01-23-14:Riane Eisler Wields 'The Chalice & the Blade'
Towards a Cultural Singularity
The cutting edge has been around for a long time, and 'The Chalice & the Blade' by Riane Eisler is a great example. This twenty-five year-old work of non-fiction offers a superb analysis of culture and economics from an outsider perspective. Unlike many books of this nature, the ensuing years have been kind to Eisler's signature work. It seems to have taken us a generation to grow up enough to begin to wrap our brains around the truths she saw then that now seem self-evident.
Starting with Paleolithic and Neolithic archaeology and reaching into the 20th century and beyond, Eisler is intent on toppling hierarchical society, what she calls the "Dominator Model" and replacing it with the Shared Partnership model, which she demonstrates is neither new nor innovative, but instead, the natural order. She backs up her assertions with smart writing and engaging prose that takes readers, step by step from a beneficent past to a profitable future.
In the process, expect to have your visions of politics, society, technology and economics upended and brought back into focus. For this reader, her perceptions of how ancient technologies, such as metallurgy, became entwined with the creation of Dominator-modeled societies are particularly pertinent in the 21st century. Ubiquitous technology and networks have not changed the landscape — they have become the landscape. 'The Chalice & the Blade' is a book that finds the reader engaging with the text in a manner reminiscent of the best science fiction; it makes you think and seek new ideas within your own experience. This is not to say that the work is in any way speculative. Eisler back up her theories with hard science and data fit for a popular audience.
Eisler goes beyond mere description to prescription, with some visions of what can be done and more intriguingly, the limits of what we can imagine. The essence here is not to simply describe two opposing models of society, but first, to place them outside of current categories of right/left, capitalist/social, misogyny/misanthropy. Eisler considers much of the oppositional extremes in current dialogue to be distractions, meant to sustain the (we hope) fading Dominator model.
The book keeps a tight grip on the reader with Eisler's understanding of cultural transformation, which is the means of taking us forward or backward. The general trend over the long measure is forward, but the 20th and the 21st century provide plenrty of examples of regression as opposed to progression. With 'The Chalice & the Blade,' Eisler's ability to identify the problem is a large part of the solution.
Back in 1988, Riane Eisler was deeply immersed in what we might call today a cultural singularity, a series of changes beyond which our ability to model what might happen ends. But it is clear that humanity can and must move towards Eisler's sharing partnership model. It's the cutting edge — for one generation and counting.
01-20-14:Chang-rae Lee Ventures 'On Such a Full Sea'
We Are Your Mirror
Books are easily understood as a form of directed meditation. Immerse yourself in any book, any genre and you'll find a still place within, even as you populate it with the author's visions. The manner in which books may be our mirrors is perhaps less clear. It is certainly true that what we bring to a book matters, including who we are.
And there is "we," the narrator of Chang-rae Lee's new novel, 'On Such a Full Sea,' popping up here, in this review. Funny how that works, how it strikes readers in one way from a review, and in rather another way in a novel. It's certainly not common in novels, and that alone should be a clue that Lee is not working in a common manner here.
We, the narrator of 'On Such a Full Sea' proves to be the populace of B-Mor, in some previous world, the city of Baltimore. In this world, it's a town of the hardworking descendents of Chinese refugees who fled their chemically polluted village to take up residence in our economically poisonous environment. They've thrived, at a certain level of existence that is revealed in the narrative, as "we" tell the story of Fan, a teenaged girl, mature for her seeming age, who does the unthinkable. She leaves B-Mor and ventures into the world beyond.
Lee has a lot of fun in this novel, mixing up genres and voices and perspectives. First-person plural is not common, but Lee manages the trick of claiming the elegance and lyricism it evokes while keeping it readable. There are nicely turned bits of humor throughout if you keep a sharp, dark eye for them. This style of address also offers Lee the opportunity to do some crafty things with his world-building in terms of pacing revelations. Approach the narrative here with an eye for the lighthearted aspects of the work, enjoy the majesty on display and let the world around you disappear — sort of.
That proviso from the prose is the result of just what Lee has on offer in 'On Such a Full Sea.' It's all rather hermetic, and while there are nods to "this is how we got here," the world Lee has crafted feels more mythic than it does predictive. Essentially what we, the readers discover, along with Fan, is a version of our world where the distinctions of class and the realities of income inequality are made manifest. The brutalities inflicted by our economy are recast as violence, sometimes with devastating emotional consequences; sometimes far enough over the top to offer a darkly humorous perspective.
The characters "we" encounter are carefully wrought, starting first with Fan, our nominal heroine. Don't expect another spin on the dystopian girl hero genre; this is not an action film with car crashes and bikini-clad warriors. We only experience Fan though the mythology being written on the fly by the "we" of B-Mor. Her inner workings are inferred and not directly experienced. She is, after all, a prose creation of those who are telling her story. That said, Lee does a masterful job at slowly, almost grudgingly, turning her into a hero.
The men and women and children she encounters on her journey are another matter, and in many ways, more fleshed out than she is. It's sort of disconcerting, but the emotional wallop that some of these characters carry is intense. Lee offers one back story scene that is particularly wrenching. It's almost matched by another that is compelling, sweet and shocking. There are a lot of textures to enjoy in 'On Such a Full Sea.'
Given the ostensible story arc and genre, it's easy to mistake this book and come to looking for it to be something it has no intention of being. And even in terms of what it is and intends to be, 'On Such a Full Sea' is a challenging work. Like many mirrors, it is all too precise in regards as to showing us what we least like to see in ourselves. Lee does not make it easy to find the humor that permeates the book until you're already pretty far in; it's easy to miss the earliest instances. But 'On Such a Full Sea' manages to walk a very crafty line of self-enquiry, self-examination and overwrought satire, crafting a difficult world that is surprisingly hard to forget. The problem is that it is all too easy to just look around, and see it, here and now. We have a lot of work to do, most of which involves understanding just who we are — and how we can change that for the better.
New to the Agony Column
09-18-15: Commentary : William T. Vollman Amidst 'The Dying Grass' : An Epic Exploration of Simultaneity
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with William T. Vollman : "...a lot of long words that in our language are sentences..."
09-05-15: Commentary : Susan Casey Listens to 'Voices in the Ocean' : Science, Empathy and Self
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Susan Casey : "...the reporting for this book was emotionally difficult at times..."
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
