an over-formalized and ceremonialized society;
people "with nothing better to do," focusing entirely on social appearances and prestige;
unexplained malice leading to intolerable provocation;
an entire clan ostracized because of a single act of violence by its captain;
honor cleansed and total atonement made by the captain's suicide;
retaliatory violence planned;
AI intervention to prevent further violence.
Comments
I understand the role of this single chapter in the novel but am inclined to skip the chapter on rereading.
Some people at least will make better use than this of extended leisure time. I would prefer to read about them. The disgraced captain:
"...was president of the national wildlife commission, which often involved him in interethnic negotiations under the auspices of the Worldguide." (p. 61)
An account of that kind of activity would have made for pleasanter reading.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Unpleasant reading, this part of GENESIS? Maybe, but also a very PLAUSIBLE story, considering what REAL human beings are actually like, apart from Utopian dreams.
I think it's plain Anderson based this chapter of late Heian Japan, which did stress ceremony and formality. The abortive violence suppressed by the AI was also reminiscent of how Heian Japan a violent period of contending war lords and shoguns.
And the feudists of this chapter should have DEFIED the "Worldguide," rather than let it continue to all real decision making power from mankind.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: they -can't- defy the Worldguide; it's all-powerful.
That's one of the points of the chapter, that the omnipotent AI aborts the evolution of human societies.
Heian Japan (or at least the court-aristocracy part of it) was about as formalized and focused on ritual and appearances as this future one Poul constructs.
But it ended with the rise of the samurai clans and the daimyo lords -- which can't happen here.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And that what makes me so angry, the "all powerfulness" of the Worldguide. I resent how the AI meddled with and aborted how human societies, for better or ill, would have developed if left alone. We will not see any analogs of the Samurai and Daimyo clans which marked late and post Heian Japan in THIS society. Pity!
I can certainly see how the awareness of how helpless, impotent, and powerless they actually were is what led to the despairing extinction of the human race in GENESIS.
Ad astra! Sean
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