Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang in Beyond Reality

Sep 24, 2013 mark monday rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: after-the-fall, new-wave, scifi-60s-70s-80s

David Sumner has a problem: the world as he knows it is about to end. what's a brilliant young man and his equally brilliant family to do? why, bring back members of that extended family, store supplies, circle the wagons, and build a lab which will eventually help the Sumner family to repopulate the earth, of course. sounds like a good plan to me.

there's something about the 70s that I just really dig. many things, actually. besides the wonderfully hideous clothes and the wonderfully not-hid David Sumner has a problem: the world as he knows it is about to end. what's a brilliant young man and his equally brilliant family to do? why, bring back members of that extended family, store supplies, circle the wagons, and build a lab which will eventually help the Sumner family to repopulate the earth, of course. sounds like a good plan to me.

there's something about the 70s that I just really dig. many things, actually. besides the wonderfully hideous clothes and the wonderfully not-hideous moustaches and of course all of the brilliant movies, one of the things I like about that decade is the science fiction that came out of it. sci-fi that is confident mankind is headed for cataclysmic change any day now; sci-fi writers that came up with all sorts of ways that mankind can survive or transform or transcend or even just die. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is such a book. one of the very 70s things about this novel is its sweet but not saccharine attachment to nature... if you don't dig nature, you have a lot to learn man. there's a vagueness to that sentiment just as there is a vagueness to what exactly is causing the world to break down. and that vagueness is also pretty 70s. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is not the sort of novel that will spell things out for you. you either dig it or you don't dig it.

Molly of the Miriam Sisters has a problem: she went on an expedition to see what could be found out there, and she came back changed. she doesn't see things the same way. she should probably try to change back; she's making her duplicate sisters uneasy and her community deals with unease in fairly drastic ways. but she doesn't want to change. she's not sure why she is drawing these disturbing images or why she finds such new comfort in nature, in being by herself. but she likes it. she likes being an individual.

and that's another great thing about the 70s, in sci-fi and beyond: that interest in exploring the necessity of both individuality and community. Wilhelm does not paint this after-the-fall society in broad strokes so that the reader can easily hiss at it. there is a nurturing, loving vibe to this future community. people support their siblings automatically. sexuality is nonchalant. it is a community that cares for its citizens. well, in its own way. but of course in the end Wilhelm cherishes individuality and this community is shown to be deeply flawed. if this sounds like the novel may be some kind of didactic screed on individualism, well, it's not. Wilhelm is subtle. she is a lovely writer but she is also fine with making the reader a bit uncomfortable. Molly's "descent" into individuality is eerie and unnerving, haunting, as strange an experience for the reader as it is for this new and vaguely threatening Molly - no longer of the Miriam Sisters.

Mark has a problem: he is not like the lab-bred brothers & sisters, and they don't like that. the clones don't like this natural-born kid. but they need him, they need his skills, they need his bravery, they need his ability to understand nature and to be by himself. unfortunately, they don't actually know they need him and how badly they need individuals like him for their survival as a race. at one point Mark builds a snowman. the young clones don't understand it and they don't really see it - because it is a lone snowman, no lookalike snowmen surrounding it. so they pelt it with snowballs and tear down the monstrous lone thing.

I love how this kid is portrayed as an arrogant little asshole who mercilessly pranks his clone relatives, blithely uncaring of the genuine harm they can and often expressly want to do to him. assholes make the best heroes for me because I can often see myself in them. I like their flaws, their humanity; heroic heroes are often quite tedious in the end. the 70s had no problem with asshole heroes. but although Mark is quite a jerk, he has something his family members don't understand outside of their clone groupings: empathy. jerks who are empathetic know how and where to hit the hardest. and so Mark hits the clones hard, right where it hurts.

great novel! a classic. ...more

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Jun 03, 2009 Erich Franz Linner-Guzmann rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: award-winner, author-female, hugo-award, fiktion, nordamerika, animal, apocalyptic, klassiker, post-apocalyptic, sociology

"She shook her head, her eyes fixed, staring at the nightmare scene before them. Who had done this? Why? It was as if the people had converged here to destroy this place that had failed them in the end so completely."

The scene that is described here was indeed nightmarish, as was a large portion of this story. Although there were a lot of dark scenes throughout, it did have some bright and uplifting scenes to redeem its eerie disposition. I was on a roller coaster of emotions while reading this

"She shook her head, her eyes fixed, staring at the nightmare scene before them. Who had done this? Why? It was as if the people had converged here to destroy this place that had failed them in the end so completely."

The scene that is described here was indeed nightmarish, as was a large portion of this story. Although there were a lot of dark scenes throughout, it did have some bright and uplifting scenes to redeem its eerie disposition. I was on a roller coaster of emotions while reading this - which is rare for me, not many stories can evoke such an array of feelings, as this did. The many different scenarios depicted page-after-page, were filled with fantastical ideas that held a deep-down plausible truth.

I have read many books about robotics being used in extending the lives of individuals or prolonging the existence of mankind. However, in this 1977 Hugo and Locus Award winning novel by Kate Wilhelm, she shows humans living beyond their original due date, by way of cloning. Even though much has progressed in the science of cloning in the past 30 years, the ethical questions are still the same and the controversies may never change. I assumed the heated controversies on this topic started in the 90's, with the birth of Dolly, the cloned sheep, but actually it appears to have been a heavy subject way before that. These ethical issues were concerns in the 70's, made apparent by Kate's writings, and perhaps even began far sooner than we know.

Whether or not you have a solid opinion on the cloning of humans, reading this book, will broaden your ideas on man's finite existence on earth, for it has mine.

UPDATE:
I recently learned where Kate Wilhelm got the title of her novel. It was from a quotation of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 73.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
–William Shakespeare

...more

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Jul 26, 2010 Kerry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sf, 9-out-of-10, reread, 2010

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. When I dug out my grotty old paperback of this book, I checked the publication date out of curiosity. It is a 1981 edition that I clearly bought second hand. So I'd guess I bought it in the late '80s when I was in my late teens. That feels right with my vague memory of first reading it and means it is now well over 20 years since I read Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang. That long ago read had left me with a good feeling about the book, but I had no idea how it would hold up all these years later. ...more

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Dec 16, 2010 Sandi rated it liked it

Shelves: 2010, post-apocalyptic-dystopian, sci-fi

I think that Kate Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang really needed to be longer. The scope of the novel is much too large for for its short length. (The audio version is about 11 minutes shy of 8 hours.) The story covers several "generations" and many decades.

I found Wilhelm's prose to be beautiful. Her descriptions of the Shenandoah Valley are richly detailed. She brings each season to life in the imagination with words. The problems I had with the story were mainly with the SF details. ...more

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Nov 26, 2007 Sarah rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, sf, speculative-fiction

I first read this book when I was fourteen. I read all of Kate Wilhelm's sf novels that same year, and some of her mysteries. Since then, both book and author have always been on my list of favorites, but in truth, I had completely forgotten the actual content.
On reread a lifetime later, it absolutely stands up. The language is beautiful. The premise is haunting. It follows a small community of survivors of a slow global cataclysm, and the decisions they make to maintain their community. I can s ...more

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Nov 24, 2008 H. R. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: authors_kate_wilhelm, apocalpyse, fiction, science-fiction

Written 35 years ago, still fresh, arguably helped generate a subgenre of 'genetics end-of-the-world'. The basic premise of environmental catastrophie with a small group of survivors, doomsday preppers, using cloning to perpetuate humanity. Nancy Kress just riffed it with 2012's _after the fall, before fall, during the fall_. Meanwhile technology marches on, and Wilhelm's 70s theme of Infertility because of environmental damage seems more plausable now, thinking about a short story she wrote abo ...more

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Aug 01, 2010 Marty rated it liked it

it's easy to read and interesting as you read it. But i found it ultimately unsatisfying. ...more

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Mar 29, 2012 Deedee rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2016, read-2016-fsf-and-horror, similiar-dreamsnake-2022, science-fiction, hugo-award-winner, sf-apocalyptic-and-post-apocalyptic, hugo-award-nominee, nebula-award-nominee, john-w-campbell-memorial-award-nom, beyond-reality-science-fiction

Every now and then there will be descriptions in this novel that makes it seem dated: p. 185(view spoiler) ...more

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Jan 20, 2010 Stephen rated it liked it

Shelves: award-nominee-hugo, award-nominee-nebula, award-nominee-locus, award-winner-locus, multiple-award-winners, audiobook, easton-press, award-nominee-campbell, sf-apocalyptic-and-post-apocalyptic, multiple-award-nominee

3.5 stars. Well-written, well thought out post-apocalyptic science fiction story exploring the nature of individuality and what it means to be human. Worth reading.

Winner: Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction novel
Winner: Locus Award for Best Science Fiction novel
Nominee: Nebula Award for Best Science Fiction novel

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Sep 12, 2009 Frank Taranto rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

A superb post-apocalyptic story. It centers on one family, and their attempt to save the human race through cloning.
When the cloned children don't act the way their 'parents' expect them to, the conflict is set up.

...more

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Jan 22, 2010 Sandi rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2010, audio, scifi-fantasy-horror-althistory

Science fiction classic about cloning. Did have a bit of a quibble with the narration by Anna Fields since most of the main characters were male and her masculine voices were all pretty wimpy.

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