldera and company and their adventures, everyone has a full personality. As Margaret mentioned, these are complex people: soft and strong, loving and obnoxious, spiritual and materialistic all within the same person. Setteo and Daya are just fascinating characters. Both damaged, both seeing life through their own very individual perspectives. I was intrigued by the whole concept of the purposeful remaking of society. Holdfast came about after previous generations had destroyed their earth, secreted themselves, picked some scapegoats and tried to make a new society that wouldn't end in destruction. In their fear and failure to look at the causes of the previous destruction, they set their new society on a doomed course. Over the 4 books the women have to find a course that allows for growth while fighting always the hatred felt for their old tormentors. Hatred is no basis for healthy creation, but there was so much to hate. I thought it was interesting that the first book concentrated on the horrors of the men's society, but in the future books, just when you might be tempted to agree with some of the less militant newly free, a new example of their former owners' malevolence is dropped into the story to remind us just what the women are dealing with in trying to redefine civilization. As the mother of one male and soon to be grandmother of another, I just kept thinking "What are you going to do?" How do you build a society in which neither men nor women are beasts? I was fascinated by each individual society: the Holdfast-- hierarchical, age-sex based; the fem's almost inhuman toughness; the Riding Women, what a vision of freedom and bickering, consensus, tradition, and community; Elnoa and the tea camp; the glimpse of Salalli's "utopian" society mixing men and women; the slave men and their Bear religion. The details seemed to fit so well together in all of these, making the world seem real. I could see using this series in all kinds of classes: sociology, anthropology, geography, philosophy, literature and women's studies, of course. You could have a whole Charnas curriculum and learn everything you'd need by branching out from it, even architecture (as in the building of Sorrel's cairn). If we played the old game of what books would you take if stranded on a desert island, this series would have to be in my steamer trunk. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 20:15:07 EDT Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Tanya Bouwman Subject: Re: FEMINISTSF-LIT Digest - 7 Sep 1999 to 9 Sep 1999 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all! I'm looking for some help. My library isn't able to get "The Slave and The Free" for me, but then I remembered that they were first published as two books. It's possible that I may be able to get them from my library in that form. Can someone please tell me the original titles of the two books? Thanks!! Tanya ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 21:20:21 -0400 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Terri Subject: Re: FEMINISTSF-LIT Digest - 7 Sep 1999 to 9 Sep 1999 In-Reply-To: <87ade4ee.250af90b@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" End of the World, and Motherlines. My copy says they are Books One & Two of The Holdfast Chronicles. Good luck Terri >Hi all! > >I'm looking for some help. My library isn't able to get "The Slave and The >Free" for me, but then I remembered that they were first published as two >books. It's possible that I may be able to get them from my library in that >form. Can someone please tell me the original titles of the two books? > >Thanks!! > >Tanya ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 09:21:36 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joyce Jones Subject: BDG Slave and Free Tanya The original two books were Walk to the End of the World and Motherlines Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 12:32:26 -0400 Reply-To: releon@syr.edu Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Rudy Leon Organization: Syracuse University Subject: Re: holdfast titles, corrected In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT The two titles are WALK TO The End of the World and Motherlines. Followed by The Furies and Conqueror's Child. Rudy Leon PhD Student Department of Religion Syracuse University releon@syr.edu (315) 425-8171 fax: (707) 982-1780 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 11:52:20 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joyce Jones Subject: BDG Slave and Free Margaret writes: "What do you think about the way children are raised in the books (especially the girls...my real question is about the way the Riding Women treat the girls. Charnas does suggest a philosophy of survival of the fittest (the way the women treat the grain silos and the predators who will steal from them), but I'm still bothered by how the girl-groups fit into the larger story. How does the separation of the girls fit into their philosophy/societal make-up?" One feature among so many others I love about this series is that it considers various methods of child rearing. I was horrified at life in the milkerey with the routine silencing of babies, but as you say, such strict training was necessary. Even worse was the child pit where food was dumped and only the strong survived. Worst of all was the fact that the matrons of the pits killed intractable children. Life was almost unbelievably hard for those fems from birth to death, an easier childhood would have, probably, meant an earlier death at the hands of men and/or rovers (and weren't they a fascinating lot while we're talking about people becoming almost inhuman.) The Riding Women also practiced a type of survival of the fittest with their children but segregating them to free roaming bands. Didn't you love the fact that they learned to dance among and jump over horses? How else could they become almost a mixture of horse and women than by running free like and with horses? It was emphasized in the last book _The Conqueror's Child_ wasn't it that if these girls didn't survive childhood it was because of accident or illness. These children protected and loved each other. It was unknown for them to reject one of their age mates. I guess this sort of upbringing would have made them as fierce and intuitive and social as they were meant to be as adults. They learned, I would guess, that actions had consequences, some consequences were deadly, and luck played a part in survival. They learned, I guess, to be intelligent animals so that mating with horses would seem natural. There was room for all kinds of "womanly" work and emotions, but until the last book, there didn't seem to be an opportunity for "maternal" love toward young children. The fems couldn't afford to show it, as for the riding women, I don't know. I guess they based their mothering on horses. Don't horses keep the foals with the dams until they're old enough to care for themselves, then they do. As is explained in Conqueror's Child, among the Riding Women the child joins the childpack from the age of 6 until menarche "in order to wash out the unfit and keep the Motherlines strong." I loved the share mother concept. Imagine the bond between women who share a child. Alldera, Sheel, Nenisi, as different and incompatible as they might have felt themselves to be, had to join into a family to share the child. And how lucky for the child to have such diversity to be able to choose the right mother for the right need: bloodmother, raidmother, and what's the one for the mother closest to the child's heart? Is it soulmother? Considering what's going on today, it doesn't sound like such a bad way to raise a new generation. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 09:23:02 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joyce Jones Subject: BDG Slave and Free Two of my favorite scenes of all time are in this series. The first is the birth scene from Motherlines. I always complain that books chronicle all parts of people's lives but seldom describe birth. "The comfortable doze in which Alldera had floated for so long dissolved at last. She found herself in a warm, dim place walled and roofed with some pale, translucent material. All around her were activity, voices murmuring, laughter. Something soft cushioned her back. She could see sharp blue sky through an opening off to one side. What's happening, where am I, what dangers threaten? A contraction twisted her belly. She cried out at the familiar pain. People closed around her, patting her, whispering encouragement, holding her hands firmly. Her feet were gripped and braced against the backs of people seated on the heap of bedding. Someone at her side said briskly, 'Breathe. Remember. You know how to make your breathing work for you.' She did remember, though she could not now tell whether this was knowledge learned in the secret world of Holdfast fems or in her long dreaming here. There was a way to use the rhythm of respiration to mobilize the body so that it worked not against its own strengths but with them. Fear vanished. She felt full of power, as if she could burst the cub out of her body with one great thrust. It surprised her to find that time was needed, and pain. The voices of the others joined in a throaty singing. Their song took its rhythm from her breathing and reinforced it. She surged over the pain on their music. The words, which were beyond the tight center of her attention, must have included humor. Rills of laughter erupted and were carried in the song. She poured with sweat. After the first huge passage of the head she felt the cub's shape, limb and shoulder, work its way out of her. Always before she had been to frightened to feel anything but pain. A person with long, shining black hair was crouching between Alldera's legs. She put out her hands and something dropped into them. Another leaned in and carefully pinched the last of the blood down the cord. Alldera was astonished at the simplicity of what they did, their calm. The black-haired person bent and sucked the plugs of mucus from the tiny mouth and nose of the raw, squirming bundle in her hands. People came and put their faces against Alldera's streaming face. Hands massaged her body. In that lilting ripple of speech that she found she understood easily now, several said that she had done well. she could not gather strength to reach out to any of them or answer in words, but she thought fiercely each time one of them approached her, I love you forever for this. At that moment she felt capable of it. If she had not been a fem, trained for her life's sake to hide feelings, she would have wept. The cub, washed and dried, was placed against her in the crook of her arm. It was a wrinkled, splotchy-looking female, unfocused in every wandering movement and every shapeless murmur from its wet little mouth. On its angular head was a crop of moisture-darkened hair... Odd, this was the creature she had planned to kill. she was glad now not to have done it. Someone relieved her of the warm, soft, wriggling weight. 'Here it comes,' someone else said cheerfully. Alldera thought in alarm, Mother Moon, not another - were there two, and I didn't know? But it was only the afterbirth, and she wanted to laugh." There are so many real aspects of this birth, I have to think Charnas either has had good births herself, or talked to midwives before writing it. The feeling of power, the singing in rhythm with her breathing, the self regulation of her breathing, the firm pressure and massage, the humor, the hard work, the intense feelings of love she had for her helpers, the fact that mucus was involved and a placenta, and that she thought briefly that the placenta might be a second baby all make this a very real scene and a great birth story. My next favorite scene is the death scent in Conqueror's Child: "___ uttered a series of gasps and a low cry, and Alldera hurried back to sit with her and stroke the backs of her hot, dry hands to keep her from tearing at her dressings. 'Just rest,' she murmured in the fem's ear. 'Get a leg over the pain and ride it quiet. You must be strong and rested for our journey. We'll go to the plains and ride all the day, the way we used to do. I have a black mare picked out for you, the fastest, the prettiest ever. But first you have to rest' The fem died in the pit of night. When it was over, Alldera went to the window and said a prayer to Moon-woman, although the moon was obscured by fresh banks of storm cloud and only in its first quarter. She prayed anyway...just in case it might do some good." Just wonderful! "Get a leg over the pain and ride it quiet." What a perfect line. Women know how to do this, and if we don't we need to learn. Pain is a part of life and Charnas's women know how to work through it. Alldera is far more practical than spiritual, but she sees spiritual possibilities. Birth and death are the two of the most spiritual life events, and Charnas writes them very believably. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 11:03:59 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joyce Jones Subject: BDG Slave and Free I have testing in Advanced Cardiac Life Support this Saturday and have had such a difficult time studying for it. The date has been set for months, but I so hate studying anything about cardiac problems that I've put it off. Over the past week I've dipped into it as gently as possible, rereading old notes, listening to a funny tape, glancing at the book. Yesterday as I was drying off after a shower and going over ventricular tachycardia (I have the algorithms taped to my bathroom mirror) it all started coming back to me. I thought, "I'm finally beginning to open to this again, like the daughters of the Riding Women learning to open themselves to be mounted by horses. Well, actually mounted wasn't the word I used there in the privacy of my bathroom. So add cardiac life support to areas of study enhanced by reading the Holdfast Chronicles. By the way, where is everyone? Is it that school started and no one has time to discuss these wonderful books. Pity, I think they're among the best we've read. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 01:12:25 -0400 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: BDG: The Slave and the Free Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Margaret McBride wrote: >I'm not quite sure how you're using the term "ironic detachment," >Janice. Please explain more. I'm not sure I used the right words to describe my impression, actually. Perhaps the irony and the detachment are two different things. The irony is in the Holdfast males' conviction that by keeping the fems in abject servitude they are controlling the forces that led to the collapse of their world, when it seems obvious to us that this sort of institutionalized scapegoating, given the available technology, would put them on an express train to Wasting II. These men are wrong, wrong, wrong, but in a way that is not at all unfamiliar in the real world -- there is a sort of bitter humor in it, particularly at times like the dreaming, when the boys chant the conveniently rhyming names of the unmen and the beast names of the fems. What a horrifying yet ridiculous ritual! The detachment is harder to pin down. I guess it is the sense that each character and each social situation is being unsentimentally investigated, the bad as well as the good. This last week I received the September issue of the *The New York Review of Science Fiction*, which includes half of an interview with Charnas. I had an aha! moment when I read the following: "People don't really understand what an adventure [*Walk to the End of the World*] was for me as a writer. I'm not sure I understood it myself at the time. This was my first novel; I didn't have that much awareness of my own mind during the writing process. I was too riveted by the challenges of the process: 'How can things have gotten this terrible socially? I've got these people, how would they interact with each other, what would they have learned to believe? This is how it works and this is where it is going. Now they smash everything up, good!' It was like playing with toy soldiers, almost. I didn't have such a deep investment in the characters then. It was more like reading somebody else's book and getting really into it and enjoying it, rather than getting worked up about the situation while I was writing. With *Motherlines* I felt like Lewis and Clark exploring the American West, living among people with a whole different take on the world." Her comments fit exactly my sense of the tone of the books, almost a stance of "participant observation", as they call it in anthropology. I admire it while also enjoying how it leaves room for the later books to delve deeper into some of the characters and the emotional repercussions of events. >my real question is about the way the Riding Women treat the girls. >Charnas does suggest a philosophy of survival of the fittest (the way the >women treat the grain silos and the predators who will steal from them), >but I'm still bothered by how the girl-groups fit into the larger story. >How does the separation of the girls fit into their philosophy/societal >make-up? What comments do you think Charnas had in mind with >regard to allusions to our world? The segregation of the children into both the kit pits and the childpack was one element of the books that seemed unworkable to me. I have a hard time believing that children divided from adults at age six or younger would survive, let alone grow up to fit into the existing adult society. But we get so little detail of how these child communities actually function; perhaps with further investigation it would make more sense. I too wondered how they fit in conceptually to the worlds of the Holdfast fems and the Riding Women. It can't be an accident that these otherwise wildly divergent groups of women take much the same hands off approach to child-rearing. Is it simply because resources are so scarce? Or simply to show how the difference is all in the context? The girls of the childpack roam free and presumably have enough to eat, while the young fems are trapped and hungry. ...I'm still puzzled by this. I agree with Joyce that the proximity of the childpack to the horse herds might encourage them to bond more thoroughly than if the experience were mediated by adults. Maybe part of the message is that being "protected" by adults might not be such a good thing anyway? Looking forward to more discussion. Thanks for your messages, Margaret and Joyce -- I've really enjoyed them. Anyone else care to chime in? ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: The *Velvet Goldmine* Soundtrack "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 13:48:15 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joyce Jones Subject: Charnas sites Here's results of a search for interviews/reviews of Charnas. http://www-prodigy.lycos.com/wguide/wire/wire_166762395_85126_3_1.html Joyce