la_vie_noire (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
la_vie_noire) wrote2008-07-08 11:24 pm
la_vie_noire) wrote2008-07-08 11:24 pm
The bleeding of the rose
The Red Rose Rages (Bleeding) is an astonishing and thought-provoking novella by L. Timmel Duchamp. It's the first book I read by her, but it definitely won't be the last.
Feminist science fiction set in a dystopian (but no alien at all) future, exploring the relationship of power between a medical officer working in an all-women's facility of a prison and her brilliant patient/prisoner. The amorality of corporations -the placing of profit over humans lives specifically- that reflects our capitalist present is a major theme.
The book opens with a Foucault's quote:
Power produces reality. This book never lets you forget it.
Some pretty interesting analogies with (or plain allusions to) today's capitalist world are made using the dehumanization and othering of the inmates by the Penitentiary's staff, and the 'normalization' (and denial) of the abuse by accepting the laws set by the Big Corporations as morally right and necessary - while said laws are there only to serve the Corporations profit, under a thick cover of make-up. It can be a pretty uncomfortable read, but it is a damn worth one. I strongly recommend it. It has a lot of roses metaphors too.
While I was looking if someone talked about the book ending (which was not-so-clear to me), I discovered some pretty ugly things that make me feel shame about my own ignorance - hey, I'm no part of a World Power, but I should have at least heard about these things, and I didn't. I know, most of you probably know all this. But here? It wasn't even a word about it that I can remember. And those are some things nobody shouldn't forget because they show how accepted torture and abuse can be in a environment where some individuals have a lot of power.
Feminist science fiction set in a dystopian (but no alien at all) future, exploring the relationship of power between a medical officer working in an all-women's facility of a prison and her brilliant patient/prisoner. The amorality of corporations -the placing of profit over humans lives specifically- that reflects our capitalist present is a major theme.
The book opens with a Foucault's quote:
Power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth. The individual and the knowledge that may be gained of him belong to this production.
Power produces reality. This book never lets you forget it.
Some pretty interesting analogies with (or plain allusions to) today's capitalist world are made using the dehumanization and othering of the inmates by the Penitentiary's staff, and the 'normalization' (and denial) of the abuse by accepting the laws set by the Big Corporations as morally right and necessary - while said laws are there only to serve the Corporations profit, under a thick cover of make-up. It can be a pretty uncomfortable read, but it is a damn worth one. I strongly recommend it. It has a lot of roses metaphors too.
While I was looking if someone talked about the book ending (which was not-so-clear to me), I discovered some pretty ugly things that make me feel shame about my own ignorance - hey, I'm no part of a World Power, but I should have at least heard about these things, and I didn't. I know, most of you probably know all this. But here? It wasn't even a word about it that I can remember. And those are some things nobody shouldn't forget because they show how accepted torture and abuse can be in a environment where some individuals have a lot of power.