The Two of Them

by Joanna Russ

Irene, a rebellious product of an American 1950s upbringing, has fled from a repressive and sexist society into a life of apparent equality and adventure as part of the elite Trans-Temporal Authority's cadre of travelers. Under the tutelage of Ernst, a friend/lover and teacher/father, Irene has achieved status and dignity. Irene and Ernst are assigned to a Muslim world where they meet Zubedeyeh, a young girl whose creativity is being transformed into madness by the male chauvinistic society in which she lives. Vowing to rescue her, Irene unleashes a destructive cycle of violence. Originally published in 1978, The Two of Them is a powerful portrait of a future sexist society. This modern classic conveys its politics with rigor and complexity, in a story filled with suspense and unforgettable characters.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Feminism, Dystopia, Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction

181 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1978

About the author

Joanna 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]

Reviews

[Nate D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Returning to the urgency of The Female Man, Joanna Russ here takes a slightly more linear path (though she's still deliriously disorienting where it suits her and her purposes!) through a fairly subtle frustration with contemporary gender politics. By the mid-70s, feminism was making serious headway, but then, as now, sexism finds reservoirs in the coded behaviors of even the well-meaning and ostensibly progressive elements of society. It all comes back to always-relevant questions about why revolt should be constrained to the means approved of by elements of the status quo, however sympathetic they may feel themselves to be to the cause (this is much broader than just a feminist issue, of course. It's all over our current conflicts over race and class as well). I imagine this also reflected Russ' position as a women in he male-dominated science fiction field -- just because she'd been allowed through the gates was hardly proof that the gates weren't usually closed, and she seems to have been hyperaware of this fact. (Though she was far from totally alone, either -- I read a lot of sci-fi particularly for its relative receptivity to radical viewpoints using genre tools.)

[Alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read The Two Of Them by Joanna Russ. I identified strongly with the female characters, which is good. Morally complex, no polemics here, although as a militantly feminist author she gets portrayed that way be people. The protagonist is flawed, angry... Russ is willing to show how women can be victimized by their own anger, that there is a fine line between righteous anger and anger that destructively feeds on itself. The protagonist's self-doubt: "It occurs to her that they may even be right, that nothing in her life accounts for the intensity of her anger." Kept remembering something I read a guy say on an online forum, trying to defend a feminist journal to some skeptical readers of his own gender: his phrase was something about women trying to communicate the sense of "being driven insane by their own existences."

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Belleza, complejidad y extrañeza.-

Género. Ciencia-Ficción.

Lo que nos cuenta. Irene Waskiewicz, que en algunos momentos fue Irene Adler para “protegerse”, trabaja para una organización conocida como La Banda, de la que en un principio no se dan demasiados datos, y está en misión en un planeta de cultura islámica junto a su compañero y antiguo tutor Ernst Neumann. Irene recuerda, mientras prepara su acción en Kahabah, su pasado, evocado por algunas situaciones de las que es testigo.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Besha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I’d pulled The Female Man off the shelf instead, because apparently it’s the Russ to read, and I have no intention of reading more Russ. It’s pessimistic nonlinear feminist sci-fi with no likable characters and no conversations that make any sort of sense. Her writing is solid and she makes valid points, but I can be pessimistic all by myself; I don’t need the moral of any story to be “The future is going to be shit. Especially for women.” I want to reread Shine just to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

[TammyJo Eckhart · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been a big fan of Joanna Russ for years and years, both her fiction and non-fiction work, but I only recently was able to read "The Two of Them" in this particular volume.

I was deeply disappointed.

Russ often writes in a mult-view fashion, that skips around in time and space, but this was really cranked up in this book when frankly there were no reason for it given that there is really only one main character whose life we should have been able to follow. Odd ways of not tagging dialogue or actions made it confusing, mixing up of other views but only rarely added to the confusion. The strange almost polemic style of narration at different points also added to the confusion.

Ernst ends up as a male stereotype of the clueless man who seems to feel he is doing one unusual woman a favor... he had promise to be so much more.

Irene also ends up as a female stereotype always moody, always doing the opposite of what she says, even by the end possibly insane. This was far more disappointing to me and left me depressed.

I don't think feminist science fiction always needs to be uplifting, I think it should shake us up, but this was just too many gendered stereotypes in a confusing narration.

[Pádraic · Rating 4 out of 5]

He says slowly, "But surely you know that all places are bad, Irene."
She says, "Then we will have to do something about all places."

A book white-hot with rage. As with all the best sci-fi, it's not about the future, it's about the present, and despite the intervening years Ross comes screaming out of the past, never any less relevant. Nobody could ever call her subtle, but there's no time to be subtle. We're dying. We've always been dying.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure I really appreciated this, a bit confusing.

[Ferris Mx · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once again - I don't get it. I wish I was knowledgeable enough to compare to what came before, to judge the innovation of a feminine feminist protagonist.

[David Chess · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is hard to review (and was in a way hard to read!) because I think I am not in the target audience.

This is deeply feminist SF, about the experience of oppression; it takes the feelings and mental structures of the oppressed (or at least this author's take on them) as a starting point. As someone privileged in pretty much every category, I don't have the experience it would take strongly identify. Or I could just be thick. :)

Which isn't to say that I didn't appreciate it at all; it feels genuine in some hard-to-define way, even if I can't relate from my own experiences. I can tell that in the places where to me it seems to just go off the rails ("why did she do THAT?", "why is Russ doing THAT?"), even if I don't have an explanation, there is probably something there that someone else with different experience could relate to.

It's definitely not hard SF, so don't come to it expecting the "TransTemporal Authorities" or whoever they are to be spelled out in some well-defined way involving a specific theory of alternate universes. I think they (and "the Gang", who may or may not be the same thing) are mostly there symbolically, not as a piece of scientific speculation.

For me a somewhat tantalizing almost-look into an image of a world I've never experienced, that doesn't go out of its way to help me experience it. In the general area of feminist SF, an important work. And in any case, worth a read.

[Vel Veeter]

This is a short novel by the writer Joanna Russ, whose short nonfiction “How to Suppress Women’s Writing” I read and reviewed last year. I also read one of her other novels, which along with this one, has been more recently reprinted. She’s most famous for the above essay, and also the novel The Female Man, which I haven’t read.

This is a book about Irene, or Irenee as she goes by. She’s the product of a 1950s childhood and sensibility. In her adulthood, she becomes involved with a space travel/time travel organization that observes other worlds. Through involvement with this group she becomes involved with a controlling and ultimately abusive man. The group is focused observing a society that seems based on a broadly defined Middle Eastern culture, and on first observations Irenee discovers what she sees as a controlling patriarchy and decides to “rescue” a girl named Zubaidah. In doing so, this sparks a conflict between her and the man she’s involved with and she becomes more and more increasingly aware of the limitations and patriarchal control of her own (our own) society and the organization. This leads to violent conflict.

Like the Marge Piercy novel “Woman on the Edge of Time” this novel splits its time and energy between multiple worlds, and uses science fiction conventions to shed light on our own world and potential liberation.

[Emer O'Toole · Rating 5 out of 5]

While open to accusations of white saviour complex, this sci fi trip between the feminine mystique of 1950s America, a reconstructed Ottoman era hareem on a distant planet, and an ostensibly egalitarian intergalactic centre (with a distinct lack of women in positions of power) paints the ubiquity of masculine domination, makes the (woman?) reader maddeningly aware of the similitude of the emotional architecture of patriarchy whether you’re an aproned housewife, a veiled woman, or a gal who’s just one of the lads. With Russ’s characteristic fourth wall breaking narration, her impeccable instinct for allegory, and her deeply satisfying brutality in the face of the everyday sexism that we (women?) have all been taught to grin and bear, this slim volume (which I gobbled up in a few hours) is an excellent reminder of her vital contribution to feminist sci fi.

[David H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one of the better books I've read in terms of demonstrating male privilege/chauvinism/misogyny and oppressing women, but some of the narration was odd (like we'd get a whole scene and then the narrator was like, "But that didn't happen") and it's also a very '70s novel in terms of relying on some ethnic stereotypes in a way modern authors don't anymore. I'm glad I read it, but I don't know if I'd recommend it to anyone unless they were also interested in older SF.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely unique, Russ continues to be relevant and have her pulse on gender and power matters, despite an understandable second wave feminist take. If you aren’t familiar with her fiction, I highly recommend.

[Dion · Rating 3 out of 5]

Irene, a universe-traveling member of the elite Trans Temporal Corp, rescues Zubedeyeh who a small girl from a Muslim world where the patriarchy is out of control. Her partner Ernst disapproves of her actions and moreover, of Irene’s growing rebellion against his authority as she recognizes overtones of the other world’s culture in his actions.

I loved and empathized both with Irene and with Zubedeyeh. Irene’s so angry and so well-meaning, having come from a patriarchal society herself that has no room for anger in women. Zubedeyeh, on the other hand, wants to be a poet and upon finding out the fate of her Aunt Dunya who had similar ambitions, is terrified nearly into insanity.

I thought it was going to be a clash of cultures at first, a simple novel about the cosmopolitan Trans Temporal Corp versus the repressive patriarchy of the Muslim world and how Zubedeyeh would flourish when freed from her family. It would’ve been cliche, colonialist but possibly a feel-good white savior novel if that had been the case (Irene is very white, as is stressed in the novel) but instead, it turned into a larger examination of male and female gender dynamics and how even the most seemingly liberal of men can actually be paternalistic and condescending.

Warning: In addition to mistreatment of women, there’s a scene of partner rape (it takes only about four paragraphs, but it’s ugly in its understatement), abuse of mentally disabled women, abuse of women in general, a relationship with a 20+ year age gap and a scene with one child molesting another.

DIVERSITY SCORE: ★★★ - the Muslim society has normalized male homosexuality, Zubedeyeh’s favorite brother is gay, Irene tells Zubedeyeh it’ll be fine if she likes women, Zubedeyeh accepts it as a normal possibility and half the novel is set on the Muslim planet so they’re surrounded by POC.

[Jack Deighton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Irene Waskiewicz, whose first name we are told is pronounced in the British way (I-ree-nee,) and Ernst Neumann have been assigned by the Trans-Temporal Authority to the planet of Ala-ed-Deen. Despite Ernst being twenty years or so older than Irene the pair seem to be a long-standing couple.

The culture on Ala-ed-Deen is based on that of the Middle East of our world with women firmly circumscribed. The daughter of the house, Zubeydeh, wants to be a poet but she has no hope of that. To help her achieve that ambition Irene takes the decision to more or less abduct Zubeydeh back to Earth. This causes her relationship with Ernst to break down.

Russ was of course above all a feminist writer and important in Science Fiction’s history for precisely that reason but from a distance of forty years later this novel seems to adopt the trappings of SF to make the points she wishes to about male domination (and female frustration with the resultant repression - due to society’s emphases this is as much internal repression as external) and hence is not the best specimen of SF as a result. For example the purpose and operations of the Trans-Temporal Authority are never spelled out. Not that the book is in any way unreadable; simply a bit out of time.

[Christian Levine-Goco · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8/5 Joanna Russ’ work of feminist sci-fi does a great job of capturing a character struggling to make sense of the world after an experience that results in them questioning their life. She expertly shows the patriarchal world that Zubeydeh lives in and the patriarchal world Irene finds she’s also living in to highlight this internal struggle. This book is written beautifully, and the literary heights Joanna reaches towards the end are nearly poetic. The only criticisms that I have is that I didn’t find the characters all too captivating and the narrative is oddly constructed leading to some confusion as to who is talking or what is happening. I’d really only recommend this book to someone if they are into older sci-fi already or if they are willing to broaden their scope of genre fiction to encompass feminist science fiction. All things considered, Joanna does a great job of highlighting real social issues through a futuristic lens resulting in a masterful work.

[Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Irene Vaskievics is an agent of Transtemporal and is supposed to kidnap little Zubedeyeh, who lives on an Islamic colonial world and wants to become a poet.
But she soon realizes that she herself is chained to different, but similar, shackles...

What is captivating are Russ' thoughts on the importance of analyzing one's own reality before it is too late...

[Russ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Russ is severely underrated and unjustly unknown. This is a really good novel, feminist in focus, of course, but bringing the Arabian Nights themes into science fiction is what makes this novel stand out to me. Ranks up there with The Female Man in my opinion.

[Elena L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Del 78 y es como si lo hubieran escrito hoy mismo...

[Sarah Rigg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was probably my first exposure to Joanna Russ. I honestly don't remember much about this book, but dystopias and feminist fiction would definitely appealed to me when I was 13-almost-14.

[Sue Chant · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tiptree shortlist retrospective

[Cándido Rodríguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

My real rating is 3.5. I like it more than The Female Man, which I didn't expect that

[Rachel B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I read a book that from page one tossed me into a world and a story line so unlike my own that I felt I had to keep reading just to figure out what was going on. It was refreshing. I also enjoyed how this was almost entirely a character drama with a select few moments of real action. Very thought-provoking and an interesting interpretation of Islamic traditions/practices/culture in an alien world. I'm looking forward to Readercon 26 on July 9-12 in Burlington, MA, USA, where Joanna Russ is being recognized as the Memorial Guest of Honor.

[Jonathan Scotese · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not hate it.

I am probably focusing on the wrong parts, but it really felt like the first 100 pages could have been cut. All set up and little action, with the whole thing feeling more like the bizarre thoughts brought forth from drifting off to sleep when trying to focus on a story than an actual plot. I'm pretty sure it isn't part of a series or multi book setting, but if it is it would make sense.

[Rochelle]

I read this book because I enjoy Joanna Russ's nonfiction so I thought I might like her fiction too. No dice. The quest for compatible fiction continues.

[Judy · Rating 1 out of 5]

i actually didn't read much of this book -- it was strange; the writing was hard to understand (eg, men were he and she, and vice versa, etc). I don't have the time to try to figure it out!

[Marianne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like that this book explores complicated problems, not white-washing some of the issues associated with trying to 'save' someone from their culture. But... I really didn't like the book much.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early female Sci-fi, definitely worth reading.

[Antje Schrupp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deep in the seventies - aber grade darum interessant.

[Thomas Baughman · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an okay book. Nothing fanatastic