There were parts of the book I loved, but in the end it didn't really come together into a cohesive whole for me.
And I think it didn't come together because it was doing some really weird stuff along the way. It's this sort of feminist take on consumer culture and feminist utopias, but it's also doing some stuff that just... feels really weird next to those themes.
Like, say you're going with someone on a road trip to Cincinnatti. Most of the way there they suddenly pull out and AK-47 and start mowing down cows along the roadside. You might still reach Cincinnatti, but you'll also be like, WTF?
I'll have to post more extensively about this when I get my thoughts in order.
Rrrrrg! But there's this pernicious character shallowness, and one of the most protagonist-like women gets drunk for the entire last third of the book and starts acting like a lunatic, and then is sort of joke killed-off, and the Maul-world works, except who the hell are Sun, Suk Hee, and Keri analogues for? Meniscus's subconscious? Meniscus's subconscious is instantiated as three girls, one Jewish, one Asian, and one half-Jewish half-Asian? And they like to shop? He's a blue Y-autistic male who has never had anything resembling a normal life, and his subconscious is snickering at the hermaphoriditic implications of a Nike poster with a woman and a wolf running together and playing old Atari-style video games?
It's like, here's this interesting take on consumer culture and female dominated-societies, and then in the last third of the book everyone screams, "SPERM!" and starts running around like they're playing musical chairs and the music's about to run out.
Okay, I was reading the Maul as an extended metaphor for his body in general - the cops are the antibodies, Bugaboos are the az79, GoldYlocks is an original strain of the Y-plague. The Maul starts changing when Meniscus figures out he can grow his fingernails. Sun having sex with that guy from her class is roughly correlated to when Meniscus sees Naomi and the other male, Starry Eyes, getting it on - he mentions later that that's when he learned to have sex with the disease in his body
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Er ... I don't see anything in your comment that isn't related to an immune response, so I'm still not sure where you're coming from regarding it being his entire body. There's nothing, as far as I can recall, that represents hepatic or cardiac or neurological function, for instance. And it's also about three years since I read the book, but I think I decided that the girls were the antibodies (recognise the virus) and the cops were lymphocytes (recognise the antibodies).
You're right, there's nothing that references hepatic/cardiac/neurological functions. I mainly got the 'entire body' thing from two places. First, the Mall software is often used for psychotherapy, etc, and there was no information that the scientists had reset the software only to model Meniscus's immune system. The implication I took from it is that the program's essentially modelling his subconscious, it's just that Meniscus's entire life has been about his immune system, so the focus is there. Second, since there's reference in the latter half of the book to Meniscus growing his fingernails, his muscles, neuron systems in his skin, etc, on top of him manipulating his immune system, I took the Maul movements (shops opening and closing, etc) to at least partially reference those other physical changes. I could see it as just being a model of his immune system - it's just that few bits stick out then. This was more an instictive than an examined conclusion on my part, I'll admit
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Yes! And then she did! I may have been misreading her as intended to be more of a protagonist than she was, actually. Someone pointed out (Matt, Sara? I think it was Sara - sorry for having the attributions off) that she was functionally less of a protagonist and more of symbol of someone who's already sold herself so far down the river (in terms of her morals, etc.) that she's incapable of making protagonist-like decisions and is instead restricted to trying to optimize her personal gains in every situation rather than thinking long-term. Because she doesn't really have much of a long-term plan at all, in the end.
She felt like a very hollow character, which was further underlined by her death.
Honestly, there were only three people in the book that felt like there was depth/complexity to them - Sun, Starry Eyes, and Meniscus. I love Suk Hee, but only because she was functionally insnane.
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And I think it didn't come together because it was doing some really weird stuff along the way. It's this sort of feminist take on consumer culture and feminist utopias, but it's also doing some stuff that just... feels really weird next to those themes.
Like, say you're going with someone on a road trip to Cincinnatti. Most of the way there they suddenly pull out and AK-47 and start mowing down cows along the roadside. You might still reach Cincinnatti, but you'll also be like, WTF?
I'll have to post more extensively about this when I get my thoughts in order.
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It's like, here's this interesting take on consumer culture and female dominated-societies, and then in the last third of the book everyone screams, "SPERM!" and starts running around like they're playing musical chairs and the music's about to run out.
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OK, we read different books. The Maul and the gangs aren't Meniscus' subconscious; they're an extended metaphor for his immune system.
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She felt like a very hollow character, which was further underlined by her death.
Honestly, there were only three people in the book that felt like there was depth/complexity to them - Sun, Starry Eyes, and Meniscus. I love Suk Hee, but only because she was functionally insnane.
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