Wednesday, June 18, 2008
I Don't Get it
Just finished reading Use of Weapons. I have the feeling that I must have missed something. OK, I understand that the twist at the end is that Zakalwe turns out not to be the real Zakalwe, but the horrible 'Chairmaker', Elethiomel. Fine. It's one of those books, however, that leaves me thinking 'what was the point of all of that'? It just seems like an account of an interesting series of events with an unusual time-frame/narrative sequence. It demands quite a lot of the reader in that s/he has to work out how each chapter 'fits' in relation to the whole and the reverse narrative half of the book allows us to come to understand the background experiences of Zakalwe in a layer by layer fashion. I get the feeling that there's more to it, though, than an interesting structure and a twist at the end. Look to Windward, for example is clearly about something - if you know what I mean. You can identify underlying themes in the story - guilt, loss, loneliness, doom. The book has something to say in addition to, and beyond, the immediate events of the plot. I didn't pick up on anything like that in Use of Weapons - is it really just an adventure story? This happened, then this happened, then this happened, twist, the end.
Most of the sub-adventures in the story seem to come to nothing and fizzle out. In fact they seem quite pointless - that war between the Hegemonarchy and the Empire that Zakalwe gets involved with, for example.
I'm a little confused about the book's epilogue too. Banks seems to imply that Zakalwe and his helper have returned to the planet on which the aforementioned war occurred. They place a nuclear device in a park and wait for the occupying army to arrive. Is there some key to the text here that I've missed? Why does the book begin and end at this point, roughly? What does the poem at the end signify?
The Culture doesn't come out of it very well - there's a pretty impressive death toll of poor bloody infantry in the book as Special Circumstances engages in a complicated process of war-mongering, war-fighting by proxy and betrayals. In the end they seem to order Zakalwe to set off a nuclear bomb (at least it's implied that SC are Zakalwe's 'masters' here). Lovely.
Perhaps the book's 'about' foreign intervention and real politik.
Perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree in looking for somekind of 'deeper meaning'.
Can anyone help me out?
I really liked the description of Zakalwe's exploration of the Orbital, though. The daisy-chain making, insect bothering drone with the dry wit and casual attitude to violence is pretty good too.
Most of the sub-adventures in the story seem to come to nothing and fizzle out. In fact they seem quite pointless - that war between the Hegemonarchy and the Empire that Zakalwe gets involved with, for example.
I'm a little confused about the book's epilogue too. Banks seems to imply that Zakalwe and his helper have returned to the planet on which the aforementioned war occurred. They place a nuclear device in a park and wait for the occupying army to arrive. Is there some key to the text here that I've missed? Why does the book begin and end at this point, roughly? What does the poem at the end signify?
The Culture doesn't come out of it very well - there's a pretty impressive death toll of poor bloody infantry in the book as Special Circumstances engages in a complicated process of war-mongering, war-fighting by proxy and betrayals. In the end they seem to order Zakalwe to set off a nuclear bomb (at least it's implied that SC are Zakalwe's 'masters' here). Lovely.
Perhaps the book's 'about' foreign intervention and real politik.
Perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree in looking for somekind of 'deeper meaning'.
Can anyone help me out?
I really liked the description of Zakalwe's exploration of the Orbital, though. The daisy-chain making, insect bothering drone with the dry wit and casual attitude to violence is pretty good too.
Labels: Iain M. Banks
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Iain M. Banks - Sci-Fi and Socialism
"Let me state here a personal conviction that appears, right now, to be profoundly unfashionable; which is that a planned economy can be more productive - and more morally desirable - than one left to market forces. The market is a good example of evolution in action; the try-everything-and-see-what-works approach. This might provide a perfectly morally satisfactory resource-management system so long as there was absolutely no question of any sentient creature ever being treated purely as one of those resources. The market, for all its (profoundly inelegant) complexities, remains a crude and essentially blind system, and is - without the sort of drastic amendments liable to cripple the economic efficacy which is its greatest claimed asset - intrinsically incapable of distinguishing between simple non-use of matter resulting from processal superfluity and the acute, prolonged and wide-spread suffering of conscious beings.
It is, arguably, in the elevation of this profoundly mechanistic (and in that sense perversely innocent) system to a position above all other moral, philosophical and political values and considerations that humankind displays most convincingly both its present intellectual [immaturity and] - through grossly pursued selfishness rather than the applied hatred of others - a kind of synthetic evil.
Intelligence, which is capable of looking farther ahead than the next aggressive mutation, can set up long-term aims and work towards them; the same amount of raw invention that bursts in all directions from the market can be - to some degree - channelled and directed, so that while the market merely shines (and the feudal gutters), the planned lases, reaching out coherently and efficiently towards agreed-on goals. What is vital for such a scheme, however, and what was always missing in the planned economies of our world's experience, is the continual, intimate and decisive participation of the mass of the citizenry in determining these goals, and designing as well as implementing the plans which should lead towards them.
Of course, there is a place for serendipity and chance in any sensibly envisaged plan, and the degree to which this would affect the higher functions of a democratically designed economy would be one of the most important parameters to be set... but just as the information we have stored in our libraries and institutions has undeniably outgrown (if not outweighed) that resident in our genes, and just as we may, within a century of the invention of electronics, duplicate - through machine sentience - a process which evolution took billions of years to achieve, so we shall one day abandon the grossly targeted vagaries of the market for the precision creation of the planned economy.
The Culture, of course, has gone beyond even that, to an economy so much a part of society it is hardly worthy of a separate definition, and which is limited only by imagination, philosophy (and manners), and the idea of minimally wasteful elegance; a kind of galactic ecological awareness allied to a desire to create beauty and goodness."
From 'A Few Notes on the Culture' by Iain M. Banks.
It is, arguably, in the elevation of this profoundly mechanistic (and in that sense perversely innocent) system to a position above all other moral, philosophical and political values and considerations that humankind displays most convincingly both its present intellectual [immaturity and] - through grossly pursued selfishness rather than the applied hatred of others - a kind of synthetic evil.
Intelligence, which is capable of looking farther ahead than the next aggressive mutation, can set up long-term aims and work towards them; the same amount of raw invention that bursts in all directions from the market can be - to some degree - channelled and directed, so that while the market merely shines (and the feudal gutters), the planned lases, reaching out coherently and efficiently towards agreed-on goals. What is vital for such a scheme, however, and what was always missing in the planned economies of our world's experience, is the continual, intimate and decisive participation of the mass of the citizenry in determining these goals, and designing as well as implementing the plans which should lead towards them.
Of course, there is a place for serendipity and chance in any sensibly envisaged plan, and the degree to which this would affect the higher functions of a democratically designed economy would be one of the most important parameters to be set... but just as the information we have stored in our libraries and institutions has undeniably outgrown (if not outweighed) that resident in our genes, and just as we may, within a century of the invention of electronics, duplicate - through machine sentience - a process which evolution took billions of years to achieve, so we shall one day abandon the grossly targeted vagaries of the market for the precision creation of the planned economy.
The Culture, of course, has gone beyond even that, to an economy so much a part of society it is hardly worthy of a separate definition, and which is limited only by imagination, philosophy (and manners), and the idea of minimally wasteful elegance; a kind of galactic ecological awareness allied to a desire to create beauty and goodness."
From 'A Few Notes on the Culture' by Iain M. Banks.
Labels: 'The Culture', Iain M. Banks
Barbarians
A space traveller is briefed by his ship's sentient 'Mind' about the barbarous social conditions on the planet he is to visit:
"The thing to remember, Gurgeh," the ship interrupted quickly, "is that their society is based on ownership. Everything that you see and touch, everything you come into contact with, will belong to somebody or to an institution; it will be theirs, they will own it. In the same way, everyone you meet will be conscious of both their position in society and their relationship to others around them.
"It is especially important to remember that the ownership of humans is possible too; not in terms of actual slavery, which they are proud to have abolished, but in the sense that, according to which sex and class one belongs to, one may be partially owned by another or others by having to sell one's labour or talents to somebody with the means to buy them. In the case of males, they give themselves most totally when they become soldiers; the personnel in their armed forces are like slaves, with little personal freedom.... Females sell their bodies, usually, entering into the legal contract of 'marriage'...."
Iain M. Banks, The Player of Games
"The thing to remember, Gurgeh," the ship interrupted quickly, "is that their society is based on ownership. Everything that you see and touch, everything you come into contact with, will belong to somebody or to an institution; it will be theirs, they will own it. In the same way, everyone you meet will be conscious of both their position in society and their relationship to others around them.
"It is especially important to remember that the ownership of humans is possible too; not in terms of actual slavery, which they are proud to have abolished, but in the sense that, according to which sex and class one belongs to, one may be partially owned by another or others by having to sell one's labour or talents to somebody with the means to buy them. In the case of males, they give themselves most totally when they become soldiers; the personnel in their armed forces are like slaves, with little personal freedom.... Females sell their bodies, usually, entering into the legal contract of 'marriage'...."
Iain M. Banks, The Player of Games
Labels: 'The Culture', Iain M. Banks
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Geek Heaven
I didn't really think of myself as a science-fiction sort until recently. Then I discovered Iain Banks' 'Culture' novels. I was feeling rather bored one day and happened to pick up a copy of Consider Phlebas which happened to be lying around, started to read it and then spent the next couple of days glued to it, stopping only for coffee and wee wees. I've only read that particular culture novel all the way through (I've skimmed the first part of a later one in the series) - the reason being that I need to finish my writing and can't risk getting hooked into another non-essential book. I'm planning, however, once I've finished my work, to buy the whole lot of Bank's sci-fi and read the whole series. It'll be my little reward to myself. I suppose I shall have to get a job as well, but I can probably manage to fit a job search around a Banksathon, somehow.
I discovered a whole load of info on Banks' sci-fi onWikipedia the other day - it's almost terrifyingly extensive and intricate. There are several pages of it. Perhaps the most interesting is this info on 'the Culture' - Banks' wonderfully well imagined futuristic society. 'The Culture' is recognisably socialist (which is, possibly, why Banks' sci-fi is so popular with lefties). Banks is himself a socialist (apparently he campaigned for the SSP) - but it's one of his strengths as an intelligent writer that, although his general sympathies clearly lie with 'the Culture', he does not depict it in a wholly positive light. There is something a little ambiguous in Banks' presentation of this egalitarian society - it is both hugely attractive and yet, slightly worrying at the same time. The key question that Banks seems to raise is this - in a society of plenty, where most causes of suffering have been overcome, where all major discoveries have been made, where there are no more heroic struggles to be waged, where humans have complete control over their own bodies and environment, where production has been almost completely automised and labour abolished... what then?
I discovered a whole load of info on Banks' sci-fi onWikipedia the other day - it's almost terrifyingly extensive and intricate. There are several pages of it. Perhaps the most interesting is this info on 'the Culture' - Banks' wonderfully well imagined futuristic society. 'The Culture' is recognisably socialist (which is, possibly, why Banks' sci-fi is so popular with lefties). Banks is himself a socialist (apparently he campaigned for the SSP) - but it's one of his strengths as an intelligent writer that, although his general sympathies clearly lie with 'the Culture', he does not depict it in a wholly positive light. There is something a little ambiguous in Banks' presentation of this egalitarian society - it is both hugely attractive and yet, slightly worrying at the same time. The key question that Banks seems to raise is this - in a society of plenty, where most causes of suffering have been overcome, where all major discoveries have been made, where there are no more heroic struggles to be waged, where humans have complete control over their own bodies and environment, where production has been almost completely automised and labour abolished... what then?
Labels: 'The Culture', Iain M. Banks
