Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 15:19:20 +0000 From: Angela Barclay Subject: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage Kick-off To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Dear BDG Members: While tomorrow is the day discussion of Alice Nunn's _Illicit Passage_ is to officially begin, I thought I'd do the kick-off today since the list is quiet and not everyone may be glued to their sets watching the Super Bowl ;-) I would liken this work to a complex puzzle which Nunn subtlely allows the reader to piece together instead of hurling the pieces at them. In this regard it reminds me of Candace Jane Dorsey's _Black Wine_. Feel free to join the discussion by commenting on any aspects of the novel. Below are some of the questions I also hope to see answered over the next month: ********************** Now that you're finished reading it, what part in or characteristic of the novel is most vivid and/or enjoyable? What other literary or media texts does it remind you of and how? If you could change the work in any way what would that be? Describe and comment upon the narrative structure. Is there a difference between narrators and characters in this story? For example, how do DeeDee and other members of "the coffee set" contribute to the story? Annie, the primary narrator, is the antithesis of and antagonistic towards her sister. Do you think this was an effective storytelling device? Why or why not? Describe Gillie. What do you like about her? Is there anything you don't like about her? What do you think about her relationships with others? Does she have any real relationships? What comments does Nunn make about consumerism . . . family . . . marriage . . . womens' technical abilities . . .? How does the war which takes place throughout most of _Illicit Passage_ parrallel the wars in our history books? How does it differ? What elements of _Illicit Passage_ do you think led to its being shortlisted for the 1994 Tiptree Award? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 23:56:29 -0800 From: Sharon Anderson Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage Kick-off To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU > >>Now that you're finished reading it, what part in or characteristic of the > novel is most vivid and/or enjoyable?<< I'll tell you what was NOT enjoyable: The lack of a straightforward narrative. I heartily dislike things which purport to be documents . I had a very difficult time figuring out what was going on from the jumping back and forth between viewpoints. Easiest to follow was Gillie's whinging little sister--once I did figure out that you had to sift everything she said for personal self-interest. Hardest to follow were the "government" reports and memos. I very nearly gave up on the book. > Annie, the primary narrator, is the antithesis of and antagonistic towards > her sister. Do you think this was an effective storytelling device? Why or > why not? It was, but for the first fifty pages I didn't get it. I didn't understand that Annette spoke out of both sides of her mouth, one minute claiming to have had nothing to do with the events that happened, the next minute claiming to be an innocent dupe on whose head landed all the evils Gillie perpetrated, the next moment claiming to have had just as much of a major role in the events as anyone, but to be the only one who reaped none of the rewards. > Describe Gillie. What do you like about her? Is there anything you don't > like about her? What do you think about her relationships with others? > Does she have any real relationships? She reminds me a lot of my roommate, who is an improvisational actress, whose favorite form of music is jazz, and who wants a garden of fresh herbs and tomatoes, yet is completely unwilling to spend the time watering them or doing anything to make sure they actually come up after she plants them. Life in the moment is much more important to her than any future planning or respect for and understanding of the past. At the same time, she IS very smart and talented and gifted. I liked reading about Gillie, but she wouldn't be easy or comfortable to have as a friend. --s ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 08:38:35 -0500 From: Deborah Oosterhouse Organization: Editorial Services Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage Kick-off To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Angela Barclay wrote: > Now that you're finished reading it, what part in or characteristic of the > novel is most vivid and/or enjoyable? What became most vivid and interesting to me as I read was that Gillie's voice was never heard -- there are no direct statements from Gillie herself, only her story filtered through her sister, the govenment agencies that were opposing her, etc. And even the government people don't have any interviews with her, only with people who were associated with her. I think it rather serves to turn Gillie into a mythical sort of figure instead of a real person, although her sister's very negative view of her does help to locate the real Gillie somewhere in the realm of humanity. > If you could change the work in any way what would that be? Although I would dearly love to hear from Gillie -- to have something that she wrote or recorded to explain what she did and how and why, some great manifesto or something -- I don't think I would change the story to include it. Somehow it just wouldn't fit in with the picture of Gillie that is created. She doesn't align herself with the overtly revolutionary characters in the book. She is more interested in personal comforts and having fun and spreading the results of her abilities around a bit than any concerted effort against the government. It seems to me as if she doesn't think it's necessary -- just let them do (or try) whatever they want, I can get around it anyway. > Describe Gillie. What do you like about her? Is there anything you don't > like about her? What do you think about her relationships with others? > Does she have any real relationships? It's very difficult for me to decide what I do or don't like about Gillie, because all I'm getting is other people's opinions of her. I very much like her, probably because her sister is so irritating and obviously doesn't like Gillie much. On the other hand, she does seem to have something of a selfish streak in not wanting to use the abilities that she has to help everyone out and make their lives better. But it could simply be a limit to a skill that seems limitless to some of the narrators. I think that's enough for the time being. I very much enjoyed reading this story and am looking forward to other people's comments. Deborah ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 18:54:10 +0000 From: Angela Barclay Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage Kick-off To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Sharon wrote: > I'll tell you what was NOT enjoyable: The lack of a straightforward >narrative. I heartily dislike things which purport to be documents . I had a >very difficult time figuring out what was going on from the jumping back and >forth between viewpoints. Easiest to follow was Gillie's whinging little >sister--once I did figure out that you had to sift everything she said for >personal self-interest. Hardest to follow were the "government" reports and >memos . . . for the first fifty pages I didn't get it. I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who had some trouble figuring out what was going on. Initially I was annoyed by the 'interruption' in the narrative with all of the documents and interrogations and wanted to race ahead to find out what naughty Gillie and her gang were up to. I also took me a while to figure out that Gillie, who was being slandered her sister/the narrator, was the 'good guy.' Once I got used to Nunn's different approach, however, I grew to like it. I think it took a lot of guts and ingenuity to write a book this way. I like that both her protagonist and primary narrator were flawed. I also appreciated that she trusted the reader would figure out this complex mystery. One thing I didn't like, however, was the number of government officials and minor characters. It was hard to keep track of them, especially since their names seemed familiar. Angela ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 00:04:42 +1100 From: Julieanne Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage Kick-off To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Some of my thoughts on Illicit Passage: Firstly - it is a novel with a strong Australian 'flavour' in that it follows the Australian literary tradition in theme, style and characterisation. The humour is mostly satirical, or 'black' comedy with exaggerated characterisation - along with the popular Oz thematic tradition of total irreverance for authority of any kind, a tradition shared by much of British (and particularly Irish) literature. Much of the language used is urban working-class patter - and its possible for American readers that some of the jokes and satirical swipes aren't readily obvious. Oz traditional literary heroes are nearly always "flawed characters" and 'thumb their noses' at the law, the church, the government and anybody else who sets themselves up in a position of authority. Oz heroes are most often presented as rogues, working-class rebels - somewhat shady characters, or anti-heroes with more personal self-interest than grand visionaries on a mission to save the world from itself. In this respect, Gillie fits the stereotype, except that she is a woman. One 'thread' of the satire of authority figures in Illicit Passage is the bumbling & mildly corrupt government & police officialdom, imitating the semi-formal style of interoffice e-mail memos. Some aspects of this are reminiscent of the movie " 9 to 5 " - with the incompetent men nominally in charge, but the barely acknowledged office "girls" doing all the work behind the scenes. Through a series of vignettes and snatches of electronic dialogue - men's relationships within patriarchal heirarchies are also highlighted in a comic manner. When they finally realise there is a sabotage within, its telling that they don't suspect any of the women, let alone Gillie. One thing I also enjoyed about the writing of some of the passages in 'officialese' - is they are boring and hard to follow - but that is part of the satire of officialdom, along with the disorganised "files" of the individual sections of the narrative jumping around - it reads like a badly organised file - Also reflecting the social structure of the class-based society in the space-domes. The people both at work and home, are all organised on a similar bureaucratic and disorganised 'filing system' of colour-codes and status numbering and class-coding and so on, deciding where you lived, where you worked, what you wore, what you ate etc.... Gillie is an anarchist, she doesn't like rules, especially when they are silly. Full of energy Gillie stands strong, having no time or energy to waste on fools, small-talk or polite acquiescence in the face of controlling authority or drunken men invading her personal space in bars - and laughing at the world along the way. Annie, on the other hand is a rigid rule-follower, and dislikes Gillie not just for *not* following rules, but for getting away with it. Like religion being the "opiate of the masses" - in Illicit Passage, in this society - following all the rules, doing as you're told, sucking up obsequiously to authority etc, will lead to rewards - religion has been replaced by the "work ethic". At one point, their mother mentions to Annie how she used to believe all the lies about getting educated and you'll do well in life - but in later life she realised this was a lie, and berates Annie for "believing everything the government tells you" One of Annies gripes, is how she does all the right things, but is still stuck at a low level in her job, while Gillie and friends break rules, and get ahead. Also, Annie is talking primarily to authority figures in her testimony. True to character of a rigid rule-follower, she allies herself slavishly to authority, (predominantly male) telling them what she thinks they want to hear, and distances herself from Gillie. The satire extends to the depiction of the leftist revolutionaries - with their own version of slavishly following rules of conduct according to theories and Marxist political ideologies. They have meetings, and then some more meetings etc - and can never decide on taking action because the "conditions aren't right for a revolution yet"..or awaiting some opportunistic event or timing, or a charismatic leader who can unite the working-class masses to overthrow the system - from one of Annie's diary-like interview entries: " Leanne was whipping everyone into a rage against the war, she was telling them that they had nothing to gain by it and it was just a private game between two rich colonisers, 'Pull down the edifice, cut off the capitalists supply, rise up and secure your own destiny!' All that sort of stuff." And later in the same section: ".."Revolutionaries have no grasp on reality"..laughed Gillie. Because Leanne wouldn't move until she could carry people with her by the strength of their belief.....She would have it that you had to have people's hearts and minds with you before you started a revolution. 'Or else', she said, 'how can you plot its course and bring it safely into land with some workable future shape'.... And from Leanne: " She didn't want to change the world in the way I wanted to change the world. She was more interested in attitudes, she wasn't really a political animal...the censored books to me explained it all, ...but Gillie just groaned and said she shouldn't have given the books to me because now I'd gone all radical and stopped thinking for myself"......She reckoned we should make up our own theory as we went along.... There is so much in this book that impacted on me - such a collage, I find it difficult to separate out what impacted most. I can open it up on almost on any page - and find something that smacks me on the head - several pages are dog-eared and passages underlined. On the feminist side, men also come in for mockery, and the gender role-reversals on prostitution was hilarious! In some respects despite the war being the main backdrop and the justification for the harsh living standards the oppressed live under, the men & their war are pasted well into the background - and the women's lives & relationships are the foreground, the need to improve clothing, housing, food supplies etc - this is the stuff of women's lives, Gillie isn't concerned about the war and its ideology unlike her friends, she lives the life of " Deeds. Not Words." She needs a coat, she gets one somehow - her companeros, those she likes - get coats too. Annie as the cheer-leader of the male-dominant status quo whines towards the end: " I was sick of a world of women, I wanted the world to be normal again.......I wanted the men to come back and make sense of it and lead us out of the cave of emotion and show us the way...." >>>What other literary or media texts does it remind you of and how? It reminds me of Fay Weldon's works in the comic exaggeration of character, although Weldon's style is a much more extreme form of *black* humour, and not to everyone's taste. Enough for now - Cheers - - Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 19:13:34 +0000 From: Angela Barclay Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage Kick-off To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU >Oz traditional literary heroes are nearly always "flawed characters" and >'thumb their noses' at the law, the church, the government and anybody else >who sets themselves up in a position of authority. Oz heroes are most >often presented as rogues, working-class rebels - somewhat shady >characters, or anti-heroes with more personal self-interest than grand >visionaries on a mission to save the world from itself. In this respect, >Gillie fits the stereotype, except that she is a woman. It is helpful to learn that it is common for Austrialian protagonists to have glaring flaws. Am I correct in assuming this is not common in the North American literary tradition? For example, I remember reading something by Stephen Donaldson (sp?) years and years ago in which the protagonist was a leper and a rapist. I found that seeing the plot through his eyes was quite disconcerting. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 20:52:49 -0700 From: Susan Hericks Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Q: Now that you're finished reading it, what part in or characteristic of the novel is most vivid and/or enjoyable? What I liked best about this book was that it allowed for different kinds of activism, without making one better than the other, and pointing out the flaws of all. I loved that Gille and Leeane were contantly arguing about what should be done and how to do it, but that they remained close friends. I also loved the joy that Gille brought to her mischief and how that infused all her friendships. Her love for life was her only motivation, and it got her alot further (arguably) that Leeanne's soapboxing. The way she inspired Bruno to live was touching, though subtly brought out. I loved the sex scene with the chocolate dildos and crotchless panties!! all that sneaking about, I thought it would be some huge political maneuver, but no! In the end, it seems like Gillie's relish for life it what is missed most by her friends. Perhaps it was the glue that help potential factions together, but after her death, Leeane and the others cannot agree and Leeane takes another route. I like that her "compromise" may also be a realistic way to continue her activism in new circumstances, even though it may look like a sell-out to others. In the same vein, I was pleased and a little surprised by the developments in Mrs. St. John-Sightly's life after the war. The fact that her daughter and her housecleaner's son are both killed/murdered at the mines changes her and produces a visibly changed relationship between a spid and a nowt. Q: What other literary or media texts does it remind you of and how? At first, it sort of reminded me of Stanislaw Lem. Maybe it was all the bureaucracy. Q:If you could change the work in any way what would that be? I got somewhat bored with the denoument after the war ends. I actually started skipping, particularly the long section on the interviews of the council members and the conjectures on who was the mole. Perhaps as a result, I never figured out who it was. Does it ever say? The thing that finally really bugged me was Annie. I can't see any real REASON for her to be as conformist as she is. That would not be so bad by itself, but I couldn't really belief her lack of feeling for her family and community. During the big riot scene her mother and aunties are at risk of being shot and all she thinks of is how she hopes SHE will not be shot, or even noticed. When, after Gillie gives her the assignment to go get Bruno out of the bar, Annie complains that she does it "As if I didn't have feelings or emotions or a will of my own (243). What a laugh!! She clearly didn't. Which is what I finally found unbelievable. I wanted more moments like when she gets enraged and then passes out because they haven't saved her tea. Is it that she is an adolescent/teen and no one gives her any attention? Is conformity the only kind of rebellion she can come up with, given Gillie's outrageous behavior? I was tearing out my hair about her belief in the "disease" at the mine. I guess I wanted her to finally open her eyes in some way and recognize the horror of the system that was grinding up the nowts for profit. The stuff about the mine really got to me, especially the revelation that everyone there would be dead within six months and the spids were planning to send the women in next. That whole plan to rid the planet of the nowts was pretty horrifying, and yet it seemed to lose momentum/impact (in terms of the story)as conditions "improved." So what if the new dome ended up being for the nowts? There would still be the spids and the nowts and the mine. Finally, I thought it a bit wierd that Nunn could paint the classism of this culture so well and yet race was a non-issue. Q:Describe and comment upon the narrative structure. Is there a difference between narrators and characters in this story? For example, how do DeeDee and other members of "the coffee set" contribute to the story? Until the end, as mentioned above, it worked for me. I was sort of excited when I finally realized who Bruno was and that, all along, the reports had been titled "G. Seaton/B. Lawrence" I liked the memos, especially because it showed that some of the spids were cogs as well, and that some of them really wanted to do the right thing (E.g when the guy ends up tipping over the whole streetful of houses!) Q: Describe Gillie. What do you like about her? Is there anything you don't like about her? I like her exhuberance. I like that she is not beautiful in Annie's eyes, but that I could see her vitality and the way she attracted people to her with that. I thought the story about the aunt who suddenly dies, after spending the night in the valley with Gillie, was touching. IT was perfect how Annie says, in that section, that the women in her family were irresponsible (is that the right word?) because they would dance or sing whenever they felt like it. That made me love those women. I was going to say that I wish Gillie had been a little more focused on making effective changes, but it seems like she WAS incredibly effective, so it's hard to fault her. Q: What do you think about Gillie's relationships with others? Does she have any real relationships? I think she probably does have vital relationships with others, but that we don't see much of that because of the way Annie narrates and casts everything so negatively. I'm going to stop here with one question: Did anyone else think it was possible that Gillie knew about the plan to kill her and figured out a way to escape ? With the missing Bruno? Or is that just not her style? Or did I miss something conclusive as I was skipping around at the end? Susan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 19:28:58 +0000 From: Angela Barclay Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU >I'm going to stop here with one question: Did anyone else think it was >possible that Gillie knew about the plan to kill her and figured out a way >to escape ? With the missing Bruno? Or is that just not her style? Or did I >miss something conclusive as I was skipping around at the end? > >Susan Susan, I'm glad you asked these questions. They lead me to many more which I have about the plot: What I want to know is what are the respective fates of Gillie and Bruno. In the last fifth of the book we learn about the truth serum used by the goverment officials. (See pp. 203-205.) We learn that if Paloramine is taken over a long period of time the 'target's' memory becomes increasingly unreliable. Isn't this what happened to Leanne? If so, did Gillie administer the drug to Leanne, or did Leanne take it for its euphoric properties? We also learn that the drug can make people timid. Isn't this the case with Annie, who hides behind her family at rallies? If Annie has been altered or brainwashed, is it her sister who is responsible or is it the food she is fed at school? On page 204 we also read that "if taken for more thabn a month the target may suffer irretrievable personality damage." Is there anyone in the book who fits this description? At one point we read that Gillie is especially bright eyed- sorry can't find the exact passage- does this mean she is deliberately taking the 'countermeasure,' Paramenothone, which guards undercover agents from giving themselves away (p. 217)? If this is the case is she a true revolutionary and not just out for a good time? We learn on p. 217 that if someone were to be taking the countermeasure and then given the substance, Aronathal, which flushes it out, they would only survive for 3 - 15 days. Is this what makes Gillie reckless in her last days? I wonder if both Bruno and Gillie were given Aronathal. Its side effects include liver damage, stomach lesions, blood clots and possible bone marrow damage- is that why Bruno was so pale and lethargic at the end? Did Gillie actually manage to meet Bruno at the Bomb site, like she said she would or did she die in the explosion? If it wasn't her who was it?! I personally think that she and Bruno, with the help of her computer friends, managed an "illict passage" off of that "God forsaken lump of rock," and further were "some other couple" who had been 'given' the tickets of DeeDee's friends (p. 236). So tell me, am I reading way too much into this or what? Is the reader supposed to know the fates of Gillie, Leanne and Bruno at the end of the novel or are we supposed to be left wondering? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 22:31:48 EST From: Lou Hoffman Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage Kick-off To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In a message dated 2/5/02 8:05:04 PM CST, barclaya@TELUSPLANET.NET writes: >For example, I remember reading >something by Stephen Donaldson (sp?) years and years ago in which the >protagonist was a leper and a rapist. I found that seeing the plot through >his eyes was quite disconcerting. The Illearth series. Disconcerting is putting it mildly..... Lou Humankind: be both. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 19:36:37 -0800 From: Sharon Anderson Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Angela Barclay wrote: I personally think that she and Bruno, with the help of her computer friends, managed an "illicit passage" off of that "God forsaken lump of rock," and further were "some other couple" who had been 'given' the tickets of DeeDee's friends (p. 236). Thank you. I'm glad I'm not the only one who wondered about this. --s ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 19:31:17 +0000 From: Angela Barclay Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU >Angela: >I personally think that she and Bruno, with the help of her computer >friends, managed an "illicit passage" off of that "God forsaken lump of >rock," and further were "some other couple" who had been 'given' the >tickets of DeeDee's friends (p. 236). >Sharon: Thank you. I'm glad I'm not the only one who wondered about this. Angela: And yet at the same time, weren't they both dying? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2002 15:54:19 -0500 From: Dave Belden Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU I am truly grateful to the listserve for getting me to read this novel. The first fifty or more pages were hard going, and if I had picked it up in a bookstore, with its serious cover that says 'boring artsy novel', and tried the first few pages, I would never have bought it. As it was, I thought it one of the most enjoyable and intelligent sf novels I have read. Terrific humor, complex politics. I did find the different voices and the documentary style hard to sort out at first, but once I was into it, I really appreciated that she presented each voice more or less sympathetically. Here we are in this absurd caricature of a dysfunctional society, and yet the individuals are all believable - with a partial exception to be made for Annette. Susan wrote: > What I liked best about this book was that it allowed for different > kinds of activism, without making one better than the other, and pointing > out the flaws of all. I don't agree that she made out each form of activism to be equal. I think she came down against revolutionary politics, even while being sympathetic to its origins. She favored Gillie's kind of reformism, but what kind is that? I found myself asking all the way through what the author's politics were. 1) She certainly understands political/social complexity, and presents it in 250 pages with a breadth and depth that I think only a novel can really do. She sees there is class oppression, but individuals in the upper class can be sympathetic. There are some beautiful places where she describes how well-meaning people can be brought into oppressive roles - especially Bruno on life in the Space Corps (218-19). And the portrait of Mrs. St John Sightly was very believable to me - her initial ignorance of the inhuman consequences of her own lifestyle, whether willful ignorance or not, and the way she finally becomes a human being of heart and substance, when pushed by enough tragedy: I bought that completely - but not just as a portrait of one woman. I think Nunn meant it also as a statement of faith in human nature, and in the possibility that people in positions of power can come down off their high horse. Though it was clear that Mrs. StJ S discovered her own and her daughter's oppression partly because they were women, still women were not the only upper class people who were redeemable in the book. Some men were too. Apart of course from Bruno, who was also victimized, there were the interesting cases of Dorman (the evil security chief who turns out to be quite sympathetic towards recruiting Nowts and breaking down rigid class barriers), Doll (the scientist, who is persuadable likewise if the scientifically gathered facts are clear) and Parkes (who has a heart). The term evil is reserved more for Gravement and Rosenberry: but not the upper class as a whole. 2) I think the book argued against revolutionary politics, while being totally sympathetic to how it comes about, and, in a sense, sympathetic to how true its analysis is. Leeanne was right, there was systematic class oppression. But what Gillie is totally against is the idea of using frontal revolutionary tactics. She tells Leeanne that if she uses the force of the mob it will just give the military and police the excuse to destroy them all. Leeanne is given the final word in the book, and what she reports is Gillie telling her that "all my cavalry charges would be blood-spattered and brutish whereas they needed to be subtler than gossamer in order to work." 3) Are there other forms of activism in the book, other than Gillie's and Leeanne's? There's the dryly intellectual/political and very male 'Examiner' group at the end - which is totally rubbished by Gillie's ma as lacking all human interest and heart, and by Nunn, I assumed, as typical of what happens when the men come home: the book has all been about what oppressed women get up to when the men leave, and the women are full of life, heart, joy, sex, anger - whereas these left wing men are all dry, on head trips. Their activism is completely panned. 4) Then there's Parke's reformism-from-above, which is totally ineffective against the power of the Gravement/Rosenberry axis of evil... until everything changes with the end of the war. 5) But why does it change? Why does Gillie's out-of-left-field winning of the war by computer sleight of hand lead to the whole society opening up, so that while it is still unequal it becomes much more like Australia or America today - a place with much more equality of opportunity than before? In this, the whole story is like a compressed version of the history of the West in the last four hundred years. It starts with rigidly defined caste, as bad or worse than pre-revolutionary France; and ends with the revolutionaries co-opted into positions of power and consumerism rampant, high tech industry, the daughters of yesterday's criminals and factory workers as today's smart high tech workers. For a novel in such an exaggeratedly grim setting, it is extraordinarily hopeful: the sun literally shines through at the end. But what is it that creates the happy ending? (happy compared to the total defeat, genocide etc. that was on the cards). It seems to me that she says it's two things: a) Gillie herself - the rising up of a female kind of life force from within the pits of society: someone who is so damn smart she can outsmart everyone else, and who isn't alone either, as she brings her 'girls' with her, on whom the Spid bureaucracy soon comes to rely, while her best friend leads riots. And b) the fact that the ruling class itself is smart and humane enough to see the writing on the wall and to co-opt the bearers of this life-force rather than try to destroy them. Willing is an enlightened despot. Parkes looks like he's going to be the new President at the end - his ineffective humanitarianism finally vindicated. By recognizing the smarts and humanity and thereby the legitimate grievances of the Nowt women, the Spids themselves are changed. Is this not what has happened and is happening (unfinished) in modern industrial societies? 6) Gillie is a saint. A larger-than-life role model of virtually superhuman power. I guess it bothered me that we had to be saved by the computer whiz. It's a cliché of too many modern movies, and it's possible because so few of us understand computers that well, and so the computer whiz looks believable: like in recent heist movies, the person who touches six buttons and the impregnable security system is deactivated... But it delighted me that Gillie was turned on to computers by a priest, because I had felt all along that Nunn was presenting her as one does present a saint: someone too holy, too different to be seen at first hand, or from inside their own head; instead we just get the tales of the saint, patched together much later, each showing a different side, trying to puzzle the person out. The multiple documents are like the four Gospels and the Epistles. To write about Gillie like this is to give her mystery, a cloak. And typical that the person who understands her least is from her own family. The priest (page 188) tells Gillie the computer is "like a window through which you can see all of God's amazing universe." When she gets into the networks as a pre-teen, she says, "More I gasped. More! I thought I could shake to the very margins of experience it was the best pleasure yet it was pure it was ineffable religious wonderful, it was...love." If this isn't the mystic talking, St Theresa in ecstasy, what is? But it's a 'non-religious' sex- and life-affirming ecstasy, neo-pagan in that way: William Blake, or Starhawk (see her terrific sf novel The Fifth Sacred Thing - an easier read but not as wise a novel as this one). Leeanne echoes this in her final words of the book: "In her view you had to feel the future, she wanted to be in love with it..." The cavalry charges have to be gossamer in order to work; the revolutionary has to be in love with the future, in ecstasy, in emotional connection. And enough members of the ruling class will respond; the evil guys will be beaten; society will open up; the future and its technology are worth being in love with. My God, this woman sounds like a neo-pagan Unitarian social democrat from Silicon Valley! I'm in love. > I loved the sex scene with the chocolate dildos and crotchless > panties!! all that sneaking about, I thought it would be some huge > political maneuver, but no! Totally agree. Such humor in the book. One of my favorite laugh-aloud places was where Gillie's ma complains that they haven't had any fish, and how selfish people become as soon as there's a bit extra, and then she's glad that the people who have fish aren't coming down to eat her bacon! All through the book, Nunn has the voice of the lower class women so perfectly. Being raised in England and knowing a good few Aussies, I found it very nuanced and right on, and written with love as well as a sharp eye. And many thanks to Julieanne for explaining about Aussie novels: I have seen a few Oz movies that are like this book in humor and wackiness. I didn't know you could make such a wide generalization as that "Oz heroes are most often presented as rogues, working-class rebels - somewhat shady characters, or anti-heroes with more personal self-interest than grand visionaries on a mission to save the world from itself. In this respect, Gillie fits the stereotype, except that she is a woman." But with the last point, I disagree, she is on a grand mission, it just isn't one we are too familiar with. It's not just selfish; it is about saving and reforming the whole society, making it safe for ecstasy, life, love and having a good time for everyone. Not just for herself. The thing that totally gets Annette's goat is that Gillie and her friends lived like that all along, even in the absolute worst of conditions she was joking and living it up: in that sense it was just like Christ saying the Kingdom of Heaven is here now, not in the future, you can live it where you are. And when she's gone, the others find it hard to live it, even in better times. > but after her death, Leeanne and the others cannot agree and Leeanne > takes another route. I like that her "compromise" may also be a realistic > way to continue her activism in new circumstances, even though it may look > like a sell-out to others. I agree. It's hard for the left to see that most of today's society would look like an absolute bloody utopia to slow-dying factory workers of 150 years ago. One can argue that by co-opting the Leeannes, by reforming itself, capitalism has delivered more for the working person than any other system: and I think that is the view Nunn embraces. So Leeanne is not, by her lights, necessarily selling out. > The thing that finally really bugged me was Annie. I can't see any > real REASON for her to be as conformist as she is. I really like that Nunn tried to get inside the head of a determined, unreformable right wing conformist. But I don't think it entirely worked, either. She is the only person who fell into caricature, for me. I agree, she was too stupid. But then sibling rivalry can make the best of us a little stupid: in Sulloway's brilliant 'Born to Rebel' he shows that most revolutionaries are low in birth order, and that low birth order correlates more with a revolutionary mindset (political or scientific revolutions) than any other factor. Typically first borns only become rebels in special circumstances like Gillie's, where her father was brutal. Gillie is, I think the first born? Anyway, she's taken the rebel slot in the family, so Annette is 100% given to the Dudley do-right role which is usually taken by the first born... > Finally, I thought it a bit weird that Nunn could paint > the classism of this culture so well and yet race was a non-issue. This interested me too. Race is such a complicating thing. In some cultural situations it virtually becomes a way of tattooing class on our very flesh; so that whereas all groups of the poor and oppressed are despised by their oppressors at first, it's easier in an expanding economy for the ones who look most like the oppressors to move up and join them - to persuade the oppressors that they are as human, and as fully deserving of inclusion in every way. As Mrs. St J S did towards her cleaning lady. It simplified Nunn's optimistic philosophy to leave out race. Personally, I think the same thing will happen with race in every expanding economy, is happening in the US with the large black middle class, but it's slow, maybe won't ever be complete until we are all intermarried and brown skinned. Come to think of it, what race or color are the folks on Anastasia Union? They could all be mixed race. The year 2100 (in which the novel is set) isn't quite time enough - but according to projections that I have seen of current intermarriage rates the majority race in America by 2050 will not be white, but white/Asian/Hispanic/African. Race may disappear fairly soon in historical terms (whether 100 years or 1000), but class will go on for ever. > I'm going to stop here with one question: Did anyone else think it was > possible that Gillie knew about the plan to kill her and figured out a way > to escape ? With the missing Bruno? Or is that just not her style? Or did I > miss something conclusive as I was skipping around at the end? I too thought that she might well have escaped. Why not? She managed everything so perfectly up til then. She was practically omniscient. Lives of the saints: the magical mystical violent total disappearance (crucifixion and ascension in one). Not one speck of her flesh remained. On the third day, she and Bruno... There were eye witnesses, though, so I guess she really did cop it. Unless she had dressed up one of those robots that Annie said could look like a human at a distance... Angela wrote: > Susan, I'm glad you asked these questions. They lead me to many > more which I have about the plot: I'm impressed by these speculations about the drugs - such ideas did not occur to me. I don't think Leeanne suffered a loss of memory, though: the situation changed, she was offered participation. > I personally think that she and Bruno, with the help of her computer > friends, managed an "illicit passage" off of that "God forsaken lump of > rock," and further were "some other couple" who had been 'given' > the tickets of DeeDee's friends (p. 236). Wow! Good thinking. I missed it. I think you're right. Dave Dave Belden Accord, NY davebelden@earthlink.net web page: www.davidbelden.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 15:41:03 -0700 From: Susan Hericks Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU I also had no thought about the drug possibilities and am not so sure, but I think Angela is right on the nose about that "other couple" on the outbound ship, especially since it was explained by problems with the computer. Thinking about Annie being drugged during her interviews might help me, but weren't some of her narrative sections reported to Big Barbara on her own?Her personality is maddeningly consistent. I don't want to agree with Angela that Bruno and Gilly were dying, even as they escaped the planet. I think the drug theory is interesting but I would have to see the connections made more specifically in the text. Unfortunately, I start teaching tomorrow and don't have time to re-read! After thinking about it, I have to agree with Dave's comment that Nunn seems to finally prefer Gillie's activism to Leanne's, but I still like the fact that they are not drawn as opposites. Thanks for the post, Dave. I especially appreciated your points about the changes in the upper class spids. I agree that ultimately the book has an optimistic vision of change--although I am still skeptical about the "separate (but equal) domes" issue and the invisibility of race. Susan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 21:21:18 -0800 From: Margaret McBride Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Angela wrote: >it reminds me of Candas Jane Dorsey's _Black Wine_. I can see the comparison in terms of the mystery "what the heck is going on" narrative but Black Wine went to my reread sometime list and Illicit Passage didn't. The style in Black Wine was evocative and images stayed with me and I can't say the same for this one. I'm not sure I would have stayed with it if not for the fact that it got favorable Tiptree notice and was for this group. I found the style not only flat but annoying at times. I can intellectually say why I think the author chose to write that way but it's not enjoyable. I'm a big SF reader and usually like the "in medias res" effect of a piece dropping me into the middle of a new place/time and my having to figure out what all the terms are, but I found this one slow going--not quite enough visualization. >What other literary or media texts does it remind you of and how? This question brings up an idea simmering in my head that no one has mentioned. Do you suppose it's possible that Annette's voice is a trick? Somewhere the uncle and Gillie talk about the best way to foil interrogation is by giving tons of details that make you seem to be cooperating but in actuality you're throwing the cops off. What I'm referring to with Angela's question and my point is the very end of Handmaid's Tale and maybe even the way the footnotes work in Gentle's first Ash book. Handmaid's Tale has an afterword that puts a twist on everything else. In Illicit Passage the Publisher's Note says Gillian's last volume of the History of the War has finally been published and that Annette has left Anastasia and her editing work has been invaluable. Are we really to presume that Annette has been so out of touch, that she didn't know what was going on and so thoroughly disapproved? My other minor support is how much difficulty I had at the beginning when Annette was supposedly talking to Gillian's computer but we could suppose that she knew others perhaps hostile would eventually read it. Would she go on about her erotic reactions to the chief interrogator when she could guess that others would read her words unless she had ulterior motives? I maybe am just too optimistic and want to hope that Annette is not as totally negative as she seems to be. I don't like the book enough to reread right now looking for other clues, but maybe I will keep it and come back to it later to see if reading it after knowing the whole story will give me other clues to Annette. Notice that Leeanne quotes Gilly as suggesting that a book needs to be written (on the page right before the Publisher's Note). Also the Note says that the Security Forces tried to ban the book--surely that would not be the same as the negative picture we get of Gilly in Annette's words to the interrogators? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 11:30:54 -0500 From: Dave Belden Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Margaret wrote: > This question brings up an idea simmering in my head > that no one has mentioned. Do you suppose it's possible that Annette's > voice is a trick? Wheels within wheels. I couldn't make any sense of that Publishers Note at the end, but I believe your theory may be right on. Annette's whole voice may be a blind. It makes sense. I'm not used to having my brain challenged so much! Dave ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 14:25:05 -0700 From: Susan Hericks Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Margaret wrote: > This question brings up an idea simmering in my head > that no one has mentioned. Do you suppose it's possible that Annette's > voice is a trick? Wow! Are you saying that Annie was a collaborator of Gillie's and made all this conformist stuff up? Or what? Susan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 17:44:03 -0800 From: Margaret McBride Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Susan wrote: >Wow! Are you saying that Annie was a collaborator of Gillie's and made all >this conformist stuff up? Or what? Well, I'm wondering. I had my doubts as I was reading because she seemed too unpleasant and down on her sister and I couldn't believe she would talk about her erotic reaction/infatuation to the interrogator on something she thought he might see unless she had ulterior motives of making herself seem like a dope. But I thought I was being naive, too optimistic, wanting characters to be pleasant, etc. But then I can't figure out what the point is about her on the Publisher's Note at the end except to see it as a reversal. Does anyone see points in her monologues or description of her that would make this reading at all possible? ************************************ Margaret McBride, University of Oregon ************************************ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 15:36:50 -0500 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Illicit Passage -- Speech by Alice Nunn To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Angela Barclay has been having some computer-related difficulties, so I'm posting this for her. She's been in touch with Alice Nunn, who shared the following text of her speech to a symposium called "Antipodean Utopias" at the University of Tasmania. There are no answers to our plot questions, but there's great background on the book as well as some entertaining thoughts about the problem of "future past". --------------- SPEECH TO ANTIPODEAN UTOPIAS 7 December 2001 by Alice Nunn I didn't originally intend to write a science fiction novel. It came about because my father used to tell us funny stories about life in the army in the Second World War. From him, I was led to believe that war was a large complicated and amusing game. My mother on the other hand spent the war in Hull, a large English east-coast port. Her story of the war was only three words long. We were bombed. So I gained the impression that war for women wasn't nearly as much fun as it was for men. Or maybe it was just because women didn't have the right sense of humour to appreciate it properly. As I grew older, and developed my own sense of humour, I decided that the concept of women in a bombshelter offered a metaphor for a lot of issues I was interested in. I wanted to write about war and victims. But in my story the women were not only going to have fun, they were also going to win. That's how it came to be science fiction. By the time I came to write it, I had moved to Australia. Which generates a rather obvious idea. You have a major power who sets up a colony a long way from the metropolis. People travel great distances to get there. You take possession of the land, discover some minerals and some sources of energy like uranium. I did toy with the idea of putting in a few sheep but its hard enough getting a publisher for science fiction without having sheep in space. Then you have the colonial types. Everyone whose anyone refers to the metropolis as Home with a capital H and the people who are anyone are of course the career public servants who come out to rule. Everyone who's no-one -- those bedraggled native-born working class, descendants of convicts and other undesirables -- are the ones who come out to be ruled and don't amount to anything and have no voice in the running of the place. Moving right along, the next thing you need is a war, preferably a war to end all wars. As one of my characters, the radical union-leader Leeanne, says about war -- it's "always good for a lot more corpses among the working class." So a hundred years from now, we have such a war. And we have such an oppressed underclass. We have such a colony. The physical location is Anastasia Union -- a city located under one large climate controlled dome with several smaller domes housing the various functions of the city. The reason the city is there is a substance called urofor -- a source of energy which is both highly valuable and highly dangerous. One passage in the book describes an old propaganda documentary, taken in the early days of the settlement of the colony. A journalist talks first of all the wonders of Hightowers, the residential dome for public service officers and describes the attractive amenities for contract workers there. Then the journalist describes New Town, the dome which was about to be turned into hostels for convicts. He says that those in power had asked the question what was likely to be the biggest shortage in the colony. The answer was general labour, raw unskilled manpower. And as a result it had been decided to bring out what were called "a better class of convict". From this better class of convict would come cleaners for domestic work in Hightowers, and workers for industry thus making life for everyone else in the colony very relaxed and comfortable. And of course it goes without saying that the convicts wouldn't be required to work in the mines. No no, that will be done by volunteers who will be highly paid, etcetera etcetera. Some generations later, at the time the novel is set, New Town where the descendants of these convicts are still housed is a veritable slum. These descendants are called Nowts. Rhyming with louts. Where would we be without such terms, Mick, Chink, Boong, Wop, Eytie. Such words are essential in social name-calling that demean and classify the lesser and powerless part of the population. To keep them even more powerless the Nowts are tightly controlled, requiring passes to move from dome to dome. However it is clear at the time we have arrived at in the city's history that although Nowts cannot pass freely from one dome to another in theory, practice is another thing entirely. My heroine Gillie is not into rabble rousing the masses like Leeanne. She has a completely different agenda. It becomes fairly clear early on that Gillie and Leeanne go pretty much wherever they like and do pretty much what ever they fancy and no-one in charge can quite put the finger on what's going on. Nowts after all are supposed to be subhuman and unintelligent and Gillie is quite happy to let everyone in charge keep thinking so. But the fact is that she built her own computer at the age of 12, and ever since has been happily engaged in subverting what ever part of the system she can get her hands on. Even some of those in authority have given up pretending that their computer security is failsafe. [Reading omitted] The only story my Mother ever told me about her life in Hull during the 2nd World War is that one day someone in authority decided that a change from the bomb shelter was as good as a rest and the whole school where she was teaching was taken by bus and left in a field. With no books, no paper, no writing implements, no chairs, no shelter. There are only so many learning possibilities for a group of city kids in a field and I gather that these were exhausted rather quickly. My mother isn't usually one to question authority but I suspect, from her way of telling this story, that for once it may have entered her head that the war was being run by idiots. This disillusionment is also starting to permeate the substrata of New Town. Here is one character Eileen who is clearly starting to question the established hierarchy. She is talking about the woman she used to clean for. [Reading omitted] Not only was there no heating in New Town by this stage but there was very little food and practically no entertainment. As often happens in such times, it is the lack of entertainment that is most felt. [Reading omitted] I won't tell you any more of the story. You know how it goes anyway. By the end of the war you just know the city will get fed up with being a colony, and realise it doesn't need 'Home' any more, because home is right there where they stand and not back in some far away metropolis. And I've already told you the twist, that the women emerge as victors. But I have to comment on the astonishing progress in technology in the ten years since this book was published. I wrote this novel over about 3 years from 1988-1990 on an Amstrad 8256, my first computer. Some of you will have personal organisers or even mobile phones with more memory than an Amstrad of that era. But it didn't take all that much foresight to realise that computers were going to be big and any one with access to computers could access all sorts of knowledge. And with knowledge comes power. But, I had never heard the word 'hacker' in the late 80s, I don't think it was even invented. Was there an internet then? I certainly had never heard of it if there was. The whole book is set out as if it were a series of emails. We didn't have emails then. I don't think we even had faxes. Reading it again, ten years later, I am forcibly struck by how the world has moved on. It's a bit like wondering what to do with George Orwell's 1984 when its 1985 already? Some things of course never change. Gillie explains to Leeanne about working in the public service: "It's going to be worth it in the end and listen, it's fun! Everything they do is knowable. Every piece of information is *committed to disk* somewhere..." (notice that 'committed to disk' -- that's Amstrad talk). ..."there's nothing that can't be accessed. There are no secrets! ... that's why it's so important. ... you and your union and your speeches are just dancing on the surface of things. But I'm the one with my finger on the switch because the opportunities for buggering up the system are almost endless." But some of the book is laughably out of date. This is from Gillie's young sister Annette. Remember the novel is supposed to be set 100 years from now: "Sister Boddy told us that we were very lucky *getting an education that introduced us to computers*, as the government was now employing girls like us to work with computers at a basic level and so we should all learn the techniques involved so that we could compete for that sort of job when we left school. [...] Shortly after that they took the *school computer* away." Well how would I know that by now every classroom would be bulging under the weight of computers. We only had one computer in the government department I was working in when I was writing this -- we had to book to use it. How could I foresee that ten years later every kid in primary school would know more about computers than I do, and at the end of every computer Help Line would be a 14 year old adolescent with an attitude problem. In the novel, Gillie talks to her computer. Now I can tell you a thing or two about voice programs. In about 1988 I came down with a bad case of Repetitive Strain Injury from surprise surprise struggling to key in reports on the office computer as fast as possible before it was someone else's turn. As a result I couldn't write for a while and the Rehabilitation service bought me a voice program which I was supposed to be able to talk into. It recognised 40 different sounds. I don't know what sounds they were, we never found out. It was the first time too that I'd ever met computer nerds. There were two of them employed by Rehab and I believe they spent days if not weeks playing with my new voice program which we never got to work. I now use a Dragon program which I bought a year or so ago and it works reasonably well, although I can't get it to tell the difference between thesis and faeces no matter how many times I train it. Again everything has moved forward so much in ten years and it was a leap of faith on my part to have my characters talking to computers in this novel. Unfortunately, because of the strides forward in technology, a great deal of the point of setting the story in space is lost. It turns out that it didn't really have to be science fiction at all, because ten years later and here we are. It's just a modern day story where the powerful and oppressive and occasionally evil are reduced to impotence by an intelligent and dedicated hacker in their midst. There are plenty of cities at war here on earth that I could have used. Even now women are cowering in caves in Afghanistan. As they have cowered in cellars in Bosnia. As they will continue to cower as victims in bomb shelters when ever the world goes to war above them. But here's the point we have come to now. All those billion dollar, state of the art, computer-reliant fighter planes with their smart bombs all wired up with infinitely complex information roaring over head, you couldn't hack into them! Could you. So I don't suppose that the pilots -- those men who are blithely flying them -- ever wonder if below, among the oppressed and wounded and wretched of the earth there may be a bomb shelter where a young woman is not cowering, instead she is sitting in the corner quietly talking to her computer. Be afraid. Be very afraid. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 17:58:55 -0800 From: Margaret McBride Subject: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU I was talking with someone about books I had recently read and in trying to remember the title of this month's discussion, I started thinking about what the title means. The characters do "an illicit passage" from their part to the rest of the city, but that doesn't seem to be enough for the title. Other thoughts? ************************************ Margaret McBride, University of Oregon ************************************ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 19:10:13 +0000 From: Angela Barclay Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Margaret et. al.: I too suspect there are multiple significances of Nunn's Title. Firstly, we learned that Gillie & co. used the subterranean passages as their preferred travel route even when traveling out in the open would have been legitimate. Do you think this was one more of Gillie's ways of creating her M.O.? ie) She had used the secret passageways for so long people didn't question when she did it. Then, when it came to D day we infer she was able to pick up a cloak at a relative's place and make it unobserved to the square in front of the Red Brick. On. p. 236 it says a woman resembling her entered the square, was killed by what most likely was a laser missile, but that visibility was not good and "no organic matter from her body was recovered." This leads me to several questions: Did Gillie, knowing she was going to die as a result of the combination of drugs in her system, use the laser she had stolen earlier to do herself in? Did she allow herself to be lured there and done in by Flynn and his boys knowing she was going to die anyways? Was someone else duped into going in her place? Did she manage to disappear down one of those illicit passages just before the explosion? (One thing that nags at me is the mention of the man who rented a room near the square the night before- an accomplice? Uncle Mick?- see p. 236) If so, did she meet Bruno on the bombsite as promised? And, as we've already discussed, perhaps the ultimate 'illicit passage' was Gillie and Bruno's escape off the planet. These, of course, are musings about literal passages. In what ways is 'illicit passage' used symbolically? I'm also wondering about the significance/symbolism of the cape. Was insulating it with aluminum a convenience or part of Gillie's intricate schemes? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 18:28:21 -0800 From: Lee Anne Phillips Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU At 07:10 PM 2/21/02 +0000, Angela Barclay wrote: >I'm also wondering about the significance/symbolism of the cape. Was >insulating it with aluminum a convenience or part of Gillie's intricate >schemes? If we begin to believe that she *may* have escaped, then aluminum *might* be reflective enough to deflect a laser, although it would be iffy. Mirror shielding against lasers has a long history in SF, and has the advantage that it would actually work against most visible light (as opposed to X-Ray or other energetic wavelength) lasers. It does seem telling that no organic matter was left behind from her supposed body, since real lasers are not noted for Star Trek phaser-style total disintegration with appropriately sparkling special effects. Even against an X-Ray laser, aluminum would be of some protection, so this may be yet another level of subtlety in a subtle work. One might also wonder about the possibility that Gillie, a somewhat obscure Scots Gaelic reference to an attendant on the Chief of a clan, and Bruno refer in part to Lewis Carroll's Sylvie and Bruno, whose very first words are: "Less Bread! More Taxes!" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 23:43:04 -0500 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU At 07:10 PM 2/21/02 +0000, Angela Barclay wrote: >On. p. 236 it says a woman resembling her entered the square, was killed by >what most likely was a laser missile, but that visibility was not good and >"no organic matter from her body was recovered." This leads me to several >questions: Did Gillie, knowing she was going to die as a result of the >combination of drugs in her system, use the laser she had stolen earlier to >do herself in? Hi, Angela. I'm in the process of writing a longer message about *Illicit Passage* (I finished the book the other morning after an all-night reading session!), but I wanted to reply to this right away. I have my doubts about your theory that Gillie was drugged by Security. Why would all the testimony make such a big deal about her and Bruno *not* eating or drinking the offered "refreshment" if they actually did? I thought the background material on the drugs was important to the rest of the story (it was pertinent to the interrogation of Robert Border, Bruno's history of paloramine overdose, and perhaps the testimony of Gravement), but I don't think there was textual evidence that Gillie took any of the drugs. My interpretation of her recklessness near the end is that she had already planned her dramatic exit from Anastasia Union and felt the euphoria of someone who was calling it quits forever. Which isn't to say that I think she died. Dave mentioned the possibility that it was not Gillie but a robot that was blown up outside the Red Brick Lounge. That's my theory. We know Gillie had access to all kinds of storerooms. Just before her supposed death, Annette mentions that Gillie was "pottering about the basement" and poring over an instruction manual (p. 226). I think she abstracted a robot and was programming it to play its part in her great escape. As to why she wanted to escape... I think she knew that she had permanently blown her cover. No longer could she hide in New Town little suspected by the bigwigs. Dorman and Doll both had their eyes on her as did more ominous folk like Gravement and Rosenbery. She could never be sure that no one was out to kill her or worse yet recruit her for their cause! So she decided to leave and start anew somewhere else. >(One thing that nags at me is the mention of the man who rented a room >near the square the night before- an accomplice? Uncle Mick?) Wasn't the room rented by Robert Border, the guy with the missile launcher? ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Jory Nash -- One Way Down "I've built my white picket fence around the Now, with a commanding view of the Soon-to-Be." -- The Tick ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 15:01:03 -0700 From: Susan Hericks Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU JAnice wrote: I have my doubts about your theory that Gillie was drugged by Security. Why would all the testimony make such a big deal about her and Bruno *not* eating or drinking the offered "refreshment" if they actually did? I thought the background material on the drugs was important to the rest of the story (it was pertinent to the interrogation of Robert Border, Bruno's history of paloramine overdose, and perhaps the testimony of Gravement), but I don't think there was textual evidence that Gillie took any of the drugs. My interpretation of her recklessness near the end is that she had already planned her dramatic exit from Anastasia Union and felt the euphoria of someone who was calling it quits forever. Which isn't to say that I think she died. Dave mentioned the possibility that it was not Gillie but a robot that was blown up outside the Red Brick Lounge. That's my theory. I TOTALLY AGREE!! Susan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 22:44:27 -0500 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU I really enjoyed *Illicit Passage*. Like other people I found the book difficult at first. The profusion of documents and narrators was confusing and Annette was at her most annoying early on. As I read on, though, I became fascinated by the picture of Anastasia Union that was forming, the everyday details and very convincing bureaucratic effluvia of a isolated community under stress. And as the end approached the plot really came to the fore. The worsening conditions in New Town and Mangolia, the sudden quickening of the war and the protests, the spy-games and sabotage, all came to a climax at around the same time and were shown to interrelate in a plausible and compelling way. The denouement of Willing's investigation and Gillie's dramatic exit was, in a different fashion, just as gripping. I loved the review of the suspects on the council; it was almost like an Agatha Christie mystery, only better written. And it all ended with enough hope and ambiguity to keep me engaged. I almost want to read it again right away to see how many more references I can recognize knowing the whole story. Gillie is the enigma around whom the entire story revolves. Annette and some of the other narrators comment on Gillie's love of life and how everything she did was in pursuit of fun. But I suspect this isn't completely true. There's an awful lot of her time left unaccounted for. At the very beginning of the book we learn that she wrote the first two volumes of "A History of the War", of which this is the third. It's possible she had a ball doing it (after all, we don't know what's in them), but I doubt it. I think Gillie had a serious streak little suspected by most of her associates. In some ways she reminds me of Dorothy Dunnett's hero Francis Crawford of Lymond, who is also seen almost exclusively from the outside by people who take him for trivial, decadent or immoral, but who is really a masterful actor with a genius-level intellect and a heart of gold (more or less). By the end of the Lymond Chronicles the reader knows Lymond very well because certain viewpoint characters have figured him out; the same isn't true for Gillie. She spends a lot of time with the computers, yet none of the other characters (except Dorman and Doll near the end, when it's really too late) seem particularly interested in what she does with them, so we never get the details. In a way, I like the ambiguity, because it focuses the narrative on the wider story rather than the heroic exploits of a single character. But at the same time, I want to know more. Margaret wondered if Annette's cartoonish resentment of her sister and worship of authority figures might be a trick. I'm not sure. The publisher's note gives the impression that Annette was intimately involved with the editing and production of the entire book, not just her sections of it. If she were really so loyal to Security, how could she involve herself in a lawsuit against them? On the other hand, it seems plausible that all Annette really cared about was a bit of recognition and the possibility of getting ahead in the world, and she thought working on this book would do the trick. In her narrative she seems completely unaware of the contradictions in her own thought process, so it's possible she threw herself completely behind the book as a means of getting herself known without realizing that a reputation as a blinkered brown-nose might not be better than no reputation at all. In any case, I love the irony that, for all Annette's complaints about Gillie not listening to her point of view, that computer in the basement waited years for *her* input! And I can see why. When she's not insufferable, she can be very insightful, even poetic. Her reports of conversations and descriptions of life in New Town provide the concrete detail and human angle that many of the other materials lack. My favorite passage in the whole book may be her account (p. 193-199) of nesting in a pile of blankets with her mother and sickly Col, arguing and telling stories and finally wailing a mournful hymn, little knowing that the war has just ended. I love the fact that this book is about the experience of war "back home", and that the characters *aren't* all keeping stiff upper lips, thinking always of the war effort. Alice Nunn's speech gives great background on this approach: "My mother isn't usually one to question authority but I suspect, from her way of telling this story, that for once it may have entered her head that the war was being run by idiots." But these idiots can ruin the lives of others, and on a huge scale. The horror of Mangolia at the end was reminiscent of the holocaust. Elimination of undesirables. Secrecy. Mass graves. And the administration responsible for it all is the one Gillie helps to win the war! Of course, it's clear from Cuppard's memos that had they won the CCS might have been even worse. And OSET is far from coherent in its policies; by the end of the war the more oppressive elements are on their way out. But aren't the rest somewhat responsible for what happened? The situation is very complex, and I like how Nunn resists simplifying it, while still finding cause for hope. In that light, I'd like to respond to something Dave said: >Why does Gillie's out-of-left-field winning of the war by computer sleight >of hand lead to the whole society opening up, so that while it is still >unequal it becomes much more like Australia or America today -- >a place with much more equality of opportunity than before? Gillie won the war all right, but I don't think that was the single cause of the changes on Anastasia Union. There were a number of factors, among them the investigation of the Council, the protests led by Leeanne, the escape of several people (including Seamus) from Mangolia, and the blurring of the boundary between spid and nowt brought about by their common hardships and the "lax policies" of people like Parkes (and I do think he made a difference, even before the end of the war). That's one of the book's arguments, I think: that every large-scale cultural change is the product of multiple overlapping causes almost unpredictably reinforcing each other or cancelling each other out. Part of Gillie's genius is that she *can* predict better than just about anyone how things will turn out if she tweaks *here* and *here*... Thank Peep that loathsome types like Cuppard weren't as smart! I think I've said about enough for now, but I do have a few questions that some other people might be able to shed light on: * What happened to Rosenbery? * Where is Anastasia Union? On the moon? An asteroid? * The word "nowt" makes sense as a contraction of the words "New Town" and/or an echo of a dialectical form of the word "nothing". But where does the word "spid" come from? ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Jory Nash -- One Way Down "I've built my white picket fence around the Now, with a commanding view of the Soon-to-Be." -- The Tick ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 15:27:31 +0000 From: Angela Barclay Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU I'm finding that it's certainly more fun (and fruitful) figuring out a complex plot as a group than alone. I never picked up on the robot clues and didn't know about the aluminum-laser connection often made in SF. I don't know if I'm going to give up on my drug theory, however. I still wonder whether Gillie had used Paramethodone, the countermeasure which helps "guard undercover agents against giving themselves away (p. 217)." As Janice points out, she was very careful not to accept any food or drink from Security. This would prevent her from being exposed to "Aronathal" which kills the 'victim' at the same time as rendering Paramethodone useless. Admittedly, there was no way to test for the presence of P. in Gillie's system. Also, even though we are told over and over again she was able to 'get ahold of anything,' perhaps even Dorman, the official who seems to have her most figured her out, wouldn't likely have suspected it. Therefore, I am left wondering what is her fate, and return to her exchange with Dorman as she is released from the inquisition (p. 203): 'He'll be alright,' said Dorman. (referring to Bruno) She stood up. She said, 'But I won't. Will I?' 'You don't know what will happen?' he said, and they gazed at each other. 'No, but neither do any of you,' she said . . . And she laughed. Maybe the 'you' to whom she refers is the reader; maybe we're not supposed to figure out what happened to her. This way she remains an enigma. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 18:44:32 -0500 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU At 03:27 PM 2/23/02 +0000, Angela Barclay wrote: >I'm finding that it's certainly more fun (and fruitful) figuring out a >complex plot as a group than alone. I never picked up on the robot clues >and didn't know about the aluminum-laser connection often made in SF. In the interests of more fun debate , I wanted to follow up on this question of the cape. It's true that reflective surfaces can bend or deflect light, but it was my impression that the laser in question was a targeting device, not the weapon itself. The explosion in the square was powerful enough to demolish parts of several buildings; sounds more like a concussive blast (p. 236 mentions a "missile") than a more precise laser-only weapon. It's hard to imagine anyone surviving at ground-zero. So the cape might just have been a means of concealing the fact that it wasn't Gillie under there. >I don't know if I'm going to give up on my drug theory, however. I still >wonder whether Gillie had used Paramethodone, the countermeasure which helps >"guard undercover agents against giving themselves away (p. 217)." As >Janice points out, she was very careful not to accept any food or drink from >Security. This would prevent her from being exposed to "Aronathal" which >kills the 'victim' at the same time as rendering Paramethodone useless. If she was never dosed with Aronathal why would she be dying at the end of the book? And if she *was* dosed with Aronathal why would the security memos not mention it when they clearly stated that they had applied for and received clearance to use it on Robert Border? My interpretation of her refusing food and drink was that she didn't want to take *any* drugs if she could help it. And of course Bruno refused because it would be hazardous for him to take Paloramine again after his earlier long-term exposure. Security could have forced the situation (perhaps with injections), but for some reason they decided not to, at least not before Gillie was released. >maybe we're not supposed to figure out what happened to her. >This way she remains an enigma. And a subject of debate! I think you're absolutely right. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Jory Nash -- One Way Down "I've built my white picket fence around the Now, with a commanding view of the Soon-to-Be." -- The Tick ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 20:01:15 -0500 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Harking back to an earlier post... At 08:52 PM 2/5/02 -0700, Susan Hericks wrote: >I got somewhat bored with the denoument after the war ends. I >actually started skipping, particularly the long section on the interviews >of the council members and the conjectures on who was the mole. Perhaps as a >result, I never figured out who it was. Does it ever say? I am still not sure! It was either Gravement or Rosenbery, not both, but there's evidence against each of them. Gravement accepted "refreshment" before his interview (so he received a dose of Paloramine), yet his testimony was suspiciously brief and unrevealing. He may have taken the countermeasure drug. It says on p. 242 that the "chief suspect" had a liaison with Rouseau. I thought this pointed toward Rosenbery, who took no Paloramine before his interview. But further down the page it says that Dorman then picked up Gravement, who reportedly suffered a heart attack on the way to Security. Maybe he had some poison capsules like the ones Robert Border carried? The fate of Rosenbery is never stated, as far as I know. Dierdre St John-Sightly mentions that *something* happened to him, but she doesn't say what. Frustrating! With what little I've been able to put together, I tend toward the theory that Gravement was the CCS agent, but Rosenbery was responsible for the death of Rouseau, whom he really seemed to hate. Does anyone else have ideas about this? This book is truly a puzzle. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Jory Nash -- One Way Down "I've built my white picket fence around the Now, with a commanding view of the Soon-to-Be." -- The Tick ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 12:01:17 +0100 From: Diane Severson Subject: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU I finally finished reading the book and I'm disappointed that I missed most of the interesting debate. Just like everyone else, I found it difficult to get into. I also found it almost unbearably depressing most of the way through. Of course, the descriptions of Gillie's escapades were good to lighten things up, but otherwise... I found there to be a little too much after the climax. But I kept reading because I hoped for a few clues to unravel some of the mystery. She did tie up a few loose ends. Which is all not to say that I didn't enjoy the book. Quite the contrary. And reading all your comments is making me want to read it again right away in order to pick up on more references... but I probably won't! I think Gillie escaped together with Bruno. I figured that she must have worked it out so that it looked like she was killed but that the 2 of them were the couple who displaced the friend and companion of Mrs St. John-Sightly. Wasn't Litza actually the one who called Bruno to set up the meeting? She said something about coming disguised as a nowt wearing one of those cloaks. I was expecting there to be some reference that she was killed or disappeared or something but if there was, I missed it. I thought it would be just like Gillie to take advantage of Litza making a date with Bruno, making sure that everyone thought she was going to meet with Bruno instead and then arrange for her "double" (in the form of Litza) to get killed. But maybe I'm confused. On 24 Feb 2002, at 20:01, Janice E. Dawley wrote: > At 08:52 PM 2/5/02 -0700, Susan Hericks wrote: > >I got somewhat bored with the denoument after the war ends. I > >actually started skipping, particularly the long section on the > >interviews of the council members and the conjectures on who was > >the mole. Perhaps as a result, I never figured out who it was. > >Does it ever say? > > I am still not sure! It was either Gravement or Rosenbery, not both, but > there's evidence against each of them. I think it was Rosenbery. More or less because he said he had a relationship with Rousseau, but I don't remember why that was significant to the identification of the spy. > It says on p. 242 that the "chief suspect" had a liaison with > Rouseau. I thought this pointed toward Rosenbery, who took no > Paloramine before his interview. Oh thank you! > The fate of Rosenbery is never stated, as far as I know. Dierdre St > John-Sightly mentions that *something* happened to him, but she > doesn't say what. Frustrating! I thought he did die. Didn't she attend his funeral or say that they didn't have a funeral, which was funny considering his position? Or was that Gravement. Oh, dear. I think I'm too tired to think about all this. > This book is truly a puzzle. Indeed. Diane Currently Reading: Their Eyes Were Watching God. Recently read: Illicit Passage, Alice Nunn 4/5; Siddharta, Hermann Hesse (deutsch), 4.75/5; The Masterharper of Pern, A. McCaffrey, 3.5/5; The Dolphins of Pern, A. M., 3.5/5; A Woman's Liberation, ed. Connie Willis, 3.5/5; The Fellowship of the Ring, JRR Tolkien 4.3/5; ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 10:30:14 -0500 From: Dave Belden Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG Reminder -- March Discussion To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In response to Janice's invitation to make last comments on Illicit Passage, I want to express my own mixed feelings about the discussion. I enjoyed it a lot, and learned much from it. But I felt that what energized people most were the 'what really happened' questions. I was disappointed that more people didn't want to discuss the two issues that interested me the most, and that I wrote about (at length!) in my own post early on in the discussion: one is the whole question of Nunn's politics, and the other the way she wrote of Gillie as a kind of secular saint. The first issue bears on so much today - Leeanne's revolutionary politics bear on globalization and the opposition to it, how far that opposition is revolutionary and anti-capitalist, and how far socialism is still a viable and live option; the way the story is told from the women's perspective bears on how feminism and women's experience alter and inform political responses to inequality, poverty, war. I thought Nunn very interesting in appreciating the grass roots revolutionary impulse, while actually endorsing something quite different: Gillie's approach really takes a lot of thinking about, and I don't understand it all - I need help working that out much more than I need help working out the plot (tricky though that is). Gillie mixes complete irreverence, and a total embrace of joy and of life, with embrace of technology, and an ability to connect with 'the enemy'. The story as a whole promises that social reform is possible and people at all levels of society can come together for the common good. Is this social democracy, middle of the road free market capitalism, with a kind of working class feminist Dionysian gloss on it, or is it something more than that? How you write about larger-than-life characters is my other question: Gillie is mysterious, and becomes more so by Nunn's technique of only showing her through others' reports. Individuals who strike their contemporaries and friends as truly extraordinary provide a great challenge to writers. Modern biography tends to like bringing people down to size. Hagiography is out of style. Even Mother Teresa has Chris Hitchens' amazing and somewhat convincing hatchet job on her, (The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice). If Nunn had tried to write even part of the story from Gillie's point of view, would she have destroyed that aura of almost magical power she had and so made it less believable that she won the war single handed, escaped (probably) with her life, attracted many men (to her sister's annoyance), stayed friends with a revolutionary like Leeanne, etc.? These are the things I would have liked to discuss more even than whether Gillie survives at the end of the book, or what drugs she did or did not take. Any of this resonate with anyone out there? Dave Dave Belden web page: www.davidbelden.com > -----Original Message----- > From: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC > [mailto:feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU]On Behalf Of Janice E. Dawley > Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 4:46 PM > To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU > Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG Reminder -- March Discussion > > And if any of you have further comments on *Illicit Passage*, > feel free to share them into the coming month. There's no reason > discussions can't overlap. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 23:26:21 +0100 From: Diane Severson Subject: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage - was BDG Reminder To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Dave, Thanks for bringing this up again! I so wanted to respond to your Gillie/secular saint theory/question, but I barely managed to finish the book more or less in time to take part in the discussion and I still felt I'd missed the boat and didn't have time to really give your ideas some thought. It was easier to talk about the "what happened anyway?" than to get into a real discussion. Sorry. But enough excuses. And at the risk of disappointing you again, I'm going to have to get back to you on this. I will re-read your earlier post and attempt to respond. However, I must warn you that I am no literary scholar, nor am I particularly adept at this sort of discussion. But I will try, because your ideas in particular really did resonate with me! Diane On 4 Mar 2002, at 10:30, Dave Belden wrote: > In response to Janice's invitation to make last comments on Illicit > Passage, I want to express my own mixed feelings about the > discussion. I enjoyed it a lot, and learned much from it. But I felt > that what energized people most were the 'what really happened' > questions. I was disappointed that more people didn't want to > discuss the two issues that interested me the most, and that I wrote > about (at length!) in my own post early on in the discussion: one is > the whole question of Nunn's politics, and the other the way she > wrote of Gillie as a kind of secular saint. Currently Reading: Chocolat, Joanne Harris Recently read: Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston 4.5/5 Illicit Passage, Alice Nunn 4/5; Siddharta, Hermann Hesse (deutsch), 4.75/5; The Masterharper of Pern, A. McCaffrey, 3.5/5; The Dolphins of Pern, A. M., 3.5/5; A Woman's Liberation, ed. Connie Willis, 3.5/5; The Fellowship of the Ring, JRR Tolkien 4.3/5; ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 18:36:40 -0500 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Illicit Passage (was BDG Reminder) To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU At 10:30 AM 3/4/02 -0500, Dave Belden wrote: >Re: the whole question of Nunn's politics Gillie >mixes complete irreverence, and a total embrace of joy and of life, with >embrace of technology, and an ability to connect with 'the enemy'. The story >as a whole promises that social reform is possible and people at all levels >of society can come together for the common good. Is this social democracy, >middle of the road free market capitalism, with a kind of working class >feminist Dionysian gloss on it, or is it something more than that? What would "more" be? I guess I am a little confused by your drive to pin down exactly what Gillie stands for in a political sense. The book's approach to Leanne's revolutionary movement and particularly the boring new political newspaper the men begin publishing when they get back after the war seems to indicate a reluctance to be categorized politically, an avoidance of labels that too often become straitjackets. I thought Gillie's final departure was as much an escape from political definition by Parkes, Doll, etc. as it was from possible murder plots. Given her druthers, I think she would have avoided winning the war the way she did because it attracted too much attention to herself. But the death of her brother Seamus forced her hand -- it was just too horrible. All that aside, if I were to slap a label on Gillie I would probably call her an anarchist. She might tell me to buzz off, though. >Re: Gillie as a kind of secular saint >If Nunn had tried to write even part of the story from >Gillie's point of view, would she have destroyed that aura of almost magical >power she had and so made it less believable that she won the war single >handed, escaped (probably) with her life, attracted many men (to her >sister's annoyance), stayed friends with a revolutionary like Leeanne, etc.? I didn't find these accomplishments so very magical. Part of the point of all the interoffice communication in the book was to show us how inefficient the station's bureaucracy was and how easy it was for the nowts to hide their activities in plain sight. Gillie was certainly talented, but if the administration hadn't been at such cross-purposes she would have been much less successful. Her ability to attract people and become friends with them was made much of by several narrators, but once again I didn't find it so very out of the ordinary that it was miraculous. It need not have diminished Gillie's heroism to include some direct testimony from the woman herself; she was quoted so many times by other people that I feel I know her voice already. Now, it might have added another interesting layer to the novel to have her private voice be substantially different from her public one, but as I have said before I think this would have focused the book even more on her individual accomplishments and character and lessened the emphasis on the complex web of interactions that drove events. Gillie actions were heroic, but I don't see her as a saint (even a secular one). -- Janice ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 15:51:16 -0500 From: Dave Belden Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Illicit Passage (was BDG Reminder) To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Well, I guess I got my answer: most others didn't see it the way I did. I come from a somewhat cult-like religious background where the politics were a curious mixture of elements; then I spent many years in feminist leftwing communes, considering myself more anarchist than socialist; and am struggling now with my politics as I lead a more ordinary life as parent and worker, and have come to appreciate more of what is good about our society. I read more into Nunn's views than anarchism: more someone using anarchist/socialist ideas, but moving towards a more reformist vision, and employing interesting hints of religiosity. Projection on my part? Enough said. On with Sheri Tepper. Dave web page: www.davidbelden.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 22:57:05 +0100 From: Diane Severson Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In-Reply-To: Dave and Janice (and anyone else still interested), I really like Dave's idea of Gillie as a secular saint. And in your email you make a very good case for it! I have to admit that it never would've occured to me that one could think of her in that way. But the points you make made me think, yeah! I can see that! People are made saints after they have died and they must have performed a certain number of miracles. Obviously, Gillie wasn't doing anything for the glory of God, but I think that many of the things that she did, through her ability with computers, seem like miracles. At least many of the miracles which real saints have supposedly performed are no less explainable. We can't really decided if she died or not, but the other characters in the book are convinced she did, and died heroically as far as many people are concerned. As far as her voice is concerned, I think that one is in fact led to believe that you've heard her voice. But it's always her sister who quotes her directly. It's still just a filter and who can know what Gillie *actually* said in those situations? If I remember correctly, it was only Gillie's sister who quoted her directly. It would have been interesting to hear other characters quote her, kind of like the Gospels?!? Sorry, Dave, for so little so late! DIane > 6) Gillie is a saint. A larger-than-life role model of virtually > superhuman power. Currently Reading: The Dispossessed, U. Le Guin Recently read: Chocolat, Joanne Harris 3/5 Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston 4.5/5 Illicit Passage, Alice Nunn 4/5; Siddharta, Hermann Hesse (deutsch), 4.75/5; The Masterharper of Pern, A. McCaffrey, 3.5/5; The Dolphins of Pern, A. M., 3.5/5; A Woman's Liberation, ed. Connie Willis, 3.5/5; ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 21:00:01 +0000 From: Angela Barclay Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU I think your notion that Gillie became a saint (or martyr) is a distinct possibility. It struck me that Gillie *Wardale's* entire raison d'etre was the war and when it appeared she had (virtually singlehandely) won it, she needed to move on- to another life, or another world. Angela, who is definitely still interested ---------- >From: Diane > >Dave and Janice (and anyone else still interested), > >I really like Dave's idea of Gillie as a secular saint. And in your >email you make a very good case for it! I have to admit that it >never would've occured to me that one could think of her in that >way. But the points you make made me think, yeah! I can see >that! People are made saints after they have died and they must >have performed a certain number of miracles. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 05:29:36 -0500 From: Dave Belden Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In-Reply-To: <20020314035009.XXOB9959.priv-edtnes12-hme0.telusplanet.net@[161.184.53.161]> I'm glad I wasn't alone in this after all. I didn't mean exactly that she 'became a saint' as that Nunn wrote about her in rather the same way that people have written about saints. I wondered if that was in her mind as she wrote. Dave Latest publication: article on globalization on www.opendemocracy.net