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Emphyrio Q3. The Setting
Vance is widely considered the master of portraying cultures and places. making them unique and memorable. Most credit his experience in the merchant marine before he became a writer with exposure to many exotic cultures. Was this the case with Ambroy on Hauma? Was the reading immersive in this culture, or was it superficial and shallow?
Comments
I wouldn't call it shallow - the whole economic system thoroughly infused the centre part of the book and I thought it was pretty well done. Like any short SF novel, you really only get a glimpse of the alien culture, but it's a narrow and deep focus and I found it convincing enough - not it the sense that it might accurately describe an alien world, but in the sense that it portrays the feel of the kind of things one might find in a foreign bureaucracy, if that makes sense. I remember thinking while reading that Vance's worldbuilding was up there with Cordwainer Smith's.
That comment makes sense to me - I could believe in the organisation of the society, but not really in the places or the people. So for me it never transitioned into a place that I could believe actually might exist., though the struggles of "the common folk" against "the overlords" being pitched in such a way that the conflict was totally one-sided made sense.
But the ending? Puppets? Certainly didn't see that coming, and even after reading the end parts twice I still couldn't make it work.
The main thing I got from the setting was the attitude of the people. They were living in what seemed to me to be an oppressive society, but most people accepted it as inevitable. There was very little attempt at resistance or agitation to change the system. Perhaps the "noncups" are meant to be the safety valve for the real discontents, able to live outside the system.
Agreed. I wondered why there was not more pushback against the type of society they had but perhaps if things were never really "that bad" then there was never enough of a reason to stick your neck out to fight against it. I just finished reading the newest Hunger Games book and it takes this to the extreme. People let their children get slaughtered but just keep plugging along and popping out kids and rarely fighting back for 75 years. Seemed even stranger there (sorry that was an aside!)
It felt like he wanted to use the setting to make some points about how bad regulation is.
When Schute Cobol says, "If an activity is not irregulationary, then it is right and proper"..."If an activity is right and proper, then any recipient may indulge in it to his heart's content." he seems to be really setting up the idea as silly.
The latest I’ve heard is that injured and otherwise ‘useless’ soldiers are made to crawl across fields like human minesweepers to clear the way for more able-bodied soldiers. Also, they’re using drones to attack their own front line soldiers if they try to retreat.
So the idea of people meekly accepting less than ideal social and political systems is not that far fetched. In fact I expect it’s more the norm than the exception. And I’m nearly 100% sure he wanted to make some point about the ineptitude of bureaucracy. He would be far from the only SF author to do so. And I seem to remember he did similar things in his Alastor trilogy.
Yeah, you encouraged me to go look it up, and Emphyrio was also nominated for a Prometheus award for it's Libertarian messaging.
Yeah, you encouraged me to go look it up, and Emphyrio was also nominated for a Prometheus award for it's Libertarian messaging.
I'd have to give more thought on whether the comparison between Russia and Hauma.
Be careful about that - my understanding is that the Prometheus Award is given to books that explore Libertarian themes - not necessarily convey some 'libertarian messaging' (like it's subliminal mind control). Prometheus awards have also been given to The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin and to The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien and many others.
I doubt if Tolkien was a libertarian - was LeGuin? Maybe. The society in Always Coming Home was also pretty libertarian, wasn't it @BarnerCobblewood ?
For sure. I have no idea if Vance was Libertarian or not.
An author may not personally have libertarian views but yet write a book exploring a libertarian society or themes (or any other society for that matter).
I thought the setting was one of the best aspects of the book. Its discussion of law provided a persuasive context within which we could understand how character's motivations produced the actions which did not produce the outcomes they desired.
That said I found its presentation both simplistic and heavy-handed at times, e.g.
Hunh? That last sentence is just nonsense. I suppose we could see it as a meta-critique of law as principal of the principles, but nothing in the book led me to think that Vance's idea was anywhere near so interesting.
Later we get Welfare agent Schule saying this:
Hilarious!
The last line reads like some sort of sovereign citizen speech.
The first time I read it I was all "Puppets? Hilarious! But I didn't see that coming." The second time I read it I was like "Huh! I didn't notice this subtle inference the first time I read it... not this hint here... nor this seemingly innocuous observation... was I blind?"
I agree with @clash_bowley there were plenty of clues. But there was so little explanation or description of the puppet makers that I don't think anyone could have seen it coming.