Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 18:40:22 +0100 From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU It's time for the last BDG book of this round (although this should not stop you to post on Califia's Daughters, if I find time I will write something about that book myself). The BDG book of this month is Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls by Matt Ruff This is a great book IMO, I could not put it down and actually finished it at 4 a.m. in the morning. It's one of the books I'm very glad that I've read. _Set This House in Order_ (STHiO) won the 2003 Tiptree award. I attended the panel of the Tiptree judges at WisCon last year. The judges were enthusiastic about the book although they had difficulties talking about it because there is a surprise in it (relevant from their point of view for the Tiptree worthiness) and when too much is said this surprise is taken away. SPOILER WARNING!!! The BDG is for discussing freely the contents of the books selected by people who have read the book. The "BDG" in the subject line indicates that there are spoilers, it is not necessary to put further spoiler warnings in. So, last warning, in the following (and probably in the following postings by other people) major parts of the plot might be revealed and the surprise mentioned above will be freely discussed. So, please, read the book first before you continue reading the postings on it. Some questions to (hopefully) kick-off the discussion (please feel free to comment on the book without reference to these questions, they are intended as help not as a strait-jacket): Did you like the book? If yes, why? If not, why not? Did you like the characters, the plot, the ending? Would you recommend it to friends? At the WisCon panel the Tiptree judges mentioned that they discussed among other things whether it is truly science fiction (or speculative fiction) in any way. Matt Ruff said during his thank-you speech at the award ceremony that he hoped that now after the book was awarded the Tiptree the science fiction community would no longer ignore it. What do you think? Is it speculative fiction or mainstream fiction? Do you think the portrayal of people with multiple personalities (Andrew, Penny) in the book convincing? Does anybody know anything about multiple personalities and can say something about the described "cure"? At the WisCon panel some Tiptree judges said they saw the 'surprise' coming, some said they didn't expect this surprise but something. How was it for you? Did you saw a surprise coming? This one? If yes, what hints did you pick up? (I didn't expect _this_ surprise). Did the revelation that Andrew's body is female make a difference for you? (By the way, IMO it's a great sentence: "The body's female, that's all.") What was your reaction? Did it influence the way you saw Andrew? Is there a difference that Andrew the soul is male while Andy Gage's body is female to that (before) we assumed the body is male and Sam the soul is female? From the press release of the 2003 Tiptree award (http://www.tiptree.org/press/20040330.html): "The judges were particularly impressed with the way Ruff handled gender issues in multiple personality, as a reflection of the difference of gender of the body and gender of the mind (or soul)." To me that sounds as if the "surprise" contributed significantly to the Tiptree-worthyness of the book (from the perspective of the judges). How is that for you? What does make the book a Tiptree in your opinion? What's gender-bending or feminist in it? Andy Gage's soul was male from the beginning while his body was female. Does this mean he would have become/been a transsexual without the mental and sexual abuse? None of the souls is without gender although some don't apparently have no sex drive. What do you think about that? Is it possible to imagine gender differences between body and soul of one person but not that body or soul has any gender/sex? Is gender necessary to be human? That's for starters. I'm looking forward to the discussion and to your insights. Petra -- Petra Mayerhofer p.mayerhofer@web.de www.feministische-sf.de ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 18:40:22 +0100 From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set This House in Order by Matt Ruff - Reviews and further information To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU By the way, besides the Tiptree Award, STHiO also won the 2004 PNBA Book Award and the 2004 Washington State Book Award and is nominated for the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (all three mainstream awards) (information taken from Ruff's website http://home.att.net/~storytellers/sethouse.html). In the following a list of online reviews and further information on STHiO is provided, some with quotes from these websites. Enjoy! Petra -- Petra Mayerhofer p.mayerhofer@web.de www.feministische-sf.de --------------------------------------- FAQ on STHiO provided on Ruff's website http://home.att.net/~storytellers/sethfaq.html, quotes: "Q: Is the story intended to be a realistic portrayal of multiple personality disorder? A: It's intended to be a believable and internally consistent portrayal of multiple personality disorder. The question of realism is trickier, because MPD is still a very controversial Subject: though it's listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (as "Dissociative Identity Disorder"), a lot of psychiatrists still don't believe that it's a real condition, and those who do believe in it don't agree about its nature. Since I knew I wasn't qualified to settle the debate, I decided not to worry about it too much. I wrote Set This House in Order as a "what if" novel: if we assume that MPD works in such-and-such a way, what would the experience of it be like? How would it feel to always be part of a crowd? What would the implications be for things like personal responsibility? My hope is that the resulting story is rich enough that, even if you think the premise is pure fantasy, you’ll still be able to get something out of it. Q: If the official psychiatric term for MPD is "Dissociative Identity Disorder," how come you don't use that phrase? A: Mainly for clarity's sake. I'm addressing a general audience, and to most non-psychiatrists, "Dissociative Identity Disorder" doesn't mean anything. Say "multiple personality," though, and folks know what you're talking about. Within the context of the novel, there's also the issue of verisimilitude: I want my characters to talk the way they really would talk. While some real-world multiples do use the DID label, my sense is that it's much more common for them to refer to themselves as "multiple" than as "dissociative."" --------------------------------------- Adam Liebling (2003) Matt Ruff (Interview). Readmagazine 2003 (http://www.readmag.com/Interviews/mattruff.htm), quote: "Q: What inspired Set This House? A: I guess it was ten years ago. I was talking to my friend, Lisa, who is now my wife, and somehow we got on the subject of multiple personality disorder. I think I either reread Sybil or maybe I had just read When The Rabbit Howls [by Truddi Chase], and we began talking about MPD. Lisa mentioned that she had a friend named Michael who was multiple. And the thing that was interesting about Michael, as Lisa described him, was that he had rejected the standard treatment of attempting to reintegrate into a single personality. Which I now know is a fairly common response, but at the time, every narrative I had read about MPD the story ended with them fusing into one personality again. Q: And Michael? A: Michael didn't do that. The original Michael had been so badly abused that he basically didn't exist anymore. Michael and his other people talked about the original Michael as someone who was dead, and had been dead for a long time. And they created this system of living as a multiple personality, and he had this imaginary house in his head, this imaginary landscape, where all of his people could live and cooperate with each other. It was run along the lines of a benign dictatorship, where there was this one personality, or soul, whose job it was to maintain order inside, and make rules about who could come out and when, and just keep people from making trouble. And there was Michael, the guy you actually met, whose specific job was to deal with the outside world. And I thought, jeez, this is really fascinating. And Lisa mentioned something else. Michael began dating this woman, and it turned out that SHE had multiple personalities too, but she hadn't been diagnosed yet. Michael had figured out she was multiple personality, and this woman hadn't wanted to admit it, and basically, it ended very badly. Q: Wow. A: I had my own schizophrenic reaction. On the one hand, jeez, poor Michael, this sounded like the relationship from hell. But at the same time, I'm thinking, god, this is a really great idea for a novel! That was basically the original inspiration, but I was working on Sewer at the time and still had to finish that. But when it came time to think about what to work on next, the idea stayed with me. A number of things changed as the book evolved. Originally, when I started pitching it to people, I said it was a love story between two multiple personalities. But as I wrote it and the characters began taking shape, it didn't work out as a love story; it became more of a "friendship with potential." So the main story is about a stable multiple who meets an unstable, undiagnosed multiple, and she ends up asking him for help and dealing with her condition, and wackiness ensues." (Please note, that STHiO is dedicated to "Michael, Daniel, J.B., Scooter, and the rest of the gang".) --------------------------------------- Essay "On Building the House" by Matt Ruff, listed at Powells.com (http://www.powells.com/fromtheauthor/ruff.html), quote: "During one of these late-night chats, we [Matt Ruff and Lisa Gold] somehow got on the subject of multiple personality disorder. I'd been fascinated with MPD ever since I'd read Flora Rheta Schreiber's biography of Sybil Dorsett, and thought it might be fun to write a story with a multiple as a protagonist — if I could come up with an original plot. Sybil, though presented as non-fiction, is dramatic enough that it might as well be a novel: a young woman goes to the doctor complaining of headaches and "nervousness," only to discover that she's sharing her body with sixteen other personalities, fragments of a former self. She spends the next eleven years struggling to come to terms with the horrendous child abuse that caused her psyche to split, her other selves helping and hindering her by turns. Finally, after many twists and setbacks, she successfully recombines into a single, whole person, and lives happily ever after. "Cool story," I told Lisa. "Too bad it's already been done." And then Lisa, doing me a much bigger favor than either of us realized at the time, said: "Well, you know, not every multiple chooses to reintegrate the way Sybil did." In fact, she added, this was something of an unacknowledged controversy. The official psychiatric line on treatment of MPD was that fusion into a single persona was the only desirable outcome. The trouble was, that treatment goal didn't work for a lot of multiple personalities. Some couldn't reintegrate; others managed for a while, only to split apart again after their therapy ended. And some didn't want to reintegrate — they wanted to live their lives as multiples, just without the confusion of uncontrolled switching. My original capsule description of Set This House in Order was that it was "a love story between two multiple personalities." But as the novel took shape, it became clear that what I was writing really wasn't a love story after all. My protagonists just weren't ready to be in love: Andrew, though he desperately wants a girlfriend, is too immature to handle a romantic relationship, and Penny, for most of the story, is simply too confused. I knew better than to try and force it — when your characters resist your intentions, it's a sign they've acquired real depth — but I was sorry to lose what had been a nifty tagline. "It's about a platonic friendship between two multiple personalities" just doesn't have the same ring to it." --------------------------------------- Alan P. Scott Review (http://www.pacifier.com/~ascott/nonfic/revruff.htm), quote "Andy is a construct, a personality who was designed to be the primary external interface for a host of others who inhabit not just the same body but also the same house - the House of the title, the very house which Andy must set in order, in order to survive. A house Andy's father built on a lake he also built, within Andy's mind, to literally compartmentalize and contain all the many souls who share Andy's head. This is a deeply resonant idea, the house on the lake - a Palace of Memory of a sort that Giordano Bruno never conceived, built wholly within the divided mind of someone who is only physically a single human being. There are other houses, and their order or lack thereof is important to the story, but none of the others are This House. Ruff describes the house on the lake in relentlessly physical terms; it is as real, as matter-of-fact, as any other place in the book. This matter-of-factness is essential to the success of the book, I think. In a sense, Set This House in Order is science fiction - it relies on a sophisticated understanding of how the mind works that wouldn't have been available in decades past, though I recall a short story from the 1950s or '60s by... Philip José Farmer?... that played with the idea, and there are inklings in Robert Charles Wilson's 1990 novel The Divide, though Wilson explicitly distinguishes his protagonist from a true multiple. In another sense, though, it is straight mimetic fiction. Andy's situation seems inarguably real... no suspension of disbelief is required. Ruff simply presents Andy's mental landscape - and Aaron's, and Aunt Sam's, Adam's and the rest - without undue exposition. And it's fascinating. Ruff piles revelation upon revelation, cutting ever closer to the roots of Andy's existence without ever faltering, building up to a satisfying crescendo." --------------------------------------- Culturedose.net (review by Brian Block) (http://www.culturedose.net/review.php?rid=10005181), quote "Andy feels that Julie would be perfect for Andy, and while the two make great friends, his desire for her creates vivid and painful scenes. Andy has no sexual experience with women. But she does sleep around, and what was he to make of the New Year's Party where, with everyone else gone, Julie poured shot glasses for herself and Andy and toasted “new experiences”? Where, noticing that Andy had hurt his back, she offers him a backrub, and doesn't just loosen his shirt but also removes her own? “What are your goals for this year...something that you've never done before that you'd like to do”, she asks, rubbing his back, brushing her fingertips near the waistband of his jeans. “I was petrified that I was about to make a terrible fool of myself”, Andy narrates in memory, “and there was no one I could ask for help” (Andy's other personalities are just as inexperienced). So Andy asks aloud: “Julie, are you trying to make a pass at me?” And our hearts sink, because we know she won't be trying again. There's plenty more drama with Julie, and plenty more hope, but we see here a central point Matt Ruff is suggesting. Set This House in Order is not simply a tale of two freaks, or even a tale of twenty freaks in two bodies. What it truly demonstrates is how similar Andy and Penny are to the rest of us, even while being destructively extreme. What is Julie doing, while drinking, but creating a separate self to take the blame for her actions? Don't think there's nothing real about this extra self; psychologists of memory have long since confirmed that if you learn or experience something when you're drunk, you'll remember it best in the future while drunk again. What is Julie doing, while seducing Andy, but putting away on a shelf all the parts of her that would object? This is why it can be destructive to ask people about their intentions, or call people on their motives—Sometimes we want our left hand unaware of who our right hand is fondling. With the result, I think, that a huge part of why we like Andy and Penny is their perverse drive to be responsible, for everything they do. Divided and damaged far beyond what most of us have experienced, it is their goal to learn everything about themselves, and to relate to the world with a slate that may not be clean, but at least no longer graffiti'd with mad scrawls of invisible ink. Set This House in Order is also, to be sure, a coming of age novel; these characters have to learn to deal anew with the world, not just with themselves. But it is a coming of age that allows them to dream larger and better dreams, not smaller and compromised ones. Of course we wish them well." --------------------------------------- Crescent Blues reviews (review by Jodi Forschmiedt) (http://www.crescentblues.com/6_2issue/bk_ruff_house.shtml), Quote "Set This House in Order offers a fun read, but a larger theme permeates the novel. Andrew relies on a carefully constructed but unstable scaffolding of people and places to bolster his tenuous mental health. His landlady, for example, cheerfully fixes a separate breakfast for each of his personalities every morning. As the props get kicked out from under him one by one, Andrew's house falls apart. If he hopes to reestablish control, he must do so without the external supports that ultimately weakened him. But can a victim of Multiple Personality Disorder stand on his own two feet and construct a house that will not collapse?" --------------------------------------- Offline reviews shown on Ruff's website (http://home.att.net/~storytellers/setrevs.html), no quote Mostly Fiction (Review by Jenny Dressel) (http://mostlyfiction.com/contemp/ruff.htm), no quote Bookmunch (review by Andrew O'Donnell) (http://www.bookmunch.co.uk/view.php?id=1185), no quote Pop Matters (review by Jonathan Messinger) (http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/s/set-this-house-in-order.shtml), no quote ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 17:47:18 -0500 From: Gaile Pohlhaus Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU >Did you like the book? If yes, why? I could not put this book down, I found it engaging and well written >Did you like the characters, the plot, the ending? yes, yes, and yes (nothing fanciful here) >Would you recommend it to friends? I certainly will SPOILER COMING A FRIEND OF MINE IS A REINTEGRATED MULTIPLE. The book did not seem farfetched or inauthentic to me in any way. Nor was I surprised by "the surprise" It followed quite well from what went before. I kept wondering why the book was classified as science fiction and never came to a conclusive decision on this myself. If anything I would have characterized it as a gothic thriller. But I found it to be a great book.The two multiples in the book were well drawn. The change from one person to another was well done and well motivated. I did wonder if there was a subplot going on with Mrs. Wilson and/or Penny but was glad there wasn't. It would have made the book too contrived. Gaile ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 12:10:27 -0600 From: Chris Shaffer Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU > Did you like the book? If yes, why? If not, why not? Yes, I loved it. I had a hard time putting it down. It's probably the best book I've read in the last year. See below for the answer to "why." > Did you like the characters, the plot, the ending? Yes, yes and yes. > Would you recommend it to friends? Yes, definitely. > What do you think? Is it > speculative fiction or mainstream fiction? It's hard to say this is "science fiction" by traditional definitions, since there isn't a lot of description of science and the traditional trappings of science fiction are missing. However, I think it's clear that it is "speculative fiction." I don't really want to get into the semantics of defining the genre, though (for a good overview, see http://alcor.concordia.ca/~talfred/sf-def.htm ). In many ways, it's a book that transcends the boundaries of speculative fiction and mainstream fiction. I think fans of both forms will enjoy the book immensely. I would recommend it to people who would never think of reading "science fiction" with the expectation that they would appreciate it. > Do you think the portrayal of people with multiple personalities (Andrew, > Penny) in the book convincing? Yes, definitely. Though, I would say that I found the portrayal of each soul convincing. I think that's one of the things that sold me on the book. I found each of Andrew and Penny's internal people to be intriguing, interesting characters - not just Andrew and Penny as people with MPD, but Seferis, Aunt Sam, Maledicta and Maleficta - all of them appeared to me as individuals with their own personalities, desires and needs - rather than simply "aspects" of Andrew and Penny. That's one of the strengths of the book - it was very easy to suspend disbelief and really believe that all these souls are sharing a body. (This is also why I think it is valid to classify the book as speculative fiction. You don't have to suspend disbelief on this level for 'true life' stories.) > How was it for > you? Did you saw a surprise coming? This one? If yes, what hints did you > pick up? I assumed there would be surprises. After all, the entire book is a series of revelations. I did not assume there would be a big surprise, and was not expecting Andrew's body to be female at all. It hit me out of the blue. It really made me think about the various people inhabiting Andrew's body. In some ways, it made me "believe in" Aunt Sam a bit more. I had some problems with the presentation of one of Andrew's souls as female before the revelation, but not after. I'm not sure why. I suspect one of the things that convinced the jury that this was a Tiptree winner is the matter-of-fact presentation of male and female souls within a body, combined with the surprise that the body isn't the gender most readers assume. I've read lots of fiction examining gender, and I was surprised and had new thoughts about gender roles. I can only imagine what kind of thinking (or re-thinking) is inspired in readers who aren't familiar with this type of literature. I think it's very informative that none of the souls are without gender. I think (but of course I might be wrong) Ruff implicitly accepts the idea that gender is a defining characteristic of humans, then goes on to 'flip' the gender of the main character, while at the same time retaining the gender of the souls unchanged. Is Andrew's body the main character? I think not. The souls are the main characters - and their genders don't change. What does that say about the physical body as an expression of gender? I doubt many readers "change" Andrew's gender mentally in their minds post-revelation. It's interesting that I still think of Andrew as male, even after it is revealed that his body is female. Did Ruff really change the gender of any of the characters? If the body is the character, then the answer to the question is "yes." If the souls are the characters, then the answer to the question is "no." Isn't this fun? I LOVED this book. There's lots of room for new ideas here. That, combined with good storytelling and phenomenal characterization, are what make this a Tiptree Award winner. That leaves open the question of feminism. I don't think this book is explicitly feminist. It certainly reinforces some feminist ideals, but I don't see elements in it that push a feminist viewpoint. It goes back to the old question - is a book with strong female characters inherently feminist? To that, I would add, "are books with good gender bending inherently feminist?" I'd argue that this book is of interest to students of feminist science fiction, but doesn't fall perfectly into the genre. > Andy Gage's soul was male from the beginning while his body was female. Does > this mean he would have become/been a transsexual without the mental and > sexual abuse? I don't think the first sentence is a valid statement. We aren't given quite enough information about the body's origins. We don't really know what gender identify the 'original' soul within the body possessed. Even if the statement is valid, I don't think it's possible to answer the question. We can speculate, but there are far too many unknowns. I'm looking forward to more discussion on this book. -- Chris ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 13:28:36 -0500 From: Gaile Pohlhaus Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Chris Shaffer wrote: >>Do you think the portrayal of people with multiple personalities (Andrew, >>Penny) in the book convincing? > >Yes, definitely. Though, I would say that I found the portrayal of >each soul convincing. I think that's one of the things that sold me >on the book. I found each of Andrew and Penny's internal people to be >intriguing, interesting characters - not just Andrew and Penny as >people with MPD, but Seferis, Aunt Sam, Maledicta and Maleficta - all >of them appeared to me as individuals with their own personalities, >desires and needs - rather than simply "aspects" of Andrew and Penny. >That's one of the strengths of the book - it was very easy to suspend >disbelief and really believe that all these souls are sharing a body. >(This is also why I think it is valid to classify the book as >speculative fiction. You don't have to suspend disbelief on this >level for 'true life' stories.) I must respectfully disagree with Chris. Having a friend with MPD it was not necessary to suspend my disbelief about the souls at all. I knew her before she started therapy, all through her therapy, and we remain close friends. The appearance and replacement of differing souls or personalities within the body is well described and fits with my experience of conversing with my friend. The murder mystery actually was my moment of suspension of disbelief. I suspect part of this is due to our own personal life experiences. Gaile ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 13:21:50 -0600 From: Chris Shaffer Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU > I must > respectfully disagree with Chris. Having a friend with MPD it was not > necessary to suspend my disbelief about the souls at all. I knew her before > she started therapy, all through her therapy, and we remain close friends. > The appearance and replacement of differing souls or personalities within > the body is well described and fits with my experience of conversing with my > friend. The murder mystery actually was my moment of suspension of > disbelief. I suspect part of this is due to our own personal life > experiences. Fair enough - different experiences will definitely play a role in how speculative something seems to one person or another. I haven't ever (to my knowledge) met anyone with MPD. And actually, it wasn't so much the idea that multiple people existed within one body that caused me to need suspension of disbelief. That was part of it, but a bigger factor was the entire 'virtual world' of the House. The idea that the souls had some alternate world in which they could interact with each other, where the laws of physics are sometimes enforced and sometimes not, with a house, a cemetery, a lake...this was all a bit into the realm of the fantastic for me. -- Chris ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 14:21:18 -0500 From: davebelden Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU It's very interesting to me to hear that Gaile has a friend with MPD and that it all rang true to her nonetheless - that was good to hear, because I loved this book totally, but was left not knowing how real it might be. I would never have classified it as science fiction - it is simply mainstream fiction to me, and not so different from other mainstream novels that try to get into the head of someone with a mental illness, or novels that rely a great deal on a scientific worldview without being 'science fiction' (e.g. an Updike novel I read years ago about religion and science - I forget the title). I found it similar, in the way it gripped me and made the completely bizarre seem realistic and believable, to 'The Time Traveler's Wife' by Audrey Niffenegger, a wonderful, stunning recent novel in which two central characters travel through time. The TT'sW was undeniably science fiction (though it is not marketed as such), because, ironically, it broke basic laws of physics; it's 'science fiction' because it contravened physics with a jargon or worldview of 'science' as opposed to fantasy. Often science fiction is just a way of serving up fantasy (what if I could time travel, travel to the stars) without upsetting a 'scientific worldview', which means the author has to invent weird 'science', rather than extrapolate plausibly from existing science. Ruff's book is more akin to 'hard' science fiction that tries to stay within the bounds of currently understood scientific research. Anyway, I don't really care about these labels - I am glad both the TT'sW and Set This House In Order are marketed as regular fiction, as innumerable people who think they don't like 'science fiction' will then read them; and I also wish more science fiction was offered as mainstream. The biggest surprise in the book to me was not the gender surprise, but Penny's decision to integrate. But this was also a great thing: the initial crusading nature of the book (don't integrate!) was to some extent undermined; the paradoxical and plural were affirmed: the message affirmed that there are many roads, many ways to be a man or a woman or an MPD. I loved the way that he showed non-MPD people as being often so unwittingly at the mercy of their own various personas. The self is not simple. Julie acts out with very little self-understanding. Andrew has more self knowledge than she does, but also sometimes more knowledge of people in general and the difference between their actual behavior and what they think they are doing. (Which makes his surprise that Julie freaks out as his body's gender a little hard to believe). Psychiatrists are presented as people who also may act out unconsciously - e.g. on page 108 Dr. Kroft sends Aaron back to a locked ward simply because he was horribly rude to him, had needled him at a place where maybe there was truth Kroft didn't want to face. Andrew understands personal responsibility beautifully: no one is more of a victim than he and his souls are, no one has a better excuse for getting drunk, and yet he is completely clear that he can and must choose what to do. This is a good metaphor for human existence - we are paradoxically at one and the same time formed by innumerable forces acting on us without our consent, and at the same time have no choice but to be fully responsible for what we do in response. These characters' MPD syndrome is a way of making this crystal clear - but it's true for all of us. In various ways Ruff takes this incredibly unusual condition and makes general points about the human condition from it - what a writer! When I was teaching sociology I found this the hardest thing to understand and express: that we are formed by social forces and have to understand them in order to make choices about how to respond to them - we have to see we are in chains before we can start to become free of them - I had a string puppet who believed it was a free and real person, and learned that it couldn't become a real person until it saw the strings and could cut them - not a great metaphor because we can't cut the strings that easily... Often the right wing focuses on personal responsibility while the left sees the social or psychological forces creating the problem - but both are necessary for a full response to life. I can't think of a better book for explaining this than Ruff's. If I had any mild quibble with the book, it was that at times it seemed to be too much of a fictional case study of a psychiatric syndrome. I didn't feel this until the bottom but one paragraph on page 95, when you realize that Andrew is not a naive person struggling with his condition but has researched it thoroughly and is going to let us know the results of that research. Until then it had just been a story, with us in the various souls' heads. After that, at moments it becomes more of a social problem movie of the week. From around page 106 we start to get the non-fiction magazine article on MPD. That is really and truly a strength of the book - it ties it to serious and responsible scholarship. I just felt that an even more miraculously skilful writer might have integrated the info even better. Niffenegger actually did do this aspect better - she kept us in the story and didn't bring her head out of it to explain the syndrome to us - perhaps an easier task because the syndrome involved (time traveling) is not a real one. I do recommend reading the TT'sW after reading this book, though, to see how beautifully Niffenegger dresses up time traveling as if it were an actual syndrome like MPD. Is it feminist science fiction? There are as many feminisms as there are science fictions, and I'm not sure how important the question is, as long as it isn't anti-feminist or anti-science... Once it was feminist enough to show strong, self-actualizing female characters but do we now have to do more than that to qualify? There are gays who have written that being gay becomes less defining the more gays are accepted in society. So what that so-and-so's gay, what's interesting is that they speak five languages, etc. One day being gay (or black or whatever) will be just one of many attributes a person has. Can we get there with gender itself and is that a feminist goal? Do we need to get beyond strong female heroes and start showing that gender is biologically meaningless because entirely socially constructed? I can see that feminists of my generation (I'm 56) might be very happy with a book that seems to deny gender is important at all - it implies that gender is all culture and no biology. But the debate has surely moved beyond that: nature and nurture are becoming less easy to disentangle and the great variety of outcomes more understood. I thought Ruff sidestepped that issue and did it beautifully and convincingly. Maybe gender is just unimportant for Gage - while for Julie and perhaps Penny it remains important. I took it that it was unexplained why male souls had predominated in Gage's body, and I agree with Chris that I don't see it stated that Andy Gage was male oriented from the start - quite the opposite would be true from Sam's point of view, or that of the policeman who was sweet on her. It seemed more like a random thing, inexplicable, for some unknowable reason the best way she could fight back against the particular man who was abusing her, possibly connected to her mother's passivity, whatever - it's just what happened and the fact that for Andrew it's not an issue is nice: he has bigger things to worry about. It was more than a little naive of him to imagine Julie wouldn't be freaked out by learning he has no dick - but then Andrew is a curious mixture of wise and foolish. I wanted to find his surprise at her reaction plausible - though I think Ruff was having his fun with it too, springing this surprise on us for the purpose of having a rollicking plot. Sorry to go on so long. I could write more! Love this book! Dave ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 12:32:58 +0200 From: Crystal Warren Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU > Did you like the book? If yes, why? If not, why not? > Did you like the characters, the plot, the ending? > Would you recommend it to friends? Yes, yes and yes. I loved the book and found myself reading far too late into the night and then rushing home from work the next day to finish it. And then starting straight away from the beginning for a slower read. It is one of the best books that I read last year. This is just a quick response for now as this is my first week back at work after my annual leave. I will hopefully be able to talk more about the book next week and am looking forward to the discussions. I will also hopefully have my copy back by then, as not only have I recommended it to friends, one of them is busy reading it at the moment. Also to respond to the query earlier about people's participation in the BGD - in one of the 350 emails waiting for me! My tie with Set this house in order for best book of the year is another BDG book, Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman series. My copy arrived too late to participate in the discussion but I enjoyed reading the posts - and have loved the book, and recommended it to a number of friends. At least one of whom is now also hooked and waiting with me for the next installment to arrive. This list is particularly useful for me as I live in a small town, and even the nearest city has very little in the way of serious (ie good) science fiction or fantasy. So I always have to order, and this list gives me titles and authors to look for. And occassionaly (like this month) the books even arrive in time for me to talk about them. Regards Crystal ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 18:19:47 -0800 From: Rain Donaldson Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Hi all, I finally read Set This House in Order. Better late than never. I liked the book a lot. The mystery subplot at the end felt forced, but it didn't destroy the careful character building of the bulk of the book which captivated me. I'd heard rumors of a gender related surprise in the book which made the fact that the protagonist is an adult male who looks like a teenager and has body image issues a dead giveaway. I liked that the surprise was not especially central to the book and was treated rather matter of factly by Andy. I liked the combination of maturity and naivete shown by Andy. Because of his background his judgement was skewed especially with regards to relationships. He was born an adult and lacked the experience of how others would react to his body. If anything felt unrealistic to me, it was that Andy was consistently seen as an adult male with no visible effort on his part. That could happen, and attitude is a large part of presentation, but it still felt odd. The book felt entirely like mainstream fiction to me, good mainstream fiction, but not especially speculative. It would have been interesting from a gender standpoint to see more of the history and to have learned how the various souls developed their personalities and genders, but I think that would have detracted from the novel. It was also interesting that Andy showed no particular discomfort from his body not matching his identity. Larger and smaller selves were described as having to adjust to the body, but Andy was not described as making a similar adjustment. Having propriaception that doesn't match your physical body feels really weird. I suspect this would have become more of an issue if Andy ever got to have sex. Thanks, Lorrraine ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 15:33:43 +1100 From: Elizabeth Wulff Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Hi all, A belated post but none-the-less I'd be interested in what you have to say about the following. I'm late because I've been trying to work out what I think about the issue of multiple genders in the mind (would that be multiple minds?) that inhabit the same body in different ways. It seems to me that this renders the body an empty shell that has no influence over the minds which it is connected to and are connected to it. I'm working with some theory (17th century philosopher Spinoza thru two feminist philosophers, Gatens and Lloyd + corporeal theory of Grosz) which challenges the traditional Cartesian notion that separates the mind and the body and privileges the mind over the body. Basically the Spinozist viewpoint was that the mind and the body are attribues of one substance which express themselves in different ways ie. the attribute of thought and the attribute of extension and that each attribute is a way in which reality becomes intelligible. These are connected in that the mind is aware what the body feels. It's complicated theory and i haven't worked it all out yet. Under this model no two mind-body combinations are the same which leads to a concentration on differences. Thus mind-body's are different from each other and have commonalities which could also be differences - class, race, sex, sexual orientation, culture and so on. (sorry this is so long and dense) I'm toying with the idea that this creates the possibility that the mind isn't matched to the biological sex of the body but is still aware of what the body feels - the mind and body are connected and 'at home' with each other (kind of like Andrew is). So in some ways it would mean that the expression(s) of the mind and sex of the body don't necessarily have to conform, although sometimes they would (to today's equal standards) but that was their (combined as one) unique way of being human. So like Maledicta points out when Sam is in the body, she knows the body is female but when Andrew or Aaron is embodying(?) the body you can't really tell (p330). What does that say about how sex makes gender attributes or vica versa? Does the way the mind feels about itself and its body determine its sexuality/sexual orientation? If Andrew is aware that his body is female but that doesn't affect who he (feels he) is what does that say about sex/gender and sexual orientation?? Western society presumes 'sex' determines the 'sexuality' and 'gender' of a person. It seems to me that Andrew only calls Andy Gage 'he' because all the other souls do (p237,8). Yet, he thinks of himself as male (when he says "I'm not a lesbian either" to Julie p238). That suggests to me that the actual bio sex of his body is not important to him. I think that Ruff is suggesting (either intentionally or not) that too much emphasis is placed on sex as being a determining factor of one's personality. So does that mean that everyone is used to how their mind-body fits together (however multiple it may be) and it's only in the social world where standards are set and broken? Thanks everyone. Oh, I forgot to say that I thought it was a fantastic story. Elizabeth. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 01:28:30 -0800 From: Rain Donaldson Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Hi Elizabeth, Thanks for some fascinating comments. Better late than never. > I'm toying with the idea that this creates the possibility that the mind > isn't matched to the biological sex of the body but is still aware of what > the body feels - the mind and body are connected and 'at home' with each > other (kind of like Andrew is). So in some ways it would mean that the > expression(s) of the mind and sex of the body don't necessarily have to > conform, although sometimes they would (to today's equal standards) but that > was their (combined as one) unique way of being human. I'd say that the scene early in the book talking about some of the souls being of different heights and the troubles that causes confirms this as well. I think that most people's self image is probably close to, but not identical to, their body because the body is there to give feedback, but that feedback is filtered through the perceptions of the mind. Many people probably see themselves as larger or smaller, older or younger, or otherwise different than their bodies appear. In Andy, the souls appearance seems to match their self image exactly. Just as the souls of differently sized bodies had some difficulty adjusting, a soul of a different sex would also have some difficulties. I have no doubt that Andy had male genitals which he could sense propriaceptively despite his bodies' different genitalia. This is similar to phantom limbs which some people can sense the same way after an amputation. > So like Maledicta points out when Sam is in the body, she knows the body is > female but when Andrew or Aaron is embodying(?) the body you can't really > tell (p330). What does that say about how sex makes gender attributes or > vica versa? Does the way the mind feels about itself and its body determine > its sexuality/sexual orientation? Andy dressed in ways that hide physical cues. Lacking strong physical cues mist people will judge sex by gender. Heck, many people will ignore some obvious physical cues if the gender presentation is sufficiently convincing. Sexual orientation may or may not have a physical cause, but it is definitely in the mind. Someone who thinks of their body and self as female and who is attracted to other females will express themselves as a lesbian, which may be unsuccessful or even attractive to some heterosexual women if the body has largely male physical characteristics. Nonetheless the behaviors will be quite different from those of a heterosexual male. Sexual orientation is also known to change for some trans people during or after transition. > It seems to me that Andrew only calls Andy Gage 'he' because all > the other souls do (p237,8). Yet, he thinks of himself as male (when he > says "I'm not a lesbian either" to Julie p238). That suggests to me that > the actual bio sex of his body is not important to him. Funny, I got the impression that the bio sex of his body was important to him, but not at all something that he allowed to define himself. If andy had the choice and no other souls were affected I'm pretty sure he would want a body to match his soul. That said, I think a lot of other things are higher priorities for Andy. > So does that mean that everyone is used to how their mind-body > fits together (however multiple it may be) and it's only in the social world > where standards are set and broken? I don't think so. I see evidence of mind/body discontinuities all the time. Some transgender persons are only among the most obvious examples. I think most people undergo a degree of mind/body discontinuity at puberty when their body changes and the self image races to catch up. I do think that most people eventually resolve any major discontinuities one way or another. It is possible to get used to a mind/body discontinuity, but it isn't the same as being comfortable with it. Thanks, Lorrraine ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 10:08:23 +1100 From: Elizabeth Wulff Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Thanks Lorraine, You made some interesting points which hadn't occurred to me. Can you elaborate on the following: > Andy dressed in ways that hide physical cues. > Lacking strong physical cues mist people will judge > sex by gender. Heck, many people will ignore some > obvious physical cues if the gender presentation is > sufficiently convincing. Don't you think that the mind's attitude effects the body's presentation regardless of dress? To an extent at least. I mean Aunt Sam was wearing the clothes Andrew had on. Or do you think that's a social creation - feminine ways, masculine ways etc. The way they're allocated isn't always an accurate portrayal of a person's sex or sexual orientation. Society's categories of being male or female, hetero or homosexual do not cover the varying degrees that exist. The boundaries always seem much blurrier than society would allow. > Sexual orientation is also known to change for > some trans people during or after transition. Can you give an example?? I'm interested in the how and why of the self and the social in that situation. > I don't think so. I see evidence of mind/body > discontinuities all the time. Some transgender persons > are only among the most obvious examples. I think most > people undergo a degree of mind/body discontinuity at > puberty when their body changes and the self image > races to catch up. I do think that most people > eventually resolve any major discontinuities one way > or another. It is possible to get used to a mind/body > discontinuity, but it isn't the same as being > comfortable with it. Don't you think that society's boundaries which determine 'how' the man should be masc and 'how' the woman should be 'fem' play a part in creating a discontinuity in a person that doesn't fit the model? What would things be like if those boundaries were more fluid and accepting of different combinations?? Would that mean that people were more comfortable with their discontinuties? I don't think any self is a single unity - we all have different ways of being at different times. Perhaps we are all degrees of multiples - like Penny who is everyone at once in the end but sometimes one (soul) more than (any of the) others. I noticed that she had more female souls than male ones. Do you think that played a part in her reintegration? Could that be one of the reasons reintegration is impossible for Andy? Would that suggest that depending on the degree of (physical/mental) trauma/abuse suffered that we are all made up of fragments of our birth soul?? People change over time. Could MPD be just the extreme version of us all? Thanks, Elizabeth. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 09:38:20 -0800 From: Susan Hericks Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU --- Elizabeth Wulff wrote: > Would that suggest > that depending on the degree of (physical/mental) > trauma/abuse suffered that we are all made up of > fragments of our birth soul?? People change over > time. Could MPD be just the extreme version of us > all? When I was reading this book I definitely felt a raised awareness about how many different "people" I have in me. Makes me think of Walt Whitman (to paraphase) - "very well, then, I contradict myself. I am vast, I contain multitudes." And ani difranco: " I am 32 flavors and then some." ;o) This awareness was probably the best thing I got from reading this book, which I also liked for other reasons. The idea of making friends with each of these parts, rather than banishing them into the shadow, appeals to my Jungian tendencies. Isn't this just the "inside" version of what we consider when imagine our dealings with so-called aliens (or others of all kinds) on the "outside? Susan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 23:54:59 -0800 From: Rain Donaldson Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Hi Elizabeth, I think that we're saying largely the same thing when we're talking about Andy and Sam's presentation. Of course the mind's attitude has an effect, mostly through small behavioral cues which are very gendered. Also, Andy picked the clothing to conceal physical cues, which doesn't mean that Sam couldn't rearrange those same clothes in ways to make her anatomy more obvious. In my experience, people will make an initial judgement of someone's gender very quickly and only reevaluate that with a lot of evidence so first impressions are very important. Speech patterns, vocal timbre, walk, body language, and attitude all convey gender. And all no doubt differ between Andy and Sam. Sexual orientation gets really tricky sometimes for trans folks. I've talked with a transman who had previously identified as a lesbian, but became a gay man after he took testosterone for a while and a straight man who became a straight woman after her surgery. For several people I have known, going through the process of transition has led to their attractions becoming more fluid and moving toward bisexuality. For others, probably the majority, sexual orientation doesn't change much or at all. It hasn't for me so far. I'm actually not convinced that society's attitudes create the discontinuity as much as they turn an existing discontinuity into a social problem. Example: The propriaceptive sense lets you know your body's position in space even when you aren't looking at or touching a particular body part. Close your eyes and touch your nose or put your hand behind your head and tap your fingers together and you'll be using your propriaceptive sense. People who lose body parts sometimes still retain a propriaceptive sense of those parts, which is known as "phantom limb syndrome." Some trans folks have similar issues with breasts and genitalia in that the propriaceptive sense does not match the body that is physically present. While in theory that might be created by social factors I kinda doubt it. If the boundaries were more fluid and accepting I think that some people would be much more comfortable in their existing bodies and others would be much more comfortable with changing their bodies and do it sooner. I'm pretty sure that some people would want or need to alter their bodies even if there were no roles/rules to restrict behavior. I don't think reintegration was impossible for Andy. I think he didn't want reintegration. It's one of my favorite things about the book that this fascinating person chose to remain as he was rather than become "normal." Normal is overrated. That said, I don't mind that Penny chose to reintegrate because that's the point it was her choice. It is possible that Andy's maleness may be part of why he doesn't want to reintegrate. I think there may be something to what you're saying about MPD being an extension of our normal internal divisions. I think that's true philosophically if nothing else. I'm often of two minds when making a decision and I behave very differently when under certain kinds of stress although I know I don't have MPD. Thanks, Lorrraine ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 10:47:55 +0200 From: Crystal Warren Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU ----- Original Message ----- From: "Susan Hericks" wrote > When I was reading this book I definitely felt a > raised awareness about how many different "people" I > have in me. Makes me think of Walt Whitman (to > paraphase) - "very well, then, I contradict myself. I > am vast, I contain multitudes." Yes, this was also my experience (or at least the experience of some of the people inside me:). I love the Whitman quote and use it quite often in my own struggles, not with MPD, but with coping with the diverse and at times fragmented aspects of my own personality, complete with contradictions. > The idea of making friends with each of these > parts, rather than banishing them into the shadow, > appeals to my Jungian tendencies. Isn't this just the > "inside" version of what we consider when imagine our > dealings with so-called aliens (or others of all > kinds) on the "outside? To me this was one of the most important and interesting parts of the book. Both Penny and Andrew were trying to integrate, just using different approaches. And it is only when Andrew and Aaron can integrate the dark sides of the household that they can truly function. I think there are also interesting comments on the tendency to separate personal and public personae / spaces, as Aaron tries to do initially. Crystal ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 09:11:43 -0800 From: Susan Hericks Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU --- Rain Donaldson > wrote: > I'm actually not convinced that society's > attitudes create the discontinuity as much as they > turn an existing discontinuity into a social > problem. Amen! You put it so well I want to engrave it somewhere! > Some trans folks have similar issues with > breasts and genitalia in that the propriaceptive > sense does not match the body that is physically present. > While in theory that might be created by social > factors I kinda doubt it. I recently read James Tiptree's _The Starry Rift_ in which there is a fascinating story about just this kind of thing, although it does not touch on gender. I believe it is the fourth tale in the book if anyone goes looking for it. Lorraine - what a wonderful, articulate, perceptive post! Thanks! Susan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 09:51:36 +1100 From: Elizabeth Wulff Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Set this house in order by Matt Ruff To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU I agree Susan! Thanks Lorraine, Susan and Crystal - interesting perspectives all and lots of food for thought! Elizabeth.