The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
May. 3rd, 2015 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lightreadsThe Girl With All the Gifts
4/5. So the National Library Service description of this book is all, "blah blah post zombie apocalypse, gifted young girl is infected and held in military custody, emergency cross-country road trip through zombie-infested England while her humanity is debated."
And I went siiiiiiiigh, because can we – with the debating of humanity – can we just fucking stop. This is a thing that a certain subset of vampire/zombie/creature fiction is really interested in: who is human and, more importantly it seems, who is not? And I hate these narratives. Hate them. The authors appear to think they are probing at something important and meaningful, whereas from my perspective – well. Let's put it this way: slavery didn't exist in the United States because no one had thought of the concept of human rights. Far from it. Slavery was maintainable because it was decided, collectively and systematically, that Africans were not human beings. That's what this boundary drawing is always for, ultimately: deciding whether someone is human or not is a proxy way of deciding whether they are an object or a person. Objects can't be raped because they don't have consent. Objects can't be assaulted; they can be damaged, as property, but that damage is done to the owner. And let's not fool ourselves that these decisions come down to sentience or intelligence; history begs to differ.
So for me, a lot of supernatural fiction is participating in one of the oldest acts of social aggression there is: deciding who counts and who doesn't. And I think the entire endeavor is corrupt from start to finish. It's not interesting. It's not deep. It's not philosophical. It doesn't reflect on the true nature of humanity. It's just a tool of violence being co-opted for fiction.
Um. Anyway. Now that I've gotten that off my chest. This book isn't that, and it's great!
Things this book doesn't care about: (1) who is human and who is not; (2) Endless – or really any -- authorial wanking about the contours of this dystopic society.
Fuck yes.
Things this book does care about: (1) A very smart little girl; (2) giving me the cold horrors as a person who can barely stand to touch mushroom flesh (this will not likely apply to other readers, but ugh, zombies through fungus infection AAAAUGH); (3) the last thing to come out of Pandora's box.
It is grim as fuck and difficult to read in places, and mesmerizingly good. And it's kind of obvious, looking back on it, and yet I was so busy being wrapped up in it that I didn't bother clocking the overarching narrative. And that overarching narrative – it's not just that it isn't concerned with who's human and who's not, it's that it actively rejects the question.
So really good, then.
P.s. M.R. Carey is a not-really-pseud for Mike Carey, the Hellblazer guy and urban fantasy guy.
4/5. So the National Library Service description of this book is all, "blah blah post zombie apocalypse, gifted young girl is infected and held in military custody, emergency cross-country road trip through zombie-infested England while her humanity is debated."
And I went siiiiiiiigh, because can we – with the debating of humanity – can we just fucking stop. This is a thing that a certain subset of vampire/zombie/creature fiction is really interested in: who is human and, more importantly it seems, who is not? And I hate these narratives. Hate them. The authors appear to think they are probing at something important and meaningful, whereas from my perspective – well. Let's put it this way: slavery didn't exist in the United States because no one had thought of the concept of human rights. Far from it. Slavery was maintainable because it was decided, collectively and systematically, that Africans were not human beings. That's what this boundary drawing is always for, ultimately: deciding whether someone is human or not is a proxy way of deciding whether they are an object or a person. Objects can't be raped because they don't have consent. Objects can't be assaulted; they can be damaged, as property, but that damage is done to the owner. And let's not fool ourselves that these decisions come down to sentience or intelligence; history begs to differ.
So for me, a lot of supernatural fiction is participating in one of the oldest acts of social aggression there is: deciding who counts and who doesn't. And I think the entire endeavor is corrupt from start to finish. It's not interesting. It's not deep. It's not philosophical. It doesn't reflect on the true nature of humanity. It's just a tool of violence being co-opted for fiction.
Um. Anyway. Now that I've gotten that off my chest. This book isn't that, and it's great!
Things this book doesn't care about: (1) who is human and who is not; (2) Endless – or really any -- authorial wanking about the contours of this dystopic society.
Fuck yes.
Things this book does care about: (1) A very smart little girl; (2) giving me the cold horrors as a person who can barely stand to touch mushroom flesh (this will not likely apply to other readers, but ugh, zombies through fungus infection AAAAUGH); (3) the last thing to come out of Pandora's box.
It is grim as fuck and difficult to read in places, and mesmerizingly good. And it's kind of obvious, looking back on it, and yet I was so busy being wrapped up in it that I didn't bother clocking the overarching narrative. And that overarching narrative – it's not just that it isn't concerned with who's human and who's not, it's that it actively rejects the question.
So really good, then.
P.s. M.R. Carey is a not-really-pseud for Mike Carey, the Hellblazer guy and urban fantasy guy.
no subject
Date: 2015-05-06 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-06 08:35 am (UTC)I haven't, although I'm aware of them as my braintwin has written fic for Cyteen. At some point after I finish school I may have the cope but until then, there's aspects of the azi that I know will be very difficult for me.
Cherryh in general, honestly, is on my great list of To Read. :)