Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 18:18:30 -0400 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Wild Life To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU Hi everyone -- I was away for the weekend and didn't get back until yesterday evening, so it's past time that I kicked off the discussion of *Wild Life*, by Molly Gloss. So, those of you who have read it, what did you think? Was Charlotte Bridger Drummond a likeable heroine? Was she an inspiring feminist role model? What did you make of her emotional as well as physical journey? And what about the wild giants? Were they believable? And if not, what purpose did they serve in the story? I confess, I found them a bit over the top as "noble savages", and wondered if the author really believed that a species could be so completely free of social conflict, or if we were meant to question whether Charlotte really had these experiences. Were the "seqwa'tci" too good to be true? The book is structured as a series of journal entries, with clippings and story fragments interspersed among them. Was it important to the story that it be constructed this way? Or was it intrusive? I thought it was a bit hard to believe that Charlotte was still keeping a journal while slogging through the backwoods with the giants, and very hard to believe that when she was returned to civilization she claimed she couldn't understand people speaking English to her! I am curious how other people responded to this narrative device. Let the discussion begin! (If none of these questions appeal to you, feel free to ignore them and contribute whatever thoughts or impressions you see fit.) ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://therem.net/ Listening to: Radiohead -- Hail to the Thief "I've built my white picket fence around the Now, with a commanding view of the Soon-to-Be." -- The Tick ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 15:44:52 -0700 From: Kristina Solheim Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Wild Life To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU At 06:18 PM 7/8/2003 -0400, Janice wrote: >The book is structured as a series of journal entries, with clippings and >story fragments interspersed among them. Was it important to the story that >it be constructed this way? Or was it intrusive? I am curious how other >people responded to this narrative device. The face-to-face book club I'm in did this book last month and when we met, it was amazing to hear all the different perspectives. One thing that was raised about the narrative device that I didn't think of was that perhaps it was an account of a woman going mad... that the giant creatures were a figment of her imagination. That imagining being part of a family unit was a way for her to work through her issues at feeling oppressed by motherhood and not feeling connected to her five boys. Also, that the death of the twin was working through her issues of the death of her younger brother Teddy. The other interesting thing we discussed was how all the different perspectives fit together. It was suggested that, because of the foreward (where the great-granddaughter says here is the diary with lots of little scraps here and there), maybe the parts she wrote in other people's POV were fictional as well. I really, really loved this book. I especially loved the little essay about female emancipation... something about how women will only be free once they are freed by technology of household work... and the contrast with her housekeeper's essay about how nothing will change no matter how much technology we get. ciao! Kristina ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 14:38:47 -0500 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Wild Life and Upcoming To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU Hi everyone -- The month of July has zipped by, and it's almost time to discuss *Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister*. As a follow-up to the earlier comments about *Wild Life*, I found a thoughtful interview with Molly Gloss at Powells.com: http://www.powells.com/authors/gloss.html She talks about her writing process, her other books (including one of our previous selections, *The Dazzle of Day*), and what she considers a good read. As a science fiction fan, I found the interview interesting in that it was clearly not conducted with an SF audience in mind. Gloss doesn't engage in Atwood-style distancing tactics, but she also doesn't seem as positive about the genre as her mentor, Ursula K. Le Guin. If anyone has finished *Wild Life* and wants to talk about it, there is still time! -- Janice ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2003 21:40:34 -0700 From: Margaret McBride Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Wild Life To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU I am embarrassed that I haven't written about Wild Life or much on Fox Woman because I enjoyed the specificity/details of environment, etc. in both. I'm assuming other people are as busy as I but it is sad to see the responses go down so much. I've been thinking about one of the issues presented about WL and wanted to respond before the time was totally gone >if we were meant to question whether Charlotte really >had these experiences. Janice's question Reading the book as if the entire experience in the wilderness is a hallucination seems to me to be a mistake in terms of the "lived experience" of the reader. It reminds me of someone I know who read Woman on the Edge of Time without acknowledging any of the science fiction tropes--it was simply the ravings of a woman in a hospital for the mentally ill. Another example would be saying that Alice in Wonderland is all just a dream. For all three of these stories, of course on one level we as readers acknowledge that people can't go down a rabbit hole and animals don't talk and we can't take pills to become little and big. Certainly I don't believe in giant intelligent beings hiding in the NW forests for real, but dismissing those tropes as all in the characters' heads doesn't work for me. They are metaphors for larger issues if nothing else (dismissal of the importance of the natural environment by humans in Wild Life, etc.) Somehow the suspension of disbelief allows us to see these books with multi-layers and I feel we're doing such fiction a disservice if we say the plot events are some dream/fantasy of the characters. I'm not sure I'm articulating my reasons very well but I think an important element of why I like science fiction/fantasy while some of my friends can't get beyond the lack of realism is going on here. >The book is structured as a series of journal entries, with clippings and >story fragments interspersed among them. from Janice I liked the narrative method and thought her character was the kind of woman who would be writing as long as she had the ability. I liked thinking of her as an old woman trying to categorize/come to grips with the events in some way by various methods. I liked that some of the "feminist statements' were dated before the main events of the story. The combination of elements reminded me of at least 3 other bits: the kind of pulp adventure fiction that was written by women like L. M. Alcott before she was famous for Little Women, the fact that early novels were all presented as letters or journals to help unfamiliar readers through the suspension of disbelief/this can't be worthwhile because fiction means untruth idea, and the layering in other books (like Handmaid's Tale) by having history presented as uncovered/reprinted by a later academician. The description of her life and the NW woods felt very accurate to this Northwesterner who has spent a bit of time in old growth. I hope someone else has something to say about this book before we go on. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 16:11:42 -0400 From: Gwen Veazey Subject: [*FSF-L*] Wild Life To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU I, too, have missed discussion on the list. Would like to say thanks to the folks who selected and voted for _Fox Woman_ and _Wild Life_ which I consider two of the best books I've read. _Fox Woman_ reminded me of _Samurai's Garden_ another gentle, poetic, skillfully told tale set in Japan, although not f/sf. Enjoyed Margaret's, Kristina's, and Janice's comments on _Wild Life_ and have missed any others, if there were any. (Also enjoyed comments on _FoxWoman_, Phoebe's and others.) >Was Charlotte Bridger Drummond a likeable heroine? Was she an inspiring >feminist role model? Yes, and yes. She had me from page 32 after offering this about Horace Stuband: " He is indulgent with my children and kind with his cows, a man largely self-educated, and I believe he's a bit in awe of me; in fact he seldom looks at me when he speaks, which I suppose is due to abject fear; all of which may very well be good qualities in a husband." Even her less attractive habits - such as attention-seeking - were charming because she freely admitted most of her failings. Interesting that at the end, she had to lose the main feminine aspect she had held onto - her long hair. Kristina pointed out the housekeeping inconsistencies. Wonder how much Charlotte paid her housekeeper? >What did you make of her emotional as well as physical journey? Mostly convincing. I loved this book. Re: Gloss's comment about what she likes to read herself (in an excerpted interview from my edition,) "I'm still looking for the adventurous story with something going on at a deeper level, and prose that knocks me out . . ." I believe that describes this novel fairly well. One thing I really liked - Charlotte's realization that she had nothing to fear from the lesbian - it was certain men she needed to watch out for. >And what about the wild giants? After being set up to expect a traditional rescue of a helpless female, I liked being shown the mother and children, not a big strong man. I found them believable. Didn't see them as quite human enough to be "noble savages." Still, they had language and were smart enough to know to destroy bones after a death. The ambivalence of the story - leaving it open as possibly from Charlotte's imagination - seems a way for the author to straddle the fence and have more of a market for the tale, or am I being way too cynical? The story offers much realism, details about the logging industry, powerful sense of a real place, thoughtful insights on human nature, environmental issues. It's easy to dismiss the fantasy. >The book is structured as a series of journal entries, with clippings and >story fragments interspersed among them. Was it important to the story that >it be constructed this way? Or was it intrusive? I thought it was a bit hard >to believe that Charlotte was still keeping a journal while slogging >through the backwoods with the giants, and very hard to believe that when >she was returned to civilization she claimed she couldn't understand people >speaking English to her! I am curious how other people responded to this >narrative device. Yes, maybe hard to believe she kept the journal, but the author made an effort to stress how important writing was to Charlotte - it was her whole life, more important than her children most of the time. Not sure about the loss of English - perhaps the author based this on research about lost people? The narrative device was no problem for me until the climactic scenes with Charlotte desperate for help, lost in the forest, about to meet the giants??? I did not want to read about family history or essays on various characters then, or anything except what was going to happen. I mean, goodness, it took her 168 pages, out of 255, to get there. When an author manages to create such great narrative tension, then flubs it, aauugh! Maybe I should just say that it bothered me, not that she flubbed anything, she is such a wonderful writer. I need help interpreting the last entry, have read it several times, still elusive. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 21:14:10 -0400 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Wild Life To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU At 04:11 PM 2003-08-08 -0400, Gwen Veazey wrote: >I need help interpreting the last entry, have read it several times, still >elusive. Gwen, do you mean the last journal entry or the very last section of the book, the section from "Tatoosh"? If the latter, I thought it was a metaphorical, almost mythical, account of Harriet's death at the hands of her father, as well as the destruction of the forest by the loggers. It is very dense, and strikes me as a "Le Guin mode" of storytelling, if that makes any sense. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://therem.net/ Listening to: Radiohead -- Hail to the Thief "I've built my white picket fence around the Now, with a commanding view of the Soon-to-Be." -- The Tick