Pat York wrote:
>
> I'm not sure how I feel about it. Taken at face value, Brin seems to be
> towing that same, dull line that women's main use in life it culling the
> bastards from the good guys and that they do this best by dying.
(for reference, I'm using the Bantam Spectra 1994 edition - *not* the one with
Costner's mug on the cover)
He doesn't just seem to be towing it...in Gordon's last letter of the book
(p.316 in particular) he discusses Dena and her 'culling' philosophy to Mrs.
Thompson. He writes that "[i]n my worst dreams I see women taking up a
tradition of drowning their sons, if they show signs of becoming bullies. I
envision them *doing their duty*, by passing on life and death before a male
child becomes a threat to all around him." Now, that entire idea could be
read two ways: 1) Brin doesn't agree with women having to die off and cull the
bastards; 2) Gordon's paranoid and doesn't trust women to make sane, rational
decisions. Which leads to:
> I always look at the body count to see where a writer's values lie. He
> leaves two minor women characters alive, one guy of indeterminate race
> and the white guy hero. As far as I could tell, none of the women made
> it.
The women who survive are:
Abby - whose husband, Michael, is sterile, leading to her sleeping with Gordon
about a third of the way through the book.
Mrs. Thompson - the matronly leader of Pine View, but not a mayor, like the
male leaders of the other towns are.
Marcie and Heather - the women from the Holnists who run away with Gordon when
they find out that women can (and will) fight and die in the outside world.
Caroline - Abby and Michael's (technically Abby and Gordon's) daughter. She
is curious in that Brin chooses a baby girl (the only baby mentioned) to be
the future of the Restored United States.
Of course, there are also the women recruits training at the end of the book,
but they're going to go off, fight the Holnists and die.
> Hmm, the more I think about it, the less I like it. But I -do- like the
> book for other reasons.
I agree. It's the first book that I've picked up in a while that I've sped
through with no problem (I've been trying to read Stephenson's _The Diamond
Age_ - dear god, is it boring). Brin has a good book in this one (I'm waiting
to see what Hollywood does to it...). He would have had a great book if he
had dealt with the women in a more constuctive fashion...
- Geoffrey
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:59 PDT