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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
What a slog to get through: 400 pages that should've been 200, and some great ideas, but such poor execution. The characters and their personal experiences were *so* thinly drawn it was really hard to get into the book. And while I love a good explanation of sociopolitical fallout from some crazy scifi event/technology, that was *all* the book was, at the expense of any kind of connection with the characters, or even a good description of experiental things like what it's like not to sleep. It was frustrating to have the author leave out details about things like the time a bunch of teenage Sleepless *did* sleep, by taking drugs, which was mentioned only very briefly in passing.
I had *no* idea why characters did the things they did: why was Jordan willingly working for WeSleep, when he seemed to hate them? Why did Kevin break up with Leisha, offstage, with no warning or explanation? I couldn't even keep a lot of the characters straight: Tony/Richard/Kevin/Will. When there *were* character-centric passages, they were often dull and needlessly long navelgazing about theoretical issues.
I *did* really like Miri, and found the last part of the book the most interesting. Sanctuary became a convincingly disturbing dystopia. But I didn't like the time jumps, and I was mystified by the fact that the title itself, often referenced in the book, came from a theoretical question about the more advantaged being attacked by the multitude of jealous beggars in Spain -- does Nancy Kress not know Spain is a first world country? Is she confusing it with disadvantaged Spanish-speaking Latin American countries? It also bothered me that she'd made the villain Muslim.
I had *no* idea why characters did the things they did: why was Jordan willingly working for WeSleep, when he seemed to hate them? Why did Kevin break up with Leisha, offstage, with no warning or explanation? I couldn't even keep a lot of the characters straight: Tony/Richard/Kevin/Will. When there *were* character-centric passages, they were often dull and needlessly long navelgazing about theoretical issues.
I *did* really like Miri, and found the last part of the book the most interesting. Sanctuary became a convincingly disturbing dystopia. But I didn't like the time jumps, and I was mystified by the fact that the title itself, often referenced in the book, came from a theoretical question about the more advantaged being attacked by the multitude of jealous beggars in Spain -- does Nancy Kress not know Spain is a first world country? Is she confusing it with disadvantaged Spanish-speaking Latin American countries? It also bothered me that she'd made the villain Muslim.
I love to sleep. I prefer at least eight, preferably nine hours of sleep each night. Going to bed at midnight and waking up at nine in the morning is a perk of my madcap, Bohemian university student lifestyle that I will have to abandon once I become a stern, starched-collar high school teacher. For now, however, I like my sleep, and I will defend to the death my right to snore it. But if I did not need to sleep—had, in fact, grown up without ever knowing sleep—would I miss it? How would I be different? What if I weren't alone?
Beggars in Spain has a simple premise—that certain children have been genetically-engineered so that they do not sleep—with enormous implications (such as the Sleepless not aging). Once again, Nancy Kress uses genetic engineering to explore what it means to be human and how our society treats those who are different. I recognize her familiar themes from Nothing Human and "Act One". Kress is an awesome author of serious gene-manipulation fiction, by which I mean she doesn't use genetic engineering just as a science-fiction plot device or a background phenomenon, as one might see in other books where other motifs are more important. Whether she is altering the entire human genome, as in Nothing Human, or tweaking just a single trait, as she did here and in "Act One," Kress considers the implications of her changes in how these altered humans think and behave. More importantly, she considers how the un-altered will react. And Kress is writing posthuman fiction set not in the far-off future but in the present and in the near-future; she is writing about what our lives might be like in a decade or three.
So why did I have so much trouble with Beggars in Spain? I was constantly aware of how far through the book I was, and I never had that urge to continue reading like I do with books that really grip me. To be fair, I think I had a similar reaction to Nothing Human. Kress' writing style and my reading habits do not exist in perfect harmony, and sometimes that happens, even with authors whose work I admire on an intellectual or literary level. There must be more to it than that. Otherwise, I would feel comfortable giving this book five stars.
Beggars in Spain has an excellent premise, but its plot is unsustainable. The tragedy is that the overall story makes a lot of sense, and it should work: the Sleepless outperform the Sleepers, who channel their fear of difference into hatred and bigotry. So far, so good: none of this requires suspension of disbelief, at all, because it's a true story that has been repeated far too often in our history. It's still happening today. Groups fear those who are different, and then the fear turns to hate, people get stupid, and individuals die. I don't begrudge Kress the parallels. Intention is one thing, however, and execution is quite another.
The first part of the book, essentially what got published as a novella (and won both the Hugo and Nebula for it!), is great. I have few complaints about it. The supporting characters are somewhat thin, and the family situation is somewhat clichéd. Aside from that, however, Kress nicely portrays an American society struggling to deal with the rising population of Sleepless among them. The nascent internal divisions among the network of Sleepless is intriguing, and Kress follows up on this in the rest of the book.
There are two problems with the rest of the book, and their names are Leisha Cambden and Jennifer Sharifi. Leisha is the main character, theoretically the protagonist, though she does not do much protagonizing. Although seeing the world through Leisha's Sleepless yet compassionate eyes is interesting, Leisha as a person is rather dull and credulous. She talks a lot about Yagaiism and contracts and eponymous Spanish beggars, and once in a while she kidnaps abused Sleepless children. Most of her actions, however, like the creation of the Susan Bell Foundation, take place offstage. Plenty of characters around Leisha—Richard, Alice, Jordan, Drew—are doing things; Leisha just seems to sit around lamenting the fact that people are short-sighted and judgemental. She's a bit of a downer.
Jennifer Sharifi, on the other hand, is much more interesting but, again, doesn't quite work as a character. One of the two characters who come as close to antagonists as this book has, Jennifer is an ultra-cool Sleepless who pursues rationality and pragmatism to the point of irrationality. She is convinced the only route for Sleepless survival is voluntary exile: first to an orbital habitat, then out into space completely. All her energy is directed toward these efforts, laying the groundwork for the secession of the Sleepless Sanctuary from the United States. She continues to tinker with the genes of Sanctuary's children, creating a new generation of "Supers," Sleepless whose neurological functions are hyper-accelerated—at the price of a loss of motor control that manifests as twitches and stuttering. Oh, and she stacks Sanctuary's ruling council with her own family members and viciously suppresses any dissent.
Jennifer is a caricature of an ultra-reactionary leader of the persecuted. She's too bad, closer to a moustached villain than a devious leader fighting for the survival of the Sleepless. There's never a question of whether she has crossed a line; she has crossed it, and for that she receives no sympathy for me. I don't view her as a credible threat or challenge, because the other characters will always have the moral high ground over her. If she had been more ambiguous, or at least more formidable, I might have enjoyed her role as an antagonist more.
The other antagonist comes rather late to the party. He frames Sleepless for attacks on Sleepers, including a Sleeper scientist who approaches Leisha to have develop a way of turning Sleepers into Sleepless. He's a much less important figure than Jennifer, of course, so accordingly he has less depth. Still, his involvement in the scientist's murder wasn't exactly my favourite revelation of the book. I don't really hold it against him, but he does highlight a vacancy in the roster: Leisha et al needed a true ally, a powerful Sleeper who nevertheless championed the cause of the Sleepless.
I quite liked the Supers, and Miri, and their struggle as a faction within the Sanctuary faction. The whole Other-within-the-Other motif is appealing, and Miri is one of the easiest characters with whom I could sympathize. Watching her struggle with her feelings for Tony, her own brother, and reconcile the knowledge that her mother could not look upon her with love, was close to heartbreaking. And of course, Miri and the Supers are exactly Jennifer's mistake: she tries to create an ultra-superhuman being, something beyond even her own generation of Sleepless, but she haughtily thinks she can somehow control them. While the Supers' sundering of their Sanctuary shackles was predictable, it was also the most entertaining and riveting part of the book.
Beggars in Spain isn't bad, but it is heavyhanded almost across the board: characters, philosophy, and plot could all have done with a much lighter touch. Just thinking of all the times the characters referred to "beggars" or "beggars in Spain," as if Kress was not confident we would make the connection between the philosophy and the book's title, makes me wince. I appreciate subtlety, and I notice its absence. While seldom enough to ruin a book for me—especially one as admittedly thoughtful and intriguing as this—it does detract from my enjoyment. Books are my drug of choice, and Beggars in Spain left me unsatisfied.
My Reviews of the Sleepless trilogy:
Beggars and Choosers →
Beggars in Spain has a simple premise—that certain children have been genetically-engineered so that they do not sleep—with enormous implications (such as the Sleepless not aging). Once again, Nancy Kress uses genetic engineering to explore what it means to be human and how our society treats those who are different. I recognize her familiar themes from Nothing Human and "Act One". Kress is an awesome author of serious gene-manipulation fiction, by which I mean she doesn't use genetic engineering just as a science-fiction plot device or a background phenomenon, as one might see in other books where other motifs are more important. Whether she is altering the entire human genome, as in Nothing Human, or tweaking just a single trait, as she did here and in "Act One," Kress considers the implications of her changes in how these altered humans think and behave. More importantly, she considers how the un-altered will react. And Kress is writing posthuman fiction set not in the far-off future but in the present and in the near-future; she is writing about what our lives might be like in a decade or three.
So why did I have so much trouble with Beggars in Spain? I was constantly aware of how far through the book I was, and I never had that urge to continue reading like I do with books that really grip me. To be fair, I think I had a similar reaction to Nothing Human. Kress' writing style and my reading habits do not exist in perfect harmony, and sometimes that happens, even with authors whose work I admire on an intellectual or literary level. There must be more to it than that. Otherwise, I would feel comfortable giving this book five stars.
Beggars in Spain has an excellent premise, but its plot is unsustainable. The tragedy is that the overall story makes a lot of sense, and it should work: the Sleepless outperform the Sleepers, who channel their fear of difference into hatred and bigotry. So far, so good: none of this requires suspension of disbelief, at all, because it's a true story that has been repeated far too often in our history. It's still happening today. Groups fear those who are different, and then the fear turns to hate, people get stupid, and individuals die. I don't begrudge Kress the parallels. Intention is one thing, however, and execution is quite another.
The first part of the book, essentially what got published as a novella (and won both the Hugo and Nebula for it!), is great. I have few complaints about it. The supporting characters are somewhat thin, and the family situation is somewhat clichéd. Aside from that, however, Kress nicely portrays an American society struggling to deal with the rising population of Sleepless among them. The nascent internal divisions among the network of Sleepless is intriguing, and Kress follows up on this in the rest of the book.
There are two problems with the rest of the book, and their names are Leisha Cambden and Jennifer Sharifi. Leisha is the main character, theoretically the protagonist, though she does not do much protagonizing. Although seeing the world through Leisha's Sleepless yet compassionate eyes is interesting, Leisha as a person is rather dull and credulous. She talks a lot about Yagaiism and contracts and eponymous Spanish beggars, and once in a while she kidnaps abused Sleepless children. Most of her actions, however, like the creation of the Susan Bell Foundation, take place offstage. Plenty of characters around Leisha—Richard, Alice, Jordan, Drew—are doing things; Leisha just seems to sit around lamenting the fact that people are short-sighted and judgemental. She's a bit of a downer.
Jennifer Sharifi, on the other hand, is much more interesting but, again, doesn't quite work as a character. One of the two characters who come as close to antagonists as this book has, Jennifer is an ultra-cool Sleepless who pursues rationality and pragmatism to the point of irrationality. She is convinced the only route for Sleepless survival is voluntary exile: first to an orbital habitat, then out into space completely. All her energy is directed toward these efforts, laying the groundwork for the secession of the Sleepless Sanctuary from the United States. She continues to tinker with the genes of Sanctuary's children, creating a new generation of "Supers," Sleepless whose neurological functions are hyper-accelerated—at the price of a loss of motor control that manifests as twitches and stuttering. Oh, and she stacks Sanctuary's ruling council with her own family members and viciously suppresses any dissent.
Jennifer is a caricature of an ultra-reactionary leader of the persecuted. She's too bad, closer to a moustached villain than a devious leader fighting for the survival of the Sleepless. There's never a question of whether she has crossed a line; she has crossed it, and for that she receives no sympathy for me. I don't view her as a credible threat or challenge, because the other characters will always have the moral high ground over her. If she had been more ambiguous, or at least more formidable, I might have enjoyed her role as an antagonist more.
The other antagonist comes rather late to the party. He frames Sleepless for attacks on Sleepers, including a Sleeper scientist who approaches Leisha to have develop a way of turning Sleepers into Sleepless. He's a much less important figure than Jennifer, of course, so accordingly he has less depth. Still, his involvement in the scientist's murder wasn't exactly my favourite revelation of the book. I don't really hold it against him, but he does highlight a vacancy in the roster: Leisha et al needed a true ally, a powerful Sleeper who nevertheless championed the cause of the Sleepless.
I quite liked the Supers, and Miri, and their struggle as a faction within the Sanctuary faction. The whole Other-within-the-Other motif is appealing, and Miri is one of the easiest characters with whom I could sympathize. Watching her struggle with her feelings for Tony, her own brother, and reconcile the knowledge that her mother could not look upon her with love, was close to heartbreaking. And of course, Miri and the Supers are exactly Jennifer's mistake: she tries to create an ultra-superhuman being, something beyond even her own generation of Sleepless, but she haughtily thinks she can somehow control them. While the Supers' sundering of their Sanctuary shackles was predictable, it was also the most entertaining and riveting part of the book.
Beggars in Spain isn't bad, but it is heavyhanded almost across the board: characters, philosophy, and plot could all have done with a much lighter touch. Just thinking of all the times the characters referred to "beggars" or "beggars in Spain," as if Kress was not confident we would make the connection between the philosophy and the book's title, makes me wince. I appreciate subtlety, and I notice its absence. While seldom enough to ruin a book for me—especially one as admittedly thoughtful and intriguing as this—it does detract from my enjoyment. Books are my drug of choice, and Beggars in Spain left me unsatisfied.
My Reviews of the Sleepless trilogy:
Beggars and Choosers →
this is a refreshing change from the strain of libertarianism that runs deep in science fiction.
Science fiction at its best! Beggars in Spain is set in the near future (year 2008, but it's written in 1992), where genetic engineering has advanced so much that it is now possible to genetically altered fetuses to possess certain qualities, including sleeplessness. Leisha, is one such genetically altered child, a Sleepless. As it so happens, her twin sister, Alice, is a Sleeper or a normal human child. What would happen in a family with two very distinct children growing up together. What would happen if you find out that you're a special child. Or that you and a select few of other Sleepless children have more brain power and more time to learn and accomplish things than other children, or even adult human beings? How would the other "normal" human beings react to this disruptive force in their daily lives, especially if they see that their economic abilities are being threatened by the Sleepless? On the other hand, what would Sleepless do? Do they try to integrate themselves better? Or do they think it's better for them to seclude themselves?
The cast of characters are also very believable, especially, I believe, the main antagonists. I've read a few comments that argue the antagonists are unbelievably too extreme in their "badness". But, I would argue that if you narrow down the relationships that you have with like-minded individuals, then more likely than not, you would start to lean towards fundamentalism and/or extremism, because you live in a self-fulfilling bubble.
One main reason why I don't give this book a 5-star rating, is because the way to story is being told. I believe in many places, the book feels flat to me. A lot of the events that occur in the book are told after the fact, through some other character telling the main characters of what had just happened. In other words, a lot of telling and not enough showing. However, it's still a very very good example of what science fiction can give to the world: several important questions to ponder on the subject of what it means to be human.
I find it especially interesting that Nancy Kress decided to write this book based on economic and political points of view. I believe an analogy of what happens in the book, is currently happening in our real world. Does an economic principles of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" work best for all humanity? Or does a more socialism system (everything for the community) work better?
The book tries to depict these two opposing economic systems as being unreasonable. For example, the Sleepless under Jennifer Sharifi tries to create a perfect Randian economic system, where only those who can contribute to the community is welcome. However, this leads to the question of what happens if one member of the community, for some reason, ceases to be able to contribute?
On the other hand, the United States has set up a perverted, in my opinion, system of social democracy. In this system, 80% of the population are "livers", who get to enjoy the perks of being alive with free everything (free food, free "brainies" drugs, free parties). All they gotta do is vote to get the money. The remaining 20% are called the "donkeys". They are the ones who keep the economy and the government running. They do business. They do legal administration. They are the elected officials who are slightly more intelligent and wealthier than the "livers". However, one thing that I find it strange is that the "donkeys" seem content to want to run things for the "livers". I would argue than the "donkeys" would want to create a separate system of economy from the "livers".
Another important issue discussed in this book is the issue of tolerance. How should we tolerate another group that is significantly different than the rest of us, especially if that group is also significantly better, more intelligent, and is more successful than us? Furthermore, this book also warns of the danger of fundamentalism, which echoes what's been going on in our real world very recently. Jennifer Sharifi, in her single-minded focus to protect "her community" from intolerance of the outside worlds, has, inadvertently, created an intolerant community herself.
One last, but not least, key point of the book is the ideas that there is no perfect community, and that to affect change one must attempt small changes bit by bit. I would argue that in this book Ms. Kress argues that there's no perfect economic, judicial and political system that guarantees equality and personal freedom to all. Like when Leisha realizes that the Yagaiist economic system isn't broad enough to accommodate all people on earth, because there will still be "beggars in Spain" (interestingly, why choose a relatively developed country in Europe? Why not some random third-world country?). But, at the same time Ms. Kress also argues that complete social democratic system is prone to manipulation without strong check from the populace. This is ironically shown by Jennifer Sharifi herself. In her attempt to create the perfect Randian economic system, she inadvertently creates a community that values sameness. There's no details in the book, but I think the way it works for the Sleepless community is that each individual works on certain projects that can be sold or traded with the outside world. The money from these transactions is then pooled into a fund to be distributed back to the community. However, this system doesn't work, because Jennifer Sharifi tries to control the entire thing. Therefore, to prevent gross abuse of power, there needs to be strong check from the rest of the community members, which requires differences to arise, which means inequality. Thus, there is no perfect system, because humans change.
The cast of characters are also very believable, especially, I believe, the main antagonists. I've read a few comments that argue the antagonists are unbelievably too extreme in their "badness". But, I would argue that if you narrow down the relationships that you have with like-minded individuals, then more likely than not, you would start to lean towards fundamentalism and/or extremism, because you live in a self-fulfilling bubble.
One main reason why I don't give this book a 5-star rating, is because the way to story is being told. I believe in many places, the book feels flat to me. A lot of the events that occur in the book are told after the fact, through some other character telling the main characters of what had just happened. In other words, a lot of telling and not enough showing. However, it's still a very very good example of what science fiction can give to the world: several important questions to ponder on the subject of what it means to be human.
I find it especially interesting that Nancy Kress decided to write this book based on economic and political points of view. I believe an analogy of what happens in the book, is currently happening in our real world. Does an economic principles of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" work best for all humanity? Or does a more socialism system (everything for the community) work better?
The book tries to depict these two opposing economic systems as being unreasonable. For example, the Sleepless under Jennifer Sharifi tries to create a perfect Randian economic system, where only those who can contribute to the community is welcome. However, this leads to the question of what happens if one member of the community, for some reason, ceases to be able to contribute?
On the other hand, the United States has set up a perverted, in my opinion, system of social democracy. In this system, 80% of the population are "livers", who get to enjoy the perks of being alive with free everything (free food, free "brainies" drugs, free parties). All they gotta do is vote to get the money. The remaining 20% are called the "donkeys". They are the ones who keep the economy and the government running. They do business. They do legal administration. They are the elected officials who are slightly more intelligent and wealthier than the "livers". However, one thing that I find it strange is that the "donkeys" seem content to want to run things for the "livers". I would argue than the "donkeys" would want to create a separate system of economy from the "livers".
Another important issue discussed in this book is the issue of tolerance. How should we tolerate another group that is significantly different than the rest of us, especially if that group is also significantly better, more intelligent, and is more successful than us? Furthermore, this book also warns of the danger of fundamentalism, which echoes what's been going on in our real world very recently. Jennifer Sharifi, in her single-minded focus to protect "her community" from intolerance of the outside worlds, has, inadvertently, created an intolerant community herself.
One last, but not least, key point of the book is the ideas that there is no perfect community, and that to affect change one must attempt small changes bit by bit. I would argue that in this book Ms. Kress argues that there's no perfect economic, judicial and political system that guarantees equality and personal freedom to all. Like when Leisha realizes that the Yagaiist economic system isn't broad enough to accommodate all people on earth, because there will still be "beggars in Spain" (interestingly, why choose a relatively developed country in Europe? Why not some random third-world country?). But, at the same time Ms. Kress also argues that complete social democratic system is prone to manipulation without strong check from the populace. This is ironically shown by Jennifer Sharifi herself. In her attempt to create the perfect Randian economic system, she inadvertently creates a community that values sameness. There's no details in the book, but I think the way it works for the Sleepless community is that each individual works on certain projects that can be sold or traded with the outside world. The money from these transactions is then pooled into a fund to be distributed back to the community. However, this system doesn't work, because Jennifer Sharifi tries to control the entire thing. Therefore, to prevent gross abuse of power, there needs to be strong check from the rest of the community members, which requires differences to arise, which means inequality. Thus, there is no perfect system, because humans change.