I've begun a book called Red Mars on the recommendation of a friend who knows I enjoy reading tales thick with politics and philosophy.. and that I've been hoping to read more science fiction, a genre which I've largely abjured in the past.
So, there is a character in the story who reminds me so strongly of a friend of mine (He's under CPXB on the blogroll to the left) that it's uncanny! I have been telling him this, but the way the fellow talks, even the way he is described as looking is so spot-on, that I had to transcribe one of the conversations from the book as an example... knowing Chris comes across my blog from time to time, when I'm actually posting. So, here goes... the character in question is Arkady.
“Look, Arkady, this settlement is a scientific station. Your ideas are irrelevant to it. Maybe in fifty or a hundred years. But for now, it’s going to be like the stations in Antarctica.”
“That’s true,” Arkady said, “But, in fact, Antarctic stations are very political. Most of them were built so that the countries that built them would have a say in the revision of the Antarctic treaty. And now the stations are governed by laws set by that treaty, which was made by a very political process! So, you see, you cannot just stick your head in the sand crying, ‘I am a scientist! I am a scientist!’” He put a hand to his forehead, in the universal gesture mocking the prima donna. “No. When you say that, you are only saying, ‘I do not wish to think about complex systems!’ Which is not really worthy of true scientists, is it?”
“The Antarctic Is governed by a treaty because no one lives there except scientific stations,” Maya said, irritably. To have their final dinner , their last moment of freedom disturbed like this!
“True,” Arkady said. “But, think of the result. In Antarctica, no one can own land. No one country or organization can exploit the continent’s natural resources without the consent of every other country. No one can claim to own these resources, or take them and sell them to other people, so that some profit from them while others pay for their use. Don’t you see how radically different that is from the way the rest of the world is run? And this is the last area of Earth to be organized, to be given a set of laws. It represents what all governments working together feel, instinctively is fair, revealed on land free from all claims of sovereignty, or really from any history at all. It is, to say it plainly, Earth’s best attempt to create just property laws! Do you see? This is the way the entire world should be run, if only we could free it from the straightjacket of history!”
The argument goes on to him arguing that they should ignore the various countries' ownership of the stations sent down, and create a community that they control. To ignore the treaty that governs Mars, etc. He wins many arguments in the book, when he can get people to pay attention to him, and here he wins the argument when he points out that the laws that govern them prohibit them from altering the ecology of the planet, which prohibits the terraforming that their very existence relies upon. One fellow says that the changes Arkady is referring to will happen as an inevitability, anyway. That the change to Mars will cause an evolution in them, to which Arkady replies: "History is not evolution! It is a false analogy!" And how history is a matter of choices, Evolution is a matter of changes. He points out how much of our current social realities are governed, essentially, by a lot of backward thinking dead people. The conversation, essentially ends when someone calls what he is saying an "Ill conceived revolution" about how he won't discuss specifics, only cry against the current system and Arkady tells them he only spoke his mind, and if that makes them uncomfortable, then it is their business. That they don't like the implications of what he says, but they can't find the grounds to deny them.
That is so Chris. I'm not sure why I'm so astounded by the likeness, but I am. I also am really liking the book. The author is telling the story from the point of view of someone who opposes Arkady's ideas, but at the same time without creating a strong bias against either Arkady or his ideas. That it is told from outside the revolutionary makes the character edgy, unpredictable... the reader is constantly wondering what Arkady is going to do, and a distant sort of witness to the social dynamics his radical ideas create.
So, I'm only in the first of the book.. witness again how busy I've been lately, I usually chew through novels in a few days... but I recommend it. It has proved a good read. And most of it is told in a flashback after a powerful political stroke begins the story. I thought that the knowledge of what all this is ultimately coming to would color my reading of the narrative.. make it flat for me, but it absolutely has not. I'm savoring the depth of the characterizations and the limited third person that keeps the reader always wondering.. along with the main character.. what's going on behind the eyes of her fellows.
