Story of Your Life, by Ted Chiang

“I’d love to tell you the story of this evening, the night you’re conceived, but the right time to do that would be when you’re ready to have children of your own, and we’ll never get that chance.” [p. 1]

The beginning of the story sets up the narrative style, first person perspective of a mother telling a story. The way the story is written is as if she is telling a bedtime story to her daughter, or on a deathbed. The title of the story, “Story of Your Life,” and the way the narrator starts with the story of the day her daughter was conceived, I think implies that this story somehow relates to the story of the narrator’s daughter in the narrator’s perspective, although I have no idea how that actually will work out except when the narrator is telling stories of her life before the aliens visited. Initially I thought that the narrator has already died or was dying, but it seems that it was the daughter who died-from the passage later when the narrator talks about saying “that’s her” at a suspiciously hospital like setting. I somehow get the feeling that the daughter was somehow killed in an accident/incident involving the aliens, but maybe the “you” of the “Story of Your Life” has nothing to do with the daughter.

Another narrating style that interests me is the way the narrator alternates stories between the story of her daughter and the story of her encounter with the aliens. The only correlation between the two alternating story seems to be the way they use language. We can see the daughter speaking and the mother figuring out what she means through context, such as the “made of honor” while also figuring out the alien language through context, such finding out their written structure. Perhaps the “you” in the title is both the daughter and the aliens, hence the alternating narrative style.

Blood Child, by Octavia Butler

“You’re better,” she said this time, probing me with six or seven of her limbs. “You’re gaining weight finally. Thinness is dangerous.” The probing changed subtly, became a series of caresses. / “He’s still too thin,” my mother said sharply. [p. 4]

I can’t help but to relate this conversation with Hansel and Gretel when the witch checks how much Hansel gained weight every day to gauge when she should eat him and Hansel deceives the witch by giving her a bone, making her think that he is too thin. Not to mention, even if I did not know the specifics of the Tlic/Terran dynamic, I caught on that there was something almost master/slave like in the relationship between the humans and the Tlic-largely due to several implications such as impatient Tlic wanting teenage Terran, “sell,” and “family.” The fact that T’Gatoi wants her human to be healthy implies that this “something” is something physical, which later the readers find out that it is in the form of “pregnancy.”

I think the fact that Gan’s mother “sharply” retorts to T’Gatoi also emphasize that perhaps what T’Gatoi want when Gan is healthy, may not particularly be desirable. Gan’s mother is quick to defend him, probably wanting to push the date as late as possible so that Gan is not taken away. I guess the reason why my mind jumped to the witch in Hansel and Gretel is because of the mother’s words, “He’s too thin.” Maybe my mind is just gruesome, going straight from “He’s too thin” to “He’s too thin to eat.”

I now catch that there is also something, predator-like or sexual about the way T’Gatoi handles Gan. T’Gatoi, touches Gan that “bec[omes] a series of caresses,” there is something sensual about this if I think about how they are going to be, in really twisted way, husband and wife-ish, but then again, I just can’t let go of the image of a predator, satisfied with how her prey is fattening up. It could be in her nature, considering that she could have, as a worm, eaten Gan’s father. This novel is just generally too disturbing.

Hijab Scene #7... oops

The last couple of lines of the Hijab Scene #7, “Yes, I carry explosives/They’re called words/and if you don’t get up/off your assumptions,/They’re going to blow you away,” reflects the narrator as an intellectual woman with power in her words, who is ready to show the person she is talking to that she is not like the stereotype constructed around the women wearing a hijab. The last line of the poem, “They’re going to blow you away” shows that there is going to be an element of surprise of finding what they do not expect to the extreme if the person don’t “get up/off your assumptions,” as she is able to change what he/she thinks completely, as implied by the words “blow you away.” The speaker is confident that she can throw away all that preconception with the power of her words. The implication of these lines is that despite what people assume about her as a woman wearing a hijab, her words are powerful, and capable of completely changing the perspective.

The Lathe of Heaven, By Ursula K. Le Guin II

He seemed to recoil, as a man might who thought to push aside a gauze curtain and found it to be a granite door. [p. 145]

This is not the first time that Orr has been described as solid. The first one to observe so is Heather, earlier when she sees Orr in her office. The fact that Orr is described as a rock is so interesting.  Unrelenting force, an obstacle, symbol of something eternal, nature, calamity, common place, and not opinionated are just few of the descriptions I would use for rocks and they all seem to fit Orr well. It reminds me of what somebody said about Orr, being a possible play on words for ore, a rock containing minerals, normal on the outside, but special within. I mean, Orr is often portrayed as being more solid, more strength than originally perceived. The novel slowly changed out of perspective of predator/prey relationship since Orr started to make his stand known. This is a crucial moment of the story because we finally see Orr say no! Yay! Again, Orr is portrayed as a great obstacle in this case, or an unexpected weight. It is kind of like how Haber did not expect Orr to have such a strong opinion against the use of the e-state to change the world. Actually, this all reminds me of another Taoist perspective of water. Water can be perceived as weak, malleable to any form, but has the power to carve rocks. Orr, though he has dutifully following Haber’s instructions and perceived as prey multiple times in the novel, is able to find within himself to stop Haber, give him advice to stop himself, in the end. Actually it is scary how much Taoist ideas are immersed in this novel. Slightly off topic, but according to Lao Tsu, a wise man knows that sickness will turn him sick before he actually gets sick, kind of like Orr who knew this was all wrong from the start while Haber had to, in the end, go cuckoo. But anyhow, this all shows Orr’s amazing prowess! I am rather proud of him to finally emerge out of his panicked shell and showing his calm, serene self that believes in “self is universe”

The Lathe of Heaven, By Ursula K. Le Guin

He says he’s helping me. It would have helped a lot if he’d told me told me that he can see what I see, told me that it’s just not delusion. [p. 40]

The passage reveals vulnerability that Orr has of his ability. Or maybe not of his ability, but of his sanity? Orr is grasping the last strands of his sanity and Haber is using that completely to his advantage. The passage also, to me, was the first real sign of Haber’s manipulation and control. Orr is put on more drugs, forced to dream effectively more often, while left to face the change alone because nobody would confirm that it is actually happening. It irks me so much that Haber is acting all high and mighty and manipulating the situation so Orr does not get any confirmation that his effective dreams are not of his imagination. It is an effective tool of manipulation for a corrupt psychiatrist, really, to make sure that the patient is left doubting their own sanity, because as soon as Haber acknowledges that what Orr has is real, especially with that mic of his recording all the sessions, Orr has complete legal ground to sue Haber and get out of the situation. Or, Haber is also a psycho for believing Orr. Maybe that is why he refuses to acknowledge them. Seriously, no psycho should be handled by a psycho. The passage also reminds me of the authority Haber has as Orr’s psychiatrist. He has the power to help, but he is restraining for it. Instead, what I am more reminded of is that Haber has the power to assign Orr into the required therapy for the deranged or put him into an institute. That threat just becomes clearer as the novel goes on. It takes so long for Orr to realize that Haber is indeed doing this out of personal gains, like it took this long to find out that maybe Haber is not out for the good of Orr.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick II

“You’re too close,” Mercer said. “You have to be a long way off, the way the androids are. They have better perspective.” [p.214]

This passage reminds me of No Woman Born by Moore when Harris contemplates about who has the better view of Deirdre, himself who is too far, or Maltzer who is too close. In No Woman Born, Maltzer is unable to perceive Deirdre as anything other than a collection of metal. I thought that was not unlike how the androids can only perceive the outer appearance, the superficial level of Mercerism. What the androids do not get is the social power that Mercerism has through empathetic connections and it does not matter whether or not it is real. It is like how Maltzer could not conceptualize the fact that Deirdre can be perceived as something else by others because all he has seen is her in her metallic glory.

Or maybe the passage has more to do with one’s willingness to find such things. Being “close” representing emotional attachment, one could not find faults with the system of Mercerism because they refuse to acknowledge them unless they are spelled out. Humans cannot find such things as faults because they are experiencing what Mercer is first hand; they are too busy to climb up the hill and get hit by stone to look around the surrounding and notice something wrong with it. But as Androids are detached to the situation, being unable to connect through the empathy box, they can ascertain the situation at hand more accurately, because they are objective.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick I

It, he thought. She keeps calling the owl it. Not her. [p. 59]

I thought it was interesting that the only reason why Rachel Rosen was caught in her act was because she called an owl, it. It is interesting because one, according to the Voigt-Kampff test; I would be subjected at the point of that laser gun. I always call animals ‘it’ sometimes because I lack of a term to described them when I do not know it’s gender, and I am a proud omnivore who delights in meat products. So what do they call them if they do not call them it? Another reason why it is interesting is that the owl which Rachel refers to as “it” ends up being “it” after all as it is a fake animal. If it is hard for me to not say “it” to animals, I can’t imagine how hard it would be if the animal is not even a real living thing. Although she also failed the Voigt-Kampff test, she would have been able to fool Rick if not for that slip, thus it is just so ironic that the owl that made her slip was not a living thing after all. Because then, her slip does not become a true slip.

I cannot help but think of what ifs, if Rachel was indeed a “special” schizophrenic individual, forgetting that the owl is supposed to be a she, not a robot, would she have passed the test? It was briefly explored in the novel that mental patients may not be able to pass the Voigt-Kampff test, which was the reason for Rick initially being tricked. Because the way she was found out had sketchy ends-after all, Rick does not have an empathetic connection with his electric lamb-it just makes me wonder if Rick’s assessment based on the use of Pronouns were so accurate.