ceoln reviewed The two of them by Joanna Russ
Review of 'The two of them' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
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 …
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.
