Mike,
Thanks for the kind words. I particularly
appreciate the mention of Marie-Josephe's ability
for science. Inasmuch as Moon & Sun has been
noticed by the sf community at all, it's been
interpreted several times as one of those "science
v. intuition" plots, with Marie-Josephe on the
intuition side and her brother in the camp of
heartless science. It's good to have someone
notice that what's going on is that MJ is a
_better_ scientist than her brother, that she
observes more carefully and notices more, and that
Yves is the one who's more affected by
preconceptions and faulty assumptions.
Strangely enough, I didn't read about Margaret
Cavendish until after Marie-Josephe was fully
formed, rather like I didn't discover the Marechal
de Luxembourg until after Lucien had established
himself in the book, or the Danish Sea Ape till
after I'd invented, so I thought, the sea people.
Another woman who wasn't taken seriously because
of her interest in science was the Marquise du
Chatelet, who was fascinated by the calculus. That
was in the next century, though.
Happy holidays,
Vonda
On Thu, 25 Dec 1997 11:00:38 -0600, Michael Marc
Levy <levymm@uwec.edu> wrote:
>Just finished The Moon and the Sun last night. What a wonderful book.
>
>Publishers Weekly compared it to Patricia Anthony's equally well-done
>God's Fires, perhaps because both books involved encounters between human
>beings and the alien in pre-modern times (Anthony's novel is set in
>Portugal in, if I remember correctly, the 15th or 16th centuries--
>McIntyre's, in France during the reign of Louis XIV) and there are some
>other similarities. Both are beautifully written and full of historical
>detail, concern scientific discoveries that run contrary to accepted
>Christian dogma, and involve extremely well developed characters.
>
>There are some interesting differences, though. Anthony's fiction is
>rarely explicitly feminist, although it's there implicitly. The Moon and
>the Sun is quite explicitly feminist. At times it even reminded me of
>The Handmaid's Tale in its depiction of narrowly constructed and repressive
>gender roles, and the hypocritical way in which those in power feel free
>to ignore the rules they themselves have set up.
>
>Harking back to an earlier discussion on the list, though, this book should
>particularly appeal to and strike sparks for anyone interested in Margaret
>Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle. The protagonist is a penniless young
>noblewoman with a talent for science (and music and art for that matter)
>who discovers that almost no one will take her work seriously simply
>because she is female. Like Margaret Cavendish, her interests in and of
>themselves, put her in danger of being defined as insane.
>
>Mike
>
>Michael M. Levy levym@uwstout.edu
>Department of English levymm@uwec.edu
>University of Wisconsin-Stout off. ph: 715-834-6533
>Menomonie, WI 54751 hm. ph: 715-834-6533
http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda
The Moon and the Sun -- One of Publishers Weekly's
"Best Books of 1997"
http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946
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