Redshirts and Writing

Warning: In discussing this book, this post has to talk about the book as a whole. It therefore contains spoilers. Just go read the book first. You’ll thank me for it.

What would happen if you were on a spaceship that is actually the set for a TV show in another and you didn't know it? Worse yet, not only are you a part of this TV show in another reality, it is a poorly written TV show meant to capitalize on the commercial success of Star Trek, and you aren't one of the bridge crew, you are staff on the lower levels—an extra.

Yes, that is right, you are a redshirt. This is the premise of the book by the same name by John Scalzi, but, at the same time, it is so much more than this. A book that seems to be a humorous examination of what it would be like to be a redshirt trapped on a show (Chronicles of Intrepid) with no concern for that character’s fate or back story actually becomes a very thoughtful, and sometimes incredibly poignant meditation about the writer’s role as god of his or her universe, and the responsibilities the writer has to his characters.

The book’s main characters (different from the ship’s bridge crew and therefore the “main characters” of the show for which the redshirts are being sacrificed for) begin to piece together the pattern of deaths not long after they arrive on the ship. Mysterious disappearances of mid-level officers when the senior officers arrive looking for people to staff away missions, strange and very flamboyant deaths with those same senior officers are involved. Members of the senior staff possess miraculous healing abilities (a convenience for a character wounded in one “episode” to be completely fit by next week’s adventure). All of these new recruits to the Intrepid were replacing people who had died.

But it wasn't until a yeti of a man appears out of the ductwork and tells our main character, Dahl, to avoid the Narrative that pieces start to fall into place. This book is hilarious.

In this book, what is one person’s reality is another person’s narrative, and is shaped by a writer and a writer’s whims. The senseless deaths turn out to be the dramatic gasp needed before the cut to a commercial break, to try to make the danger real without affecting the main “cast” of characters. As far as Chronicles of Intrepid is concerned, the character has no back story, and very little value beyond a little drama. However, from the vantage point we are given through our cast of “redshirts”, we as readers see each one of these deaths as fully felt and realized, and yet they are controlled by a force that has less than the normal cosmic disregard for human life.

In order to gain control of their destinies, these characters travel back to our time (by way of capturing one of the main characters, in order to bend the laws of physics to their favor), in order to meet their writer-god and plead for their lives and dignity. In a plot twist consistent with the twists that had littered the characters’ time on the Intrepid, a solution presents itself that allows the redshirts to put the producers of the show in their favor. They return to their own timeline having saved the day, and hopefully earned the right to die deaths worth dying.

But when you, dear reader, have gotten to the page when you read, “They all lived happily ever after. Seriously,” there are about 100 pages left in the book. This is where the book changes tones, and gets intensely interesting. There are three codas, labeled “First Person,” “Second Person,” and “Third Person,” all dealing with the fall out of the redshirts' visit on individuals in 2012.

The first coda is the one I really want to focus on. It’s written as the personal, anonymous blog of the head writer for the TV show, Chronicles of Intrepid, from the moment right after he’s found out that when he writes a death scene for a character, someone really dies. It is an interesting meditation on writing, writer’s block, and feeling responsible to your characters to provide them a death (and a life) of worth. And underneath it all, the fact that maybe the universe itself may be a chaotic, essentially meaningless world, but that is all the more reason not to let the written universe be. Let me share with you a scene from the “blog,” which Nick, the writer, recounts a dream he had which all of his dead characters came back to talk to him:

NICK

Look, I get it, Finn. You’re unhappy with being dead. So am I. That’s why I am blocked!

FINN

You don’t get it. None of us are pissed off at being dead.

REDSHIRT #4

I am!

FINN

(to REDSHIRT #4)

Not now, Davis!

(back to Nick)

None of us except for Davis are pissed off at being dead. Death happens. It happens to everyone. It’s going to happen to you. What we’re pissed about is that our deaths are so completely pointless. When you killed us off, Nick, it doesn't do anything for the story. It’s just a little jolt you give the viewers before the commercial break, and they've forgotten about it before the first Doritos ad fades off the screen. Our lives had meaning, Nick, if only to us. And you gave us really shitty deaths. Pointless, shitty deaths.

NICK

Shitty deaths happen all the time, Finn. People accidentally step in front of buses, or slip and crack their head on the toilet, or go jogging and get attacked by mountain lions. That’s life.

FINN

That’s your life, Nick. But you don't have anyone writing you, as far as you know. We do. It’s you. And when we die on the show, it’s because you've killed us off. Everyone dies. But we died how you decided we were going to die. And so far, you've decided we'd die because it’s easier than writing a dramatic moment whose response is earned in the writing. And you know it, Nick. (p. 266-67)

As I was transposing this quote, there is something about that last moment (“but you don't have anyone writing you, as far as you know” [emphasis added]) which makes this coda, and perhaps this book, strike a chord with me. Don't those two themes often go hand in hand: the power of the author within the universe he or she has created, and the larger analogue of a controlling power in our own universe? These characters are rising up and doing what we ourselves cannot, questioning their creator (finding out for sure they have one and that he is a flawed senior script writer that may drink too much) and demanding that their deaths have meaning.

Since want to keep this blog away from the blatantly religious, I will open up the floor to you, dear reader. How much responsibility do you feel the writer has to his or her characters? If you are a writer, do you characters act in unexpected ways? When you kill them off, do you feel like you are actually killing them off? Do you feel like the writer-god of your universe, or do you feel more like you are the conduit for the narrative and your characters are talking to you?

Chosen and UnChosen in Un Lun Dun

Note: This post contains spoilers.

As I discussed in the last post, Un Lun Dun is characterized by a child-like sense of play.  This is not just limited to casting everyday objects in a newly bizarre and pun-filled light, but extends to elements more central to storytelling.  The novel sets up the expectation that Zanna is the “Shwazzy,” UnLondon’s version of the Chosen One, destined to save the UnCity from the sentient Smog.  There is a whole talking book of prophecies revolving around her chosen-ness, to guide her through the apparently many steps it will take to defeat the Smog.

And then, when she has begun to accept her role as the Shwazzy, she falls completely out of that role, and returns to normalcy.  It falls to her friend, who has until now been stuck very firmly in a supporting role, to step forward and safe both UnLondon and London.

I have to say I enjoyed how much this novel subverts the normal hero narrative.  Zanna does not fall off the hero’s path in any of the normal spots.  She’s already been made aware of her special status, and started to answer the call to action, (yes, I will admit, I have read Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces). At this point, the expectation is, she will be the hero we follow through the rest of the narrative.  And then, perhaps because the UnLondoner’s were a little too reliant on the truth of the prophecy, she is struck almost completely from the narrative.

The fate of UnLondon then falls to Deeba, the supporting character, who is defined as the “funny one” within the talking book. Deeba sees the vacuum left by a missing, prophesied champion, and shoulders her way into that role.

She encounters resistance though.  She either cannot be the hero because she is the wrong person, or she must follow Zanna’s path in its entirety even though it has already been proven false by Zanna’s defeat.  The book itself is particularly unwilling to let go of the prophecies contained within its pages, for to find some validation for the prophecies would be to validate itself.

It would be so easy, after Deeba steps into the role of hero, to let the narrative resume the same steps but just with a replacement savior.  However, the narrative firmly resists that.  Deeba is constantly reminded that she is not the Shwazzy, nor does she want to be. In order to fulfill the role of the Shwazzy, she would have to completely an complex series of quests that would more than use up the time she can spend in UnLondon and hope to be able to go home and still be remembered.  Instead, she uses what information she can from the ruins of the Shwazzy prophecies, and improvises on the fly.  Deeba realizes that the seven items she is supposed to retrieve are interlocking quests worthy of any video game run around, so instead, she skips to straight the end, trusting that when there she will think of something to make up for the fact that she has not done what the Shwazzy should have.

Out of all this, she starts to earn the title of UnChosen One.  I enjoy how the unhero narrative I’ve been describing suddenly is given a title that makes sense within the abcity. Perhaps the Shwazzy narrative was too tradition for it to ever stand a chance in such a topsy-turvy world.  There is something satisfying about the way it all starts fitting together towards the end, but no sooner.

Playing with the stages of the hero narrative like Un Lun Dun reveals both how prevalent those structures are in narratives and how ridged they are.  Dear reader, I would guess that you would not have to read books about the structures of the fairy tale, or play many video games, to know when a book like this one is suddenly doing it wrong.  Its valuable to be made aware of how much we rely on those mostly invisible structures to guide us through our reading, but it is also worthwhile to have them brought to light every once in a while and examined.  And, if it happens to be a weird light, all the better.

I shall leave you with that, dear reader. Enjoy your day.

Un Lun Dun via Amazun ;-)

Intertextuality in Palimpsest

Note: this post contains spoilers.  Do not read if you have yet to read the novel and do not want to have the novel ruined.  I do highly recommend you read Palimpsest first.  Also, sorry for the delay on this post, life has contrived to keep me from getting this out in any timely manner.

For my final post, I want to discuss my favorite element of the novel, and probably the element that appeals most to a book geek like me. Texts, and the physicality of books, are woven throughout the city of Palimpsest and the waking world. A quote from a book here, a reference there, here the roughness of the page, there a part of a book come to life as an echo of a character.

It is something a reader should expect in a novel whose name comes from the term for scrapping a parchment clean of its original text to be used again.  A palimpsest, though, retains some of the original text, no matter how much the velum is scrapped and cleaned.  And the city which bears it names also bears traces of nearly obliterated pasts which the characters slowly uncover as they move throughout the book.

I have to wonder, dear reader, if some of these textual references within Palimpsest the novel (yes, we are getting a bit complicated with the nouns) aren't traces of something left behind as well.  I'm not exactly sure yet.  Let us examine them together and see what we can see.

Books within Books

The first way we can begin to grasp hold of the textuality of this novel is by examining the novel's use of books.  They are littered throughout, seen too often to be used for mere color.  In fact, for all of the  the four main protagonists save Oleg, books act as touchstones of some sort.  Though, I imagine, even Oleg, with his sister's strange stories of the Princess of Cholera, has some sort of text predecessor to thank for those, I'm just not familiar enough with Russian literature and folklore to even know where to begin to start to look for such a text. If that does sound familiar to someone, the Princess of Cholera who wears yellow, and you can track down a title, throw it down in the comments, and I'll amend this to thank you profusely. Oleg though, as I will discuss in a bit, does have an encounter with textuality, but of a different sort that will be discussed in my next section.

Ludovico Conti, the bookbinder, is the most obvious in his connection to the world of books.  His interactions with the world are often told through the language of books, to the point that the very women he sleeps merge with the books he binds: "She moved her violet skirt aside—such an expensive thing, thick as a book cover, and her legs like pages" (84).  But there is also a single book for Ludo, one which filters his world view as much as the physically of books themselves, the Etymologiae by St. Isidore (which is a real text, and can be found here if you can read Latin and want to peruse it).

This text encompasses the world, both what we think of as monstrous imaginary and "real" into an encyclopedic system which becomes the ruling system of Ludo's own mind. Every women Ludo meets must be identified according to St. Isidore's system (and interestingly enough, they are always identified as animalistic/monstrous, save, perhaps, November). Lucia, his wife, is a chimera, whose ruling trait is a lions tail that's constantly obliterating her own trail, Nerezza is the eel-hearted; everyone must be given an identity within this structure before Ludo can have a strategy of interaction.

Amaya Sei, the train enthusiast, is given a book that she feels has been written for her at the beginning of her journey into Palimpsest, written by the lover that is her gateway into that mysterious city.  This book becomes the organizing principle for how Palimpsest presents itself for Sei. This part is a little more complicated, and my thoughts are not fully formed on the weirdness of Sei realizing she is being presented her desires transferred from her dreams, and how she cannot embrace that as fully as Palimpsest and the Third Rail (the Palimpsest character seeking her love) would want her too.  Further complicating this is that, wrapped up in her obsession with trains, book, and this portion of Palimpsest that seems to be crafted for her alone is an underlying narrative of an unresolved issue with her mother.  I don't want to say more because 1) I wish not to spoil too much, and 2) I am still in the process of chewing it over.

What does it say that when a book and a place provides us with what we think is our hearts desires and instead leads straight into trauma instead.  Are the two interrelated?

The most interesting text in this text though is The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. In Palimpsest the authorship of this novel is given as H. F. Weckweet, 1923, but in reality, it is the title of a book written by Catherynne M. Valente in 2012. (Though there is a page dedicated to the author H. F. Weckweet, I have a sneaking suspicion that given the sparsity of information on that author, that it is a creation for Palimpsest).  This book is the touch stone in November Aguilar's life, taking on the tones of a religious text:

“I will stand upon my raft until the Green Wind comes for me,” November says gravely. “My dress; my sail.”

“That’s lovely. Scripture?”

“Yes,” November answers with fervency: clasped hands, wet eyes. “Hortense Weckweet.” 

-Valente, Catherynne, Palimpsest (p. 204).

There is something so marvelous about this in particular that just begs to be examined.  November reads herself into the exploits of September, the heroine of this novel-within-a-novel, and begins using the language of that novel as a shield of courage. It allows her to tackle tasks that she'd otherwise shy away from in her solitary life. Does this text give November courage that she otherwise does not have? November certainly thinks so. Are we as readers so willing to buy into November's reading of herself? I know I'm not so sure. I think November clings to many different symbols, her Californian religious symbols, her journals and lists, to see elements of her personality as external to herself (the lists are in journals instead of in her head.) And yet, November's the strongest willed of all the four protagonist.

The presence of these books create an extra level of depth to the novel.  They are quoted from and loved, and, from a science fiction perspective, they may cause the reader to question what reality the novel is taking place in.  These are book titles that can be tracked down in our reality (even if the authorship is different), which begs the delicious question: is Palimpsest possible to track down too? Or is this an alternative universe kissing close to our own.  The details we get of the "real world" are so claustrophobic that the books are the only tangible details we have to ground us, and they imply that Palimpsest may be page-turn close.

The Terms of the Book Binder and the City

But this textual conceit is deeper then just actual books.  It is slowly, lovingly reveal to the reader, to please especially the scholar well versed in the terminology of the text.  I will admit, though I have a good amount of time around books, and am well versed in their physically, I was still pleasantly surprised how the novel's fantastic elements related back to texts:

“Pecia? That means . . .  well, I mean, it was a thing they used to do, when that book I mentioned was written. Instead of copying out enormous volumes they split it into pieces and sent it out to novices for copying. The originals were exemplars, the copied pieces were pecia. So I get it, actually, I get what you’re trying to say. She’s a copy. Someone made a copy for you.”
-Valente, Catherynne, Palimpsest (p. 298). 

These "pecia" within the space of the novel are the extensions of the city of Palimpsest itself, reaching out to answer the desires of the immigrants who stumble into it.  One of Palimpsest's pecia reaches out to Oleg Sadakov in the form of his dead sister, who he has been seeing in the form of a ghost for his entire life.  She tells Oleg that she is made for him, "'I was built to remember. I was built out of remembering'” (230).

The pecia are both objects built by the city and extensions of the city:

“Palimpsest. Olezhka, did you think it did not love you and pity you? Do you think I did not? For I am as much this place as I am Lyudmila."
Valente, Catherynne, Palimpsest (p. 231).

The pecia, as partial copies of the city, executes the city's will on a more individual level.  In this strange dream-like (but don't call it a dream, you'll offend the locals), the city is aware enough to be concerned for the desires of her citizens and immigrants, to copy parts of herself and shape those parts to fit their needs and desires. A living city. But again we come back to the issue that came up with Sei, in a world that is providing you with a creation that is built to fulfill your desires, is that really a good thing?

Note: From here out, I cannot avoid spoiling the end of the book with my discussion, you have been warned dear reader.  Go, read the book, then come back and then read my discussion.

As the characters struggle to gain a more permanent place in Palimpsest, Ludo compares himself and other immigrants to the city's name sake:

“We’re coming. The world is changing. And even if every door frame in Palimpsest runs red, someone will find a way.” Ludo chuckles. “Do you know what a palimpsest is, Ululiro? It’s vellum, parchment that has been written upon and then scraped clean, so that someone else can write on it. Can’t you hear us? The sound of us scraping?”
-Valente, Catherynne, Palimpsest (p. 311).

There is something very striking about this, about immigration as palimpsest.  The old history is never truly lost, but as Ludo describes it, it is inexorable.  However, Ludo understands respect the old Palimpsest wants and deserves, he's spent his life paying homage to the ruins of Rome and binding books.  He gives his tongue to Ululiro, the general to the loosing side, because all the veterans of the war (which has been still on going this entire book) have been robbed of their ability to speech (pretty apt description of war, truthfully).  He becomes a bridge element between the two waves, the new ink on the page and the former writing.

I think, dear reader, that I shall end it here, except to say that I figured out who the narrator was, and that revelation was awesome, and it fits with the topic of this post, but I'm just going to suggest that you pick up the book to find out.

Palimpsest via Amazon

My own progress: Complete.  Looking for the next book to read.

Narrative Voice and Voyeurism in Palimpsest

The stalks stand like a portcullis against the desert, and no man may say where they end. Certainly not I. Certainly not you. But we may come here and look out on the waste, for it is a singular pleasure to be warm and safe while one watches horrors unfold, is it not?
-Valente, Catherynne, Palimpsest (p. 153).

The more I move through this book, the more the glimpses of the narrator fascinate me. This narrator does not behave in the normal manner. It is not the normal contract between the narrator and audience, even when discussed explicitly (even the "dear reader" I reference found most memorably in Jane Austen's novels but very common in novels at the time, and imitated by silly bloggers who read too much).

This narration, however, has a completely different quality than the more conversational tone that we might be used to:

There are four of them there now. Shall we peer in? Shall we disrupt their private sacraments? Are you and I such unrepentant voyeurs? I think we must be, else why have we come so close to the door of cassia, the windows of cracked glass? Let us peer; let us disrupt. It is our nature.
-Valente, Catherynne, Palimpsest (p. 5).

The narrating voice (who, for need of a pronoun, I shall refer to as a "she," when grammar demands it, know that this narrator is a construction of Valente and not Valente herself) has established something essential about both the narrator and the reader in this moment early on, just as we meet our four protagonists. Before we even realize the nature of how those four got to Palimpsest, before we may have a chance to judge and look down on their actions, we ourselves are as labeled as "unrepentant voyeurs," slightly sordid.

And considering how many times I have seen the phrase "It is [x] nature," I'm sensing something something of importance there, though as yet have not come up with anything witty to share with you. By the way, I enjoy the fact that I was able to just throw that out there as an observation rater than having to have a completely constructed argument ready.

It seems, (and I'm still very much grappling with this book so bear with me) that in a book that is invested in taking what may appear to be debasement (the necessity of sleeping with many strangers to get to this desired city of Palimpsest) and turning it not only into a series of understandable decisions, but moments of interpersonal connection as well, that catching the reader up in a label of sexual debasement right from the beginning -- unrepentant voyeur--is a good way to include them in that. Just as, in my last post, the reader is infected and marked (in this case labeled) by her encounter with this book.

And we are voyeurs in this books, as in all books. Are we not? We peep, often uninvited, into the deep, innermost workings of the characters lives, sneak into their bedrooms, watch them cry. What does it matter if we end up crying with them to, that may just make us even more voyeuristic. And in this book, we are not only following the four main characters through their struggles with the entry price of Palimpsest, but we get there for free. There are no street maps scarring our skin.

Unless someone falls in love with the book enough to go out and get a tattoo of the map. If anyone has, please, let me know. I'd love to see a picture.

There is one more thing I want to ponder with you, dear reader, before I bid you adieu for the moment. While this narrator sees deeply into the characters of the novel, and also claims to know our nature as readers (a claim I'm willing to buy into her), at the point to which I've read in the novel, there are hints that the narrator is not just a blank narrator narrating from beyond the scope of the events. Though, even her early revelations about shared nature, her position from outside the events is unlikely given her own nature. She reveals that she is somehow intimately bound up in Palimpsest:

I taught them how to do this, when all of us were young. I do hope you enjoy our little local customs.
-Valente, Catherynne, Palimpsest (p. 240).

I have two possible guesses for the identity of this narrator, if its revealed to us. I won't reveal my first one because it might be spoiler-ish if you happen to be reading along with me, but I'm kind of rooting for a meta revelation of narrator as writer-god within this text. Given the nature of this book, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. But given the nature of the book, I'm likely wrong. I've been kept guessing the entire time.

***

Interested, want to see if I'm making all this stuff up or if it really is all in this book? Pick up a copy and read along with me.

Palimpsest via Amazon

My own progress: On page 293, on the corner of Kausia and Ossification.