Eight deadly words

[lydy]

So, I was trying to read Nancy Kress's _Beggar's Ride_. She's got a fairly good rep, and I don't know that I've actually read anything by her, but it was lying about the house, it was time for a new book, and it looked interesting. So, I was then afflicted by the eight deadly words. Now, this is pretty unusual, for me. I tend to find most people at least interesting, and if I don't like them, I can usually entertain myself by disliking them. I wasn't real happy with the frequent reports on the state of one of the main character's erections. I dunno, maybe it's a girl-thing, but really erections are pretty much only interesting to me if they are of immediate relevance, that is to say, clothes are about to be removed and people are about to get busy. Nor am I particularly interested in fleeting and inappropriate sexual responses in non-sexual situations, unless what you are trying to do is make your character particularly unlikeable. I mean, everybody has fleeting, inappropriate thoughts. I get that. Why the only inappropriate thoughts that the author chooses to share with me are all of a sexual nature suggests that she thinks that this is somehow important. I'm still not sure if she actually wanted me to dislike the character, but I don't really care. Because he was basically very uninteresting. As was, you know, everybody else.

But then. But then. Then there was a chapter which began with a paean to clinical depression. And I was done. Out of there. Finished. No more of this book thank you very much.

Yes, friends, it is possible that it got better, that Kress doesn't actually think that pain and growth are synonymous, that the other characters have interesting motivations, that the world is profound in some sort of way. But I do not care. Sixty-six pages. I read sixty-six pages, and I'm done, now.

(Pro tip: clinical depression is not a gift. It is just barely possible that clinical depression, in some people, also comes with a gift attached, because brains are weird and squishy. But the depression? Not a gift.)

Comments

[lydy.livejournal.com]

This seems like a common trope, the coupling of genetic engineering and failure to bond. Which is, you know, really weird. It is certainly true that humans do fail to bond with small humans in their care, but they are the exception, not the rule. We write whole long scary stories about them. But normal humans bond with little humans most of the time, also with cats, dogs, horses, cars, clocks, and rugs. Bonding is a thing that we _do_. So the idea that having an active hand in the design of a little person would somehow short-circuit that very strong emotional programming is just plain badly thought out.

I also have never really understood the alarmist nature of the stories about potentially genemodding children. I mean, were I in the market for a baby,and got to have a choice about sex, eye color, and IQ, and susceptibility to cancer, I would probably go ahead and make those choices. But then, a lot of these stories seem to think that genetic makeup explicates a great deal of human behavior, when it doesn't appear to do any such thing. At least, not in any simple and predictable way.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

This is a good point about bonding. As for picking what a child will be - as an adoptive parent-in-waiting, I filled out a checklist of which disabilities and situations I was willing to consider, and which I wasn't. Cocaine exposure, yes; excessive alcohol exposure, no; ongoing contact with birth parents, yes, non-consenting or unaware birth father, no. It's a creepy and surreal experience but it's also how good matches are made. Not quite the same as creating a child from scratch, of course.

In the case of Beggars in Spain it didn't seem to be the tailored nature of the child that was the problem, but the "I wanted a normal child! I can't love this freak!" thing. I'm sympathetic to parents who unexpectedly have a disabled child and struggle with reality vs. their prior expectations - but parents who don't love their child because the child doesn't match what was in their head give me twitchy strangly fingers.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I sympathize with your twitchy strangly fingers. It seems like an extreme form of people failing to understand that children are, you know, people, actually separate from their parents, and that while having expectations happens, they are still their ownselves.