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lizshayne 's review for:
Beggars in Spain
by Nancy Kress
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book may hold the record for longest time between reading the beginning and the end. I'm pretty sure I started listening to it...before COVID. Definitely before I sped up my audiobooks.
The fact that I remembered enough about the story to pick it up says something.
Most of what it says is "what did I just read"? (For a given value of just)
This book is fascinating in the way it understands sectarianism and intelligence, especially when it comes to intellectual disability. It's particularly interesting because (like many marginalized sf writers, as opposed to white straight male writers), Kress is more interested in "What happens if" rather than polemics. Which makes, in particular, the portrayals of disability messy on any number of levels: whose life has value, how do we define value, a certain amount of magical healing...but because it's not polemical, Kress also lets it remain a problem rather than an argument. This book is uncomfortable, but precisely because it wants to think about the uncomfortable implications of genetic modification.
There is also, and this is my biggest critique of the text (aside from some of the freudian stuff), a complete absence of art as anything other than distraction (bad) or STEM support (good). Nothing about the human being's need for art or creativity. 90s. Whatever. That's probably the biggest frustration in the book. (The second biggest is that this was apparently a novella first that got expanded into a book AND IT SHOWS.)
The fact that I remembered enough about the story to pick it up says something.
Most of what it says is "what did I just read"? (For a given value of just)
This book is fascinating in the way it understands sectarianism and intelligence, especially when it comes to intellectual disability. It's particularly interesting because (like many marginalized sf writers, as opposed to white straight male writers), Kress is more interested in "What happens if" rather than polemics. Which makes, in particular, the portrayals of disability messy on any number of levels: whose life has value, how do we define value, a certain amount of magical healing...but because it's not polemical, Kress also lets it remain a problem rather than an argument. This book is uncomfortable, but precisely because it wants to think about the uncomfortable implications of genetic modification.
There is also, and this is my biggest critique of the text (aside from some of the freudian stuff), a complete absence of art as anything other than distraction (bad) or STEM support (good). Nothing about the human being's need for art or creativity. 90s. Whatever. That's probably the biggest frustration in the book. (The second biggest is that this was apparently a novella first that got expanded into a book AND IT SHOWS.)