More on The Mountain in the Sea
Oct. 2nd, 2024 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asakiyumeThe characters are so alone in this book. There's no community and no model for/of community--at all! Just people groping toward (or away from) one another on an individual basis. Evrim, the sole android ever created, Ha, the solo octopus researcher at the research site, Rustem the solo hacker, Altantsetseg the solo security agent, Arnkatla Minervudóttir-Chan (LOL, Minerva's daughter), the solo designer of the android. Eiko, the enslaved guy on the fishing ship, strives not to be solo: he actively tries to see people and build unity with them, but his efforts are mainly fruitless.
I thought this was going to be contrasted with something not-solo about the octopuses, but no. There is no octopus perspective, and the way the octopuses are "read" by the humans (and Evrim) presses them into a human mold rather than seeing them on their own terms. For example, the autonomy of octopuses' legs from their executive function gets talked about, but it never figures at all. Instead, we see the legs used for walking on (on land, even!), like human legs, and for holding weapons or gifts, like human hands. Octopuses as like us rather than different from us.
In the sense that they're living creatures, that's true. Organic life is having a hard time in this future world, whether it's octopuses or humans or sea turtles. The octopuses can kill one or two intruders in their garden, just as Altantsetseg can kill intruders in the cordoned-off zone where research is going on, but in the end, the nonhuman systems that people have built but no longer control are more powerful and not given to compromise.
So what does the future hold? Evrim is seen as better than human because they're incapable of forgetting things. And yet even within the story, perfect recall is shown as problematic. Characters talk about trauma being etched in the body and the memory. So it seems strange to celebrate perfect recall as an improvement. A solo being, able to brood over each and every thing that's ever happened to them ... brrrr, seems cold, very cold.
Huh, well that turned out more negative than I thought it would when I began writing this entry. My Goodreads review was more positive. I guess I have lots of very mixed feelings about the book. It sure has been food for thought, though.
I thought this was going to be contrasted with something not-solo about the octopuses, but no. There is no octopus perspective, and the way the octopuses are "read" by the humans (and Evrim) presses them into a human mold rather than seeing them on their own terms. For example, the autonomy of octopuses' legs from their executive function gets talked about, but it never figures at all. Instead, we see the legs used for walking on (on land, even!), like human legs, and for holding weapons or gifts, like human hands. Octopuses as like us rather than different from us.
In the sense that they're living creatures, that's true. Organic life is having a hard time in this future world, whether it's octopuses or humans or sea turtles. The octopuses can kill one or two intruders in their garden, just as Altantsetseg can kill intruders in the cordoned-off zone where research is going on, but in the end, the nonhuman systems that people have built but no longer control are more powerful and not given to compromise.
So what does the future hold? Evrim is seen as better than human because they're incapable of forgetting things. And yet even within the story, perfect recall is shown as problematic. Characters talk about trauma being etched in the body and the memory. So it seems strange to celebrate perfect recall as an improvement. A solo being, able to brood over each and every thing that's ever happened to them ... brrrr, seems cold, very cold.
Huh, well that turned out more negative than I thought it would when I began writing this entry. My Goodreads review was more positive. I guess I have lots of very mixed feelings about the book. It sure has been food for thought, though.
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Date: 2024-10-02 11:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-02 11:27 pm (UTC)For me, I really appreciate that he tries to show people trapped in systems--there's no one supervillain you can point to. And I like some of his ideas (like about point fives, that I talked about last time). But his overall vision in the book seems so BLEAK. And his ranking of cultures, putting literate cultures about oral ones, is embarrassing in a person who's trying to talk about, or show, approaches to thinking in different ways. It's just wrong! And yet the guy himself seems widely traveled, and I can tell he cares about places, people, cultures... so I don't know.
But now I'm morbidly curious. I'll have to find those other reviews.
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Date: 2024-10-03 02:00 am (UTC)