Incidental Findings

Narrative enclosure in the Left Hand of Darkness

Thought in response to Jo Walton's blog post on the Left Hand of Darkness and the ensuing discussion: To me the question at the center of Left Hand of Darkness was always, 'if you take away gender, what's left' - or as Le Guin herself put it it 'is gender necessary'. Which makes it a touch ironic that it has come to be seen as the prototypic book 'about' gender. In my course, a few years ago, on a history of Modern Europe, I was introduced to the concept of 'enclosure' as a societal strategy for managing disruptive elements - it seems to me that Le Guin practiced a kind of narrative enclosure of gender in LHD in her invention of kemmer, to free her to write about other things. What went out were aspects of the masculine, epitomized by warlike behavior, but also certain aspects of the feminine (a thought I must unpack further). What remained were politics, culture, creativity, imagination, love, vision and sacrifice, not even the complete list but already a grand lot.

Thank you, says the voice from the hole

This is the first month's anniversary of Darkborn's publication, and last night I did my first Google search on the title and noted that a number of people have already reviewed it. I'd like to thank you all. Even if you didn't care for it, I still very much appreciate the time and attention you put into reading it, thinking about it, and writing about it. And of course, if you did like it ... well, I'm human (when not being something else for literary impersonation purposes), susceptible, and even more appreciative. 

I'm afraid I've been rather un-interactive; in fact, I more or less jumped in a hole and pulled it in after me. The first three novels I published were not only in the early days of the internet but stand-alones. By the time Legacies was published, I was deep in Blueheart. By the time Blueheart was published, I was trying to subdue Cavalcade. When I received reader and reviewer feedback, it was on a story that was completed in my mind and characters that had safely arrived, deservedly or undeservedly, at their destinies. Not on a story that was still working itself out and characters that were still developing. I had one critical comment pre-publication, quite offhand and definitely not intended to have the effect it did, that made me realize how easily my nerve could fail me in taking the trilogy where I want it to go. (I usually know where I want my characters to end up early in the writing, but the getting there is rather like the famous cartoon of the mathematical proof on the blackboard that has, in the middle, "And then a miracle occurs".) So I've been - and continue to be - a bit skittish. Particularly since, instead of establishing the trajectory for Shadowborn over the summer, I'm in the midst of what has turned out to be a complex and substantial rewrite of Lightborn.

But it's time to bunt myself out of the hole. Start Twittering again (I'm alixsinc - note the c - on Twitter and alixsin on identi.ca). Turn comments back on. Post photographs. Tidy up the blog. Finish posts and book-notes that are cluttering up my hard drive. Get over to tor.com and chip in my 2-bits-worth on some of their fascinating articles. Get the website upgrade done, which involves making a final decision on Dreamweaver (if it will condescend to accept my license key), Dokuwiki, or WordPress as the publication engine. So many more options since I first learned basic HTML. Can't promise much over the next month, alas. Aside from Lightborn, I've summer courses in pharmacoepidemiology and Bayesian statistics. And I mean to get myself into a kayak at least once a week, before the water freezes once more. And since I'm in Montréal, I have a natural deadline to climb out of my hole: Worldcon 2009, Anticipation. Going to be fun!

Darkborn, out tomorrow

The official publication date for Darkborn is tomorrow, and I have finally got the page on line at my website, although the complete redesign I had been working on is still ... being worked on. My love of bold design is at war with a cautious austerity born of knowledge of my own artistic limitations. Plus, after some two years of writing from the perspective of characters who do not see as we do, and therefore obliged to forego my usual repertoire of colour-words and visual references, I find cycling through Xaos fractals and tiling background patterns quite hypnotic.

And the website redesign - with transfer to a more modern CMS (probably Wordpress) - is competing with revisions to Lightborn, incubation of Shadowborn, revisions to a technical document, and readings in Bayesian analysis. Plus the random sleet of particles of inspiration that seem to be particularly intense when I have things I must get on with ... and the fact that spring has finally arrived, and the waters have thawed.

Say ooooh, please (Darkborn cover)

The artist is Mélanie Delon.

Publication date May 5, 2009. Pre-orders from: Amazon | Borders | Barnes and Noble | Powells

Piper Alpha, on Radio 4

On July 6, 1988, just before 10 pm, a gas explosion aboard the North Sea oil Rig Piper Alpha ignited a fire that became an inferno fueled by oil and gas pumped by two other rigs upstream in the production line. One hundred and sixty seven men died, including two from a rescue boat, almost before those outside the rig took measure of the catastrophe. Only 59 men survived, some of whom did so by jumping into the sea from heights of up to 175 feet.

Members of my family were living in Scotland at the time of the disaster; they spoke of the profound collective shock. I arrived in Leeds in time to follow Lord Cullen's inquiry. Last July, 20 years after the disaster, BBC Radio 3 broadcast a riveting, damning, impeccably constructed documentary drama based upon the testimonies and findings of the inquiry. This week, the play is being repeated on BBC Radio 4.

It begins with the explosion of the gas line and ends 90 minutes later as the accommodation block, where most of the remaining men had been trapped, falls into the sea. A narrator - the only female voice in the production that needfully consists entirely of male voices - is the voice of the chorus, providing technical detail and essential context, as the play overlays dialogue from the inquest upon by-the-minute dramatization of the experiences of several men who survived as well as key exchanges between the operators of the other rigs, the crews of pilot and rescue boats, and executives and rescue organizations on shore. And it works, without a moment of confusion and a wasted word. Though I have no doubt that there are controversies and arguments about what exactly happened when and where, and simplification is inevitable; it is, after all, a dramatization. Compelling as a tragedy, for we all know the end. Fascinating as an examination of systems failure, communications failure, unheeded warnings and flawed human decision-making in an information void. (Not only oil and gas, but communications flowed through Piper Alpha, and very shortly after the first explosion, the communications centre was destroyed and the upstream rigs ceased to have any communications with Piper, each other, or the head office on shore. All they had was a mayday, a horizon lit up with fire and explosions. Disbelief, and a miscue by a pressure-guage, led to an hour-long delay in shutting down the flow of fuel to the fire.) And impressive in the way it weaves together narrative, multi-viewpoint action, reflection and analysis.

The acting is very fine, from the subtle shadings of compassion and force in Lord Cullen’s portrayal, through the strain and chagrin of the managers and executives facing his questions, to the actors portraying the men themselves, both within the inferno and as they recollect what they did, saw, and survived. Even the sound-effects, superb and intermittedly frightening, merely augmented the impact of voices and dialogue. The play is available until next Saturday afternoon (GMT).