shadowsong26 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shadowsong26) wrote2012-08-19 06:42 pm
shadowsong26) wrote2012-08-19 06:42 pm
random blather comparing two works of feminist science fiction
Mostly posting this so I can hold on to the details of my Thinkythoughts. If you do read on, bear in mind that there are going to be spoilers for both novels (vague ones, but still).
I've recently been rereading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I've also read several times another feminist science fiction novel (trilogy, technically) by Suzette Haden Elgin, Native Tongue. And...I find myself liking Native Tongue much better, for reasons that probably make little to no sense to anyone else.
The two novels are comparable because they're feminist sci-fi novels (post-apocalyptic variety for The Handmaid's Tale and alien contact/interaction for Native Tongue) which came out originally around the same time (The Handmaid's Tale in 1985, Native Tongue in 1984). They've been compared before, generally with The Handmaid's Tale being ranked as much, much better, and there are reasons for it.
The things that are good about both: they have richly detailed worlds that I really like reading about. ...in that they're well-constructed and interesting and well-developed, not in that I'd want to live in either of them. Native Tongue is able to explore its world with more detail (somewhat to its detriment in the third novel in the trilogy, but I'll get to that later), but enough gets across in The Handmaid's Tale that it's distinctive and richly developed.
The things that are better about The Handmaid's Tale: for all that it's much less cohesive in terms of writing style, by nature, it's a much more cohesive storyline. Not in that it's told in any particularly traditional narrative order or anything, but because it's a much narrower focus, just sticking with Offred and her story. The way the world collapsed for women in this novel is much more believable--after a Presidential assassination, there's a (military coup?) takeover by religious extremists and establishment of a completely new government. In addition, Atwood is simply a better writer, in terms of general technique.
Native Tongue, in comparison, in a lot of ways just has too damn much going on. Suzette Haden Elgin is a linguist, and the story, in addition to being a feminist novel is an exploration of--not first contact, but what happens next, when said contact is friendly, and humanity's dependence on technology and the potential ramifications, and how the course of the future can change or not change, but in addition is a test of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity. This hypothesis basically states that language shapes perception, and the core of the first two novels is the creation of a woman-language (which you can learn, if you're curious. Look up Laadan) and spread it around the world. It turns out to be a failure, but that's not the point.
The world of Native Tongue changed through Constitutional ammendments, so it comes across as less credible, or a lot of people who criticize it in comparison to The Handmaid's Tale think so, and not without reason. There's also the kind of annoying pseudoscience that forms the 'core plot' of the third novel, involving food, which is just...reeeally hard to believe. And the author is less fluent/technically proficient.
So, with all that taken into consideration, I think I know why I prefer Native Tongue. First, because human-alien interactions are basically my sci-fi crack. Hence why I love C.J. Cherryh so much. Post-apocalyptic narratives are interesting, but don't push my buttons, so to speak, as well. Second, as some of you may know, I really really really don't like Letter To The Reader format first/second person narratives, which The Handmaid's Tale is.
So, I guess the final conclusion would be that, probably in large part because of the human-alien interaction and implications thereof storyline, I love Native Tongue despite the technical deficiencies, while the narrative structure of The Handmaid's Tale prevents me from liking it as much as I feel I should. This is not to say I dislike it, by any stretch of the imagination, just...I like Native Tongue better, even though, on paper, I shouldn't.
/random rambling
I've recently been rereading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I've also read several times another feminist science fiction novel (trilogy, technically) by Suzette Haden Elgin, Native Tongue. And...I find myself liking Native Tongue much better, for reasons that probably make little to no sense to anyone else.
The two novels are comparable because they're feminist sci-fi novels (post-apocalyptic variety for The Handmaid's Tale and alien contact/interaction for Native Tongue) which came out originally around the same time (The Handmaid's Tale in 1985, Native Tongue in 1984). They've been compared before, generally with The Handmaid's Tale being ranked as much, much better, and there are reasons for it.
The things that are good about both: they have richly detailed worlds that I really like reading about. ...in that they're well-constructed and interesting and well-developed, not in that I'd want to live in either of them. Native Tongue is able to explore its world with more detail (somewhat to its detriment in the third novel in the trilogy, but I'll get to that later), but enough gets across in The Handmaid's Tale that it's distinctive and richly developed.
The things that are better about The Handmaid's Tale: for all that it's much less cohesive in terms of writing style, by nature, it's a much more cohesive storyline. Not in that it's told in any particularly traditional narrative order or anything, but because it's a much narrower focus, just sticking with Offred and her story. The way the world collapsed for women in this novel is much more believable--after a Presidential assassination, there's a (military coup?) takeover by religious extremists and establishment of a completely new government. In addition, Atwood is simply a better writer, in terms of general technique.
Native Tongue, in comparison, in a lot of ways just has too damn much going on. Suzette Haden Elgin is a linguist, and the story, in addition to being a feminist novel is an exploration of--not first contact, but what happens next, when said contact is friendly, and humanity's dependence on technology and the potential ramifications, and how the course of the future can change or not change, but in addition is a test of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity. This hypothesis basically states that language shapes perception, and the core of the first two novels is the creation of a woman-language (which you can learn, if you're curious. Look up Laadan) and spread it around the world. It turns out to be a failure, but that's not the point.
The world of Native Tongue changed through Constitutional ammendments, so it comes across as less credible, or a lot of people who criticize it in comparison to The Handmaid's Tale think so, and not without reason. There's also the kind of annoying pseudoscience that forms the 'core plot' of the third novel, involving food, which is just...reeeally hard to believe. And the author is less fluent/technically proficient.
So, with all that taken into consideration, I think I know why I prefer Native Tongue. First, because human-alien interactions are basically my sci-fi crack. Hence why I love C.J. Cherryh so much. Post-apocalyptic narratives are interesting, but don't push my buttons, so to speak, as well. Second, as some of you may know, I really really really don't like Letter To The Reader format first/second person narratives, which The Handmaid's Tale is.
So, I guess the final conclusion would be that, probably in large part because of the human-alien interaction and implications thereof storyline, I love Native Tongue despite the technical deficiencies, while the narrative structure of The Handmaid's Tale prevents me from liking it as much as I feel I should. This is not to say I dislike it, by any stretch of the imagination, just...I like Native Tongue better, even though, on paper, I shouldn't.
/random rambling