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And Chaos Died
Book by Russ, Joanna
189 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
64 people are currently reading
939 people want to read
About the author
Joanna Russ
186 books495 followersJoanna Russ (February 22, 1937 – April 29, 2011) was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as How to Suppress Women's Writing, as well as a contemporary novel, On Strike Against God, and one children's book, Kittatinny. She is best known for The Female Man, a novel combining utopian fiction and satire. [Wikipedia]
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
July 9, 2016
A baffling and bizarrely dated (the protagonist is a gay man whose misogyny is taken as a natural outgrowth of his sexuality, and who must be "cured" if he is to transcend his mental limits) sf novel, out of print and rarely mentioned. Nowhere near as compelling as the novels to either side of it in Russ's body of work: the gripping survival narrative Picnic on Paradise and the unassailable masterpiece The Female Man. For Russ completists only.
September 3, 2023
And Chaos Died follows the complicated adventures of a gay man coming into his own as a telepath. He leaves Earth on a business trip and ends up crash-landing on a planet that hosts a population of powerful telepaths who seem to be highly evolved earthlings. After hanging out with them and learning a lot about his own powers, he is rescued by a spaceship that eventually passes by Earth, at which point he chooses to return. By now, Earth exists in a frenzied state of ‘end times’ style decline, characterized by mindless violence and bizarre sexuality engaged in by aloof and largely vacuous humans. The novel is a bit of a mess plot-wise, but Russ’s intelligence still blazes away like a white-hot sun even when she is not entirely making sense (or when I am just too slow to understand her). I am always in a state of awe when I read anything by her.
Read
April 30, 2011I interrupted my memorial reading of Castle in the Air (which, truth be told, wasn't grabbing me very much yet) to sneak a peek at And Chaos Died, Joanna Russ's first novel which I'd never read, after dreading news of her death all day yesterday and finally hearing it. I wound up ditching Castle entirely and finishing Chaos of an evening, which should tell you something about Russ's narrative power, which was inherent even in this, her first, deeply flawed novel.
If Le Guin's voice is often stately and slightly old-fashioned -- tipping over slightly into the stiff and archaic -- and, say, Tiptree's voice is colourfully zany, zinging through slang and adopting as many harlequin guises as there are stories and characters, Russ's voice is something else again: direct, personal, warm in a way. I forget who it was that said books and reading are the closest thing we'll ever have to telepathy -- that when you read a book that's the only time you can be sure you know exactly what someone else is thinking. (And doubtless a number of fields of literary theory, and heirs of Wittgenstein, would find that painfully naive: is my "blue" the same thing you see when you visualize "blue"? Never! &c &c.) Many people (especially women) felt when they read that first sentence of "When It Changed" that draws you in, Katie drives like a maniac, that Russ was speaking directly to them, for them, with an electric charge, a shock of recognition: Here I am. Here you are. Here we are. It was as if Miranda, after living all her life in a society of men and spirits, had seen Ferdinanda instead of Ferdinand. O brave new world that has such women in't! This book isn't quite there yet; Russ hasn't looked in the mirror, or at another woman, but just the driving narrative energy of this story reminded me that when she does, just one book and two years or so on from this one, the result will be spectacular.
(Ah, the cats want to be fed. Might write more later.)
If Le Guin's voice is often stately and slightly old-fashioned -- tipping over slightly into the stiff and archaic -- and, say, Tiptree's voice is colourfully zany, zinging through slang and adopting as many harlequin guises as there are stories and characters, Russ's voice is something else again: direct, personal, warm in a way. I forget who it was that said books and reading are the closest thing we'll ever have to telepathy -- that when you read a book that's the only time you can be sure you know exactly what someone else is thinking. (And doubtless a number of fields of literary theory, and heirs of Wittgenstein, would find that painfully naive: is my "blue" the same thing you see when you visualize "blue"? Never! &c &c.) Many people (especially women) felt when they read that first sentence of "When It Changed" that draws you in, Katie drives like a maniac, that Russ was speaking directly to them, for them, with an electric charge, a shock of recognition: Here I am. Here you are. Here we are. It was as if Miranda, after living all her life in a society of men and spirits, had seen Ferdinanda instead of Ferdinand. O brave new world that has such women in't! This book isn't quite there yet; Russ hasn't looked in the mirror, or at another woman, but just the driving narrative energy of this story reminded me that when she does, just one book and two years or so on from this one, the result will be spectacular.
(Ah, the cats want to be fed. Might write more later.)
February 17, 2016
There was a moment in the 70s of experimental science fiction, and And Chaos Died fits into it. It's a strange way for a novel to become dated--there was a time when our science fiction was weirder and more experimental than it is now. The book that comes to mind in terms of a similar experimental style is Witting's Les Guérillères (although that one is even weirder).
And Chaos Died expresses in form as well as content the experiences of a man who crash-lands on a planet of psionic humans and slowly becomes like them. There's a lot of scifi with what I'd call weak psionics where the powers are like parlor tricks, or at best sorcery. Here, the psionic humans have full command over matter and energy. As our close third person character understands and develops these powers, his perception of the world changes dramatically, becoming more and more alien. It's an accomplishment that the novel is not entirely incoherent by the end.
I can't imagine writing this novel, or writing it better, yet I don't think its experiment is entirely successful. It's worth reading and I recommend it, precisely because it tries (even if it doesn't always succeed) to reach so far beyond most SF you'll read.
And Chaos Died expresses in form as well as content the experiences of a man who crash-lands on a planet of psionic humans and slowly becomes like them. There's a lot of scifi with what I'd call weak psionics where the powers are like parlor tricks, or at best sorcery. Here, the psionic humans have full command over matter and energy. As our close third person character understands and develops these powers, his perception of the world changes dramatically, becoming more and more alien. It's an accomplishment that the novel is not entirely incoherent by the end.
I can't imagine writing this novel, or writing it better, yet I don't think its experiment is entirely successful. It's worth reading and I recommend it, precisely because it tries (even if it doesn't always succeed) to reach so far beyond most SF you'll read.
July 21, 2017
This is classic Joanna Russ. I've mentioned her complex, often overwhelmingly dense prose before, and "And Chaos Died" is the epitome of that style. The opening of the story finds a ship crash-landed on a planet where everyone has the powers of telekinesis, teleportation, and telepathy. The rest of the book is an attempt to convey the experience of telepathy and telekinesis as a normal human would comprehend it. It's an insane goal. And somehow she succeeds. The book is crazy hard to follow, one of the most challenging things I've ever read, but I enjoyed it, I think.
I usually try to do a brief summary of a book when I review it. The plot is... fairly unimportant here, but I'll give it a shot anyway. Jai and his ship crash land on a planet populated with telepathic, telekinetic people. He slowly develops these powers as well - it seems like those abilities are inherent in humans and just being around people with them will teach you how to use them. When he's rescued one woman comes with him as a representative of the world. When they get back to Earth, she disappears and Jai travels around using his powers, trying to stay out of the hands of people who would make him into a lab rat. He makes a friend, a young boy, and they go on terrifying adventures through the strange world that Earth has become. The finale is especially bizarre. Several other telepathic people from the other planet come to Earth and offer to meet with some major leaders. There's some kind of wiping of the global human consciousness. And then it ends!
The biggest 'pro' of the book is how well it does the overwhelming, disorienting nature of telepathy (or at least, what I assume telepathy would feel like, and what Russ thinks telepathy would feel like). It would involve states of consciousness completely foreign to our experience and combined with telekinesis, it would change our entire way of interacting with the world and the way we constitute self. As I said before, Russ did this well, which makes the book good and almost unreadable. It's slow. There are huge swathes of story in which nothing concrete happens or where none of the things that happen have any basis in normal human experience. It's great! And very challenging!
There are two very interesting things in this book aside from the feeling-of-telepathy aspect: the portrayal of Earth, and Jai Vedh's sexuality.
Earth in this story is in a state of extreme overpopulation and climatic disaster. Coastal areas have flooded, plains areas are desert wastelands. There's not enough space for humans to live and when they're gathered so close together there is often hedonism and destruction. There's a chapter-long description of a riot and another chapter that follows a couple living out hyperbolic examples of 20th-century gender roles. To see Russ's vision of the future is to see a very modern vision of apocalypse: gender roles are exaggeratedly performed not because they're how people want to live them but because it's traditional, global warming is destroying the world, and the American government (or at least the puppet organization that controls it) has a secret agency that hunts people.
Jai is gay. He says this in the first few pages. It was a little uncomfortable because it was immediately connected to his interest in fashion. It got very, very uncomfortable when Russ paired him off with a woman not just romantically but sexually (over and over again). I appreciate that Russ included a queer person as her main character, and I understand that the whole story focuses on the propagation of telepathic humans throughout the galaxy, and that he would be influenced by the thoughts and desires of those around him. But to then treat him as if he were straight throughout the entire rest of the story (because he definitely keeps having straight sex until almost the very end) is a little problematic.
Overall, parts of the story feel very much of their time, other parts feel incredibly modern, but the entire effect is strikingly original. This is a story that will drag you along and stick to you after you've read it.
I usually try to do a brief summary of a book when I review it. The plot is... fairly unimportant here, but I'll give it a shot anyway. Jai and his ship crash land on a planet populated with telepathic, telekinetic people. He slowly develops these powers as well - it seems like those abilities are inherent in humans and just being around people with them will teach you how to use them. When he's rescued one woman comes with him as a representative of the world. When they get back to Earth, she disappears and Jai travels around using his powers, trying to stay out of the hands of people who would make him into a lab rat. He makes a friend, a young boy, and they go on terrifying adventures through the strange world that Earth has become. The finale is especially bizarre. Several other telepathic people from the other planet come to Earth and offer to meet with some major leaders. There's some kind of wiping of the global human consciousness. And then it ends!
The biggest 'pro' of the book is how well it does the overwhelming, disorienting nature of telepathy (or at least, what I assume telepathy would feel like, and what Russ thinks telepathy would feel like). It would involve states of consciousness completely foreign to our experience and combined with telekinesis, it would change our entire way of interacting with the world and the way we constitute self. As I said before, Russ did this well, which makes the book good and almost unreadable. It's slow. There are huge swathes of story in which nothing concrete happens or where none of the things that happen have any basis in normal human experience. It's great! And very challenging!
There are two very interesting things in this book aside from the feeling-of-telepathy aspect: the portrayal of Earth, and Jai Vedh's sexuality.
Earth in this story is in a state of extreme overpopulation and climatic disaster. Coastal areas have flooded, plains areas are desert wastelands. There's not enough space for humans to live and when they're gathered so close together there is often hedonism and destruction. There's a chapter-long description of a riot and another chapter that follows a couple living out hyperbolic examples of 20th-century gender roles. To see Russ's vision of the future is to see a very modern vision of apocalypse: gender roles are exaggeratedly performed not because they're how people want to live them but because it's traditional, global warming is destroying the world, and the American government (or at least the puppet organization that controls it) has a secret agency that hunts people.
Jai is gay. He says this in the first few pages. It was a little uncomfortable because it was immediately connected to his interest in fashion. It got very, very uncomfortable when Russ paired him off with a woman not just romantically but sexually (over and over again). I appreciate that Russ included a queer person as her main character, and I understand that the whole story focuses on the propagation of telepathic humans throughout the galaxy, and that he would be influenced by the thoughts and desires of those around him. But to then treat him as if he were straight throughout the entire rest of the story (because he definitely keeps having straight sex until almost the very end) is a little problematic.
Overall, parts of the story feel very much of their time, other parts feel incredibly modern, but the entire effect is strikingly original. This is a story that will drag you along and stick to you after you've read it.
August 23, 2021
Dense, and deserving of a reread. A modernist approach to distant-future SF, and as such presents a lot of challenges that neither modernist literature nor SF usually possess in their own right. Still, despite Delany's gushing enthusiasm for Russ's mastery, I have yet to see it for myself.
July 21, 2016
I sometimes enjoy novels for which plot has lesser importance, whether explorations of milieu or character studies. But they need some kind of plot at least, or something compelling enough to make up for lack of a plot. Somehow I made it over a third the way through this, all the while expecting a plot of some sort to kick in, or even for one of the characters to finally express some kind of motivation or compelling characteristic--or do to something, anything, to get me to give a shit.
Nope.
I think this is a novel of ideas, in the sense that it has ideas...and not much else.
Nope.
I think this is a novel of ideas, in the sense that it has ideas...and not much else.
October 20, 2020
review of
Joanna Russ's And Chaos Died
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 17-20, 2020
For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
Long before I started reviewing the bks I read I'd read Joanna Russ's The Female Man (1975) b/c I was interested in gender issues. I also read her Picnic on Paradise (1968). I remember thinking they were ok but, basically, they didn't do much for me. It took And Chaos Died (1970) for me to finally be impressed.
The 1st epigraph puts the title in context.
"They had noticed that, whereas everyone else had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing and so on, Chaos had none. So they decided to make the experiment of boring holes in him. Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died.
— Chuang Tzu" - p 5
I'd 1st come across that story in John Cage's "Indeterminacy", text 27:
The Four Mists of Chaos,
the North, the East,
the West,
and the South,
went to visit
Chaos himself.
He treated them all very
kindly and when they were
thinking of leaving,
they consulted among
themselves how they might repay
his hospitality.
Since they had noticed
that he had no holes
in his body,
as they each had (eyes,
nose, mouth, ears, etc.),
they decided
each day to provide
him with an opening.
At the
end of seven days,
Kwang-tse tells us,
Chaos died.
Notice that in this telling the holes are provided rather than bored. That gives quite a different impression, doesn't it? It's not so aggressive.
The gist of the book concerns how people change under telepathic conditions. It's excellent for that. Two humans have crash-landed on a planet where the human occupants are ordinarily telepathic & have other abilities that the unwilling guests are uncomfortable w/.
""I am not going any."
"Jai saw fingers flashing among cards, for some reason, someone picking out words, lips moving, looking over her shoulder and laughing: yes, that's it—
""I am not going any where," corrected the woman. She shook hands abruptly with the Captain. She said "Galactica, yes?" Again the words were perfect, slightly seperated. "Ja?" she said, then shook her head. "Sorry. I am not used." She made a face. She stepped toward Jai, twitching down the skirt of her short, sleeveless shift, brown. (Russet, he thought professionally. Spice, chocolate, sand, taupe, Morocco. What nonsense.) She sat down abruptly on the grass, crossing her knees. "I'm not used to talking this at all," she finally said, rather quickly. "My hobby. You fit well, yes?"" - p 13
The main male character is gay, a probably somewhat unusual characterization in SF in 1970, hence manifesting Russ's gender-bending tendencies.
""I don't like women," said Jai Vedh suddenly and dryly. "I never have. I'm a homosexual."
""Oh?" said the Captain, taken aback for a moment" - p 17
The shipwrecked pair try to puzzle out what's happening around them.
""What in the name of Everything is going on?" said the Captain. "What? Do you know?"
""Everything," said Jai Vedh.
""Huh?"
""I don't mean I know everything; I know nothing. I don't know." And he sat and buried his face in his hands.
""Books!" said the Captain, somewhat more steadily. "Books, not tapes. There can't be three dozen in the library, they're that rare. And here they are. Who the devil puts real books in an escape capsule?"
""The same person who put you and me in it together," said Jai Vedh." - p 21
Fortunately, the door-latch started talking to them.
"My apologies, squeaked the door-latch. The woman clung to the doorway like a fish.
"Frontal attack . . . too much stress . . . inconvenience for you . . . try in morning . . . next week . . . next month . . . times cures all things . . . you'll forget." - p 28
THEN they came down in the landing capsule.
"They came down in the escape capsule the next morning: Jai Vedh safely strapped in and trying to control his air-sickness. Outside the round porthole, the cloud strata streamed by; the ship bucked like a freight elevator. They blasted a crater in the woods and around that a good, flat, rock rim—fused rock and mud with the steam driven out of it. Not even the ashes of the burnt grass remained. They stepped out on to the orange grass under the yellow-leaved trees—it was autumn. The Captain shook hands unaffectedly with the young woman in the simple brown dress who had been delegated to welcome them." - p 33
""I know, I know," she interrupted, suddenly ducking round the doorway into the sun. "You must go back to your ship and cannibalize the motor for a radio. That's what one always does, isn't it? You have such trite ideas." She was swinging by one hand, into visibility and out of it; she added, "If you wait, you know, we'll bring you the equipment we came down with."
""Your what?" said the Captain.
""Our equipment," she said. "If you work hard, you can make your ship over in six months and not wait the rest of your life for a rescue. You would find that dull, I think."
""And you never rescued yourselves!" said Jai Vedh suddenly. "Because you didn't want to. Am I right?"
""You would guess eggs if you saw the shells," said the woman; "That's a compliment. Come on,"" - p 35
""By the way," she said in a low voice, "I know what it means to cannibalize; it means to eat something. I heard about that." She seemed to hesitate in the half-dark.
""But tell me, please," she said, "what does it mean exactly—radio?"" - p 36
It's Russ's wonderful way of making speech confusing in a way accounted for by telepathy that makes this novel as great as it is. Note that the woman says "cannibalize the motor for a radio" but then shows that she doesn't quite understand "cannibalize" & doesn't understand "radio" at all. So where did she get the words from & how did she succeed in stringing them together in a way that makes sense?
The Captain, at least, is inclined to think that the planet they've crashed on is primitive — &, yet, they have a one syllable word for a specific large prime number. That doesn't compute.
""Eleven thousand, nine hundred and seventy-seven is Ftun. I give you my own, improper, accented version. One syllable.["]" - p 47
We're not talking one, many here.
The children aren't telepaths yet.
""I can talk," said the little girl. There was a moment's silence.
""Actually," she continued with sudden fluency, "it's because they're grown-ups. Grown-ups are horrid. They say 'Oh, he'll be all right.' They haven't the slightest compassion. This is because they can whatchamacallit. I can't whatchamacallit because I'm nine. I can talk, however, as you see. Now you say something."
""Telepath," said Jai Vedh automatically.
""No," said the little girl. "Talk, not telepath. Say 'how do you do.'["]" - p 59
Another nice detail, eh? Imagining the dilemma of children surrounded by telepaths who barely talk.
""My name," said Jai solemnly, "is Jai Vedh. Then we do what's called 'shaking hands.' " He put his out. She held out hers.
""Up and down?" she said. "How very interesting. I am Evne's daughter, my name is Evniki, that means little Evne and I am parthenogenetic.["]"
[..]
""I'm nine," she went on pedantically, "but actually I'm fifteen. I've slowed myself down. That's called 'dragging your feet.' Mother keeps telling me 'Evniki, don't drag your feet,' but catch me hurrying into it!["]" - p 60
"["]It develops in adolescence. It allows you to know where everyone is, what everyone is thinking and feeling. Everyone else knows what you are thinking and feeling. You can transport yourself from place to place instantaneously, you can levitate, you can perceive and manipulate objects at a distance, from what size I don't know but it goes down to the microscopic—no, the sub-microscopic—size. And I think you can perceive everything directly: mass, charge, anything. And you play with them. You play with the wavelength of light.
"". . . and with gravity . . ." he added." - p 64
Russ's treatment of these incredible abilities is another thing that makes this novel great. Instead of completely weaponizing them into a reductionist us-vs-them scenario, she humanizes these abilities & shows those w/ them as playful. It's fun. A character explains.
"["]Chuang Tzu speaks of ming, generalized internal perception; this is ming. You and I are like the ivy plant and the squirrel, this is an old fable, the squirrel on the branch runs down to where the branches join and up again, but the ivy plant, which is bound to the branch, cannot see where the squirrel went and says: 'How did you get from here to there instantaneously? How did you get a nutshell from here to there instantaneously?' The squirrel explains. The ivy plant says 'Branch? What are you talking about, "branch"? There is no "branch"; there is no "down"; there is only this.'" - p 66
Fascinating, eh? I wonder, though, whether the old fable fails to take into account the root network.
""Hold your breath!" (shaking her) "And talk! Talk! Talk!"
""No!" screamed Evne. "Can't! Forgot!" and she flung herself away into the bushes and the heather, rolling over and over, then tearing things up and hitting her knees with her fists, and finally—with a kind of return to sanity—deliberately and vehemently beating her head against the ground. Jai felt pain in his temples until his head rang." - p 75
It's easy to forget how to speak when you're telepathic, esp if you're experiencing emotional upheaval.
Jai discovers what books are like on this planet.
"The ninth book appeared to be a collection of anatomical sketches and cross-sections; the binding cracked loudly as he opened the book, and the open page said to him in a whisper:
"Everyone understands a picture.
"He gave it to know that this was not entirely true.
"But take you, for instance, said the page in a soft flattering voice. You—
"He shut the book. Opened again to the same page, it at once began, softly, Everyone understands a picture, and he shut it again and put it under his arm. It was a machine. It had not, of course, spoken in words." - p 79
A search party arrives that's been looking for the crashed people. That doesn't bode well for the people already there.
"Some information,emphatic but inexplicable, about the relation of a (complex) to a (complex) to a (complex) shot at him out of the Northwest, crossed the sky, and disappeared below the Southeastern horizon.
"She said:
""It's your radio. They've come."" - p 86
Things have been rolling along pretty rough & tumble & then this?
""I'm thinking," replies Evne in the voice of a golem. "I love you," she croaks. She wheels about, heads in another direction; one arm (alive) tremblingly pleads with him, walks itself up his arm into his armpit and nests there in great fear of the world outside, cozily snoozing, singing We two, We two. They went into new country, gullies choked with scrub, elderberry bushes, things that whipped back into their bodies and faces. Evne talked to herself in a series of unitelligible nasalities like those of the drowned, bubbles like a corpse's voice. "Don't be alarmed," she says in a voice of scraped lead and walks into a bees' nest; no one was stung." - p 87
I, personally, find that to be a scene of great emotional power. Alas, the landing search party has some ideas for exploitation that, um, the sympathetic reader just. can't. agree. w/.
"officers discussed with a sober Captain the military uses of the think-folk, to study, to duplicate. to betray." - p 94
Jai & Evne are taken aboard. They're in a guest room, the guest is coming.
"She had milk-blue eyes, cropped straw hair, a butcher's smock, and spiked sandals. She had enormous breasts, two wells of silicone jelly, enormous buttocks, a faked, crowded waist, dyed eyes, dyed hair, and no uterus. Jai forced himself to concentrate on the unaltered parts that interlaced with the rest, the pearly organs that budded around her lungs and in her abdomen, lacy strips of flesh marking repeated surgical scars, some normal circulation left; you could, after all, think of her as the victim of a bad accident." - pp 98-99
Hi. Lar. I. Ous.
The attempts to militarily exploit our heroes backfire far more dramatically than was expected because their abilities are far beyond the military's imaginings.
"There were people running along the corridor outside, new people with souls so bad, so murderously professional, that it stood the hair up on his head. There were things whose purpose he did not even want to guess at. He bellowed again.
"God will provide, said the wisp, playfully or prudishly.
"So he jumped.
"He came down in a park, at night. There was nobody near." - p 114
Jai Vedh has developed abilities thanks to Evne that enable him to teleport from the spaceship where the military was thinking they had him captive to Earth. Nice. Earth is quite a place.
"The girl had thrown her arms around another passer-by and was saying, "You have disappointing eyes. I don't like you. Do you want to fuck?["]" - p 119
The Earth is overpopulated w/ humans.
For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
Joanna Russ's And Chaos Died
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 17-20, 2020
For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
Long before I started reviewing the bks I read I'd read Joanna Russ's The Female Man (1975) b/c I was interested in gender issues. I also read her Picnic on Paradise (1968). I remember thinking they were ok but, basically, they didn't do much for me. It took And Chaos Died (1970) for me to finally be impressed.
The 1st epigraph puts the title in context.
"They had noticed that, whereas everyone else had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing and so on, Chaos had none. So they decided to make the experiment of boring holes in him. Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died.
— Chuang Tzu" - p 5
I'd 1st come across that story in John Cage's "Indeterminacy", text 27:
The Four Mists of Chaos,
the North, the East,
the West,
and the South,
went to visit
Chaos himself.
He treated them all very
kindly and when they were
thinking of leaving,
they consulted among
themselves how they might repay
his hospitality.
Since they had noticed
that he had no holes
in his body,
as they each had (eyes,
nose, mouth, ears, etc.),
they decided
each day to provide
him with an opening.
At the
end of seven days,
Kwang-tse tells us,
Chaos died.
Notice that in this telling the holes are provided rather than bored. That gives quite a different impression, doesn't it? It's not so aggressive.
The gist of the book concerns how people change under telepathic conditions. It's excellent for that. Two humans have crash-landed on a planet where the human occupants are ordinarily telepathic & have other abilities that the unwilling guests are uncomfortable w/.
""I am not going any."
"Jai saw fingers flashing among cards, for some reason, someone picking out words, lips moving, looking over her shoulder and laughing: yes, that's it—
""I am not going any where," corrected the woman. She shook hands abruptly with the Captain. She said "Galactica, yes?" Again the words were perfect, slightly seperated. "Ja?" she said, then shook her head. "Sorry. I am not used." She made a face. She stepped toward Jai, twitching down the skirt of her short, sleeveless shift, brown. (Russet, he thought professionally. Spice, chocolate, sand, taupe, Morocco. What nonsense.) She sat down abruptly on the grass, crossing her knees. "I'm not used to talking this at all," she finally said, rather quickly. "My hobby. You fit well, yes?"" - p 13
The main male character is gay, a probably somewhat unusual characterization in SF in 1970, hence manifesting Russ's gender-bending tendencies.
""I don't like women," said Jai Vedh suddenly and dryly. "I never have. I'm a homosexual."
""Oh?" said the Captain, taken aback for a moment" - p 17
The shipwrecked pair try to puzzle out what's happening around them.
""What in the name of Everything is going on?" said the Captain. "What? Do you know?"
""Everything," said Jai Vedh.
""Huh?"
""I don't mean I know everything; I know nothing. I don't know." And he sat and buried his face in his hands.
""Books!" said the Captain, somewhat more steadily. "Books, not tapes. There can't be three dozen in the library, they're that rare. And here they are. Who the devil puts real books in an escape capsule?"
""The same person who put you and me in it together," said Jai Vedh." - p 21
Fortunately, the door-latch started talking to them.
"My apologies, squeaked the door-latch. The woman clung to the doorway like a fish.
"Frontal attack . . . too much stress . . . inconvenience for you . . . try in morning . . . next week . . . next month . . . times cures all things . . . you'll forget." - p 28
THEN they came down in the landing capsule.
"They came down in the escape capsule the next morning: Jai Vedh safely strapped in and trying to control his air-sickness. Outside the round porthole, the cloud strata streamed by; the ship bucked like a freight elevator. They blasted a crater in the woods and around that a good, flat, rock rim—fused rock and mud with the steam driven out of it. Not even the ashes of the burnt grass remained. They stepped out on to the orange grass under the yellow-leaved trees—it was autumn. The Captain shook hands unaffectedly with the young woman in the simple brown dress who had been delegated to welcome them." - p 33
""I know, I know," she interrupted, suddenly ducking round the doorway into the sun. "You must go back to your ship and cannibalize the motor for a radio. That's what one always does, isn't it? You have such trite ideas." She was swinging by one hand, into visibility and out of it; she added, "If you wait, you know, we'll bring you the equipment we came down with."
""Your what?" said the Captain.
""Our equipment," she said. "If you work hard, you can make your ship over in six months and not wait the rest of your life for a rescue. You would find that dull, I think."
""And you never rescued yourselves!" said Jai Vedh suddenly. "Because you didn't want to. Am I right?"
""You would guess eggs if you saw the shells," said the woman; "That's a compliment. Come on,"" - p 35
""By the way," she said in a low voice, "I know what it means to cannibalize; it means to eat something. I heard about that." She seemed to hesitate in the half-dark.
""But tell me, please," she said, "what does it mean exactly—radio?"" - p 36
It's Russ's wonderful way of making speech confusing in a way accounted for by telepathy that makes this novel as great as it is. Note that the woman says "cannibalize the motor for a radio" but then shows that she doesn't quite understand "cannibalize" & doesn't understand "radio" at all. So where did she get the words from & how did she succeed in stringing them together in a way that makes sense?
The Captain, at least, is inclined to think that the planet they've crashed on is primitive — &, yet, they have a one syllable word for a specific large prime number. That doesn't compute.
""Eleven thousand, nine hundred and seventy-seven is Ftun. I give you my own, improper, accented version. One syllable.["]" - p 47
We're not talking one, many here.
The children aren't telepaths yet.
""I can talk," said the little girl. There was a moment's silence.
""Actually," she continued with sudden fluency, "it's because they're grown-ups. Grown-ups are horrid. They say 'Oh, he'll be all right.' They haven't the slightest compassion. This is because they can whatchamacallit. I can't whatchamacallit because I'm nine. I can talk, however, as you see. Now you say something."
""Telepath," said Jai Vedh automatically.
""No," said the little girl. "Talk, not telepath. Say 'how do you do.'["]" - p 59
Another nice detail, eh? Imagining the dilemma of children surrounded by telepaths who barely talk.
""My name," said Jai solemnly, "is Jai Vedh. Then we do what's called 'shaking hands.' " He put his out. She held out hers.
""Up and down?" she said. "How very interesting. I am Evne's daughter, my name is Evniki, that means little Evne and I am parthenogenetic.["]"
[..]
""I'm nine," she went on pedantically, "but actually I'm fifteen. I've slowed myself down. That's called 'dragging your feet.' Mother keeps telling me 'Evniki, don't drag your feet,' but catch me hurrying into it!["]" - p 60
"["]It develops in adolescence. It allows you to know where everyone is, what everyone is thinking and feeling. Everyone else knows what you are thinking and feeling. You can transport yourself from place to place instantaneously, you can levitate, you can perceive and manipulate objects at a distance, from what size I don't know but it goes down to the microscopic—no, the sub-microscopic—size. And I think you can perceive everything directly: mass, charge, anything. And you play with them. You play with the wavelength of light.
"". . . and with gravity . . ." he added." - p 64
Russ's treatment of these incredible abilities is another thing that makes this novel great. Instead of completely weaponizing them into a reductionist us-vs-them scenario, she humanizes these abilities & shows those w/ them as playful. It's fun. A character explains.
"["]Chuang Tzu speaks of ming, generalized internal perception; this is ming. You and I are like the ivy plant and the squirrel, this is an old fable, the squirrel on the branch runs down to where the branches join and up again, but the ivy plant, which is bound to the branch, cannot see where the squirrel went and says: 'How did you get from here to there instantaneously? How did you get a nutshell from here to there instantaneously?' The squirrel explains. The ivy plant says 'Branch? What are you talking about, "branch"? There is no "branch"; there is no "down"; there is only this.'" - p 66
Fascinating, eh? I wonder, though, whether the old fable fails to take into account the root network.
""Hold your breath!" (shaking her) "And talk! Talk! Talk!"
""No!" screamed Evne. "Can't! Forgot!" and she flung herself away into the bushes and the heather, rolling over and over, then tearing things up and hitting her knees with her fists, and finally—with a kind of return to sanity—deliberately and vehemently beating her head against the ground. Jai felt pain in his temples until his head rang." - p 75
It's easy to forget how to speak when you're telepathic, esp if you're experiencing emotional upheaval.
Jai discovers what books are like on this planet.
"The ninth book appeared to be a collection of anatomical sketches and cross-sections; the binding cracked loudly as he opened the book, and the open page said to him in a whisper:
"Everyone understands a picture.
"He gave it to know that this was not entirely true.
"But take you, for instance, said the page in a soft flattering voice. You—
"He shut the book. Opened again to the same page, it at once began, softly, Everyone understands a picture, and he shut it again and put it under his arm. It was a machine. It had not, of course, spoken in words." - p 79
A search party arrives that's been looking for the crashed people. That doesn't bode well for the people already there.
"Some information,emphatic but inexplicable, about the relation of a (complex) to a (complex) to a (complex) shot at him out of the Northwest, crossed the sky, and disappeared below the Southeastern horizon.
"She said:
""It's your radio. They've come."" - p 86
Things have been rolling along pretty rough & tumble & then this?
""I'm thinking," replies Evne in the voice of a golem. "I love you," she croaks. She wheels about, heads in another direction; one arm (alive) tremblingly pleads with him, walks itself up his arm into his armpit and nests there in great fear of the world outside, cozily snoozing, singing We two, We two. They went into new country, gullies choked with scrub, elderberry bushes, things that whipped back into their bodies and faces. Evne talked to herself in a series of unitelligible nasalities like those of the drowned, bubbles like a corpse's voice. "Don't be alarmed," she says in a voice of scraped lead and walks into a bees' nest; no one was stung." - p 87
I, personally, find that to be a scene of great emotional power. Alas, the landing search party has some ideas for exploitation that, um, the sympathetic reader just. can't. agree. w/.
"officers discussed with a sober Captain the military uses of the think-folk, to study, to duplicate. to betray." - p 94
Jai & Evne are taken aboard. They're in a guest room, the guest is coming.
"She had milk-blue eyes, cropped straw hair, a butcher's smock, and spiked sandals. She had enormous breasts, two wells of silicone jelly, enormous buttocks, a faked, crowded waist, dyed eyes, dyed hair, and no uterus. Jai forced himself to concentrate on the unaltered parts that interlaced with the rest, the pearly organs that budded around her lungs and in her abdomen, lacy strips of flesh marking repeated surgical scars, some normal circulation left; you could, after all, think of her as the victim of a bad accident." - pp 98-99
Hi. Lar. I. Ous.
The attempts to militarily exploit our heroes backfire far more dramatically than was expected because their abilities are far beyond the military's imaginings.
"There were people running along the corridor outside, new people with souls so bad, so murderously professional, that it stood the hair up on his head. There were things whose purpose he did not even want to guess at. He bellowed again.
"God will provide, said the wisp, playfully or prudishly.
"So he jumped.
"He came down in a park, at night. There was nobody near." - p 114
Jai Vedh has developed abilities thanks to Evne that enable him to teleport from the spaceship where the military was thinking they had him captive to Earth. Nice. Earth is quite a place.
"The girl had thrown her arms around another passer-by and was saying, "You have disappointing eyes. I don't like you. Do you want to fuck?["]" - p 119
The Earth is overpopulated w/ humans.
For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
March 4, 2024
Not sure what to think about this one. On one hand, Russ's writing abilities are excellent-- her sense of imagery and prose are top-tier. On the other, I'm not exactly sure what the book is about. Not in the sense that I couldn't comprehend what was happening (which was difficult to begin with) but rather, I don't know what it was trying to say. Like many other instances of new wave SFF from the 60s and 70s, there is a plethora of topics being explored (overpopulation, sexuality, governmental bureaucracy, spirituality, drugs, etc), but what the through-line was, I'm a bit lost and baffled on.
Beyond that, there's definitely some things that have not aged well-- it feels very New-Agey, and the main character, a gay man, is "cured" of his homosexuality by sleeping with a woman... an aspect I think would be far below Russ's strongly progressive qualities.
Beyond that, there's definitely some things that have not aged well-- it feels very New-Agey, and the main character, a gay man, is "cured" of his homosexuality by sleeping with a woman... an aspect I think would be far below Russ's strongly progressive qualities.
June 5, 2020
2.5 estrellas
¿¿¿¿¿?????
Me parece difícil valorizar este libro porque estoy segura de que apenas entendí la mitad, pero creo que lo mejor sería resumirlo en dos puntos a favor y dos en contra.
A favor: es corto y se puede leer rápido, y si bien cuesta seguirlo al principio, su uso de una quasi-corriente de la conciencia es interesante.
En contra: pareciera sufrir algún tipo de crisis de identidad que lo acompleja, y la autora fue incapaz de comprometerse (y sí, hablo del protagonista).
¿¿¿¿¿?????
Me parece difícil valorizar este libro porque estoy segura de que apenas entendí la mitad, pero creo que lo mejor sería resumirlo en dos puntos a favor y dos en contra.
A favor: es corto y se puede leer rápido, y si bien cuesta seguirlo al principio, su uso de una quasi-corriente de la conciencia es interesante.
En contra: pareciera sufrir algún tipo de crisis de identidad que lo acompleja, y la autora fue incapaz de comprometerse (y sí, hablo del protagonista).
October 10, 2014
Really wavers between three and four stars. Some really problematic stuff. For example a main character who seems to be 'cured' of his homosexuality, one moment he's not into women and then bam he leaves that behind and the novel never goes back to it - one of those assumptions that probably had a lot of strength at the time and now is abhorrent, laid next to real criticism of the 70s society Russ was writing in. She didn't stay with this view, her own ideas changed as society in general changed - but the value of books is to give snap shots of the time, good and ill. (There is an approving quote from Samuel Delaney on the back - so I wonder if my simple gut reaction is just that simple, but whatever.)
The writing is wonderful and I got lost plenty of times. It's the book that if I loved more I could promise I would re-read and get a lot more out of. How did we get back to earth? I'm right in thinking the book just re-starts after the first section - at least from the perspective of the men landing on the planet. Russ does not hold the readers hand and I respect her for that. It is a book that rewards thinking about. However, NOT the place to start with Russ!
The writing is wonderful and I got lost plenty of times. It's the book that if I loved more I could promise I would re-read and get a lot more out of. How did we get back to earth? I'm right in thinking the book just re-starts after the first section - at least from the perspective of the men landing on the planet. Russ does not hold the readers hand and I respect her for that. It is a book that rewards thinking about. However, NOT the place to start with Russ!
March 16, 2012
Man, what a disappointment. I gave up at page 65 after spending all those pages feeling as though I was in the SF equivalent of LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD. You know, characters you don't care about at all having scenes where something random but arch occurs for inexplicable resaons. I know Joanna Russ was an important and influential writer so I'll try another one or two books. But this was plain bad, it seemed to me. All the hoopla seems possibly a case of the emperor's new clothes.
January 22, 2020
Interesting early novel about a race of psychic humans. Russ attempts to write from the perspective of utterly different minds and perspectives and, unencumbered by traditional narrative concerns due to the experimental nature of the 70s New Wave, she got quite, er, creative in going about it. At times incomprehensible, at times fascinating; probably more for the completest than the casual SF fan.
November 24, 2014
Russ' first, a thoughtful and provocative garble with high aims, dizzying and adept.
Thanks, Emilie, for a very elucidating Delany review that gives a little more conceptual form to Russ' very-alive brand of chaos here.
Thanks, Emilie, for a very elucidating Delany review that gives a little more conceptual form to Russ' very-alive brand of chaos here.
January 24, 2018
The greatest novel by my favorite woman science fiction novelist. Written in a very artful and complex prose style, sort of a cross between Virginia Woolf and Lawrence Durrell writing of a future Earth buried under teeming cities.
February 22, 2018
Psychotropic drugs would likely have resulted in a higher score.
Read
February 8, 2025Unlike anything I've ever read. This book, more than any other I've read, made me feel like I was playing out of my league. It's a very difficult read, and though I thought I was hanging on through the first half, even if just barely, the back half left me helplessly behind. I wasn't completely ignorant of what was happening but I'd be lying if I said I understood what Russ was trying to communicate, or even what exactly happened on the surface level at the end.
And because of that, I don't really feel worthy of saying much about this book. For as long as I felt like I had a solid grasp, it was terrific, and even when I'd gotten lost I was able to recognize that the writing was exceptional throughout. Several moments left me completely in awe.
There is a lot going on, and you will have none of it explained to you. I imagine that re-reading this book will be an illuminating experience, but by now my patience is about worn thin.
I have a copy of The Two of Them, and I am excited to read it, but nor for a while. I need something easy after this one.
And because of that, I don't really feel worthy of saying much about this book. For as long as I felt like I had a solid grasp, it was terrific, and even when I'd gotten lost I was able to recognize that the writing was exceptional throughout. Several moments left me completely in awe.
There is a lot going on, and you will have none of it explained to you. I imagine that re-reading this book will be an illuminating experience, but by now my patience is about worn thin.
I have a copy of The Two of Them, and I am excited to read it, but nor for a while. I need something easy after this one.
September 25, 2024
Is it possible to be TOO clever? In the case of Joanna Russ' 189-page stream of consciousness (which at times reads like one continuous sentence) I'd have to say "yes". The effects of psi powers on human development, both personally and socially, has been visited before but in this novel Russ shows us how this might look from the inside as one man undergoes a series of life-changing metamorphoses.....metamorphoses which are compounded when he returns to a overcrowded and chaotic Earth. Great idea but the first-person wholly subjective narrative leaves you second-guessing as to what's actually happening (intentionally, I suppose) while Russ' style of writing oscillates between lyrical verse and florid word salad. A hippy trippy thought experiment firmly rooted in 1970.
August 2, 2020
Meh.
And Chaos Died is considered a classic of New Wave science fiction, and I can appreciate the literary technique Joanna Russ utilized to achieve the effect she wanted (that is, she wanted the reader to experience what it might be like to be a non-telepath among telepaths), but personally, most New Wave sf leaves me unimpressed and unmoved. It's probably just a personal preference. I like my visual art representational, and I like my fiction with the tale-telling having the greatest priority. (Stephen King has commented that Edgar Rice Burroughs, no one's nominee for Great World Writer, nevertheless understood story values completely. I concur.)
And Chaos Died is considered a classic of New Wave science fiction, and I can appreciate the literary technique Joanna Russ utilized to achieve the effect she wanted (that is, she wanted the reader to experience what it might be like to be a non-telepath among telepaths), but personally, most New Wave sf leaves me unimpressed and unmoved. It's probably just a personal preference. I like my visual art representational, and I like my fiction with the tale-telling having the greatest priority. (Stephen King has commented that Edgar Rice Burroughs, no one's nominee for Great World Writer, nevertheless understood story values completely. I concur.)
May 13, 2020
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
Nominated for the 1970 Nebula Award for Best Novel
“The ground was covered with old names…” (76)
Joanna Russ, famous for her feminist sci-fi novel The Female Man (1975), weaves together a bizarre (and difficult) novel filled with strange images, peculiar characters, and a fragmented/layered/bewildering [...]"
Nominated for the 1970 Nebula Award for Best Novel
“The ground was covered with old names…” (76)
Joanna Russ, famous for her feminist sci-fi novel The Female Man (1975), weaves together a bizarre (and difficult) novel filled with strange images, peculiar characters, and a fragmented/layered/bewildering [...]"
December 28, 2025
The trouble is that the chaos doesn’t die, it doesn’t even go quiet. This endlessly chaotic book is a bold attempt to capture what it is like to be a telepath, but it is not reader friendly in the slightest. There is no reward for perseverance and no revelation at the end that makes it worth the effort. I’ve given it three stars but that is being very generous. I don’t think she got very close to what she was trying to realise.
August 1, 2022
Author on drugs?
Incomprehensible gibberish mostly. About the time it appears there is actually a story line developing, the author goes off on a other schizo tangent. If you want a book to make any sense at all, don't try this one.
Incomprehensible gibberish mostly. About the time it appears there is actually a story line developing, the author goes off on a other schizo tangent. If you want a book to make any sense at all, don't try this one.
Read
September 17, 2022I read this for a book group and can’t claim to have understood much of what was going on. And what I did understand was quite disturbing. It does seem to be her least liked book? I may try other work by Joanna Russ in the future, but with a lot more wariness after this.
June 2, 2018
Did not enjoy--like being on an acid trip...very experimental.
July 28, 2018
This might become a 5 when I reread it, which I’m definitely going to, soon. Maybe even next...
August 19, 2018
There are some good moments in this book, but overall the story is a jumble of events happening seemingly at random.
April 1, 2022
Didn't finish it, hated the protagonist
Read
September 18, 2022strange, distrubing, and gripping. Probably won't ever re-read it but glad I did.
May 20, 2023
DNF. Had trouble following the story line but maybe that was my problem and not the story.
August 4, 2023
Odd story. Not entirely coherent. Unusual, inventive, so worthwhile in that sense.
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