At 08:43 7/11/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Petra Mayerhofer <pm@IER.UNI-STUTTGART.DE> wrote:
>
>>On other birth control books: Has somebody already suggested
>>'Barrayar' by Bujold?
><snip>
>>Naismith marries somebody from the militaristic, patriarchal
>>Barrayar and moves there. They want a child immediately. It is
>>extensively discussed how strange an in vivo pregnancy feels for
>>Naismith. Furthermore, briefly a fantasy of her is described to get
>>as many children as possible, now that there are no restrictions. One
>>gets the impression that Bujold thinks that without outer pressure
>>(no money or space restrictions) women like to get children by the
>>dozen.
>
>My impression of Bujold is that her characters are individuals and don't
>represent large classes or categories. Part of the point of the Miles
>stories is that they center on a very unusual individual.
Exactly. Also, since Cordelia came from a planet where no one CAN have
many children, she's naturally attracted to the idea. (Forbidden things
look good from a distance, right?) If she had come from a kind of
outer space Romania where large families were mandatory, she'd have
approached it differently.
>
>Of course some women would want large numbers of children (without
>estimating how many women that "some" is!). And certainly, many more would
>think about it a little, or fantasize about it some.
>
>
>Neil
>
Another point: Bujold usually queries "what would be the most difficult
thing for this character to cope with?" And then provides it. For
Cordelia, having only one child would be difficult. She has to face
that. For Piotr, having a deformed grandchild is tragic. He has to
face that.
And a third point: some knee-jerk feminist students in my SF
class object violently to Cordelia's "selling out" by marrying
and having a family. They don't seem to realize that she hasn't
CHANGED, just taken on a different (and important and difficult)
job. Even her triumph in Barrayar doesn't satisfy them. I find
this hard to believe, but that's the way they argue.
How do you feel about that?
Martha Bartter
Truman State University
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