Great discussion this last Wednesday at the Summer Shack. Some said that they felt that some of the ideas of revolution and propertarianism versus anarchy, played out as they were with states mirroring the US and the USSR of the middle to late 1970s, were dated and that the focus of the story was too much on the ideas and not the story or the telling of the story.
Of course, I can't speak for anyone else but myself. I really enjoyed this story and the characters, most especially Shevek. I grew up in a time with, in my opinion, a near unhealthy worship of the antihero, the cynical -- if you don't believe in anything, then no one is going to pull the wool over your eyes. Shevek is a man of moral integrity who enters any situation with empty, but open hands, ready to help and to trust. Is that more important than a readiness to see, and to accept, flaws? I don't know, maybe it's just as needed. But the book was so much more than anarchism, then competing philosophies. It's about how our language affects how we think, how we form notions of ownership, love, brotherhood.
What a great discussion we had though; we recommended books in a similar vein, maybe more on the dystopian side, by Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale, Orxy and Crake, etc.). If you've got more books to suggest, feel free to add them to the comments. I'll use the comments to also continue to put quotes from the book that touched me.
Our next book club will be on Thursday, January 26. Lara picked The Marriage Plot: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. Can't wait to see you there!
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"As for the doctor's mind, though intelligent and certainly well-meaning, it was a jumble of intellectual artifacts even more confusing than all the gadgets, appliances, and conveniences that filled the ship. These latter Shevek found entertaining; everything was so lavish, stylish, and inventive; but the furniture of Kimoe's intellect he did not find so comfortable. Kimoe's ideas never seemed to be able to go in a straight line; they had to walk around this and avoid that, and then they ended up smack against a wall. There were walls around all his thoughts, and he seemed utterly unaware of them, though he was perpetually hiding behind them." These are Shevek's thoughts while still on the ship to Urras. I liked the comparison of the doctor's mind to a house full of furniture, and his ideas weaving their way around them.
Page 20: "He thought of death, in that gap between the beginning of a step and its completion, and at the end of the step he stood on a new earth." I like this; I never thought of a leap of faith being one of death and rebirth, but I like it.
Page 30: "Shevek listened to their subdued voices and to his heart still beating fast. There was a singing in his ears which was not the orchestra but the noise that came when you kept yourself from crying;" There were a couple of quotes I highlighted because I found them to be utterly perfect descriptions of despair or pain. As I read this passage, I thought of the times when I could feel the pulse of the blood rushing in my ears, or the large ball of choked back tears in in my throat as I kept myself from crying.
Page 62: "You couldn't do anything for him, except just stay there, be with him. He was in shock but mostly conscious. He was in terrible pain, mostly from his hands. I don't think he knew the rest of his body was all charred, he felt it mostly in his hands. You couldn't touch him to comfort him, the skin and flesh would come away at your touch, and he'd scream. You couldn't do anything for him. There was no aid to give. Maybe he knew we were there, I don't know. It didn't do him any good. You couldn't do anything for anybody. We can't save each other. Or ourselves." It's a bleak quote, yes. But it touched me viscerally; it was real, and raw, and clear eyed. I was with my sister in the last month of her life, and the realization, at last, that I couldn't do anything, that I didn't have anything to give to take her pain and suffering away, was painful, but freeing at the same time. It's why the next quote resonates so much with me.
Page 300: "It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers. We are brothers in what we share. In pain, which each of us must suffer alone, in hunger, in poverty, in hope, we know our brotherhood. We know it, because we have had to learn it. We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give."
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