Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 16:19:34 +0000 From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Dazzle of Day To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU I'm jumping the gun a bit in California time but thought I'd kick off the discussion on our March book, Molly Gloss's The Dazzle of Day. I just finished this book and loved it. Thanks so much to whoever originally nominated it! Gloss creates three separate worlds, each real to me, and she reveals them not through the usual SF world-building description but rather through the intimate details of everyday life. How would you compare this an earlier discussion book, The Sparrow? It reminded me of that a bit, in the journey from Earth, and also in covering some religious topics. I was also reminded of the lyrical style of Black Wine, though the subjects were quite different. What did you think? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 11:02:55 +0000 From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Dazzle To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU OK, it's well past time. Please, let's discuss! Did you like it? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 17:38:43 -0600 From: Chris Shaffer Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Dazzle To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >OK, it's well past time. Please, let's discuss! Did you like it? Yes, I liked it quite a bit. Like you, I felt that all three 'worlds' were well developed through the views of daily life activities. I quite enjoyed the relationships the characters developed. I felt that Kristina and Juko's reestablishment of their family bond in a time of stress was a climactic moment. I wonder how people on this list feel about Juko's reaction to rape by Bjoro? I wish I knew more about Quaker family dynamics. I found the acceptance of arranged marriages and the role of the Clearness Committee intervention in family problems interesting but a bit foreign to my experiences. At first, it seemed that divorce was uncommon but accepted. However, Juko's willingness to, at least in part, forgive Bjoro because she didn't want to be known as a twice-divorced woman was revealing of the cultural pressures on spousal relations in the Miller. There are other pejorative references to people who have multiple divorces as well. The Clearness Committee certainly indicated that divorce was an acceptable outcome, but Juko obviously didn't share their opinion. I see distinct parallels, of course, with the marriage-focused society here in the US and the mixed levels of acceptance of divorce in US culture. I'm also less than thrilled that the Clearness Committee saw Juko's rape as something to be worked out between Juko and Bjoro. There didn't seem to be any provision for punishment of the offender. As a postscript, after reading the pre-book-discussion regarding consensus decision making, I was somewhat disappointed that this aspect was less thoroughly examined in the book. I don't count this as a flaw in the book, but as a flaw in my expectations for the book. ----- FINDING EXTREME PLEASURE WILL MAKE YOU A BETTER PERSON IF YOU'RE CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT THRILLS YOU --Jenny Holzer, Survival 1983-1985 Chris Shaffer http://www.uic.edu/~shaffer/ chris@bsinc.net AIM:ChrisShaff ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 13:00:45 -0500 From: Pat Lillquist Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Dazzle To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Hello - I'm new to this list and thanks to organizers and book selectors. I also enjoyed Dazzle. Like Chris, the handling of the rape caused me to reflect quite a bit about how that society handled it. Partly I think an effort to regain peace seems very Quaker to me, although I'm also not terribly knowledgeable. Also I don't remember Juko seeking legal sanctions against Bjoro. But I think there is another element to it and that is the fact that they are on a very tiny spaceship. Much of the time, the mood that is evoked by the wonderful writing made me envision an agrarian village and almost forget it was a spaceship. Because of really being confined, I think "getting clear" with fellow residents would have to be highly valued, unlike on Earth where you can move across town or across country. The point was also made earlier in the book that others had tried to establish colonies on similar ships but didn't have the ecologic patience to make it work the way this group did. I think that figures into understanding the society, i.e., patience both with nature and other people's failings. Parenthetical -if it were me, I don't think I could be that patient at all although I would want to be. Pat ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 22:26:43 -0800 From: Allyson Shaw Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Dazzle of Day To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU I just finished the book-- I little late, I know. I found it fascinating at points, and tedious in others. The novel was almost a victim of imitative form-- asking the reader to be as patient with the narrative as the Quakers on the ship were with their own processes. At its best moments, when it was most philosophically striking, the book reminded me of Tarkovsky's films, particularly *Solaris* and *Stalker*. The melancholy pacing and alienated, haunted consciousness resulting from space travel is something Tarkovsky also explored-- this question of the spiritual in the face of technology which takes us (seemingly) beyond our original conception of God and death, etc. The book also reminded me of *The Sparrow*, as Jennifer mentioned. I didn't like *The Sparrow* at all, and much preferred Molly Gloss' ambitious story telling and elegant narrative, which was well researched and fully imagined. But on the whole, I have to say I was disappointed. I'd been wanting to read this for some time and I just felt that her sentences began to wear on me. This is off topic, but can anyone tell me what the next book we are reading is? Where can I find the scheduled readings listed? Is it on the web site? Thanks, Allyson ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 14:29:34 -0800 From: Margaret McBride Subject: [*FSF-L*] Dazzle To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Two things I am most struck by in Dazzle of Day: the use of older characters and the non-dazzle (almost mundane, realism feel of the plot and style). I am currently working on a paper on Hilbert Schenck's A Rose for Armageddon and one of my points there is how rarely SF emphasizes older characters (especially women). Dazzle has several different narrators where the fact that they are old is significant. I like that. The point about non-dazzle of style and plot is harder for me to elucidate, but for a book which is clearly SF and even "out there" with the idea of viable space habitants and the problems of learning to live on a new planet after the group has been "encased" for several generations, it somehow doesn't have the old SF "sense of wonder." I don't mean that to be a negative statement at all; again I liked it. But I was conscious for a great deal of the time as I was reading that it felt more like a "mundane" regular novel with its details of eating, working, going to the bathroom, tending children and the sick, getting along with people, etc. I read somewhere that SF had grown up when authors started admitting that characters had bodies that had to go to the bathroom, eat, menstruate, etc. Certainly a feminist point in the '70s was that SF needed to deal with who takes care of the children and cleans up the spaceship! Another author that has this "feel" of real world (I'm not sure I'm articulating this idea all that well so I'll give an example of someone else I have the same reaction to) is Maureen McHugh in China Mountain Zhang and Mission Child. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 21:24:42 -0500 From: Terri Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Dazzle of Day To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Here is a really great site for Molly Gloss, and Dazzle of Day. It also includes a radio interview with her that is very interesting. http://www.bookradio.com/interviews/gloss/ I ran across her other book, Jump Off Creek, when I was searching for Dazzle of Day. I liked it even more, although it was not SF. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in women's history, and women's involvement in the early American West. Terri ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 15:55:52 +0000 From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Dazzle of Day To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU At 10:26 PM 3/13/00 -0800, Allyson wrote: >I just finished the book-- I little late, I know. I found it fascinating >at points, and tedious in others. The novel was almost a victim of >imitative form-- asking the reader to be as patient with the narrative as >the Quakers on the ship were with their own processes. Yes, you're onto something there. The pacing and focus on the mundane really did communicate as much as the words. I haven't seen Solaris all the way through -- I got bored and turned it off. I might have stuck with it if the main characters were women, though. >This is off topic, but can anyone tell me what the next book we are >reading is? Where can I find the scheduled readings listed? Is is on the >web site? The next book for discussion is Remnant Population, by Elizabeth Moon. Discussion begins Monday April 3rd. It should be an excellent comparison to Dazzle as it also features an older woman protagonist. You can find more info at the BDG website at: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Comet/1304/index.html