21st Century Literature discussion

I could have sworn I posted this thread right after setting up the general discussion one for this book, but I can't find it anywhere (despite my laptop auto-completing the topic text just now)... Weird.

At any rate, this is the thread for discussing the whole book. If anyone would like separate threads set up for smaller portions of the book, just let me know.

Lots to discuss in this book--everything from afro-futurism to oppression, neurodiversity, systemic racism, the promise of space travel, etc.

Names seem to carry a fair amount of weight in this book ranging from literary references to more surface-level connotations.

What did readers make of the ship's name, Matilda?

Were you familiar with the myth/fantasy references of Aint Melusine's name? (I would have skipped this entirely but for the fact I was also reading AS Byatt's Possession at the same time and Melusine plays a prominent role).

Other names that caught your eye or confounded you?

Marc wrote: "Names seem to carry a fair amount of weight in this book ranging from literary references to more surface-level connotations.

What did readers make of the ship's name, Matilda?

Were you familiar ..."

(I would have skipped this entirely but for the fact I was also reading AS Byatt's Possession at the same time and Melusine plays a prominent role).
Don't you love it when this happens? 😀

Lori, I definitely did not make the connect between the chapter 12 story about the woman with the sons who tear the world apart, but it seems so obvious now once you've put it out there.

I think it was Carmen Maria Machado I read that said you'll know when minorities are socially accepted when they are allowed to make mistakes as characters in art (i.e., they're not held to higher standard and expected to represent all members of their demographic... or, I guess you could say, they're just treated as humans). To an extent, I feel like this book does that with a number of characters but also continues a steady literary trend toward female characters who are either a) crappy or reluctant mothers; or, b) entirely uninterested in motherhood. This doesn't feel like it should be a groundbreaking thing in the 21st century, but the social pressure toward breeding and an enthusiastic embrace of it certainly seems alive and well.

Changing topics abruptly...
Science, for Aster, almost seems like a comfort. It is intellectually challenging, but not quite as complicated as people and stories.

“With history, with memory, with retellings, people often settled for the obvious answer.”

It provides more certainty and, sometimes, concrete answers. And yet medicine seems to be her way of connecting and caring for people. She's a pretty fascinating character in terms of contradictions, layers, nuance.

And, yes, Ami, I do love when the books I'm reading sort of talk to one another or inform the other reading!

lori wrote: "No matter what she observes, there is no pretense or lying, which seem to be the things she l..."

I really enjoyed how Solomon uses Aster's honesty and her taking everything literally to comedic effect.

I think that comedic effect is absolutely essential in this book because there are some incredibly harsh, disturbing, and violent episodes that are made more palatable through choice use of humor at other points in the book (e.g., her "roommates" teasing her about masturbating when she is actually applying a type of lubrication to protect her in case a guard sexually assaults her).

Did the humor work for readers? Was it enough, too much, or... ?
Did any parts make you laugh aloud while reading?

lori wrote: "I can see how Aster's solitude would be a sufficient goal in Solomon's mind now."

lori, I think this is great insight. As a die hard geek, I'm always looking for the mechanics of how things work, and what resolution there is for the bigger picture. Solomon is interested primarily in the characters, and what they need to do to survive and find whatever peace they can. Aster found her mother and followed her to the resolution of her plan, which was her personal goal all along. (Although I feel like there is an implication that the ship will land on, or at least assume an orbit around earth, since that was the autopilot's 'plan'.)

The ending, with the journey having ended where it began, with the earth having been given time to heal itself, was perfect. It reminded me of the end of The Stand (I hope it's not to sacrilegious to invoke Stephen King here). Stu is lamenting that humans are heading down the same path that brought them to destruction in the first place, but he takes some solace in that they have at least bought some time for a few generations.

"Time enough for poor old Mother Earth to recycle herself a little. A season of rest.
“What?” she [Frannie] asked, and he realized he had murmured it aloud.
“A season of rest,” he repeated.
“What does that mean?”
“Everything,” he said, and took her hand."

Marc wrote: "Did the humor work for readers? Was it enough, too much, or... ?
Did any parts make you laugh aloud while reading? ..."

I don't think I can answer this as working or not working for me. A lot of the humor I didn't think 'belonged' to me, in that it was people in a horrific situation still finding some level of normalcy and humor. I could appreciate the humor, but couldn't find it too personally amusing that her roommates were teasing Aster about masturbating, when she was actually taking measures to make inevitable rapes less painful and damaging. I think there was also a level of maliciousness in the teasing, given Aster's ambiguous gender and sexuality.

Another typically humorous set-up of children playing house and acting out things they don't yet understand is also undermined, with young Aster and Giselle acting out domestic abuse and spousal rape. There was more obvious humor in Aster's seeing things as so literal, but I thought it was frequently directed at Theo's failure to see the ambiguity in what he was saying.

I appreciated how much Solomon presented her characters with all their flaws, pettiness, and difficulties. So much literature presents neurodiverse and even mentally ill characters as childlike people with amusing 'quirks'. The reality is that people like Aster and Giselle can be very hard to deal with, and Solomon didn't shy away from that, while still showing their strength and heroism.

There was definitely a level of maliciousness in the teasing, but it was in the school-age nature of it that seemed to add some levity to that scene to me ("Oh! Oh! Pipets! Test tubes!"). They are obviously jealous of her intelligence and her botanarium. It's that kind of extremity juxtaposed that I thought Solomon handled deftly and I did actually find funny. There were other, less extreme, but equally as funny reactions/scenes that expressed the humanity of her characters (e.g., Aint Melusine telling Aster to think twice before speaking and Aster thinking that quite odd because she always thought thrice. Aster saying she is "unwooable" but then obviously taken with the gift of the typewriter and teasing Theo by typing notes like "theo lovvs As T E R with alll his hart."). The children playing house was rather horrifying because of the way their innocence so readily and literally re-enacted reality.

Whitney wrote: "I appreciated how much Solomon presented her characters with all their flaws, pettiness, and difficulties."
Agreed. Her characters, even the most obnoxious ones, mostly, still had a real authenticity and roundedness to them. And the dynamics between them were splendid (Giselle and Aster, Aster and Theo, Aint Melusine and everyone, Flick). Touching and heartbreaking, I thought.

Admittedly, I have found political events in the U.S. quite distracting during this particular book discussion. There were quite a few ideas/thoughts this book stirred that I never ended up pursuing... I'll drop them here in case they stir any other thoughts (do not feel obligated to comment):

- The novel as a kind of transposition of history instead of a rewriting (I'm borrowing this concept from one of the interviews with the author). I was worried it might simply be a rewrite/recreation of the Antebellum South set in space, but like a good musical transposition, it feels like the melody remains but a whole different tone and color manifest in this version.

- The relation this book plays with respect to Afrofuturism. I think my own ignorance prevents me from commenting much here, but it's a topic I think worth exploring.

- The intersection/blending of genre (scifi, fairytale, history, etc.).

- Trauma and survival (what these do the individual and the group; their impact on identity).

I'm definitely looking forward to reading more from Solomon.

Thanks for being a part of this read and discussion!

I just recently read the book and enjoyed this discussion, after the fact. I liked the book. I have to say, though, that I never thought it was funny or humorous, but that's me! If I'd read the scenes pointed to as humourous by themselves, I might have seen the humor, but this book was so serious I was just focused on understanding.

Thanks for reviving this thread, Linda. I'm reading this novel now for a self-interested reason--I recently received a formal diagnosis of autism and it made me curious to read the works of autistic authors, esp. autistic authors of fiction. It seems to be fairly a short list. There are a lot more autistic authors writing memoir and/or other non-fiction, and those writing fiction tend to be in the YA field.

Did anyone here read the novel explicitly as a work from an autistic author, btw, and if so did it change your frame of reference for the story and the language?

I did not know the author was autistic. I thought Aster was written as on the spectrum and that was how I perceived the way she interacted with people, which was often, to me, a bit like the early Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory.