Sayuri Ueda
Auteur van The Cage of Zeus
Over de Auteur
Werken van Sayuri Ueda
Gerelateerde werken
プロジェクト:シャーロック 年刊日本SF傑作選 — Medewerker — 1 exemplaar
2010年代SF傑作選 1 — Medewerker — 1 exemplaar
Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Gangbare naam
- Ueda, Sayuri
- Geslacht
- female
- Nationaliteit
- Japan
Leden
Besprekingen
Prijzen
Misschien vindt je deze ook leuk
Gerelateerde auteurs
Statistieken
- Werken
- 5
- Ook door
- 5
- Leden
- 70
- Populariteit
- #248,179
- Waardering
- 2.7
- Besprekingen
- 5
- ISBNs
- 6
- Talen
- 1
It is also about concepts of gender, and society, and the oftentimes violent resistance to change.
I hated this book.
I hated the failure of its ideas, I hated the clumsy treatment of a truly interesting topic, and I hated the crappy translation.
The topic of gender is so important, and so timely, that it truly does call for the kind of deep exploration that SF can often provide, but none of that thoughtfulness is on display here. The treatment of gender and physical sex and sexuality are so clumsy and so torturous that nothing of interest actually is said. There are attempts to imagine what it would be like to interact with humans who have no natural male/female awareness, but it's based on utterly bizarre hypotheticals.
Take, for example, the book's repeated insistence that the Rounds, who have no malefemale gendering at all, are always perceived by cis (het?) men and women as being the opposite gender--Cishet men see them as women, and cishet women see them as men. And thus, the "mono" humans quickly fall in love/lust with rounds they meet. This is... Nuts. At every level. The two women characters who run into a Round doctor instantly begin fantasizing about this "kind, romantic man" while the man sees that same character as a "strong, resolute woman." Androgyny exists, and this is not how others perceive androgynous people.
The book also tries to create a truly genderless society, but still uses gendered language for even the most basic ideas, like sex. Here's a quote:
"A Round couple can love as a man and be loved as a woman in a single act of intercourse." (p. 87)
or this bizarre exchange...
"...I’m afraid my staff only wanted to visit the special district out of curiosity. If you’d known that I doubt you would have complied.”
“Yes, I was quite aware. I am a man and a woman, after all.” (p. 96)
The first speaker is a Mono, explaining why his team members wanted to visit the special area where only Rounds are allowed to the second speaker, a Round doctor who let them in.
The second speaker's statement "I am a man and a woman, after all..." makes no sense in or out of context. It's made abundantly clear throughout the book that the Rounds are not men or women. They are bi-gendered, without any cultural, social, or physical tendency toward either. And, of course, what does it MEAN? How does that create awareness?
And then there's the almost total dismissal of the pure horror of Round existence. The Rounds are wholly artificial. Their bodies are not only hermaphroditic, they have been genetically modified to have hyper long lifespans, altered maturation rates, and immunity to all kinds of genetic diseases. However, they are forbidden to procreate freely, and their education is limited to science, math, and English (this is specifically stated several times. They only speak English. Because it's the future, and that's all Japan can imagine?) No history, no art, no culture. They live empty lives as pure scientific tools, designed for the exploration of deep space. It's slavery and eugenics in their purest forms, but the book never gets into that very serious issue at all.
And of course there's the translation. It's awful. I say this as a professional translator of Japanese to English: This was not professional level work. The dialog is clumsy and characterless, the word use is bizarre, and sometimes it's just flat-out wrong. Take, for example, the idea that the Rounds only ovulate after sexual stimulation. This is called in the book reflexive ovulation, which is a standard term apparently. However, the book calls normal human ovulation "voluntary ovulation." The scientific term is "spontaneous ovulation" because it happens on its own, without stimulation. It is not, in any way shape or form, voluntary... The translator simply didn't check, apparently?
Anyway, yes. Not a great book. Not worth the time. The only reason I kept at it was basically as a hate-read.… (meer)