(no subject)

[jinian]

Why haven't I seen this before? L. Timmel Duchamp wrote a very interesting critique of A Civil Campaign ages ago. Lots of other good stuff at her site, too.

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

l. timmel duchamp goes to wiscon... you know you want to...

(http://www.sf3.org/wiscon/ )

[kalikanzara.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. Fascinating reading.

(Now I want to write SF with a gender twist; something I've wanted to do for awhile, but I'm apparently impatient at best when trying to write fiction - good starts and no followthrough).

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I might want to, but I have lots of trips planned for this year already. One of them to see you, so don't get greedy. :)

[jinian.livejournal.com]

You've seen the Tiptree award web site (http://www.tiptree.org/), right? Lots of good inspiration there.

I'm terrible at writing fiction; I simply don't produce plots. Most likely I should have started writing lots in fourth grade if I didn't want my stuff now to come out as if that's how old I were.

[kalikanzara.livejournal.com]

I haven't looked over the Tiptree award sight lately, but I'm pretty sure I've tripped over it. Worth a look-see again anyways.

(4th grade was probably the last time I finished an SF story. Well, actually, there were two stories, and one was to have been a serial, which was left on a cliffhanger, never to get to part two.)

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

I couldn't bring myself to read any more of what was at her site, since she seemed to miss the whole point of eveything in "Civil Campaign" so badly. Literary criticism is something I don't care for even when it's done well, but when it's done poorly, it makes me want to pinch the critic's tiny little head right off.

She never seems to grasp that Bujold doesn't necessarily advocate Barrayaran society; she's merely describing how various people interact with it. Bujold came up with a more-or-less plausible description of how the society worked, unpleasant though it may have been, and she's looking at how these characters change the world, and how they are changed by it. I suppose she forgot to mention the reference in the text (I'm at work, so I can't supply a page reference) where Cordelia explains to someone else about some facet of Barrayar: "Here's how it works. It's really stupid, though."

Duchamp openly confesses her suspicion that her reading involves massive self-deception, and she puts some terribly odd spins on character motivations and actions, and reads entirely too much gender-political subtext into previously established details. My chief objection to her review of the work comes in section 4, where she writes

...Bujold almost always forces Miles to confront some problem in himself and deal with it. In this book, she lets him get away with not confronting, not dealing with the problem emblematized by the title. She simply hands him Ekaterin without forcing him to confront his own gender privilege (or even economic privilege) and the ease with which he uses an extended grotesque military metaphor to characterize his (pur)suit.

To me, it seems blindingly obvious that Bujold has chosen to finally confront Miles with the fact that relationships can't be managed through forward momentum, which is Miles' preferred method for getting through anything. He does confront this tendency in himself, and writes an intensely open, deeply thoughtful letter to her where he finally demonstrates that he has learned that sometimes he has to completely let go and let others do what they will.

Duchamp has an entirely different reading, which is certainly her prerogative. I think she totally misses the boat and grossly misreads the work, instead throwing her own load of gender issues onto it, and her essay suffers correspondingly. I think she tends toward a strawman sort of argument, supposing that Bujold defends the society she chose to set her works in, and makes indefensible assumptions as a result.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Erg. That critique drove me crazy. She seemed to be assuming that, because Barrayar is sexist, Lois must be sexist. And she's self-contradictory: she says that because Barrayar has such extreme sexual oppression[1], Lois's female characters could never have developed the way they are - that, instead, they're modern white middle-class American women pasted into Barrayar. Okay. But then she says later on that Barrayar is just a shade more sexist than 1990s America.[2] Which is it - are modern American women so incredibly much more liberated than Barrayarans that the characters don't ring true, or are Barrayar and the U.S. pretty much the same?

Also: butterbugs represent women?! Women are bugs?

[1] Which in itself seems like an overstatement; yeah, Barrayar is terribly sexist and institutionalizes sexual discrimination, but if you call it extreme sexual oppression what term do you have left for the Taliban?

[2] Which, again, is a suspect claim. I'm obviously not saying that the US is a paragon of absolute equality, but does she really think that it's equivalent to a society in which women aren't the legal guardians of their sons?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Aw, we were both ripping her to shreds at the exact same moment. There you have it, folks - the secret of our marital compatibility. *grin*

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see that Lois McMaster Bujold has joined the ranks of Edward Elmer Smith and Robert Anson Heinlein.

[technocracygirl.livejournal.com]

IIRC, the LMB list read it, discussed, and said, in essence, "She's full of it." And I remember there being some big problems with the books she was citing. Some problem with her footnotes.

Gack. You're going to make me delve though the old list archives, aren't you? ;)

*blink*

[rubricity.livejournal.com]

Wow. I think this is a really good example of someone taking their own perspective and influences and reading WAY TOO MUCH into the meaning of a novel.

It is true, some literary works are fraught with meaning and it is worth our while to take the time to think about it's meaning and communicate with others about your thoughts. This kind of discussion can leads to all sorts of interesting enlightenment.

However, some people try and find deep meaning (and things to be upset by) in any book. They'll interpert a book until the cows come home until they find that tiny morsel which will fuel their need to be offended. These are folks that I commonly describe as having very large sticks rammed up their very tiny anal orifices..

[jinian.livejournal.com]

That was awfully cute, I must say.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Yes!

Re: *blink*

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I don't think Duchamp is one of those people. I think she went too far with her reading, but she was able to find some intriguing material along the way. None of it was about being offended except that she didn't want to be reading a straight-faced romance novel; her thesis was more along the lines that Bujold was being tongue-in-cheek a lot of the time. It was certainly interpretation, and stretching, but I don't think it was a militant feminist overreaction.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I liked "women are bugs", actually. It was an amusing parallel. I don't think Duchamp's completely out to lunch, though I think (as she mentioned herself) that she went a bit far with it. Once I got over feeling horribly protective of one of my favorite authors, I started wondering just how much of the essay Bujold would repudiate, so I was having an entertaining conversation about it in my head.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

Following up to my own post, now that I'm home with my books. The quote that I was remembering from Cordelia isn't in "Civil Campaign", it's in "Memory". From the paperback edition, p. 364:

Countess Vorkosigan smiled very dryly. "Come, ladies. The gentlemen need to go talk."
"But I want to know what's going on!" protested Laisa.
"We can get it later. I'll explain the system to you. It's really stupid, but it can be made to work. Which, come to think of it, could alsosum up a great many other Vor customs."

You have to be amazingly unfamiliar with the source material to think that Cordelia views the Vor system as appropriate. She doesn't fight it by digging in her heels and protesting every sexist nuance she encounters; she instead tries to make subtle changes that will be deeply felt throughout a society, such as making sure that the Emperor gets an education that differs from the hidebound traditions of his predecessors, or making sure that backcountry areas get education and health care.

There are those who might argue that approach isn't "feminist", but I think it fits into some of the finest traditions of the feminist movement.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I think you're putting words in Duchamp's mouth a bit. She's definitely more into open organization and resistance than I think would be appropriate for Barrayar, so I'm with you there, but where did she say Cordelia approved of entrenched sexism? I think it's prefectly true to say that "Cordelia's and Alys's behind-the-scenes machinations also serve to underscore that women can operate only with the permission of the males who are fronting them."

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Well, now you and I have different readings of Duchamp's essay. :) I didn't see her saying Bujold was sexist, only that to write the book ACC turned out to be, her feminism had to be rolled up a bit more tightly than usual. Also, her admitting up front that she might be full of crap is probably what made me more open to some of her points, which I found fascinating.

I think you have a good point about Miles overcoming his controlling behavior, and I'd love to see Duchamp's response to it. I also think that she's right when she says he could have gotten farther in his self-improvement efforts, but I figure Cordelia will get him there eventually.

Re: *blink*

[rubricity.livejournal.com]

You're probably right.

The irony is I probably overreacted due to the painful conversations I've recently been involved in with some people who were definitely having the militant feminist overreaction. So there I am doing pretty much what I'm making snide comments on. It is to laugh.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

From Section 2 of the Duchamp essay:

It is my sense that two things are going on with this suggestion that power and weakness are simply illusions. First, the story is a comedy; comedy (http://ltimmel.home.mindspring.com/campaign6.html) is generally conservative, since it not only ends with the arrangement of marriage(s), but asserts the fitness of the prevailing political status quo. And second, the feminism characteristic of Bujold's series is something I would describe as an individualized, private-sphere feminism, such that it is "feminist" to regard women as in charge of and responsible for their own fate and structural inequalities of gender as of relatively negligible importance.

I was referring more to Duchamp's assessment of Bujold's series, although I didn't phrase it very clearly.

Also from section 2:

A number of readers who I know love this book read straight point to Ekaterin's heroism as proof that she does have public sphere credibility. But it is exactly the way Ekaterin's heroism is treated-- and Miles' having very privately given her a pretty pendant on a necklace in lieu of an official medal honoring her service to the Emperor-- that convinces me that "feminism," in Bujold's world, must always be restricted to the inside of a woman's head and occasional private exchanges of support between women.

About your last point, I think it would be more accurate to say that "Cordelia and Alys could not operate in direct opposition to the males fronting them; however, their actions are not overseen by those males, nor are the males often aware of the extent or nature of their activities." It's got an entirely different flavor to it than Duchamp's quote; after all, isn't that the whole point of working behind-the-scenes?

Working "behind-the-scenes" can sometimes be just as effective as being an "in-your-face" activist, and sometimes even more so. (The reverse sometimes holds true, also.) It's been my experience, though, that the "in-your-face" sort tend to look down on those who prefer other methods, and I get that sense fairly strongly from Duchamp's essay.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

I think you have a good point about Miles overcoming his controlling behavior, and I'd love to see Duchamp's response to it. I also think that she's right when she says he could have gotten farther in his self-improvement efforts, but I figure Cordelia will get him there eventually.


I think you meant to say "Lois" there instead of "Cordelia". :)

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Nope. Your version works, too, though.

Re:

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I seem to recall, although I'm not sure where exactly I got it from, that Cordelia will return to Beta Colony after Aral dies. I had also envisioned Cordelia as being very distracted by the prospect of grandchildren.

I'll try to remember to ask Lois about it next week at Minicon. :)

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Yes, I remember that from my all-too-brief stint as a member of the Lois-Bujold mailing list. I also think I recall Lois expressing her amusement with the article.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Just don't tell me what she says. :) I like to be surprised.

Re:

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. Forget I said anything, then. :)

Re: *blink*

[elisem.livejournal.com]

"I think she went too far with her reading, but she was able to find some intriguing material along the way."

Hmm. I think she made a few interesting points, but went badly awry, probably because (as she admits) she is less-than-familiar with Heyer's work, and is probably not all that familiar with Bujold's, either.

It bugged me, because Duchamp has a good keen mind and a taste for interesting symbol-play, and I found that her unfortunate but pretty basic wrongnesses about a few things made the essay a rather flimsy edifice, and overweighted, at that, and the whole thing erected (pun intended) upon an unstable foundation on a patch of shifting sand.

In other words, I wish it had been better, because I think Duchamp is capable of better, and I'd like to read what she had to say about the actual book Lois wrote.

(Am tempted to enumerate my objections point by point, but I must go to bed, because morning approacheth and an appointment for a physical is scheduled, and I gotta go to it, so not now for the textual analysis of the textual analysis, alas.)

Elise,
who will probably be expounding and doing stand-up comedic commentary upon this theme at Minicon, and who hopes that somebody will remember to write it down to share with them as won't be able to be there, but who will be missed and thought of fondly. [wave, wave]