Native Tongue

candimisms reviewed Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin

Review of 'Native Tongue' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I will have more to say on this incredible feminist sci-fi novel, but I will caution that it's a product of its time. It's not very intersectional, in fact it's laughable how in this society race apparently is no longer a point of discrimination. But other than that, I found the story so acute in its representation of how men treat women, and have created societies based on that mistreatment, including showing how the most inconsequential ways are in fact the most insidious.

Jonathan Zacsh reviewed Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin (Native Tongue Trilogy)

interesting universe in a series I'd never heard of, with good characters

5 stars

Such a good book. Highly recommend to any scifi fan, but probably not going to be a page turner if you aren't into scifi already (e.g. you frequently feel scifi is just all endless world building).

Edit: It's funny reading others' reviews of this book... I'd never have bothered picking this up, because so many readers are calling out poor character writing. That's my biggest pet peeve with older SciFi. I don't know if I loved this book because the concept carried me through, or if I just disagree about the characters, but I'm very glad I've read this and I'm definitely reading the next book in the trilogy.

loppear reviewed Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin

Review of 'Native Tongue' on Goodreads

3 stars

Handmaids Tale set with aliens and powerful linguists as the protagonists... Less terror, more offhand patriarchal violence, the plot is more wandering. But the cutting satirical portrayals of men who are overly certain of themselves resonates piercingly.

inga-lovinde reviewed Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin

Review of 'Native Tongue' on 'GoodReads'

3 stars

This novel is often compared to The Handmaid's Tale. True, it's the same white feminist speculative fiction, portraying a terrible unthinkable dystopia where white women are terribly oppressed by... having their own agency stripped from them (while being well cared about). So scary, so unbelievable, I cannot even imagine how people could deny other people agency. I mean, this never happened with white people before.
Needless to say, there are no people of color, no non-binary folks, no queer relationships. Everybody not fitting into white women-men dichotomy have simply vanished at some point of the history, and nobody noticed or deemed it deserving to be mentioned even in passing.

That being said, as opposed to The Handmaid's Tale, this novel has some plot which is interesting on its own; and the speculative fiction part is implemented with quite original setup with linguists and aliens (not going to write any spoilers …

This novel is often compared to The Handmaid's Tale. True, it's the same white feminist speculative fiction, portraying a terrible unthinkable dystopia where white women are terribly oppressed by... having their own agency stripped from them (while being well cared about). So scary, so unbelievable, I cannot even imagine how people could deny other people agency. I mean, this never happened with white people before.
Needless to say, there are no people of color, no non-binary folks, no queer relationships. Everybody not fitting into white women-men dichotomy have simply vanished at some point of the history, and nobody noticed or deemed it deserving to be mentioned even in passing.

That being said, as opposed to The Handmaid's Tale, this novel has some plot which is interesting on its own; and the speculative fiction part is implemented with quite original setup with linguists and aliens (not going to write any spoilers there). Not quite believable, but as a fiction novel it is quite good.

Kattas reviewed Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin

Review of 'Native Tongue' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Native Tongue is a book that many will probably dislike for easily predictable reasons.

Much of the plot is implicit, with events in the lives of many characters simply happening, with no clear purpose or end. In this respect it functions rather like a slice-of-life story writ large (and in the 23rd century). Many of the characters feel a little awkward, which could be simply an effect of the culture in the book, but it feels rather like it was written in (or set during) the 1950s - to the extent that I imagined the characters and setting as the future was portrayed in the 50s or 60s. Some of the characters border on caricatures of gender stereotypes, which is a little surprising for a novel touted as a work of feminist fiction (although that label becomes clear as the story progresses). I think this is the problem I felt …

Native Tongue is a book that many will probably dislike for easily predictable reasons.

Much of the plot is implicit, with events in the lives of many characters simply happening, with no clear purpose or end. In this respect it functions rather like a slice-of-life story writ large (and in the 23rd century). Many of the characters feel a little awkward, which could be simply an effect of the culture in the book, but it feels rather like it was written in (or set during) the 1950s - to the extent that I imagined the characters and setting as the future was portrayed in the 50s or 60s. Some of the characters border on caricatures of gender stereotypes, which is a little surprising for a novel touted as a work of feminist fiction (although that label becomes clear as the story progresses). I think this is the problem I felt most deeply detracts from the book, as the characters even with the most development still feel comparatively shallow, without the psychological complexity of personality I like in authors such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, or Ian McEwan.

All of these are criticisms that I agree with, and would even suggest that if these descriptions sound irritating, you might want to avoid this book.

So what inspires me to give this a four star review? The concepts and depth of thought provoked, and the sheer skin-crawling discomfort the setting evokes are enough for me to overlook most serious flaws in this novel. While linguistic relativity is not a new concept for me - having first encountered it with Orwell's 1984 in school - this is an intriguing and generally novel exploration of it. Moreover, Elgin, a linguist by training, goes to a depth that Orwell lacked in his conception of newspeak.

The horror of the setting is another aspect I find interesting to explore, much like probing a cut to see just how painful it is. Where The Handmaid's Tale feels more like an immediate and present threat - looking at cultural shifts around the world in recent years, especially - the society presented here is terrifying precisely because it shows a world where women have been subjugated for so long that they no longer have any memory of another existence. The soulcrushing nature of their reality is apparent in the near lack of personality many seem to show, and is reinforced when the futility of rebellion is shown on the few occasions that women need to be "put in their place."