Wednesday reading
Feb. 26th, 2014 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asakiyumeI read two short stories by Zadie Smith, because I haven't read anything by her since White Teeth, and I'd heard she'd written something science fictional. One of the short stories, "Meet the President!" was indeed science fictional, but I was equally taken by the other, "Moonlit Landscape with Bridge."
In "Meet the President," a fifteen-year-old boy of the rootless, world-travelling techno class tries to play his VR game (in which you kill the treacherous US vice president and, if you win, meet the president) on the dismal coast of future-England, but is interrupted and importuned by an elderly local and the nine-year-old in her care, who are on their way to the funeral of the nine-year-old's twelve-year-old sister, killed in a drone strike. In "Moonlit Landscape with Bridge," the minister of the interior of an unnamed typhoon- or tsunami-devastated country attempts to drive to the airport to leave the country but is interrupted by a number of his countrymen, including a criminal whom the storm has freed, who gaily remembers the minister directing various atrocities that the criminal participated in.
In both stories there's a huge wealth and power differential between the viewpoint character and the people he encounters. Both fifteen-year-old Bill Peek and the unnamed minister think of themselves as beneficent (Bill Peek snaps a quick picture of himself helping the nine-year-old to send to his classmates and teacher and congratulates himself on thereby earning points in his Empathy module; the minister of the interior tries to distribute water to a thirsty crowd), but the sum of their thoughts and actions reveal them to be selfish and casually cruel. As the stories progress, the realities (personal and environmental) that the other 98 percent live with press in closer and closer (in a physical, tactile sense) until the character can no longer ignore them--and, indeed, is overwhelmed by them.
Bill Peek, at the wake for little Aggie's dead sister:
And the minister, at last entering the plane:
I wish I had further commentary to add, but I don't. I'm just thinking, musing on writing, on what stories we tell and how we tell them.
In "Meet the President," a fifteen-year-old boy of the rootless, world-travelling techno class tries to play his VR game (in which you kill the treacherous US vice president and, if you win, meet the president) on the dismal coast of future-England, but is interrupted and importuned by an elderly local and the nine-year-old in her care, who are on their way to the funeral of the nine-year-old's twelve-year-old sister, killed in a drone strike. In "Moonlit Landscape with Bridge," the minister of the interior of an unnamed typhoon- or tsunami-devastated country attempts to drive to the airport to leave the country but is interrupted by a number of his countrymen, including a criminal whom the storm has freed, who gaily remembers the minister directing various atrocities that the criminal participated in.
In both stories there's a huge wealth and power differential between the viewpoint character and the people he encounters. Both fifteen-year-old Bill Peek and the unnamed minister think of themselves as beneficent (Bill Peek snaps a quick picture of himself helping the nine-year-old to send to his classmates and teacher and congratulates himself on thereby earning points in his Empathy module; the minister of the interior tries to distribute water to a thirsty crowd), but the sum of their thoughts and actions reveal them to be selfish and casually cruel. As the stories progress, the realities (personal and environmental) that the other 98 percent live with press in closer and closer (in a physical, tactile sense) until the character can no longer ignore them--and, indeed, is overwhelmed by them.
Bill Peek, at the wake for little Aggie's dead sister:
A fat man put a hand on his shoulder and asked, “You in the right place, boy?” A distressing female with few teeth said, “Leave him be.” Bill Peek felt himself being pushed forward, deeper into the darkness. A song was being sung, by human voices, and though each individual sang softly, when placed side by side like this, like rows of wheat in the wind, they formed a weird unity, heavy and light at the same time.Zadie Smith, "Meet the President!" New Yorker, August 12, 2013.
And the minister, at last entering the plane:
“This way, Minister. This way.” So many people seemed to be touching the Minister, guiding him, advising him, that he felt as if he were not so much walking as being carried. He stopped trying to speak. What point was there in words? Actions, only actions. A few feet from the stairs to the plane, he became aware of a sudden change in the light: an impudent gray cloud between the Minister of the Interior and that fat beautiful moon. Large warm raindrops big as acorns fell on his nose, on his single shoe, on his lapel, on the world.Zadie Smith, "Moonlit Landscape with Bridge," New Yorker, February 10, 2014.
I wish I had further commentary to add, but I don't. I'm just thinking, musing on writing, on what stories we tell and how we tell them.
