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Book Review: The Dazzle of Day
I just finished The Dazzle of Day by Molly Gloss, and I have ~thoughts~ (none of which are even slightly coherent).
I read it in two sittings and I think this was wise. I would recommend reading it either in one or two sittings and not reading bits at a time, because one of the huge joys of this book is submerging yourself in the atmosphere that Gloss creates through the intersection of worldbuilding, character, and prose.
This is a book that could probably best be described as literary scifi. It's undeniably a science fiction setting--the majority of it takes place on a generation ship going to find a new world to colonize--but the writing and the approach couldn't be further from the pulpy, action-y tradition of scifi or even the more cerebral, Golden Age tradition à la Foundation. It's got the high prose style of literary fiction; it doesn't strike me as particularly beautiful, but neither is it it the annoying kind, and I do think it's remarkably clear-sighted. As with most literary fiction, it took me a chapter or two to really get into the rhythm of the prose--I guess I just read so much genre fiction that the literary style is always going to be a slightly awkward second language to me.
And yet it doesn't have that feeling that some literary scifi has where the authors are "slumming" and deigning to bestow their talents on an unworthy genre. I get the feeling that Gloss is just really enraptured by the idea of what space travel, especially on a generational level, would do to people's minds, especially when it finally comes to an end.
In one way, this feels like a book in which nothing Happens. Most scifi is concerned with Happenings, and this is...not. When you think about it, actually quite a lot happens, but the book is unconcerned with describing those happenings and is only concerned about people's emotional reactions to them. So it feels slow and quiet in a way that would probably be jarring if you are expecting your average science fiction novel. However, if you're willing to accept what Gloss is actually doing, I think it's well worth the effort.
The most delightful twist: this generation ship is not populated by your typical raft of scientists and engineers, etc. Of course there are scientists and engineers aboard because how else would the community function, but their role as scientist or engineer is always secondary to their role as member of a community of Friends. QUAKERS IN SPACE. I am obsessed with scifi that actually grapples with religious concerns and traditions, so you can imagine how excited I was about this.
I have a lot of respect for the Peace Churches in general and the Quakers in particular, so this was a major selling point for me. But even if you just don't care about Quakers, I think you'll really enjoy looking at space travel from their pov. Quakerism is all about community and consensus. In its purest form, these communities never decide anything based on authority or majority rule; they will keep talking about a problem--and keep waiting in silence for wisdom about it--until everyone agrees what the best way to move forward is. I love this. I love it so much. It's how I would ideally live, though I don't know how to go about doing that.
But anyway, having this kind of community be the ones to set out into the stars to find a new world just...works for me. I'm like, yes, of course they could make this work. It won't be easy, but they can do it.
The majority of the story is set during the months of approach to the planet they were headed for all along. Now that they're within reach of it, they have to decide whether it's the place they want to settle or if they want to keep going and look for another, better-suited planet. Moving from one character to another with each chapter, we get to see how various members of the community grapple with not only this question, but all the other mundane questions of their lives--marriages and divorces and in-laws and children and that neighbor who really irks you.
This is undeniably a book written by a woman. I don't know how to explain it, but if I had no idea who had written this book, I would know it was written by (at least) a middle-aged woman. For a book set in a spaceship, it is incredibly...earthy and embodied. There's a lot about aging, and all of it feels very resonant. It's got so much about childbearing and illness and bodily functions and how death and life walk side by side and you never know which will find you.
I love the two time-jumps we have. I love that we start out with an old woman on earth, knowing she's about to go up in the spaceship where she will die, and having very mixed feelings about it. And I love that at the end, we jump forward to another woman who's lived her whole life on the new world. Much of the final chapter (which I guess you could think of as a kind of epilogue, but I don't) is more nature-writing than anything: Ana, our pov character, is just...describing all the small details of this world she lives on in the sort of way that L.M. Montgomery will just describe Prince Edward Island for the sheer pleasure of it.
And at first I was like, "But I want to know more about the actual way they colonized this planet and how the community has changed in being here," but the more I think about it, the more it works for me. The bulk of the book is people dealing with fear and trepidation about emerging from the womb of their ship (literally described as living inside the body of God, and don't I LOVE that feminine/maternal imagery!!!) into this scary new planet. The contrast between their almost tropical existence on the ship to this very bleak almost Icelandic new world is so potent. You understand why they're scared of it. Bjoro is scared to death of the sheer size of the place, the unpredictability of the weather, the lack of control, and you understand why. Of course that's terrifying. And of course everyone wonders if the flora and fauna they've brought along will thrive there or if it will do catastrophic stuff to the environment, etc.
And so it works so well for the ending point of view to be of a woman who just really, really love her world. The very things that frightened her ancestors most are the things she loves most. And she hasn't lost sight of any of the dangers. She knows it can be a bleak place. But she loves it all the same. And it's lovely the way that that creates a sense of fulfillment for all the characters we met in the main body of the novel. It was worth it. They made the right choice. Life and death still lay alongside each other so closely, but they will anywhere. At least here, you have the glory of uncontrolled nature to remind you of it.
This is the kind of book that doesn't end up winning Hugos but instead ends up on New York Times best-of-the-year lists. Sometimes that can be off-putting to those of us who love our genre fiction, but it reminds me of something like Gilead--a book that is exactly the kind that the literary establishment praises and exhorts you to read and you pick it up feeling like it's a bit of a chore--like, "I should read this book, it'll be good for me"--and then you actually read it and you realize, "Oh. It really deserves that praise."
Anyway, I would love to talk about it with anyone who has read it/reads it in the future.
I read it in two sittings and I think this was wise. I would recommend reading it either in one or two sittings and not reading bits at a time, because one of the huge joys of this book is submerging yourself in the atmosphere that Gloss creates through the intersection of worldbuilding, character, and prose.
This is a book that could probably best be described as literary scifi. It's undeniably a science fiction setting--the majority of it takes place on a generation ship going to find a new world to colonize--but the writing and the approach couldn't be further from the pulpy, action-y tradition of scifi or even the more cerebral, Golden Age tradition à la Foundation. It's got the high prose style of literary fiction; it doesn't strike me as particularly beautiful, but neither is it it the annoying kind, and I do think it's remarkably clear-sighted. As with most literary fiction, it took me a chapter or two to really get into the rhythm of the prose--I guess I just read so much genre fiction that the literary style is always going to be a slightly awkward second language to me.
And yet it doesn't have that feeling that some literary scifi has where the authors are "slumming" and deigning to bestow their talents on an unworthy genre. I get the feeling that Gloss is just really enraptured by the idea of what space travel, especially on a generational level, would do to people's minds, especially when it finally comes to an end.
In one way, this feels like a book in which nothing Happens. Most scifi is concerned with Happenings, and this is...not. When you think about it, actually quite a lot happens, but the book is unconcerned with describing those happenings and is only concerned about people's emotional reactions to them. So it feels slow and quiet in a way that would probably be jarring if you are expecting your average science fiction novel. However, if you're willing to accept what Gloss is actually doing, I think it's well worth the effort.
The most delightful twist: this generation ship is not populated by your typical raft of scientists and engineers, etc. Of course there are scientists and engineers aboard because how else would the community function, but their role as scientist or engineer is always secondary to their role as member of a community of Friends. QUAKERS IN SPACE. I am obsessed with scifi that actually grapples with religious concerns and traditions, so you can imagine how excited I was about this.
I have a lot of respect for the Peace Churches in general and the Quakers in particular, so this was a major selling point for me. But even if you just don't care about Quakers, I think you'll really enjoy looking at space travel from their pov. Quakerism is all about community and consensus. In its purest form, these communities never decide anything based on authority or majority rule; they will keep talking about a problem--and keep waiting in silence for wisdom about it--until everyone agrees what the best way to move forward is. I love this. I love it so much. It's how I would ideally live, though I don't know how to go about doing that.
But anyway, having this kind of community be the ones to set out into the stars to find a new world just...works for me. I'm like, yes, of course they could make this work. It won't be easy, but they can do it.
The majority of the story is set during the months of approach to the planet they were headed for all along. Now that they're within reach of it, they have to decide whether it's the place they want to settle or if they want to keep going and look for another, better-suited planet. Moving from one character to another with each chapter, we get to see how various members of the community grapple with not only this question, but all the other mundane questions of their lives--marriages and divorces and in-laws and children and that neighbor who really irks you.
This is undeniably a book written by a woman. I don't know how to explain it, but if I had no idea who had written this book, I would know it was written by (at least) a middle-aged woman. For a book set in a spaceship, it is incredibly...earthy and embodied. There's a lot about aging, and all of it feels very resonant. It's got so much about childbearing and illness and bodily functions and how death and life walk side by side and you never know which will find you.
I love the two time-jumps we have. I love that we start out with an old woman on earth, knowing she's about to go up in the spaceship where she will die, and having very mixed feelings about it. And I love that at the end, we jump forward to another woman who's lived her whole life on the new world. Much of the final chapter (which I guess you could think of as a kind of epilogue, but I don't) is more nature-writing than anything: Ana, our pov character, is just...describing all the small details of this world she lives on in the sort of way that L.M. Montgomery will just describe Prince Edward Island for the sheer pleasure of it.
And at first I was like, "But I want to know more about the actual way they colonized this planet and how the community has changed in being here," but the more I think about it, the more it works for me. The bulk of the book is people dealing with fear and trepidation about emerging from the womb of their ship (literally described as living inside the body of God, and don't I LOVE that feminine/maternal imagery!!!) into this scary new planet. The contrast between their almost tropical existence on the ship to this very bleak almost Icelandic new world is so potent. You understand why they're scared of it. Bjoro is scared to death of the sheer size of the place, the unpredictability of the weather, the lack of control, and you understand why. Of course that's terrifying. And of course everyone wonders if the flora and fauna they've brought along will thrive there or if it will do catastrophic stuff to the environment, etc.
And so it works so well for the ending point of view to be of a woman who just really, really love her world. The very things that frightened her ancestors most are the things she loves most. And she hasn't lost sight of any of the dangers. She knows it can be a bleak place. But she loves it all the same. And it's lovely the way that that creates a sense of fulfillment for all the characters we met in the main body of the novel. It was worth it. They made the right choice. Life and death still lay alongside each other so closely, but they will anywhere. At least here, you have the glory of uncontrolled nature to remind you of it.
This is the kind of book that doesn't end up winning Hugos but instead ends up on New York Times best-of-the-year lists. Sometimes that can be off-putting to those of us who love our genre fiction, but it reminds me of something like Gilead--a book that is exactly the kind that the literary establishment praises and exhorts you to read and you pick it up feeling like it's a bit of a chore--like, "I should read this book, it'll be good for me"--and then you actually read it and you realize, "Oh. It really deserves that praise."
Anyway, I would love to talk about it with anyone who has read it/reads it in the future.