Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 13:25:22 0100 From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG Ring of Swords To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU As apparently nobody else does I start the October BDG discussion on Eleanor Arnason's novel _Ring of Swords_. I liked this book very much. The gender concepts presented intrigued me, e.g. men on the perimeter fighting, women in the center doing the 'real thing', homosexuality as the norm, women being on average larger than men. I am curious what list members have to say about this. It was written in a very detached way. At least I didn't get emotionally involved with the story, even in the end when a lot is at stake. Nicholas' torture are also only perfunctorily described (not that I enjoy reading such scenes). IMO, Nicholas is the most likable character, he has a lot of charm. Although most is told from Anna's viewpoint, I did not get such a clear picture of her, probably because while she tells a lot about Nicholas he in his parts mentions her not so often (at least as I remember). What do you think about the issue in the end, when the Hwarhath decide whether humans are people? How did you react to that? What do you think about the Hwarhath rules of war, especially in relation to our rules of war now and in the past? In _Ring_ the Hwarhath rules are not questioned by the Hwarhath despite their contact to another culture. Do you think that probable? Petra Petra Mayerhofer mailto:mayerhofer@usf.uni-kassel.de -- BDG website http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Comet/1304/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 13:50:47 0100 From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG Ring of Swords - Online Sources To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU There are not many online sources on _Ring of Swords_ (RoS). I've found only one meaningful review, by P. Douglas Reeder in The Linköping Science Fiction & Fantasy Archive http://sf.www.lysator.liu.se/sf_archive/sf- texts/books/A/Arnason,Eleanor.mbox#199507110648.CAA13808@ postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu Quote: 'Arnason's style keeps the reader at a distance from the characters, which weakens the novel for me. Other elements that troubled me but may not trouble you are what seems to me to be a bland third-worldism to future human culture and an extremely negative view of capitalism (when Gwarha seeks an English word to translate a Hwarhath concept, Anna suggests 'capitalist', but Nicholas corrects her with 'cannibal'.) The book also suffers from several logical flaws. When human military intelligence plans treachery at early negotiations, they are totally unprepared for a counterattack by the Hwarhath. Later negotiations are held on a Hwarhath station far from human space, with the humans at the mercy of the Hwarhath. Nicholas asserts that Hwarhath are far better warriors than human because of their ferocity (this might be only his opinion, but the text offers no countervailing view). Technology, industrialization, and competence are more important in modern, technological, industrial war than ferocity, and Arnason presents the Hwarhath as roughly equal in technology. So why did I like this book? It's far more intelligent than most books published. It examines issues at the heart of our humanity and civilizations, without preaching. The characters and the Hwarhath society are highly plausible (if difficult to like). The action feels like real events, not conventional story plotting.' RoS was short-listed for the 1993 Tiptree, see http://www.tiptree.org//1993/short.html for comments of the jury members (Susan Casper, Jeanne Gomoll, Ursula K. Le Guin, Maureen F. McHugh). An interview with Arnason: Elise Matthesen (1995) Vampires and Aliens - Pam Keesey and Eleanor Arnason. Online reproduced from Lavender Lifestyles November 24, 1995 http://www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/m391/d-lena/Vampires%20and%20Aliens.html Quote: 'Ring of Swords is a strong portrayal of an alien society. Arnason notes, "I started the book because I was very mad at Jesse Helms. I wanted to write a culture that was homosexual and had always been homosexual, and was somewhat prudish. They knew decent sex from perversion, and when they met human beings, they were disgusted." Arnason laughs, and then returns to a serious tone, "in 1989, with the whole NEA thing, I kept feeling that there was a flavor of defensiveness among the defenders, as if deep down there was an assumption that heterosexuality was the norm." She shakes her head, then continues, "And I see no evidence that it is the norm. Sex serves a lot of purposes, more than simply making sure there is a next generation. Also, I wanted to write a romance. Plus, I wanted to write about men having strong feelings."' An Eleanor Arnason page, a fan page maintained by David Lenander http://www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/m391/d-lena/Eleanor%20%26%20trog.html with news on the author, links and some stories Petra Petra Mayerhofer mailto:mayerhofer@usf.uni-kassel.de -- BDG website http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Comet/1304/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 17:35:02 0100 From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG Ring of Swords To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > > The gender concepts presented > > intrigued me, e.g. men on the perimeter fighting, women in the > > center doing the 'real thing', homosexuality as the norm, women > > being on average larger than men. I am curious what list members > > have to say about this. > > I rather got the impression that both men and women felt they were > doing the "real" thing when performing their respective duties. I've got a different impression, mostly from what is said in the last third of the book by the Hwarhath women. They expressed their uneasiness with respect to what to do with the men now that there are no enemies left to keep them from the center. The women fear that male aggressiveness will disrupt the society and hope for an appropriate new enemy in space. That means men are not the protectors of society but a danger that has to be neutralized. In the 'human' concept warriors protect their group from 'real' dangers (although that idea has often been challenged). In the Hwarhath society men only fight against each other, they never kill women from another group, even when one group wins against another. As I remember it only dishonest acts by the men of one group lead to the destruction of their family (and then the women and (small) children are not killed but forced into other families), i.e. even a group without warriors/men is not really endangered. So, while the men may think they do something worthwhile, it looks more like an illusion created by society/the women to keep them out. More tomorrow. Petra Petra Mayerhofer mailto:mayerhofer@usf.uni-kassel.de -- BDG website http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Comet/1304/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 06:36:38 PDT From: Daniel Krashin Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: ROS To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 17:35:02 0100 >From: Petra Mayerhofer >Subject: BDG Ring of Swords > > > > The gender concepts presented > > > intrigued me, e.g. men on the perimeter fighting, women in the > > > center doing the 'real thing', homosexuality as the norm, women > > > being on average larger than men. I am curious what list members > > > have to say about this. Interesting, but I would point out that it is not particularly new, even for us humans... other than the matriarchy and the size difference between men and women, the other features of society could be found in ancient Greece, say, in Sparta: all Spartan men were in the army from adolescence to old age, and might be called upon at any time to defend their home. Spartans were proud of the fact that no Spartan woman had seen the smoke from an enemy's campfire in centuries. Sounds kind of like a Ring of Swords, eh? Same-sex love relationships, too. > > I rather got the impression that both men and women felt they were > > doing the "real" thing when performing their respective duties. > >I've got a different impression, mostly from what is said in the last >third in the book by the Hwarhath women. They expressed their >uneasiness with respect to what to do with the men now that there >are no enemies left to keep them from the center. The women fear >that male aggressiveness will disrupt the society and hope for an >appropriate new enemy in space. That means men are not the >protectors of society but a danger that has to be neutralized. Well, sort of. The Hwarhath males don't seem that dangerous to me where they are; but if they were brought into the center of society from the periphery, they might demand more say in how civilian society is run. That is the threat the males pose to female power, and another reason for the females to keep them busy at the periphery. (I was half expecting them to get the males fighting each other, as in _Gate to Women's Country_, but I suppose that would be too dangerous with interstellar war.) Did anyone else think that both the human and Hwarhath military establishments were as dumb as two bags of hammers? Danny K ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 10:00:20 -0700 From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG Ring of Swords To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Petra wrote (responding to someone, lost the name, sorry), >> I rather got the impression that both men and women felt they were >> doing the "real" thing when performing their respective duties. > >I've got a different impression, mostly from what is said in the last >third in the book by the Hwarhath women. They expressed their >uneasiness with respect to what to do with the men now that there >are no enemies left to keep them from the center. The women fear >that male aggressiveness will disrupt the society and hope for an >appropriate new enemy in space. (snip) >So, while the >men may think they do something worthwhile, it looks more like an >illusion created by society/the women to keep them out. I agree with Petra here -- the impression I got was that the whole reason for the military "ring" of armed males was to keep the men *busy,* to divert their inbuilt aggression away from the actual society, which was females and children. It's as thoughtful re-visioning of the usual fictional explorers' question to the aliens they meet, "Where are your women?" meaning, you men are the society; where are your ornamental breeding stock?" The humans in this story have to learn to ask, "Where is the familial society that main- tains you breeding appliances out here, where your aggressiveness can do *them* no harm?" What's interesting to me is that this second formulation is exactly what the sociobiologists tend to insist is the "truth" of human society: that women (or, somehow, their genes) do all the real choosing (not for them- selves, of course -- there are no "selves" in this supposed science, only genetic pushes and pulls) on behalf of their proposed progeny, so that men's worst behavior is the result of *women's* choices. Compare this basically anti-feminist, anti-humanist platform (we are all helpless little machines run by our genetic programming, so nobody's to blame for our un- changeable imbalance of power which just happens to massively favor males) with Arnason's formulation, which I read as, "Men are inherently war-like, so women must distance males and their societally disruptive behavior in order for society to prosper." In other words, put the people who are family-positive -- i.e., social -- in charge of society, and remove the people who are anti-social to the far distance, with games (war) to occupy their energies. That way it doesn't matter how hard-wired anyone's behavior is or isn't: the goal of more-than- mere-survival, as a society, is served. ROS is a brilliant, pragmatic end- run around the whole argument over gender-essentialism, centered on this goal: a society with enough "humanity" and stability to make it worth liv- ing in, *without* having to first redesign or try to retrain the males into socially positive, rather than destructively aggressive, beings. And then, because she's smart and not a propagandist, the author raises the kinds of conflicts this arrangement would create inside the male sphere when not all males conform to Hwarhath expectations. Suzy Charnas ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 15:51:34 0100 From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG Ring of Swords To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU In the last week it happened 2 times that list members _unintentionally_ sent responses to messages from me not to the whole list but only to me. I checked: for some reason in my postings to the list (and not in those by others) my address is given as reply address and not the list address. I will check how this comes about, but ask you, too, to check the address when you reply to my messages. On 12 Oct 99, Lindy wrote (in response to me): > > What do you think about the issue in the end, when the Hwarhath > > decide whether humans are people? How did you react to that? > > It's always scary to consider not being "people" or "sentient" to > another. I found the switch from my society's perspective of "it's > wrong to kill 'people/sentients" to the Hwarhath perspective of "we > can only kill or fight 'people/sentients' intriguing. Sentient as far as I know only refers to whether somebody can feel something, most notably pain. That means mammals are sentient but not insects (to our knowledge). Another important distinction is whether somebody has consciousness (if you use that term in English). All this is ad nauseam discussed around the questions who has the right to live and who (also animals) can be killed (Peter Singer & Co.). The Hwarhath make another distinction: only those who adhere to a certain ethic are people. They modify this definition at the end of the book because for them humans are obviously people although we are amoral from their ethical viewpoint. It's intriguing to imagine how this perspective came about. Some months ago I've read Barbara Ehrenreich's _Blood Rituals_ (that's the English title I think). Ehrenreich stresses that early hominids were not hunters but hunted (I don't think that the idea is completely new, but it's most often downplayed or ignored). From that follows a lot in our mental make-up. Humans have the experience that they are hunted, killed and eaten by non-conscious beings, animals. And they fight back. So, we have never developed the ethic that it is not allowable to fight, to make war against non-conscious beings. We are a bit more reluctant with people with consciousness. An important strategy in many wars (not all) was to 'dehumanize' the enemy, to reduce him to the status of an animal, and thus to kill him like vermin. The Hwarhath certainly _don't_ do that. So what different experiences do they have? From Ehrenreich's thesis I conclude that they cannot have the experience to be hunted by others. That they always were the strongest and biggest on their planet. What do you think? On 12 Oct 99, SMCharnas wrote: > Petra wrote (responding to someone, lost the name, sorry), I am sorry. It was my oversight. It was in response to Lindy. > Compare this basically anti-feminist, > anti-humanist platform (we are all helpless little machines run by our > genetic programming, so nobody's to blame for our un-changeable > imbalance of power which just happens to massively favor males) with > Arnason's formulation, which I read as, "Men are inherently war-like, > so women must distance males and their societally disruptive behavior > in order for society to prosper." Beautifully said. I always wonder when people state that men are inherently much more aggressive than women and that women simply have to live with that (and bear the results). If one really believes that (and I don't) one would HAVE TO DO something about it, like e.g. keeping men in concentration camps as the aggressive animals they are (from that viewpoint). That's how I understood _The Gate to Women's Country_. Men are actually imprisoned (without realizing it) and their aggressiveness is bred out of them. Arnason presents another option. Petra Petra Mayerhofer mailto:mayerhofer@usf.uni-kassel.de -- BDG website http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Comet/1304/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 13:38:09 -0500 From: Jocelyn & Sheryl Denton-LeSage Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG Ring of Swords To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >ROS is a brilliant, pragmatic end- >run around the whole argument over gender-essentialism, centered on this >goal: a society with enough "humanity" and stability to make it worth liv- >ing in, *without* having to first redesign or try to retrain the males into >socially positive, rather than destructively aggressive, beings. > >And then, because she's smart and not a propagandist, the author raises >the kinds of conflicts this arrangement would create inside the male sphere >when not all males conform to Hwarhath expectations. > >Suzy Charnas But best of all, to me anyway, was the "obvious," biologically-essentialist explanation the Hwarhath came up with for their society's compulsory homosexuality. Of COURSE heterosexuality is the norm amongst animals -- they can't choose a more civilized way of ordering their societies! But humans (or Hwarhath, as the case may be) DO have intelligence and free will, and would never leave something as important as the propagation of the species to mere lust, or worse, chance! This made me giggle at the time and it still does, every time some fundamentalist tells me that I can't really be gay because nature "obviously" intends only heterosexuality. Sheryl ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 15:43:17 -0700 From: Lindy Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG Ring of Swords To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Petra Mayerhofer wrote: > > I rather got the impression that both men and women felt they were > > doing the "real" thing when performing their respective duties. > > I've got a different impression, mostly from what is said in the last > third in the book by the Hwarhath women. They expressed their > uneasiness with respect to what to do with the men now that there > are no enemies left to keep them from the center. (snipped only to save bandwidth). > So, while the men may think they do something worthwhile, it looks > more like an illusion created by society/the women to keep them out. I understand what you're saying here. Having the advantage of being a separate observer (reader) I too tend toward the perspective that the women were manipulating or handling the situation as you describe. However, while reading this novel, I wondered if one of the many questions/points made by the author was that the men looked upon their role as the "real" thing, with women's tasks as somehow less important, and that women looked upon their role in the same way, with men's tasks being less important. Each view their way as integral and true. Whether it is illusion or not, the Hwarhath men's traditional duty of protecting the center (family and culture and tradition) is a very serious undertaking, and as such, is their reality. Simply because the women have a role in perpetuating the Ring of Swords, does not negate the complex culture the men experience. Regardless of who is really "in charge," (and the men do treat the women in general as very powerful) with a lack of worthy adversaries for the men to engage, there will need to be a cultural shift. If the traditional separation of duties by gender is to be continued in Hwarhath society, it will probably be the men who will evolve into performing the new tasks. As was pointed out, the women, in their governmental and personal roles, work to keep the "nature" of the men of their society on the periphery, focused away from the social center. Only having limited contact with the Hwarhath women in _RoS_, (and that small contact occurring off the women's turf), I would be very curious to read about life on the planet, about government sessions and farm life and arts and everything hinted at in the description of Nicholas's year-long exile among the women as he translates and explains. We hear about men and their intimate relationships. I'd love to hear about the women's. Lindy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 17:59:16 -0500 From: Susan Hericks Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG Ring of Swords To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU I just read a bunch of posts at once, so I hope you all will forgive me if I can't remember exactly who said what. I also really liked this book and think there is a wealth of ideas in it, not to mention some wonderful humorous moments. I don't think I will ever forget the moment when Anna asks herself whether someone who gives you a flannel nightgown could then kill you! And some of the interpretations of human expressions (i.e. look what the cat dragged in) were very funny. On the down side, I was less interested in the book as it went along, partly because I didn't feel I was getting to know the characters better, with the exception of Nicholas. Some of the sections that had a lot of potential to be interesting, especially the meetings between Anna and the Hwarhath women, didn't hold my interest as much as I hoped they would. They seemed to describe things rather than to involve me in the experience Anna was having. The development of Nick's character and his relationship with Gwarha also seemed uneven to me. For example, in the first section, when the assumption was made that Nick was Gwarha's lover because of the form of language they used, I didn't buy it and thought it was going to be another example of how the humans were misreading the other culture. When it turned out to be true, it took me awhile to be able to see the tenderness between them since the reader never gets to know how that problematic (for Anna--because of the torture, not the homosexuality) relationship grew. Anyway, back to the stuff that seemed really good to me: After thinking about it, two aspects of the novel have risen to the surface for me. First, the question of what is the difference between an animal and a person. (Considering Arnason's comment in the excerpted interview that she wanted to address the religious right's view of heterosexuality as the only moral option--sorry, not her words)...This has everything to do with sexuality in both cultures and that conversation is added to by the presence of Anna's aliens on Reed, who she clearly believes are "people" but everyone else denies. Nick thinks that the presence of language is one of the determining factors in whether a creature is intelligent (?) For the Hwarhath, a person is only a person if they can make moral distinctions, which leads to the second question of the novel (for me) that asks how the ability to make moral distinctions relates to one's personhood. As a feminist ethicist, I think this is a great question! (Lindy said that for the Hwarhath "only those who adhere to a certain ethic are people." At the end, when humans are accepted as "people," I think we see that what is important to them is this ability to make moral distinctions, not the adherence to the same ethics as the Hwarhath, although they clearly have a problem with human ethics.) What we know about the Hwarhath finally crystallized for me when Matsehar tells Anna that Macbeth is about "violence that has not been contained within a moral framework" (334). It seems to me that containing violence within a moral framework is the means and end of the Hwarhath culture. As some have you have already discussed, the way that violence is contained is by limiting it to the periphery of the culture and to males. I suppose this has its bright side, at least the women and children (theoretically, at least) never get harmed. That whole dynamic reminded me of _Jaran_, where in the alien culture there are specific roles for women and men that give the women a great deal of power, respect, and protection, but that are just as essentialist as human ideas of gender. Suzy wrote: >ROS is a brilliant, pragmatic end- >run around the whole argument over gender-essentialism, centered on this >goal: a society with enough "humanity" and stability to make it worth liv- >ing in, *without* having to first redesign or try to retrain the males into >socially positive, rather than destructively aggressive, beings. If I understand what Suzy means here (that Arnason avoids the problem of essentialism by accepting it as truth and marginalizing the always "destructively aggressive" men?) I really don't agree. I mean, I think that this is basically what the Hwarhath have done in order to "contain violence within a moral framework," but I would also argue that one of the issues Arnason (Nick) raises is that how having done this creates a necessity for war and violence in order to maintain the culture. There are no options for integrating that violence OR males into the central Hwarhath culture. This seems like a reverse scapegoating that makes men have to bear the burden of the culture's destructive qualities just as, in our human culture, women have been made to bear the culturally undesirable and insignificant duties of home and children. Whatever the "center" deems important is the province of the most powerful (in RoS, the women) and those pesky survival tasks are taken care of by those on the margins. (Re Jaran, it seems to look like this may be happening in the Chapalli culture in the later books. That is, it seems like the women may hold the really "important" power). Suzy went on to say that Arnason "raises the kinds of conflicts this arrangement would create inside the male sphere when not all males conform to Hwarhath expectations." Yes. But what Nick sees, and the reason he spills the beans to Anna, is that this very rigid arrangement is ultimately threatening to the Hwarhath culture. In order for the arrangement to continue, the Hwarhath must find and enemy, but humans cannot be fought according to Hwarhath rules of war. If the Hwarhath play by their own rules, they will be destroyed. If they don't, taking the easy out of judging humans as nothing more than animals (someone pointed out that this is a common dynamic in war), committing genocide will destroy their integrity as people. I'm not exactly sure what Arnason wants to argue. As I read it, I think she is asking a very hard question about the equation of sexuality and morality--something like "if an unwavering rigidity toward sexuality is the foundation of your moral framework (as it is for the Hwarhath and for right wing Christians) how can you survive the inevitable challenges of people and ideas that cannot fit into that framework? And what are the requirements of that framework which will eventually cause your own destruction?" What doesn't bend, breaks, so to speak. I would be very interested to see if, in the sequel, Arnason addresses the "problem" of the playwright's "straightness" in any way. Nick seems like a trickster figure to me, like the *tli* to which he is compared. Somehow he is able to mediate and survive, even to find love. Hmm... I have said more that enough! Sorry for the long post--I blame it on the interesting book! Susan By the way, I don't think my username is coming up Big Yellow Woman anymore, but I still am :) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 16:56:18 -0700 From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG Ring of Swords To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >However, while reading this novel, I wondered if one of the many >questions/points made by the author was that the men looked upon their >role as the "real" thing, with women's tasks as somehow less important, >and that women looked upon their role in the same way, with men's tasks >being less important. Each view their way as integral and true. This was something I found fascinating. I've been thinking about the ways in which people are writing about cultures divided along gender lines. One popular style goes something like this. Our Hero meets an alien culture. The people "in front"--not only in the hwarhath sense but "the people who go out and meet the aliens" (ie, our hero)--are men. Later in the book we come to see that women, although more hearth-bound (literally or metaphorically), actually have equal power. In some cases, as in the jaran of the eponymous[1] series, each gender thinks the other is equally important. In other cases, as in the hwarhath, each gender thinks the other is less important. In still other cases, as in the Chapalli of the Jaran series, we have no clue who thinks what. What I wonder is this: why is this such a powerful image for us? (It is for me, anyway; and it's typically used by people who are trying to explore, and reflect and comment upon, traditional gender roles.) And why is it always set up in this fashion, so that it seems to bear out the popular gender stereotypes, but then subverts them in some way? Would it be possible to write a story in which this was flipped, where the women seemed to be in charge but then the men turned out to be equally important? Or would that only seem to reinforce mainstream gender roles? Jessie [1] I love this word and never get to use it, but since I only learned its meaning about three years ago I'll define it [loosely]: "the thing for which it is named". Ie, the jaran in the series of the same name. Thank you for your patience. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 18:16:18 -0700 From: Margaret McBride Subject: [*FSF-L*] Discussion-Ring of Swords To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU I'm feeling bad because I haven't written anything about RofS and I do like the book. I'd love to teach it some time although that doesn't seem very likely unless A. can get it reprinted. I have been so busy and evidently so have other people as not many have written about it. I took notes as I reread it and realized that I was jotting down things that mostly fit under 3 categories: humor and style comments, ethical issues or how humans make decisions--ethics is maybe not quite the right term--and otherness or how we treat those we see as different from ourselves. I have taught a class that looked at different kinds of SF aliens as their works related to Otherness in anthropology, religion, feminism, etc. I love the genuine sense of another culture that this book gives--one that seems logical in its own context. I like how A. parallels that question with the research of the ocean creatures and how she turns our usual reaction upside down by making us realize that the "aliens" are deciding if we're "human" enough to be dealt with. Stories that give a genuine sense of alienness and can still be understood to make some comment on humans are rare. I can think of "Death and Designation Among the Assadi" by Michael Bishop, "The Maze" by LeGuin, one by Karen Fowler in her book Artificial Things and a few others. A. carries it off beautifully here. I particularly like that she gives us a sense of the myth/literature/sayings of the aliens. Again I can't think of many who do that well-- Left Hand of Darkness-Leguin, The Color of Distance-Amy Thomson are the ones that come to mind. Other than that whole area of alienness/new ways to think about my own society (one of the things I read SF for), I find this book worth rereading because it makes me think of how people make choices especially when faced with decisions where nothing seems good or what one wants to do. I'm sorry if this is a bit unorganized; I felt a need to send something out before the end of the month. Do you all think this book would work well in a class? As I have said earlier, my students sometimes find works too didactic. Although I see RofS as thought-provoking, it doesn't seem to "hit you over the head" with its ideas as some of my students have said of Native Tongue and Gate to Women's Country for example. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 17:33:35 +1300 From: Jenny Rankine Subject: [*FSF-L*] Ring of Swords To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU I tried to find the discussions about this book on the archive site, but couldn't work out how to do that. So I'll wade in relying on my terrible memory. I had to borrow it from the library, so have only just finished it. I really enjoyed this book. I really hope Eleanor can get a publisher for the sequel because I very much want to read it. s p o i l e r s I had trouble with two parts of it, but these are minor comments only and didn't stop me being absorbed in the story. One was Anna - she was a cipher - I didn't get a feeling for her as a character, merely an observer. She is a loner; quick-thinking, as shown by the message sent from the boat in the bay; self-sacrificing and dedicated to the cause of increasing knowledge about alien cultures, as shown by her willingness to avoid heterosexual relationships while living in the hwarhath space station; brave in the face of her own people's military intelligence (definitely a contradiction in terms) threats. But that is all I can say about her. I feel after seeing the world through her eyes for a longish book I should have a much clearer picture of her views, habits of thought and personality. But I don't. I wonder whether that's me or the style of writing. I didn't feel this ignorant after reading Ammonite, a similar story about a woman exploring a strange culture by herself. The other comment was the crux moment of the book, where Nicholas panics and spills the beans to Anna about the hwarhath's vulnerabilities to humans. I didn't get a strong sense of the danger the two were in at this point. I think this was because all Anna's discoveries and knowledge about the hwarhath is built from talking with them and Nicholas, rather than seeing their behaviour in action. For example, Nicholas tells her that the hwarhath outfight the humans, but we are not shown this. The decision-making of the Weaving is reported, not shown. So I had a sense of anti-climax or slight unbelievability at this point (when Nicky panics) because it didn't seem real. I found Ring of Swords an interesting comparison to Jaran (I think other people may have made this comment). The two societies were alike in the kinds of roles men and women occupied, with women running the administration and the peacemaking and men running the wars; and the kind of strong social control used to restrict them to those roles. I found the hwarhath's disgust at heterosexuality more believable than the Jaran's disgust at homosexuality, given the way they were both drawn. Speaking of comparing warrior cultures, I found the outskirters in The Outskirter's Secret the most egalitarian. Men and women were both warriors, and the children were cared for and the food cooked by mertutials, those not able to fight because of age, disability or inclination. Rulers were chosen from among the mertutials. What's happened to discussion on these lists, anyway - is it holidays in the US or something? It seems to have died and my e-mail reading is poorer as a result. Cheers, Jenny Rankine ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999 22:54:03 -0800 From: Keith Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Ring of Swords To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Thanks for coming in so late. I too finished the book just as the BDG was winding down, but did want to say how much I enjoyed this book. On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Jenny Rankine wrote: > I tried to find the discussions about this book on the archive site, but > couldn't work out how to do that. So I'll wade in relying on my terrible > memory. I had to borrow it from the library, so have only just finished it. > > I really enjoyed this book. I really hope Eleanor can get a publisher for > the sequel because I very much want to read it. A Woman of the Iron People was very interesting reading, sort of a prequel. > I had trouble with two parts of it, but these are minor comments only and > didn't stop me being absorbed in the story. One was Anna - she was a > cipher - I didn't get a feeling for her as a character, merely an observer. > She is a loner; quick-thinking, as shown by the message sent from the boat > in the bay; self-sacrificing and dedicated to the cause of increasing > knowledge about alien cultures, as shown by her willingness to avoid > heterosexual relationships while living in the hwarhath space station; brave > in the face of her own people's military intelligence (definitely a > contradiction in terms) threats. But that is all I can say about her. I had the same problem with Anna's amorphousness - but if I considered her (rightly or wrongly) as closest to the author's point of view, then the shapelessness fit - how well could we describe ourselves?. Nicholas, on the other hand....a living, breathing, thoroughly realized character (except, of course, for that moment of panic - that did seem more of a plot device to move things forward than a reasonable act on the part of the Nick I thought I knew). > I found Ring of Swords an interesting comparison to Jaran (I think other > people may have made this comment). The two societies were alike in the > kinds of roles men and women occupied, with women running the administration > and the peacemaking and men running the wars; and the kind of strong social > control used to restrict them to those roles. I found the hwarhath's > disgust at heterosexuality more believable than the Jaran's disgust at > homosexuality, given the way they were both drawn. I thought the playwright's dilemma was great irony! And although I can't agree with essentialism, this was one of the more believable essentialist cultures I've come across. But again, because the men's action was in the foreground and the women's usually described third hand, the men's side of things was a lot more believable and, yes, interesting. I really enjoyed this book overall. Still can't quite pin down why, but it was a place I wanted to spend a lot of time in. Maybe the furry grey aliens? I live with one, a twenty-pound feline-grizz mix named Tazz - thinking of changing that to Gwarha. Kathleen ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 13:22:59 0100 From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Ring of Swords To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On 1 Dec 99, Jenny Rankine wrote: > I tried to find the discussions about this book on the archive site, > but couldn't work out how to do that. So I'll wade in relying on my > terrible memory. I had to borrow it from the library, so have only > just finished it. The RoS discussion is not yet archived at the BDG website. I still have the emails (about 15) in my mail folder and can forward them to you if you like. Just send me a (private) email. > I had trouble with two parts of it, but these are minor comments only > and didn't stop me being absorbed in the story. One was Anna - she > was a cipher - I didn't get a feeling for her as a character, merely > an observer. [...] But that > is all I can say about her. I feel after seeing the world through her > eyes for a longish book I should have a much clearer picture of her > views, habits of thought and personality. But I don't. I wonder > whether that's me or the style of writing. I wouldn't call Anna a cipher but I agree that one doesn't get to know her really. IMO it's because in the parts that are told from her point of view she doesn't reflect much about her life (as far as I remember) but tells a lot of how she sees Nicholas and the others. And Nicholas in turn does not tell a lot about her in 'his' parts of the book but reflects a lot on his experiences and his relationships to the Hwarhath and to his lover. I think this is due to that the focus of the book is on the unknown Hwarhath while the humans as the familiar are only perfunctorily described. > What's happened to discussion on these lists, anyway - is it holidays > in the US or something? It seems to have died and my e-mail reading > is poorer as a result. The discussions more and more dwindled in the last months. And discussions outside of the BDG hardly ever occur any more. I wonder why it is so. I thought about starting a discussion on this some weeks ago when it was time for the next BDG nomination round because more and more I questioned whether it makes sense to go through the whole nomination process. But I didn't because there was no time due to my upcoming vacation (as I handle the nominations) and - even more important - I did not quite know how to raise the issue. I miss the lively discussions of the first year of the list (1997). But perhaps it's simply my nostalgic lens. It might be that as the FSF list and the BDG have lost their novelty people are less ready to post on issues that have been discussed before or they don't feel the urge to respond so much and just leave some topics be. With the BDG it might also be that for a time people are ready and able to read according to a common schedule and to post on the books but after a time everybody slackens. And that now there are not enough active BDG participants left for a lively discussion. I don't want to say that I don't like the BDG discussions anymore, only that sometimes they are rather slow. Case in point the November discussion of _The Mistress of Spices_ which consisted of 3 postings (if I have not missed some messages due to my vacation). Any thoughts or ideas on this? Petra Petra Mayerhofer mailto:mayerhofer@usf.uni-kassel.de -- BDG website http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Comet/1304/