The Sword and Laser discussion

I tire of the dystopian/post-apocalyptic future. Are there any works of fiction out there that might actually discuss how humanity can successfully avoid or be positively transformed by future threats like global warming and sea level rise?

This is fiction. The author can write anything he can imagine. Why not imagine a positive future, a different future, rather than one that merely mirrors and exaggerates all the faults and injustices of modern society? Why not imagine a future that preserves the best of human nature rather than expanding and growing the worst of human nature?

I knew I was in trouble with this book when a character for whom I had already been set up to have a good deal of compassion, Emiko, is brutalized and raped in public for the entertainment of clientele.

Is this good writing? Is this supposed to be entertaining? Or is this exploitation and pornographic voyeurism?

I should have set the book down here. Do I really want to read a book wherein the author chooses to brutalize his characters? I read on. I finally put the book down about half-way through after Emiko is chased by some deranged man, "rescued", and told to get her ass back on the street earning money.

After this indignity, I was done. I figured if there were more to come of this, in various forms with different characters, I had no interest, despite the quality of the stories and the general intrigue.

The attitude, the tone of the book seems to me fundamentally lacking in compassion for its characters and I can only imagine that this reflects the author's own mind as to the nature of man.

I am well aware of the problems in the world. I don't need a mirror held up to reflect the contents of what is already in my head. While some may call this book provocative social criticism, I wish the author had had the stones to write a real tale about the real world as it is rather than foisting off the reality of our social and ecological ills into a distant-ish future wherein they can excite and "entertain" and disturb us from that comfortable distance found within dystopian futures.

"An Anthology of Optimistic SF". Haven't checked it out yet.

Your point of view, to me, is valid and I appreciate your criticism. I also felt a lot of discomfort reading some of the passages where Emiko was victimized.

The author's outlook is drearily pessimistic, but I guess that's sort of where I stand as well. I think the world is heading to hell in a handbasket, mainly due to greed and overpopulation.

Preserving the best of human nature would just weaken the whole backbone of a story like this. I think you more or less said that, so I guess you're just looking for a different story. Not the book for you, fair enough.

The whole point of showing Emiko being victimized is to demonstrate the status she has in Thai society. The immigrants are also killed at a moment's notice and can't safely travel the streets. It is a commentary on what happens when society collapses because of bad choices we've made for survival.

Don't you think it ends with a hint of optimism, or at least a future?

The commentary comes up short for me in light of what seems to me the exploitation of the characters and the choices the author makes in dealing with his characters. I feel the author and the story lose their moral authority if he or it is even attempting to assert one in light of these issues.

Further, the supposed commentary on these supposed choices that we have made is so far removed from the actual events and themes of the novel that it merely operates as a background, a given, a setting. It's dystopia as atmosphere.

I feel that we are merely seeing the foibles and evils of human nature put forth in this novel. It has little to nothing to do with the ecological conditions that provide the backdrop for the story.

As to the end, I don't know it as I did not finish the book. I saw little point in continuing reading something that I found objectionable and, dare I say, irrelevant.

Jenny wrote: "The whole point of showing Emiko being victimized is to demonstrate the status she has in Thai society."

I think this could have been accomplished without the author being so explicit. The two scenes where she was brutalized were definitely over the top and detracted from the book.

The scenes of Emiko's brutalization were very shocking and difficult to read - but part of why they're so wrenching is because of the compassion we feel for her, which in turn stems from the author's compassion for her plight. I've read other dystopian works as well as pessimistic mainstream fiction that did not achieve this feeling of sympathy - of humanity - with their characters, and those works could much more easily be characterized as compassionless presentations of human nature's worst aspects, as opposed to what Bacigalupi is doing.

Now, I can agree that the scenes could have been shown in less explicit ways and still have retained their power, but I see that as a authorial mis-step in attempting to directly present the evils of abuse, not as signs of the author's moral failure or an attempt to produce pornography. And it's not as if it's a far-fetched scenario that the author concocted just to be cruel - a sex slave industry and the kind of abuses Emiko suffers exists today.

I understand if you are weary of dystopias and pessimistic views of the future, but the end of the book does offer some hope (if in a complicated form) and I also think it's unfair to label the book's themes as irrelevant. The dystopia is not just background atmosphere, because it is the social conditions of that dystopia that allow the worst aspects of human nature to fester and, as social pressures and political forces spiral out of control, erupt. The aspect of this in terms of political instability/coups/xenophobic violence I found very relevant and resonant with political problems today, and problems that could be faced in a future of ecological collapse.

In particular, I found the theme of the costs of a nation's survival in such a future fascinating: this future Thailand has stayed off collapse and maintained its independence at the cost of xenophobia and fascistic paramilitary forces. Examining that dynamic and its ramifications stems directly from Bacigalupi's particular dystopic vision. (Character-wise, this is represented by Jaidee, who I liked greatly and was the closest thing the book had to a hero, but who was also basically a xenophobic fascist.)

I think it's one of the strengths of science fiction that it can make us contemplate such dynamics and problems from unusual angles via dystopic visions.

As for a science fiction presentation of an optimistic future that has faced environmental woes - I haven't read it, but Ursula K. Le Guin's novel Always Coming Home apparently imagines a post-environmental collapse society that has been positively transformed by the societal reboot it has been forced through.

Philip wrote: "Jenny wrote: "The whole point of showing Emiko being victimized is to demonstrate the status she has in Thai society."

Your whole point was really well said.

Re: Dystopia: Frankly, I think the universe could have been a lot more dystopic than it ends up being. Here, not only does humanity have the tools to overcome the plagues on their society, as opposed to another, truer dystopia like Oceania in 1984 where the society decidedly *couldn't * reform itself.

Re: Brutalization: While on the surface I would agree that the scenes of brutalization were unnecessarily explicit, I think it was necessary for them to occur in the plot. Emiko had training so deep run (partially realized in her DNA, in fact) that only a really, really traumatic event could shake her out of it, and let her become the independent creature she is at the end of the novel. Not saying that they're good or should have happened, but in order to get the strength /tenacity of her training, we need to see what it takes to break it.

Maybe it's just my viewpoint on the world but I wasn't offended by those scenes with Emiko. I felt that in the context of that society, they were somewhat "normal" and accepted. Humans didn't look at her like she was a thinking person, they looked at her like a dog, or chicken and we certainly have plenty of those things going on in our current day society. She's the future "dog fight" that some people glamorize today. I

n their minds she was a robot, lacking human emotions. Reminds me of the way slaves were looked at as second class citizens centuries ago. People did unspeakable things to them that we abhor today now that we understand we're all human beings and all have the same capacities for love, pain, learning, etc.

Ultimately she has her comeuppance on those people that harmed her, and it was a pretty violent way to go.

I guess this just shows how important it is to find an author that you click with. Everyone has different viewpoints in life. Finding an author that shares those views with you and writes to fill that part of your life is someone you're going to stick with for a long time. I for one will be watching for Paolo's future works (hoping they come out on Kindle).

I thought the sexual abuse in the novel was very disturbing, but it was a necessary part of the story. When I think of Thailand, I can't help but think of the current-day sex tourism that goes on there. Men go to Thailand specifically to have the kinds of sexual experiences that are illegal in most other countries.

I agree with Tom that the scenes of Emiko being brutalized were necessary to show just how horrible her situation was. It was also necessary to escalate the abuse so we could see just how much it would take for her to fight back. She endured a lot without breaking.

Sex scenes have become so common in novels these days, I think Bacigalupi had to make the abuse scenes extremely graphic for them to have the necessary impact. Twenty or thirty years ago, he could have done the same with a lot less detail.

There is no excuse for depictions in fiction of the sexual brutalization of women in any context as far as I am concerned. It's ultimately prurient.

I don't need a detailed description of the flesh being burned away from a victim of Dachau to know about the horror of genocide. And if there were such a scene in a fictional book about the Shoah, I wouldn't read that either.

Aggrandizing people's suffering by describing it in such detail in fiction is morally repellent.

Lepton, that's your choice to not finish the book for what you find to be objectionable content. If you find it to be what you consider morally repellant, then don't read the book.

The book is a tad bit disturbing in some respects but I don't see anything wrong with how Paolo treated his characters... he after all created them and they were in a society that had differing values on life.

Jenny's right in that some indignities had to be heaped upon Emiko to show that the Thai people thought of her exactly what she was: a machine.

I didn't like the ending... optimistic? Umm not with the guy that created the cheshires wanting to work with her... I saw it as a possible sequel and a bad idea because the cheshires supplanted the feline... and Paolo's making the point that Emiko and her kind were possibly going to supplant humanity...

which was good, because she was basically superhuman, but still had a human mind and was part of human culture. Besides, what the cheshires did to cats wasn't violent, they just outcompeted them and were more desirable for mating. It isn't any sort of an apocalypse. Besides, by making windups fertile, some may even marry/breed with openminded humans, so I don't really think of it as the end of our species at all.

Maybe so, maybe no... I would say that windups breeding is a bad thing... otherwise, the designers would have allowed them that ability.

We learned in Jurassic Park that nature finds a way, and Emiko found hers in that gene ripper. It's a good thing we don't have to worry about something like this happening in the world...

Scientists can't even perfect the cloning process (along similar lines as a windup) and they've proven (so far) unable to create artificial intelligence and artificial life.

Maybe in a few more decades.

well I don't know, the Venter cell was a pretty big step in the direction of artificial life. Also, it was made pretty clear in the book that the windup's creators had designed the windups to be either soldiers/factory workers (and look pretty monstrous)and sex slaves, neither of which they would want to be able to breed because it would #1 give them an identity and something to hold on to (I have my child, I can feel that I've accomplished something other than what I was designed for) and #2 because you wouldn't want their population out of control. Their creators didn't think that making them breed would be dangerous in and of itself, merely that it increased the risk of an uprising. However, in Emiko's case this doesn't apply because she lives entirely outside of the society in which windups play a significant role (Japan), and has contact with no other windups (although it might be debatable whether she fins the windup village or not after the events of the novel). Also to suggest the "nature finds a way" argument takes the form of Gi Bu Sen is to suggest a type of determinism which I don't think was at all present in the novel.
Ironically, you seem (referencing an earlier post) to hate the ending you asked for.... Krung Thep did drown, didn't it?

@ Lepton: How is it prurient? I would only think that it would affect the psychology of the reader in the way you suggest if it merely described the process disinterestedly, or worse from the point of view of the perpetrator (which admittedly is present in fiction today.) Instead, in this novel it is described from the point of view of the victim, which makes plainly clear how demeaning/painful/psychologically damaging the act is. Only someone who *already * wished to cause pain or damage in a sexual act would be influenced by the book to commit similar acts.

Well, Gi Bu Sen floating by in his boat and saying he'd love to be able to get a strand of her DNA to change some things led me to believe that future windups would be able to breed. Krung Thep, yes it did drown. A city I didn't like, but it's only my opinion.

Venter cell? Not familiar with that. I'll have to look it up.

apologies for being unclear; I did not mean to suggest that the end did not mean that windups would end up breeding, but that I didn't think that the fertility of windups was all that bad.

Prurient:

adj.
1. (Psychology) unusually or morbidly interested in sexual thoughts or practices
2. exciting or encouraging lustfulness; erotic

The first scene of Emiko's abuse and its description is prurient in that it not only focuses on the abuse but also the pleasure of the experience. That the author feels the need to explore and detail the experience is prurient as morbid interest in sex practices, in this case, ritualized rape.

If I remember correctly, Emiko is designed to respond with genuine pleasure to any sexual contact, unwanted or not. The detail and the language used is meant to arouse, to incite. This is prurient with respect to the second connotation above.

Many would argue that this scene is somehow meant to arouse our sympathy/empathy for the character. This is incorrect. Let me offer a simple, but heavy-handed example. If your mother, daughter, wife, or girlfriend told you that she had been raped at some time in her life would you need a blow-by-blow account of the experience to engender sympathy?

That somehow we need the act described for us to engender our compassion in a fictional work is either a deep commentary on the coarseness and cruelty of our modern age or an excuse for not addressing the immediate issue. The author is embroiling us in his own twisted psychology and making us a witness and participant in sexual abuse by describing it in such detail.

Let me offer a less controversial analogue. You and some mates are engaging in some locker room talk. They question you about a certain woman and the potential sex acts that you may have engaged in with that women. Does it show a more fundamental respect for the woman to give a blow-by-blow description of your sexual encounter or to refrain from any such talk? So then, with respect to physical and sexual abuse, does it show more respect to the victim to engage in a blow-by-blow description or less? I think you have your answer.

Lepton, I believe that you're making a couple of assumptions... taking the locker room mentality, yes, a lot of men will describe everything in very graphic detail of a sexual encounter... does every man participate in this? No. A lot of men are respectful to their mates and will just keep their bedroom lives private... others will enjoy the tale and live vicariously through the story teller because they might not have that type of relationship with their mate...

I believe that you feel everyone should be outraged at how Emiko was treated. I'm not. I feel that the descriptions of her abuse lead to some compassion for her... I could be mistaken on this and I do not wish to put words in your mouth.

I believe that Paolo Bacigalupi was trying to provide in detail the depravity (some will call it that) of the Thai society of the time that Emiko was created... most certainly, Emiko was crafted with some sexual purpose in mind. Did the author go into too much detail? That in and of itself remains wholly up to the reader to decide.

If the reader finds the material objectionable, then the reader is well within his or her rights to avoid that particular material and you have posted that you did as such.

It does not bother me that you took offense at the material in The Windup Girl... just as it might not bother you that I take offense at something by another author... that's why there are millions upon millions of books out there... to cater to people of different tastes.

Where the line needs to be drawn, in my opinion, is when someone that takes offense to some material (using The Windup Girl as an example) attempts to prevent others from making their own decision as to whether the material is objectionable in their minds or not... that goes down the path of censorship and limiting freedoms and such.

Am I saying that you are doing that? NO! You've made your point that you dislike the book; others that have read it disagree and like it.

I find portions of The Windup Girl to be jarring but I am not bothered by how Emiko was treated because she was simply a machine, and that is how the society she was a part of treated her... and the author is closer to how Thai society works than I am and I feel it shows through his writing.

I will not be seeking out any other book written by Mr. Bacigalupi for reasons other than the sexual content contained within...

As a citizen in society, do we attribute the same compassion and feelings towards a house plant? Some would say yes, where others would vehemently disagree.

It has been a few months since I finished the book, but with regards to the explicit depictions of Emiko's abuse I believe they were absolutely necessary to drive home just how inhuman her creation and treatment was. Prurient or not, the blow-by-blow description is meant to confuse and confound the reader. The reader is meant to have a typically horrified reaction to the act, and be further horrified that she is made to feel gratified by this abuse. Bacigalupi could have said simply "Emiko was raped, again and again." and been done, but by describing it as he did you are given insight into what it means to be her, who and what she is, and the true brutality of the culture that made her and then discarded this very obviously human person like spoiled meat, first, and then by the cultures that accept and profit by her misery and abuse.

I do not believe that it was the author's intent to provide a scene for the self-gratification of the reader, which I take the accusation of prurience to mean.

I am interested in that the point of objection here is the mistreatment of Emiko, and not the casual murder of real humans throughout the rest of the book. Is Emiko's mistreatment really any worse than how the majority of yellow-cards are treated?

Tim wrote: " but with regards to the explicit depictions of Emiko's abuse I believe they were absolutely necessary to drive home just how inhuman her creation and treatment was...."

Expletive deleted! That's about all I have to say about that.