The Fiction of Ideas
This week I read Aye, and Gomorrah and The Drowned Giant. As usual it took me a bit more effort to figure out the piece that was less straightforward, well, if not straightforward then not as easy to get a grip on. This piece for me was Aye, and Gomorrah. I'm not sure if it was the kind of abrupt way it was written or the fact it started in medias res, but something as I was trying to read it kept throwing me off, or distracting me, or making it hard to read. I was able to read part of The Odyssey even though it was also in medias res at the beginning of the story, but I guess I was just more familiar with that story and what the rest of it would be like vs this story.
Once I finally figured out what the story was about, I was able to actually think more critically about it. I thought it was interesting that the author was toying with this idea of lack of gender, especially since it was written in the 60s, still pretty close to the "good ol' 50s" where it was the husband and wife and that was it, if that makes sense. To go from a decade where there were literally books sold about how to be the perfect housewife/homemaker to this story about genderless spacers, that's pretty neat. I realize it's not genderless in the same sense as gender-neutral or gender-fluid people in our normal world today, as the spacers in the story are much more literally genderless or sexless I suppose in that they were 'neutered' at a younger age to prevent them from going through puberty and therefore not growing up into typical genders set by society. The concept that these spacers use this trait, that they often feel is a disappointing flaw, as a tool to get extra money from the frelks, the people who are sexually attracted to them in the sense they know they can't have them, is also an interesting idea. It's not even that outlandish of an idea, things like that happen in the real world all the time, just not with spaces, haha.
As for the other piece I read, The Drowned Giant, this one was much easier for me to follow as it was for the most part just a journal of what was happening around and to the dead creature's body, being told from the narrator's perspective. Since the actual story and descriptions felt relatively simple, I was able to read into this one a little deeper. As the narrator was describing the decomposing body of the giant and the fact it was simply taken apart and mostly removed from the beach over time, I realized this story was about death overall in a way. It reminded me of the idea of how "we're all equal in death." Some of us have more elegant deaths perhaps, and some are remembered more than others, but we all die in the end and if left untended we will all decompose and return to nature, no matter how distinguished we were in society. The giant if alive could have easily killed many of the humans with its large size, but in death the humans were walking and crawling all over it as if it were their personal playground.
This made me think about the absurdity of the severe classicism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. that exists in our world. If one group was truly better than another wouldn't they be able to escape this kind of gross post-death situation or at least be able to disappear after death more gracefully? A black man, a rich white woman, and a disabled child all decompose and decay after death to the point you wouldn't be able to tell them apart besides maybe the size of their bones. If we all end up the same in the end, why do we bother segregating ourselves and setting up such ridiculous walls between each other in life? There is no reason we shouldn't respect each other more, even if we have the ability to step on others. The decaying giant being taken apart and walked on by the smaller humans shows how we are all the same in death, and when its bones were put no display in various locations, some even being mistaken for bones of other creatures, it shows just how unremarkable it really was, and if it's so unremarkable, why should it have had more power in life? I may be rambling and being redundant, but that's how I feel about it; I just wish we could all get along and respect each other, and this story reminded me of this idea.
Once I finally figured out what the story was about, I was able to actually think more critically about it. I thought it was interesting that the author was toying with this idea of lack of gender, especially since it was written in the 60s, still pretty close to the "good ol' 50s" where it was the husband and wife and that was it, if that makes sense. To go from a decade where there were literally books sold about how to be the perfect housewife/homemaker to this story about genderless spacers, that's pretty neat. I realize it's not genderless in the same sense as gender-neutral or gender-fluid people in our normal world today, as the spacers in the story are much more literally genderless or sexless I suppose in that they were 'neutered' at a younger age to prevent them from going through puberty and therefore not growing up into typical genders set by society. The concept that these spacers use this trait, that they often feel is a disappointing flaw, as a tool to get extra money from the frelks, the people who are sexually attracted to them in the sense they know they can't have them, is also an interesting idea. It's not even that outlandish of an idea, things like that happen in the real world all the time, just not with spaces, haha.
As for the other piece I read, The Drowned Giant, this one was much easier for me to follow as it was for the most part just a journal of what was happening around and to the dead creature's body, being told from the narrator's perspective. Since the actual story and descriptions felt relatively simple, I was able to read into this one a little deeper. As the narrator was describing the decomposing body of the giant and the fact it was simply taken apart and mostly removed from the beach over time, I realized this story was about death overall in a way. It reminded me of the idea of how "we're all equal in death." Some of us have more elegant deaths perhaps, and some are remembered more than others, but we all die in the end and if left untended we will all decompose and return to nature, no matter how distinguished we were in society. The giant if alive could have easily killed many of the humans with its large size, but in death the humans were walking and crawling all over it as if it were their personal playground.
This made me think about the absurdity of the severe classicism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. that exists in our world. If one group was truly better than another wouldn't they be able to escape this kind of gross post-death situation or at least be able to disappear after death more gracefully? A black man, a rich white woman, and a disabled child all decompose and decay after death to the point you wouldn't be able to tell them apart besides maybe the size of their bones. If we all end up the same in the end, why do we bother segregating ourselves and setting up such ridiculous walls between each other in life? There is no reason we shouldn't respect each other more, even if we have the ability to step on others. The decaying giant being taken apart and walked on by the smaller humans shows how we are all the same in death, and when its bones were put no display in various locations, some even being mistaken for bones of other creatures, it shows just how unremarkable it really was, and if it's so unremarkable, why should it have had more power in life? I may be rambling and being redundant, but that's how I feel about it; I just wish we could all get along and respect each other, and this story reminded me of this idea.
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