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Re: The Summer Prince -- lots of thoughts (a few on sex, most on location)
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From: Sarah Hamburg <srhf92_at_hampshire.edu>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 12:29:21 -0400
It's so interesting to hear Malinda Lo's thoughts on strategies for exploring or evoking power sharing as a writer-- and ways to address community-building and shared relationships, including specific sci fi devices like mind melding... and how playing with conventions can also have the effect of de-centering or potentially upsetting the reader. (Which goes to Debbie's question.)
Related to alternating viewpoints as a form of power sharing: this is very off topic (but maybe does tie back to the book)... I do think even in a multi-voiced novel that employs several narrative perspectives, the polyphony can still sometimes end up supporting a single voice. (This question was actually part of my MFA thesis, way way back in the day.) While the literary device speaks to the idea of a de-centered narrative, authors can use it in different ways. In The Summer Prince, Enki's voice is patterned with and against June's-- but, for me, I found there was a way that his voice ultimately seemed to exist to support her. Even when his perspective contradicts, challenges, or changes how one reads June's character, Enki's voice still somehow is there *for* her. This is true even in the literal fact that he addresses himself to her. I don't know if others felt the same way, though! (And it seems that many didn't.)
It's interesting that Malinda mentioned Graceling-- I was thinking about Bitterblue, too, as an example of a book with a character who has privilege (she 's a young queen), but which is also in many ways about sharing power. Part of what felt de-centering in that book is the very experience of a collective trauma-- the main character is struggling to regain a sense of her own personal history, which is also a collective history... and a community's history that is also her family's. Somehow that relationship between personal and shared history, in the aftermath and exploration of a shared and personal traumatic rupture, did feel de-centering. (And the narrative structure evokes this, too.) But I still wonder about the protections of privilege... as does the narrative, I think.
Maybe there is a way that some of these dynamics are at work in The Summer Prince as well? I do feel like the narrative is working against the idea that various conscious forms of de-centering have "fixed" a legacy of trauma in this future society... those efforts have also created new forms of corruption and privilege, and there are still echoes and manifestations that persist.
This, and Maggie Bokelman's observations seem to give insight into Debbie's question (which I know was really meant for the author!)-- Enki's embrace and expression of a community voice can work against June's "I'm the best" sentiments. Her individualism and belief in a meritocracy that will put her on top are very much called into question. Where that places June in terms of her own community activism-- as opposed to something like the group protests about the use of technology-- I'm not sure. It's true that her art includes Enki, and others by extension. But I just still wondered about the dynamics of the ending, where she does come out on top-- with Enki-as-communal voice there to serve her. How are we meant to read this? And maybe my reading of his voice serving hers is at fault? (Maybe in the context of Ebony's thoughts: wondering about what reads as liberation within limits, and what slips into sacrifice of the other for the self?)
And now I'm very interested in Debbie's question about de-centering one's self as a reader in relation to this, too, and Ebony's response. (Which maybe also relates to forms of de-centering on the part of the writer when imagining audience.)
Sarah
Also wanted briefly to clarify from previous post, in response to Ebony's thoughts about the Brazilian setting, that I didn't at all mean to equate those dynamics with the conversation from last month-- or to erase their specificity. Just felt like those insights maybe also helped illuminate that other conversation, as well. Along with Debbie's other thoughts about myth-making...
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Received on Thu 20 Mar 2014 11:29:41 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 12:29:21 -0400
It's so interesting to hear Malinda Lo's thoughts on strategies for exploring or evoking power sharing as a writer-- and ways to address community-building and shared relationships, including specific sci fi devices like mind melding... and how playing with conventions can also have the effect of de-centering or potentially upsetting the reader. (Which goes to Debbie's question.)
Related to alternating viewpoints as a form of power sharing: this is very off topic (but maybe does tie back to the book)... I do think even in a multi-voiced novel that employs several narrative perspectives, the polyphony can still sometimes end up supporting a single voice. (This question was actually part of my MFA thesis, way way back in the day.) While the literary device speaks to the idea of a de-centered narrative, authors can use it in different ways. In The Summer Prince, Enki's voice is patterned with and against June's-- but, for me, I found there was a way that his voice ultimately seemed to exist to support her. Even when his perspective contradicts, challenges, or changes how one reads June's character, Enki's voice still somehow is there *for* her. This is true even in the literal fact that he addresses himself to her. I don't know if others felt the same way, though! (And it seems that many didn't.)
It's interesting that Malinda mentioned Graceling-- I was thinking about Bitterblue, too, as an example of a book with a character who has privilege (she 's a young queen), but which is also in many ways about sharing power. Part of what felt de-centering in that book is the very experience of a collective trauma-- the main character is struggling to regain a sense of her own personal history, which is also a collective history... and a community's history that is also her family's. Somehow that relationship between personal and shared history, in the aftermath and exploration of a shared and personal traumatic rupture, did feel de-centering. (And the narrative structure evokes this, too.) But I still wonder about the protections of privilege... as does the narrative, I think.
Maybe there is a way that some of these dynamics are at work in The Summer Prince as well? I do feel like the narrative is working against the idea that various conscious forms of de-centering have "fixed" a legacy of trauma in this future society... those efforts have also created new forms of corruption and privilege, and there are still echoes and manifestations that persist.
This, and Maggie Bokelman's observations seem to give insight into Debbie's question (which I know was really meant for the author!)-- Enki's embrace and expression of a community voice can work against June's "I'm the best" sentiments. Her individualism and belief in a meritocracy that will put her on top are very much called into question. Where that places June in terms of her own community activism-- as opposed to something like the group protests about the use of technology-- I'm not sure. It's true that her art includes Enki, and others by extension. But I just still wondered about the dynamics of the ending, where she does come out on top-- with Enki-as-communal voice there to serve her. How are we meant to read this? And maybe my reading of his voice serving hers is at fault? (Maybe in the context of Ebony's thoughts: wondering about what reads as liberation within limits, and what slips into sacrifice of the other for the self?)
And now I'm very interested in Debbie's question about de-centering one's self as a reader in relation to this, too, and Ebony's response. (Which maybe also relates to forms of de-centering on the part of the writer when imagining audience.)
Sarah
Also wanted briefly to clarify from previous post, in response to Ebony's thoughts about the Brazilian setting, that I didn't at all mean to equate those dynamics with the conversation from last month-- or to erase their specificity. Just felt like those insights maybe also helped illuminate that other conversation, as well. Along with Debbie's other thoughts about myth-making...
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Received on Thu 20 Mar 2014 11:29:41 AM CDT
