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language: English
country: USA
year: 1950
form: novel
genre(s): sci-fi
dates read: 11.9.22
She knew so little; she was, she felt, so small a thing to have undertaken the manufacture of a—a human being.
I picked up Theodore Sturgeon’s The Dreaming Jewels at the library recently; Delany includes it in his sample syllabus in “Dichtung und Science Fiction”, so it had been on my radar for a while, and I thought, why not.
I had expected it would be slower going and I’d spend a few days working my way through it (though not much more than that, since I have to return it later this week). instead I read the whole thing today in a few prolonged bursts. it’s really, really good, and not at all what I had expected. this is going to sound really generic but this book actually is a, like, profound exploration of what it means to be human — the kind of thing people say about lots of specfic but which is imo usually overstated. in this case the novel is literally, explicitly about the process of becoming human — it’s not exactly a bildungsroman but it’s not not a bildungsroman about how Horty grows into himself.
Sturgeon’s prose was — notwithstanding some small copyediting issues (all to do with punctuation) which I assume date back to the original publication in 1950 and have just been retained — as Delany says, “marvelous”. I love his em dash use in dialogue, especially, but I really liked all of it. even the odd pacing worked imo — the long exposition dialogue between Zena and Bunny felt natural to me, in part because Zena really doesn’tknow everything, so the exposition still has gaps.
all of the characterization was excellent — with, as someone’s Storygraph review noted, the possible exception of Maneater, who felt a little contrived. but that was minor in the grand scheme of things. this was one of the three greatest strengths of the novel; the second is Sturgeon’s sensitive handling of everyday life (in all its evil banality), not least the truly horrible (but well-done) scenes with Kay and Bluett; the last, I think, was the treatment of the jewels themselves, who are incredibly, fascinatingly inhuman.
the language around (and to some extent the handling of) the members of the carnival “freak show” is unquestionably dated — to say the least — but, especially knowing that Sturgeon worked as a carny himself, I think it’s coming from a place of real empathy, and the text both implicitly and at times explicitly criticizes the ableism that Zena, Solum, and the rest of Maneater’s “collection” experience.
really good book.
moods: dark, emotional, hopeful, mysterious, reflective