unspeakable horror

[hermetic]

I've not read Patricia C. Wrede's Thirteenth Child, and I don't think I will.

According to Jo Walton writing over at Tor, it's "Little House on the Prairie with mammoths and magic," apparently. Which sounds awesome, and something I'd love to read. Only, one of its basic premises posits an alternate America ("Columbia") that's empty, where the

Comments

[chang3002]

You make good points against mine with regard to Rome and WWII. I'll have to think about those more.

Reading the article over, the book just seems kind of boring. I mean, I'm not saying Native American's make for colorful scenery but one of your original points is clear. It's not really a story about America, is it, without Native Americans?

I not sure that she's flinching or sweeping aside the issue. I see your point, though and I respect the outrage. She's just imagined a world without a Native American presence in America. In fact, your outrage seems to arise from a work of fiction not addressing something that happened in the real world. Does it have to? Does Wrede have to?

Now, I have to wonder if a book about no caucasians, or Europeans in Europe would upset me as much? Off the bat, I have to say no. Now is that because I am

a) a white male (a self-proclaimed "poster child of the patriarchy")
b) a PRIVILEGED white male (aren't we all?)
c) comfortable with the idea of the world being not as I see it.

Honestly, I'm not sure. There's a Ray Bradbury story about a virus that kills all the white folks in the first world which is the closest thing I can think of.

Personally, I will not buy this book because it has nothing to attract me (okay, Mammoth's are about it). I am curious to see how others feel she writes about the pioneering life. With magic. And mammoths. And no Indians.

Thanks for making me think. I need more of that.

[hermetic]

I not sure that she's flinching or sweeping aside the issue. I see your point, though and I respect the outrage. She's just imagined a world without a Native American presence in America. In fact, your outrage seems to arise from a work of fiction not addressing something that happened in the real world. Does it have to? Does Wrede have to?

First, there's no "just" about it: it's a HUGE change, a major point of divergence with history, as important to what can happen in the world of the story as the continued existence of megafauna or the fact of magic.

Second, it depends on what she means to accomplish. To quote you: "It's not really a story about America, is it, without Native Americans?"

Again, because it's important, I hold that when the tropes being worked with are the Matter of a nation (the complex of legendary history that helps serve to define a nation's sense of mythic identity--like the story of Arthur for England), then you can't take out a huge chunk of the story without changing it into something else (remove the Saracens from the Chanson de Roland, and you've got an obvious problem). And the Indians are a HUGE part of the Matter of America.

It is my opinion that given the (very ugly) reality of the history of the settling of America, it is incumbent upon a writer who chooses to write about it to address in some way the genocide that occurred, if they are going to be true and respectful of actual human suffering. I recognize that this is a moral and ethical obligation that not all artists might feel, or feel a need to answer. (However, if they don't, I feel perfectly okay in finding them wanting.) The author chose to write about something that's recognizably meant to be a version of America. That contextualizes it: the reality of America is intrinsically the point of comparison.

It's part of the problem of creating a world with our words while living in another one, with real and present ills. The writer's context does matter, I find. That's something I really came to appreciate all the more during and after RaceFail.

And yeah, you have white privileged. So does Wrede.

When any writer disappears the Indians in a story about the settling of America, I'm going to be suspicious, to say the least. When an American writer, and most especially a white writer does it, I'm going to be really suspicious, because it reads as an exercise in that white privilege. Our society is what it is, and that does mean that Native Americans get the full brunt of it, and all too often, they are the only ones who notice, let alone care.

Hell, given that Wrede is an accomplished writer and I haven't read the book, it could be that she's insanely clever and avoids most of the problem by making it clear that the paleo-Indians never crossed over to the Americas. Although how she'd manage that, given human expansion, would be something. In which case, wow, and still a host of problems, but that would make it easier for me to read. But as I wrote, I'm coming at this from a place of initial impressions and reaction.

Now, I have to wonder if a book about no caucasians, or Europeans in Europe would upset me as much?

Try Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt. He envisions a world in which the Black Death killed off almost all of Europe (97-99%, maybe?), and everyone else carried on.

I found it interesting, and not without its own issues. He doesn't spend much time in Europe, though. The rest of the world is going on, and that's where the story is.

And honestly, no, I don't think it would be quite so upsetting for you. I don't know that you could ever really get to the heart of the kind of worldview I'm talking about without the kind of experiences your privilege keeps from you. Doesn't mean you don't stand in solidarity, though, and again, I thank you for it.

And you're welcome.

[chang3002]

Hell, given that Wrede is an accomplished writer and I haven't read the book, it could be that she's insanely clever and avoids most of the problem by making it clear that the paleo-Indians never crossed over to the Americas. Although how she'd manage that, given human expansion, would be something. In which case, wow, and still a host of problems, but that would make it easier for me to read. But as I wrote, I'm coming at this from a place of initial impressions and reaction.

Well this is the big thing, right? It's conjecture form both of us given how neither of us have read the book. Yes, I wonder how she would keep the the paleo-indians from crossing the Bering land bridge. That's what I'm curious about, too. Or does she just say "there were no one here, lalalalalal"? Who knows. Many things to ponder in this.

[hermetic]

Interesting. Do those Asians also colonize the west of the Americas as the Europeans do the east whenever the magic barrier is breached? If not, is there any mention of why not?

I'm probably going to have to read the book and see for myself how she addresses the issues (and if at all) that the erasure of the Native Americans brings up.

I really do feel there's an ethical dilemma there, vis-à-vis the historical reality of what happened to the Native Americans and the auctorial choice of removing them from the fictional narrative.

Fundamentally, I cannot escape the idea that it's an act that results in real-world harm because it disappears peoples who have already been systematically removed physically, culturally, linguistically, and spiritually, from their own landscape. It completes their erasure. Does this, then, make it complicit in the oppression and destruction of those peoples?

In the context that I read Wrede, as an American in this time, that auctorial choice is highly problematic for me. Thus, for me the question has been moving in the direction of asking, "Is this a moral book, and how should I engage it if it is not?"

[yasaman]

Here via your link on the Tor thread, and I want to say that this: "Fundamentally, I cannot escape the idea that it's an act that results in real-world harm because it disappears peoples who have already been systematically removed physically, culturally, linguistically, and spiritually, from their own landscape. It completes their erasure," is why I too had such a viscerally offended reaction to reading that review, but I didn't know quite how to articulate it.

There's plenty that doesn't seem to make sense in the worldbuilding, which boggles me enough. But besides that, as a student of American history, I absolutely cannot abide with even a fictional representation of the further erasure of Native Americans. I'm furious enough that I had to learn about the slavery and genocide my country was founded on in college, and I am even more furious to see it (fictionally) swept under the rug in the Matter of America.

[hermetic]

Welcome.

Yes, it's a hard thing to articulate. It's taken me a lot of thought to move from "that's wrong!" to "this is how that choice is problematic and immoral" and to be willing to say it's immoral.

Now, I think I will have to read the book, in order to engage with the questions of the morality of the work itself, and see if anything of value comes from it. Also, I really do not want to be like the folks who protest movies that they haven't seen and don't understand the premise of. That said, one doesn't have to leap into the midden to know it smells--and the fact is, the auctorial choice to erase the Native Americans is there whether I read the book or not, and that choice is where the crux of the issue lies.

[naath]

Here via Tor.com and people's linklists. Not read the book in question.

England minus the people there before the Romans would be very very different - the Romans didn't *settle* England, they conquered it and bossed it about but they didn't really settle here in large numbers* (it's cold and damp), so w/o the natives it would be a different place entirely (and this could be an interesting book, but it would be a big change; and I think it would only be an interesting book if that change was carried through fully).

I *have* read Rice and Salt, which I thought was fairly interesting. I'm not really up on the details, and I read it a while ago, and I suck at analysis. So I'm not going to say that it is a racism-free book or anything like that. But I will say that whilst this book basically completely erased my race and my culture from the world that this didn't actually upset me in any way. Why? Because in the *real world* that I live in every day the systems of power are *not* trying to erase me and my culture, and not wishing I was dead, or trying to make me conform, or pretending my history didn't happen. It was nice to read a story where not-white people did stuff (although kinda odd that in order to get that all the white people had to die off first, like that's the only way non-white people get to win).

(*this is basically the History Of England; and it bugs me when people say "oh but Europeans were wiping out Native European Peoples with relish long before they were wiping out Native American Peoples" because it is totally Not True. We did a lot of invading and conquering and *bossing about*, but there was very little of the "march in, take all the land, kill all the people previously there" going on. We did force each others cultures and languages to mutate and adapt, but we didn't really *erase* each other in the way that we did when we went and invaded the Americas (and, er, a whole big bunch of other places too).)