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Empire of Bones by
Liz
Williams
The Post-colonial Prometheus...
This is Liz Williams' second novel. Her first
novel, Ghost Sister, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick. Empire of Bones
is an extrapolation of my favourite Liz Williams short story,
The Unthinkables. This short story,
published in Interzone a couple of years ago, told the tale of an alien
race that had a strict caste hierarchy, with the Unthinkables on the lowest
rung. This had obvious overtones of the Untouchable caste in India, and
in Empire of Bones, Liz Williams has made this comparison explicit, since her
novel involves both the Unthinkables (or 'The Naturals') and the Untouchables.
Elements of the earlier story resound. The
Khaithoi caste are insectile, while Sirru's caste are birdlike.
Readers of The Unthinkables will immediately identify with the likeable Sirru,
and like him, will distrust the aloof and mysterious Khaithoi. The
Khaithoi are far more educated than the Desqusai (Sirru's people), and exclude
the lower caste by employing their higher concepts in a secret and
exclusive language in Sirru's presence. Jaya Nihalani (nihilist?), on the
other hand, exploits her membership of the Untouchable caste to feign ignorance
of English whilst she is poked and prodded at in a UN hospital. She may
be the object under examination by the English doctors, but she still strives towards
subjectivity and empowerment by eavesdropping on their discussion of her.
She also knows far more about the disease ravaging her body than her so-called
doctors do. Her powers as a seer brought her riches and fame when
younger, along with an Oxford educated tutor who taught her English.
Despite the fact that this novel is published in
America, and will presumably have a largely American audience, this is
primarily a British post-colonial Science Fiction novel. This distinction
is important: the aliens here have no interest in sullying the White House Lawn
by landing there, and there is no desire to terminate the Oval office, as they
might conceivably do in the archetypal American imperial popular science
fiction narrative (although genocide is not beyond them). I've been
inculcated by my Cultural Studies learning to view fiction as fashioned by the
culture in which it is produced, and my history studies have inspired
a palpable sense of repetition, predestination, or the kharma that Jaya
rejects. My view is that the Americans are now producing popular science
fictions that are the equivalent of those the British produced a hundred years
ago, at a similar juncture: the imminent threat of the fall of
empire. I do not think that there will be much fruit if I compare
The Empire of Bones with contemporary American popular science fiction: Liz
Williams' novel is far too British to do that. Instead, the fiction that
most resonates with Empire of Bones is Bram Stoker's Dracula. For one
thing, the Americans, as I have noted above, are pointedly kept at arm's
length at the beginning of the novel by the Bharati government, then
studiously ignored by Sirru. Having said that, Jaya could be little
Britain, fought over and seduced by arrogant American federal might (Ir Yth),
and the secretive, well-meaning, but misunderstood European federation in a
parental custody suit.
Bram Stoker appears to have been alarmed by the
growing emancipation of women in his lifetime; the untouchable caste, say, of
the Victorian era. Lucy Westenra is presented as a voluptuous
threat. Proposed to by three men in one afternoon, she articulates her
desire that it would be marvellous if she could marry all three.
Such a proposal is shocking to Mina Murray, the archetypal Angel in the
House. When they come to stake Lucy, all the men are taken aback by
their involuntary arousal in the presence of this stunning child killer and
blood suckler. Times have very much changed things in Liz Williams'
novel: now the Angel or goddess in the house, Ir Yth, wants nothing less to
wreck hearth and home (although she is still a slave in the bedroom in her
meeting with her true master). As is to be expected in a novel
written by a woman, there is no misogyny directed at women. Indeed, the
world's oldest profession is presented in a sympathetic light and has a
valuable role to play. Having said that, although Anarres the courtesan
is not threatened with death as punishment due to the open broadcasting of her
sexual allure (which is not emasculating), she and Ir Yth are employed
very much as tools. In a similar way, Mina Murray plans on the
laying the sheets on the bed and learning the Bradshaw train timetable
upon marriage to Jonathan Harker, as she desires to become his computer
platform and portable Excel spreadsheet. Sirru and Ir Yth are
the stereotypical 'dysfunctional' parents - it's no wonder that their
young 'uns have gone so wrong (although these are not Ir Yth's progeny -
she's more of the wicked stepmum). Like many of the wives in the novel
except Jaya, Ir Yth is unfaithful, and thus Sirru, like all the husbands,
are cuckolded - although this must be even more humiliating if you do actually
look like a cockerel. Jaya, when she eventually becomes a parent, cares
little or nothing for her progeny - such is the post-nuclear family.
The sexual politics go further than this.
The Khaithoi are rather androgynous, and perhaps bisexual. EsRavesh
certainly swings both ways - he threatens Sirru with an unwanted sexual
approach at the beginning of the novel. Perhaps, like Baron Vladimir
Harkonnen in Dune, he has homosexual tendencies. He certainly seems to
possess oval (vaginal?) lips. Ir Yth, on the other hand, possesses a
phallic tongue, which she whips out for all to see whenever she feels like, and
whenever she wants to impale and penetrate something (Vlad Drakul has an all
too willing disciple). She is the only character in the novel to be
described as 'vampirric'. Ir Yth almost acts like one of Anne Rice's
vampires when she comes to convert Kharishma for a final time - yet she does
not bring the promise of eternal youth. Instead, it is Sirru and the
orbital ship that have healing powers: Jaya is rejuvenated in the novel, and
there is a hint that others can be brought back from death. Unlike the
American popular science fiction narrative, Sirru the alien is not presented as
a threat. True enough, Jaya misunderstands his intentions, and like a
vampire, Sirru can transform his body to hide from the gaze of humans so he
can infiltrate his neighbours and surroundings with ease; but we know that he
is also a hero, since he is presented in a sympathetic light. Sirru is
the very antithesis of a vampire: he gives his own blood and bodily fluids to
save life (although his method of giving blood can still be quite
violent). His naiveté of human affairs is presented in a humorous light,
but he is ultimately more knowledgeable than he appears... (No doubt he
would be expert at playing the Kevin Bacon game, despite his ignorance of
terran popular culture.)
Jaya is physically violated in the novel, but not
by Sirru. Although she realises this, Jaya is only momentarily outraged,
since her impregnator turns out to be the orbital ship. The ship for whom
she is the Receiver, is infantile (yet not immature, since it is thousands of
years old), feminine and womblike. Maybe we're seeing the same analogy of
Mother/Ship here that was displayed in 'Alien'. (The only woman to be
truly threatened by an Alien-type sexual predator is the alluring courtesan
Anarres). Had the ship been more masculine, I suspect that Jaya would
have been far more angry and mentally, if not physically, scarred. Having
said that, she feels little if anything for the product of their union - Jaya
certainly expresses no maternal love for her offspring. Whereas Anarres
and Nowhere One are almost consumed by an organic pod in a liberating fantasy
of returning to the womb and rebirth that freedom fighters are wont to do in
surrealist fiction (see my discussion of The Prisoner, if I ever get around to
publishing it online), Jaya is apprehensive about the coffin-like raft, but she
finds that it is as nourishing as the orbital ship from which it emanates (but
never really quite to her taste). Although Nowhere One finds the experience
quite uncomfortable, his return to the womb is no doubt an expression of his
being afflicted by couvade syndrome.
In a reversal from Dracula, it is the vampire who must be saved from his
human hunters in the mountain passes. Throughout Dracula, the American
Quincey Morris is something of an oddball, a product of the new mongrel
breed that threatens the established British empire, industry, and class
system. Yet the vampire is only quashed by Quincey's heroic,
sacrificial actions in Stoker's novel. In The Empire of Bones, it is
the Butcher Prince, Amir Anand, who finds himself in the unlikely role of
saviour of humanity. Spurred on by the sacrifice of his infuriating
beloved, Kharishma, whose fifteen minutes of fame prove to be more fleeting
than she would have wished, Amir hunts down his nemesis Jaya and Sirru for one
last time. Liz Williams has spent a great deal of time in Asia, and has
no doubt observed the Indian caste system in action, but this actually turns
out to be that very British thing - a novel about class. Perhaps one
thing that the British colonisers (that Liz Williams mentions so often), found
so appealing about India was the complementarity of the caste system to the
class system. Amir is certainly Anglo-Indian, so his predecessors must
have embraced the British in more ways than one. However, like Vlad
Drakul, he is presented as being very much one of the warrior caste, and he
does have a fondness for bloodletting. Sirru and Jaya do have a couple of
dialogues about free will, but it is the explicit comparison between Amir and
Sirru that best expresses it. Unlike Sirru, Amir has already lost his
ancestral lands to the Japanese businessman Tokhai. Like the rural
English, Amir finds himself priced out of his local area and his palace is sold
off to become a country cottage/second or third home: his home is not his
Transylvanian castle. Amir exerts his free will by trying to cling on and
enforce the old order, but unlike Sirru and Jaya, he does not realise that the
wheel will go round and round, no matter what he does. Like Quincey
Morris, he is a hybrid, but unlike certain characters in Star Trek, he has no
wish to leap into the melting pot to become more American.
Ultimately, one could view The Empire of Bones as
a pessimistic novel. Jaya tries her hand at rebellion against the caste
system, but fails miserably. Nowhere One and the Naturals, despite
their revolt against the caste system, still have an inherent
hierarchy. Sirru tells her that the caste system will be dismantled.
However, since he is as bound to caste as she, it's implicit that a new caste
system will be put in its place. This feels like a novel written by a
child of the 60's: been there, done that, tuned in, dropped out until you can
no longer stand up for anything. A weary apathy descends on both Sirru
and Jaya. Sirru tries to change things, but finds himself defeated by
very British Bureaucracy and waiting lists. Jaya almost perversely
desires colonization: she never sounds more British than when she asks Sirru:
"will you make the trains run on time, as well?" (no point in her or
anyone learning Bradshaw's then). Resistance is not futile here, it's
just too much bother. Bram Stoker's Dracula presented the British
empire as parasitic, sucking the blood out of other cultures whilst providing
nothing new. Having said that, Dracula's victims, like Lucy Westenra, do
seem far more energetic and vital after the vampire has infected them. In
The Empire of Bones, Jaya/Britain has become so decrepit and listless that
foreign invasion is positively welcomed as the only solution ("Sven Goran
Eriksson La La-La La La, Sven Goran Eriksson
La La-La La La"). Only the Khaithoi, the very
embodiment of the old order, seem able to usurp the established order and get
away with it (there's no such thing as ministerial responsibility
nowadays).
The Empire of Bones, a piece of fantastic
fiction like Dracula, also feels like a novel of its times. For the
Americans in the book, there is the anxiety of reverse colonisation: of a time
when the Third World has become much more powerful than the First World.
Like the British in Dracula, they face a threat from the East. (Although,
given that the some parts of the East are much closer to America's
West, the Yanks must be getting very cross-eyed by now.) Liz Williams
presents a compelling thesis on the dangers of biological weapons too.
One reason Sirru ignores Uncle Sam is because he's a disciple of the new
religion of globalisation (although if the people who really make all the
decisions are unaccountable accountants who work through huge omnipotent
multinationals, employing politicians as puppets, why all the strife when the
puppets meet in one place like Seattle or Genoa?). Liz Williams
also skilfully employs the euphemisms that we have created to account for the
spread of disease. I suppose that this may get lost in translations to
other tongues, and the issue of globalisation may date the novel.
However, since Jaya and Sirru recognise that they themselves, despite their trappings
of individuality, are trapped in culture, and would be mean nothing
without the context of culture (so important is language to this novel too), so
is this novel also bound like Prometheus to its culture.
I have written far more than I had intended to
about The Empire of Bones, which in itself is indicative of its appeal.
In an interview with Liz Williams, she told me that she tries to make every
word count in her fiction. This is certainly true in The Empire of
Bones. The novel has an intricate plotline, such a sound and compelling
structure, that there is a twist and turn with almost every page. Unlike
Jaya's audience when she's a conjuror's assistant, there will be few
hecklers to detract from Liz Williams' conjuring tricks (her turn as a
tarot reader really does come into play in this novel). Long
time readers of Liz Williams will also be satisfied by her return to the
Rasasatran system and the theme of mimetics. In the character of Tokhai,
Liz Williams seems to have reverted to the theme of her PhD, that of the
philosophy of science. She's interested in just how far scientists will
go in undermining the ethical boundaries. Tokhai may need a cane for his
stereotypical mad scientist disability (although the disability is novel and
pertinent to the novel), but boy, can he run and run! Tokhai has far less
angst than Mary Shelley’s most famous creation though, rather it is Sirru
who has the stress of playing the Promethean father.
Some of
Ir Yth's expressives aren't as artful as the avatar would like to think,
and Liz Williams is not as expert at the flashback as Arthur Miller (I didn't
like that scene in the hospital where Jaya thinks to herself that she really
must stop thinking about her youth). Although practically every word does
count, it almost feels in some places as though Liz Williams has too much plot
to fill the book. It would have been better if Amir's character had
been a bit more fleshed out, and Kharishma is perhaps a bit more
irritating than Williams intended (at least she doesn't burst into an impromptu
version of Evergreen, like every other wannabe Pop Idol). However, Bram
Stoker's Dracula has way more faults and too much stuffing, but it still ranks
highly amongst the immortal undead. If you've a sensitive and discerning
nose, you should find Liz Williams' fiction to be far more spicy and appealing.
Authortrek
rating: 9/10
Read Kevin Patrick Mahoney's essay
Bram Stoker's Dracula and Angela Carter's The
Magic Toyshop
|
Visit our Liz Williams page,
for a Liz Williams biography, bibliography, Liz Williams short stories, and
interviews |
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