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CTGttW Question 5: Dichotomies
The book is full of dichotomies.
- names vs titles covered in another question.
- human-occupied land and the Wastelands
- inside and outside the train
- First and Third class
- passenger and crew
- Weiwei and the rest of the crew
- honesty and deception, lie and truth
- science and religion
- hubris and humility
What others are there? Which are important? How are these dichotomies addressed in the book? Which are resolved and which remain?
Is the notion of "dichotomy" central to the book?
Comments
I’d say the crows and the captain represented two arms of authority.
Russia and China as two very different kinds of train terminus?
I think of this book as an undergraduate book. I mean its full of ideas that are discussed by undergraduates in university, important ideas, but their importance and relation with the world isn't yet well understood. I think the author shows a lot of promise, but this isn't a very good book. It's a good book, and if Sarah Brooks continues working on her theme she may well write a very good book. But what is the theme of the book? "Dichotomy" is not a theme for a novel.
I posted a quote from PKD a while ago where he talked about what SF is. https://www.ttrpbc.com/discussion/comment/8646#Comment_8646 There he talks about the "shock of disrecognition," and how the protagonist is an idea, not a person. I don't think either of these are happening here, but I suppose they might for a young reader. But as I said the Wasteland seems like it should be the idea, and I don't think its promise was delivered on. There are too many ideas. It needs to be tightened up.
I think the aurthor watched too much Snowpiercer.
Or not enough? I don't think this book was as good as the film.
Too true!
I didn't get very far with Snowpiercer but didn't the plot revolve heavily around conflict between the two ends of the train? A bit like Silo (though of course that was vertical rather than horizontal) but even more so? Whereas here there was some inter-personal conflict but not really any between the classes of passengers, or either class and the crew.
The train in Snowpiercer is a generation trip. In Traveller’s, it’s a short haul by comparison, and starts and ends at in a mundane country (except it doesn’t end there thanks to events on the train). In Snowpiercer, there’s a fight over control of the train.
Traveller’s is also like The Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer (which in turn is like Roadside Picnic). In the Southern Reach, an alien presence has manifested in (Florida) and turned the (Everglades) into a fecund, alien land. The fecundity and alieness is spreading. People come out of the zone changed in ienexplicable ways.
In Traveller’s , there’s a fecund zone as well. People are studying it, not by way of a number of expeditions, but as the train passes through. In both works, the fecundity infects those who study it and they spread it. In Traveller’s, the nature of the fecundity is not alien, but seemingly natural. For those that still have the book, there’s a passage on page 192 that describes this fecundity (here depicted as birds spinning webs, showing hybridity between two classes of animal) and Dr Grey describes this as emblematic of New Edenic Thought. The Southern Reach also depicts a new Eden of sorts.
I'm not sure I can think of more dichotomies offhand. I think there were mostly there to create some extra tension to the story. They worked "okay" but I wouldn't say they were a theme really aside from the main division of the Wastelands and the rest of society that wants to keep it tucked away in its safe place.
I think the comparison with Roadside Picnic really shows how thin ctg becomes as it progresses.
@BarnerCobblewood I did read the whole trilogy. It left me underwhelmed, and I kept comparing it to Roadside Picnic, which I felt was roughly the same in concept - an alien presence appears in a certain place (The Zone in RP, Area X is The Southern Reach) and alters that place in ways we can't understand. Explorers/Scientists explore the zone and come out changed to various degrees, and must come to grips with this. A certain number of people see the fingerprints of God in this and seek out the numinous - but in a much more compact novel.
With the Southern Reach, I felt the storytelling was much less focused. The second book in particular seemed to go almost nowhere. I thought it was a single 300-page story expanded into 3 books. The film was much tighter. It's worth mentioning that a bunch of the Lit-fic boys in one of the discords I frequent really love the Southern Reach - they they enjoy reading words for the sake of how words are assembled.
Yeah I remember that I thought the first volume was too long. And that is about all I remember of it. Oh well. It should be a great idea. I want to use this in my campaign to play what I'm calling side-genres.
Actually I'm thinking that part of the problem with this idea in current fiction is the result of the holodeck in the original reboot Star Treks. It sold the idea that people would like genre without any of the dangers appropriate to it. Likewise "balance" in rpg design I suppose. Can't kill the PCs.
Never read any of Jeff Vandermeer's books but I had heard that series compared to this book. Not enough time...