Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 23:08:32 +0200 From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG Nekropolis To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU The BDG selection for April is Nekropolis by Maureen McHugh. I'm not finished yet, but some questions to kick-off the discussion: Did you like the novel and if yes, why? The "houses of the dead" gave the novel its name. What do you think of the novel name and the place? What do you think of the placement of the novel in a future Morocco? Why was it done? What's your perspective on jessing? Did you understand why Hariba or others did it? On the cover Cleveland Plain Dealer is quoted with "A literary novel in sci-fi clothing". Do you agree? What does it make literary? The book offers itself to a paired reading to (with?) _The Silver Metal Lover_ by Tanith Lee, the BDG book two months ago. How do the two books compare in your view? The "I" perspective? Hariba compared to Jane, Silver compared to Akhmim? The plot parallels between _Silver Metal Lover_ and _Nekropolis_ are not by chance, as the following posting to a news group by Maureen McHugh shows (many thanks to Janice Dawley for pointing me to this and also to the following chat transcript): ***************** Von:Maureen McHugh (mcq@en.com) Betrifft:Re: Bad Books That Make You Think Newsgroups:rec.arts.sf.written Datum:1999/03/04 I don't know that I could say it was a _bad_ book, but I wrote a story (which is on it's way to becoming a novel) called "Nekropolis" in response to a novel by Tanith Lee called _The Silver Metal Lover_. _The Silver Metal Lover_ is a science fictional romance where a passive rich girl who is under her mother's thumb acquires an android (the silver metal lover of the title) with whom she becomes romantically involved. When the authorities decide that there is a problem with the androids, th girl and the android are forced to run away, and in the course of their relationship, the girl finds self-actualization through her relationship with the perfect lover. While the book is hardly about any one thing, I think that there is a kind of girl wish-fullfillment about finding the right guy and he will solve all your problems for you. Relationships are seen as meeting someone's needs. I think the relationship with someone who met all your emotional needs would be disastrous for your character. I think it would reduce empathy and encourage selfishness. Of course, the novel I'm writing has taken on an agenda all its own, so I'm no longer sure what it is about, but it started out of that impetus. Maureen F. McHugh ***************** And similarly, a Scifi chat with McHugh (http://www.scifi.com/transcripts/1998/MaureenMcHugh.html) (I cut out all the non-related stuff): ****************** Maureen: Greg, the novel in progress is stalled at the moment, but it's called Nekropolis, and it part of it has also been published in short form -- in ASIMOV'S I might point out--under that title. Maureen: I started writing it in reaction to a novel by Tanith Lee called THE SILVER METAL LOVER which has, I think, a persistent and pernicious myth at the heart of it. GardnerD: Which is? Maureen: The persistent and pernicious myth is the myth of the perfect guy and how if a woman could just find the right guy, everything would be great. Maureen: She would be self-actualized, lose weight, become beautiful, have an interesting life and be happy. GardnerD: Guys have this disease too, although perhaps in less virulent form. Maureen: I actually think that the perfect lover, the one who met all my needs, would be a viscious thing. Maureen: Unfortunately, when I was writing my short story rebuttal on this point, I realized that I was 17,000 words into this short story and hadn't gotten t the point yet. Maureen: Besides, if I got a perfect lover I would have a free rein to be a self-absorbed whining bitch. donnaneel: yes but who is ever happy with reality GardnerD: TThe surprise comes from the fact that they do things you DON'T want occasionally. Otherwise, it would be like making love to a mirror. Maureen: They take you out of yourself. They make you grow up sometimes. ******************* Comments? Petra -- Petra Mayerhofer p.mayerhofer@web.de www.feministische-sf.de --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.459 / Virus Database: 258 - Release Date: 25.02.2003 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 11:07:10 +0200 From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: [*FSF-L*] Fwd: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG Nekropolis To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU I have to change the "reply-to" option of my email account. Too many emails go just to me. By the way, I'm traveling at the moment and will not post on Nekropolis again before the middle of next week. Petra ################ sharon Anderson schrieb am 14.04.03 08:51:17: On 4/8/03 9:08 PM, "Petra Mayerhofer" wrote: > The BDG selection for April is Nekropolis by Maureen McHugh. I'm not > finished yet, but some questions to kick-off the discussion: I am sorry I will be leaving on a trip tomorrow I have looked forward to this discussion. > Did you like the novel and if yes, why? Yes. I like most of McHugh's stuff. One of the things I liked best was that the p,o,v. Switched. The "I" would be complaining about someone and then suddenly you would hear that person speak for herself. > The "houses of the dead" gave the novel its name. What do you think of the > novel name and the place? It did not seem strange that the poor should live where no one else will. They always have. > What do you think of the placement of the novel in a future Morocco? Why was > it done? Right away, there is the feeling that cultural values are different. I believe it is acceptable in Islamic culture to make things beautiful and elaborate and intricately patterned. As long as you do not make it represent a real, live thing. That is the difference between "acceptable" and not. I felt very sad that at the end Hariba thought she was no longer "fit" for marriage. It brought home the fact that her values were still traditional ones, despite all her revolutionary actions, and how hard it is to let go of tradition. Yet, it was a positive ending, I think. She did start to change, to acclimatize. > What's your perspective on jessing? Did you understand why Hariba or others > did it? Slavery is still slavery, whether you sign your rights away for seven years, or are brought to a strange country in chains. Naturally, if you see slavery as your only option, you would want to make it as palatable as possible. At least, I would. ---s ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 19:38:18 -0500 From: Pamela Taylor Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Fwd: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG Nekropolis To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU Hi everybody, " wrote: > > Did you like the novel and if yes, why? Yes, I liked it. It was an easy read, the style was very straightforward and simple, the pacing was good. However, it struck me more as a precis for a book rather than a completed book. There were lots of instances where I felt like more detail would have been useful and interesting. For instance, I often found myself wanting more introspection on the part of Hariba. And the part about the harni longing so badly for one another's physical touch made no sense at all to me -- I wanted some genetic explanation, or a psychological one, rather than mere assertion that this is the way it was. I think this is typical of Maureen. In Mission Child, the main character (whose name I've forgotten) is injected with a virus that changes her sexuality -- there is no explanation really of how that happens, or what it does to change it -- we are just told it does. Similarly here, we are simply told that Harni long for one another's skin in a overpowering, yet platonic, urge. Why, what genes would result in that, or what hormones, or what training? And the whole historical context is extremely vague. How did the government get so repressive? Where did this second Koran come from? (more on this later) If we are currently experiencing this flood away from the countryside into the cities, is it reasonable to expect that they are still experiencing it some 400 years from now? Although I was willing to suspend my disbelief, the lack of this kind of detail was distracting, and in the final analysis weakened the book considerably. Also, the ending was way rushed!! I really needed more explanation of how the harni survived without the person they had impressed on. If being with that person was not enough, would being with other harni be enough? Seems unlikely. And what about Hariba? She had become quite dependant upon Akhmim, they were in love. All that was just swept under the table. I really felt that McHugh really didn't do justice to the psychological implications, and the emotional entanglement of the two. It was as though she had gotten them out of Morocco to a place where their rights were being established and so the book had to be wrapped up. Sort of like a tv show that has to get the problem solved in an hour. > > The "houses of the dead" gave the novel its name. What do you think of > > the novel name and the place? > > What do you think of the placement of the novel in a future Morocco? Why > > was it done? It seemed to me that it was convenient for the author to set the book in Morocco because most of the readership probably knows no more about Morocco than the author says she does in the introduction. And it is believable that the government would be very repressive. But it seemed to me that it would have worked just as well, and perhaps better, in a South or Central American country. There were some elements of Islamic culture, but they were very superficial, surface elements. They dressed a certain way, they followed a form a segregation that is similar to what is practiced in some countries, they didn't drink alcohol or eat pork, there is some mention of prayers, but religion and/or spirituality plays very little role in their daily lives. It struck me very much as a NewsWeek understanding of Islam and Muslims. Also I found the Islamic context to be rather inconsistent -- for instance there is referral to the dressing, to the fact that her brother had this affair ruining Hariba's marital prospects, to not walking alone with or meeting a man in the marketplace, and yet there are casual references to so-and-so zooming past on her boyfriend's motorbike! Huh? Again, this sounds more appropriate for some of the South American cultures, where dating is common, but you'd better be a virgin on wedding night. Also, I was highly skeptical of the Second Koran. The idea of a Second Koran is so totally antithetical to the basic theology of Islam (of which there are two fundamental required beliefs, one that there is only 1 God and two that Prophet Muhammad was the final prophet). I really needed some explanation of how that came to be and how the general populace of Morocco came to accept it. Currently, in some countries, people who say things like, Prophet Muhammad's marriage to his first wife was not according to Islam (it happened before he started receiving revelation, so it couldn't possibly have been according to Islamic law) are being sentenced to death for heresy, so the notion that someone could come along claiming to be a new prophet and find any acceptance in the Muslim world is a pretty big leap. Of course, it's probably easier (or more acceptable to her readership) for an author to posit a second koran than a second bible, I could see a third testament from the second coming of Jesus being possible. Would offend lots of people, and probably not very many Muslims are reading Nekropolis to challenge the notion of a second koran (or at least a lot fewer than Christians who would be offended by the notion of a second bible), so a second koran is easier for the author. Also it's a lot easier than trying to posit the negative aspects of the culture on the Qur'an. That would be pretty offensive and require a lot of careful research. As for the houses of the dead... this also struck me as something that would work better in another country/culture. The burial customs of muslims are very simple -- body wrapped in a shroud and popped into the ground on its side. Until very recently the grave would have been unmarked, and today small stones flat in the ground are about all the average person does. So where did this tradition of mausoleums come from? Perhaps from shrines to saints? But are there whole acres of saint's shrines? I don't think so. Once again, it made me think of an European/American culture rather than an Islamic one. I guess the sum of all this is that the culture really wasn't that important -- it was just a convenient cardboard background for the real story which was the forbidden love story between Hariba and the Harni. Of course, the idea that the living were residing in houses of the dead seems to be a fairly obvious allusion to the fact that they weren't really alive -- they were just surviving, not thriving, not about to enjoy life. > > What's your perspective on jessing? Did you understand why Hariba or > > others did it? I think Hariba did it because she had no idea what she was doing. She thought it would take her sadness and loneliness away, which of course, it didn't. It just took her will away. (Another technical explanation that was missing was how the jessing worked -- what changes it made in the brain or what electrical signals it sent or blocked or what hormones did it trigger, etc, etc) The whole idea of jessing was hard to accept as a voluntary thing. I could imagine people selling their children or selves into a jessed arrangement for economic reasons, but as an escape? Didn't sound likely. Seems like people would have known more than Hariba did about what happened to jessed people, what they felt, how their lives did and did not change. Even if it was just gossip. In fact, seems like the gossip would put jessing down as a horrific thing -- to be mentally a slave to someone, not just physically! Ug. The book, up until the very end, is very neutral about the phenomena of jessing, and also about harni. The spaniards are unhappy about them, but still there is no real delving into the philosophical issues surrounding slavery and/or indenture. It's just presented as a situation. I think of Octavia Butler's Kindred and how much more insightful that book is on slavery and the relationship between owned and owner. So, even though I liked it, I felt like it was a pretty fluffy book, with some pretty serious flaws. Still, I would recommend it to people. Pamela ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 13:24:32 -0400 From: Gwen Veazey Subject: [*FSF-L*] Nekropolis To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU I liked _Nekropolis_ because of the careful writing, appealing characters, and probably, the romance, or pseudo-romance. Yes, it seemed literary. Is the Cleveland Plain Dealer saying there is a dichotomy between "literary fiction" and sf/f? My perception is that all novels, sf/f included, fall somewhere on a continuum between literary and not- so- literary. Margaret Atwood at one end with _Star Wars_ books at the other. Lots of novels in the middle. Many good reads! The minimalist story-telling of _Nekropolis_ did not bother me. Nor did the first-person POV used by different characters, since McHugh managed to keep it from being too confusing. Sf writers (maybe more than others) seem required to walk a fine line between too much exposition and not enough. Re: Akhmim not being well-explained: I’ve loaned the book, so apologize if this is not an accurate reference, but I’m remembering a statement that Akhmim’s genes were similar to a human’s in the way a chimpanzee’s genes are almost identical, yet what a difference. His behavior seemed clear enough IMHO. I accepted the appeal of "jessing" for some people, the idea of being taken care of forever. Re: Pamela’s Second Qu’ran/ Second Bible comments: Very thought provoking. Maybe the story would have been more convincing if Hariba’s faith were presented as only a small sect, not the main establishment religion. My only complaint about this wonderful, intriguing novel is that the ending was too fairy-tale. Or would a country hundreds of years from now really be that benevolent and generous with immigration/social services? (I know very little about Spain, I confess.) I know the US is not so benevolent. Only recently have we begrudgingly allowed official refugee status to genitally mutilated women or those in danger of undergoing this torture. It’s my understanding that it’s still very hard and expensive for them to come here. Maybe Spain is being presented as a quasi-utopia? I suppose I should be heartened, not critical, in that case. Note: I have read that due to the population explosion in Egypt, Cairo’s cemeteries/mausoleums were taken over by homeless people seeking shelter. Perhaps this also has happened in Morocco. Pamela, perhaps wealthier Muslims do have mausoleums? Re: Comparison to _Silver Metal Lover_: Thanks to Petra and Janice for the author’s comments on Tanith Lee’s novel. Lee’s AI character, Silver, seemed better suited than a harni as a "slave" lover because the harni were living creatures with needs of their own. (Or were we supposed to think this about Silver also?) A thoughtful person would feel less comfortable, I think, exploiting harni. _Nekropolis_ has been one of my favorites, so far. Best, Gwen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 22:11:00 -0700 From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG Nekropolis To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU Sorry to wait until the last minute to chime in on this one. At 02:08 PM 4/8/2003, Petra wrote: >Did you like the novel and if yes, why? Not nearly as much as I wanted to like it. I liked China Mountain Zhang and to a lesser extent Half the Day. I haven't yet read Mission Child though it's on my list. This book seemed much more superficial though I'm not sure how. It seemed like there was less exploration of what the world was like, fewer interesting details to make it real. We had to settle for whatever the current character was interested in. There was also very little action, so the characters had to carry the whole story. For the most part they did. >The "houses of the dead" gave the novel its name. What do you think of the >novel name and the place? I thought she could have done more with this. It was an interesting setting, but I'm struggling with how it might have been a metaphor for the rest of the book. I guess I need to be hit over the head with this kind of stuff. >What do you think of the placement of the novel in a future Morocco? Why was >it done? In these days, like using Islamic culture to portray a repressive society complete with slavery seems like a cheap shot. I didn't read Terrorists of Irustan - how did it compare to that? >What's your perspective on jessing? Did you understand why Hariba or others >did it? No. I didn't get why she would just throw her life away when her brother was disgraced. On the other hand, how different was it from a life of service, only without satisfaction or protection? The way McHugh portrayed the Nekropolis society, it didn't seem like an unreasonable choice. Still, all the other characters thought it was unreasonable and vaguely shameful. >On the cover Cleveland Plain Dealer is quoted with "A literary novel in >sci-fi clothing". Do you agree? What does it make literary? Perhaps the lack of action? >The book offers itself to a paired reading to (with?) _The Silver Metal >Lover_ by Tanith Lee, the BDG book two months ago. >How do the two books compare in your view? The "I" perspective? Hariba >compared to Jane, Silver compared to Akhmim? I certainly liked Nekropolis better than SML. At least in this one we get to hear the viewpoints of other characters besides the whiny lovesick girl. I liked the mother's section the best. She was cranky and unreasonable, and not ashamed of it. Actually the part I liked least was the cousin's, Ayesha. No, the part I liked the least was the ending, once they arrived in Spain. Trying to avoid spoilers, I think Silver's fate was more appropriate for this kind of story. Trying to have Hariba somehow let go of Akhmim the way she did was not believable. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 22:22:42 -0700 From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Fwd: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG Nekropolis To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU At 05:38 PM 4/17/2003, Pamela wrote: >Yes, I liked it. It was an easy read, the style was very straightforward >and simple, the pacing was good. However, it struck me more as a precis for >a book rather than a completed book. There were lots of instances where I >felt like more detail would have been useful and interesting. For instance, >I often found myself wanting more introspection on the part of Hariba. Exactly. It felt like a short story that wanted to be a novel, only in novel length. I would have been happy with less happening, but more density. Actually, wanting more introspection from Hariba (I did too) is another similarity with Silver Metal Lover. Hariba was less self-indulgent but equally shallow. >And >the part about the harni longing so badly for one another's physical touch >made no sense at all to me -- I wanted some genetic explanation, or a >psychological one, rather than mere assertion that this is the way it was. >I think this is typical of Maureen. In Mission Child, the main character >(whose name I've forgotten) is injected wth a virus that changes her >sexuality -- there is no explanation really of how that happens, or what it >does to change it -- we are just told it does. Similarly here, we are >simply told that Harni long for one another's skin in a overpowering, yet >platonic, urge. Why, what genes would result in that, or what hormones, or >what training? Yes, I would have liked more exploration of the harni. I didn't buy that they were actually different, just raised differently. In that sense it reminded me of Halfway Human - the harni were raised to believe they were different, so they were. That seems a much simpler explanation than their being somehow genetically engineered. >Also, the ending was way rushed!! I really needed more explanation of how >the harni survived without the person they had impressed on. If being with >that person was not enough, would being with other harni be enough? Seems >unlikely. Actually I believed that being with other harni would be enough. And this is even more evidence to support that the harni were actually human, since he learned to adapt once the social reinforcements were reduced. >And what about Hariba? She had become quite dependant upon >Akhmim, they were in love. All that was just swept under the table. I >really felt that McHugh really didn't do justice to the psychological >implications, and the emotional entanglement of the two. It was as though >she had gotten them out of Morocco to a place where their rights were being >established and so the book had to be wrapped up. Sort of like a tv show >that has to get the problem solved in an hour. That's a good way to describe it. I would have been much happier if they had been caught, or if the book just ended when they got on the boat. It seemed like we were reading a different book. -snip- >The book, up until the very end, is very neutral about the phenomena of >jessing, and also about harni. The spaniards are unhappy about them, but >still there is no real delving into the philosophical issues surrounding >slavery and/or indenture. It's just presented as a situation. I think of >Octavia Butler's Kindred and how much more insightful that book is on >slavery and the relationship between owned and owner. This is a very good point. If McHugh wanted to explore the idea of jessing, and slavery in general, I don't feel she succeeded. In the interview that Petra posted, she said she started out to write a response to SML but it turned into more than that, or rather it got out of control. I would like to have read a version of Nekropolis where she started out to write it, rather than something else. Jennifer ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 23:26:45 +0100 From: Heather Stark Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG Nekropolis To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU Just a quickly quickly top-up before the nekropolis topic expires... Nekropolis was a very silly price indeed at forbidden planet (a major London sci fi bookstore), reflecting the silly price of the US edition they had imported. Unfortunately I had just splashed out on an delightful but expensive exhibition catalogue from the Kazari exhibition, at the British Musuem, just 20 minutes before, so the Nekropolis price gave me a really bad case of sticker shock and prospective guilt. So, feeling already moderately guilty about the exhibition catalogue, I decided to stand there in the basement of the bookshop and flip through nekropolis instead of buying it. Of course, typically, what this would mean is: I would buy it. Just as soon as I had read enough and flipped around enough to dissipate enough uncertainty to reduce my prospective purchase guilt to a manageable level. So I flipped around, dissipating prospective guilt as fast as I could, trying to look as much a part of the local ecosystem as possible. Usually I'm in and out of there with my little bag of goodies, before someone in authority spots that I am not a male teenager wearing a black 'fantasy art' t-shirt, and kicks me out. But I lingered. And flipped. And tried to dissipate guilt. And..I didn't buy it. I almost - really - wanted to. But not.. quite.... enough. So what? So...then I waited for BDG to burst into action, and tell me what I was missing. And after a suitable period of pretending I wouldn't, I would get down to forbidden planet and take my plastic out for a little ride on their click clack machine. Interestingly, this hasn't happened. My plastic card is unclicked. And I am sorry. I really like Maureen McHugh and was so much looking forward to this new book, and the BDG discussion. And yet here I am without the book. And BDG discussion, although thought provoking, has definitely not inspired me to rush out and catch up at the next suitable budgetary opportunity. I did get a good chuckle out of Jennifer Kraul's, comment (Sent: 29 April 2003 06:11), on our intro from Petra, >>On the cover Cleveland Plain Dealer is quoted with "A literary novel in >>sci-fi clothing". Do you agree? What does it make literary? > >Perhaps the lack of action? Yes, indeed. And yet it also had a kind of quality which I recognize from Philip Pullman's 'Dark Materials'. I am glad Dave Belden brought that up, as it seems to form the missing link in my thinking. (Thanks, Dave.) Philip Pullman's heroine is indeed another matter, though. But what is similar, in terms of style, is a kind of childlike sparsity, which is at the same time very mature. I look forward to what Maureen McHugh writes next. She is one of my favourite authors. Perhaps when my purse strings unpurse I will be able to comment further, to better end. cheers, Heather ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 16:05:18 -0700 From: eva sourpuss Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG Nekropolis To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU Quoting Heather Stark : > I really like Maureen McHugh and was so much looking > forward to this new book, and the BDG discussion. And yet here I am > without the book. And BDG discussion, although thought provoking, has > definitely not inspired me to rush out and catch up at the next > suitable budgetary opportunity. hmm. nekropolis and silver metal lover are two of the very few books i've actually read in time for the BDG. after all that reading time put in, i'm sorry i haven't done much to stimulate discussion! but i enjoyed nekropolis--so much that i even went and bought the hardcover after reading my library copy. (so, here's one vote for unclicking that plastic.) i thought the characterization was amazing and i was totally convinced by mchugh's minimalist approach to world-building. she did leave a lot to the imagination, but she sketched out enough about the society to provide context for the characters. i especially liked reading this back-to-back with SML. it was very clear how mchugh was trying to address certain problems that she saw in SML, and she did it very deftly. jennifer krauel commented: > No, the part I liked the least was the ending, once > they arrived in Spain. Trying to avoid spoilers, I think Silver's fate > was more appropriate for this kind of story. Trying to have Hariba somehow > let go of Akhmim the way she did was not believeable. i thought that part was very realistic and true to the anti-fairy-tale premise of the story. she wasn't confident about leaving him; she did it because she realized that their love wasn't enough to prevent them from being miserable, that it perhaps hadn't ever been "real" love, and it couldn't survive in the face of the society they'd entered. the way that mchugh depicted the sad petering out of their relationship, and hariba's bleak ambivalence about the "liberated" but unfamiliar and lonely life she had chosen, was much more convincing to me than the dramatically ecstatic ending of SML. in fact i thought mchugh did a lovely & subtle job of dealing with cultural relativism and freedom in general. -> eva -- http://mrow.net/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 19:31:55 -0400 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Nekropolis To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU I first read *Nekropolis* soon after it came out in hardcover. It was unsatisfying to me, but I wasn't sure quite why, so I've been happy to read some other people's thoughts about it in this discussion. Maureen McHugh is one of my favorite authors, but I don't think this book has as much depth as her others. Rather than seeming minimalist, the vagueness about the jessing procedure and the harni struck me as symptoms of a lack of focus and deeper thought about what the story was about. Is it a love story? Not really. Is it character story? Not really either. We don't get to know any of these people in any real depth. Is it an example of good world-building? Not enough detail or consistency to be that. On first reading, it mostly seemed like a book about misery. Maybe that's what makes it "literary": it's the science fiction equivalent of an Oprah book. After reading *The Silver Metal Lover*, I have a little more perspective on what McHugh was reacting against. On the one hand, the myth of perfect love completing you and/or healing you. On the other, the idea that if you can just get through this trial by fire, you'll come out the other side wise, confident, and ready to take on the world. Like Silver, Akhmim is the perfect lover, at least in the eyes of the people who engineered him. He's got perfect manners, he's sensitive and attractive, and he'll let you do just about anything to him. Most of all, he's completely and involuntarily loyal to the person he has impressed on -- a slave who will never run away becausee he never wants to. Silver's loyalty to Jane wasn't so problematic because his love for her had burst the bonds of his programming and was so genuine that it lived beyond death. He was exceptional, even a miracle. Akhmim, on the other hand, is just an ordinary harni. He wants to please Hariba because she is the one he has impressed on, but beyond that she is more of a burden than a joy to him. This is the biggest problem I have with the story. The contrast between the bliss Akhmim feels when he is with the other harni and his dutiful maintenance of Hariba highlights the fact of his oppression, but it doesn't make much sense. Why would the creators of the harni make them this way? To crave every moment of their lives to be with other harni rather than with the humans they live to serve? That seems like a pretty bad design flaw. This characterization of the harni reminded me of Kate Wilhelm's book *Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang*, which features broods of psychologically linked clones. Despite its reputation, I thought this one of Wilhelm's worst books, largely because of the demonization of these clones, who might as well have "COMMIE PERVERT" written on their foreheads. McHugh's treatment is more sympathetic, but still ambiguous. Why didn't we get another section from Akhmim's perspective near the end? I wanted more closure with his story. I think it would have been a more daring and thought-provoking story if Hariba was truly the center of Akhmim's world and by "freeing" him she consigned him to perpetual misery. That would really show how perverted the breeding of harni was. But instead the whole question of engineered slavery vs. freedom is mostly forgotten by the end of the book. Akhmim is still tied to Hariba in a way, but there is no question that he will be able to move on and live a mostly happy life without her. While I appreciated the dressing down of the romantic ideal, I felt cheated of the deeper philosophical issues that were brought up then never satisfactorily addressed. The intertwined thread of Hariba's journey from jessing to independence in Spain was more effective for me, though I never thought it was explained very well how she nerved herself up to leave her mistress. If it was that easy to do, wouldn't more people do it? Aside from that, I was impressed by the way her defiance was not glorified and all was *not* well once she had escaped. There are an awful lot of sf stories about plucky heroes who not only throw off the yoke of their oppressors, but manage to bring down the whole regime in an (often literally) explosive victory. McHugh has always avoided that kind of blatantly unrealistic wish-fulfillment, but I was impressed with the way she expanded her critique of this trope with Hariba's story. Hariba escapes, but only with the aid of many people, some of whom pay dearly for helping her. And she doesn't make it out because she has a special mission or will be able to bring in the cavalry; she's not that smart or talented, she's emotionally unstable, and once she's in Spain she's almost completely powerless to help her friends and relatives back in Morocco. Beyond all that, she seems if anything *more* unhappy in Spain than she was before! It's hard to imagine a more blistering take on the old hero myth. I've got to respect that. But I need more than critique in a book to find it a rewarding experience. *Nekropolis* had some involving vignettes -- I really enjoyed McHugh's unflappable descriptions of all kinds of weird situations, the prostitution house, for example -- but for me it lacks the core of meaning her other books have. Anyway, thanks to everyone for your comments. On to *The Falling Woman*! ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://therem.net/ Listening to: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds -- Nocturama "I've built my white picket fence around the Now, with a commanding view of the Soon-to-Be." -- The Tick ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 21:46:21 -0400 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Short Interview with McHugh about Nekropolis To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU Browsing around online, I came across the following brief interview with Maureen McHugh at Publisher's Weekly. It sheds some light on several aspects of *Nekropolis*, particularly the question of cultural authenticity (or lack thereof). from http://publishersweekly.reviewsnews.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA149422&publication=publishersweekly PW: Your new novel, *Nekropolis*, is set in a future Morocco where the poor live in mausoleums. Is the Nekropolis a symbol for their lives and relationships? MM: I found the old city where people live with death to be metaphorically rich, but I was careful never to work out the specifics. The people who hire my protagonist, Hariba, are distanced by comfort from the life and death concerns of those who live in the Nekropolis. I was careful, however, just to let that material work on a subconscious level. PW: Hariba falls in love with Akhmim, an artificial person created by mixing human and animal genes. Tell us about him. MM: Akhmim is the ideal lover. Akhmim is a person who must satisfy others' needs. It occurred to me that if I had someone who could do this, I would become tremendously self-absorbed. Akhmim started out as a concept; the more I wrote about him, the more interested I became in the impossible plight of someone who must please everyone around him. Actually creating something like that would be very immoral. PW: Is their relationship a matter of addiction and codependency? MM: While I wrote, the central metaphor of the book was drug addiction. Akhmim is sort of a drug in Hariba's life. She shouldn't establish a relationship with him because it's unhealthy and, when she does, it works on her as well as her family, much as crack cocaine addiction works. Her family and friends are affected. It becomes so central to her that she will sacrifice anything for it. PW: The protagonists in your books are all outsiders, people who don't fit well. Do you feel an affinity for such people? MM: In science fiction, it's difficult to get in the background information that the reader needs. A viewpoint character who is inside is less likely to notice these things than one who is outside. I tend to write about outsiders partially because I feel tremendous sympathy for people who are marginalized and partially because I use a narrative style that features a very close point of view. If I don't have an outsider to describe things, they never get explained -- partly it's just a technical matter. PW: Where does your feel for Moroccan culture come from? MM: I have no feel for Moroccan culture [laughter]. The Morocco in *Nekropolis* is purely a construct. A note in the book apologizes for any mistakes. I had a guidebook and a cookbook. The food is accurate because I'm obsessed with food. I resisted giving the place a name until it became impossible not to do so. The Necropolis where homeless people live is actually in Cairo; Morocco doesn't have above-ground cemeteries. PW: Do you see the ending as happy? MM: No, but I see it as necessary if Hariba is ever going to be happy. In the end, Hariba is forced to start growing up. PW: A lot's left unresolved, though. Do you plan on a sequel or do you just like open endings? MM: For me, the essential issues are not left unresolved. Her life is left unresolved, but all our lives are left unresolved. You know the old theater saying -- every exit is an entrance. No sequels. Maybe someday, but certainly not now. I like loose ends. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://therem.net/ Listening to: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds -- Nocturama "I've built my white picket fence around the Now, with a commanding view of the Soon-to-Be." -- The Tick ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 22:04:46 -0400 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Another McHugh Interview To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU OK, this is the last message. I mean it. An interview at Strange Horizons. Longer than the last one, and quite interesting: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2002/20020909/mchugh.shtml ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://therem.net/ Listening to: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds -- Nocturama "I've built my white picket fence around the Now, with a commanding view of the Soon-to-Be." -- The Tick ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 12:50:03 -0700 From: Jodi Marie Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG Nekropolis (very late response) To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU > Did you like the novel and if yes, why? I don't know if I could say that I "enjoyed" the book, but I am glad that I read it. It was very interesting and made me think. I agree that it was pretty straightforward and an easy read. I also liked the switching point of views. I thought it was well done and demonstrated how different people view the same event, depending on their perspective. > The "houses of the dead" gave the novel its name. What do you think of the > novel name and the place? I'll be honest, I completely missed the deeper meaning behind this one. Unless Nekropolis, "city of the dead" was supposed to mean something like dead will, otherwise, I really didn't get it. Anyone better understand it than I? > What do you think of the placement of the novel in a future Morocco? Why was > it done? I think that i agree with whoever said it was a cheap shot. I don't believe in complete cultural relativity, but i also think that if you are going to criticize a culture, you should know it a little better. On the other hand, she could have and I just don't know because I also don't know a lot about the culture or the country. However, I believe it would have been better had it been a fictional country or place. I think that it is a little limiting to pin it to a place and/or time. That's just personal preference though. > What's your perspective on jessing? Did you understand why Hariba or others > did it? I actually think I did understand why Hariba did it. I think that she was a very scared person. She didn't want to have the responsibility of making her own decisions and the potential unhappiness of those decisions. I think that is why she wanted to be jessed. Someone else would make her decisions and she would be forced to be happy. She seemed to me to be a very dependent and fairly selfish person. (I forgot the Harni's name) I think that her relationship with the Harni was really interesting. Initially I didn't like the ending, but after I thought about it, I appreciated it. Like I said, I wouldn't say I "enjoyed" this book, but I appreciated the points it was making. In a way, I thought that the Harni was sort of "biologically jessed" to Hariba. He didn't really have a choice once he was bonded, much like Hariba didn't have a choice once she was bonded. If this book is about liberation and the freedom to make choices, then he needed his distance to complete his growth. She also needed to learn how to be on her own. I said earlier that I thought she chose to be jessed because she was essentially scared and selfish, and I think that the selfish part was demonstrated when she put her family and friends at risk and the scared part when she was exposed to a new culture. She had such a difficult time letting the old go. In fact, I got the impression that she never did. I think that was the character flaw that lead to her jessing. She was just so scared of life--the good, the bad and all the in-between. I would have liked to see her grow more and to overcome that, but I guess the reality is, some people will always be scared of life and don't necessarily want to grow. She did grow somewhat though because she was able to let the Harni go. I guess I thought that was how it should be, as I said earlier, because of HIS lack of choice. > On the cover Cleveland Plain Dealer is quoted with "A literary novel in > sci-fi clothing". Do you agree? What does it make literary? *sigh* because the stereotype of sci-fi is that anything "deep" can not be true literature? One thing that I really liked about this book is that it demonstrated that sometimes the oppressed can also be oppressors at the same time without realizing it. It's a matter of perspective.