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A review by piperita
The Ballad of Beta 2 by Samuel R. Delany
4.0
Personal rating: 5 stars. In a grand scheme of objective things, I'm not sure if this is indeed a 5-star book, as there are some narrative issues (which I will expand upon) that are somewhat clumsy that do diminish the quality of this book objectively. But subjectively I think I was blown away by this enough to give it the extra star-and-a-tidbit that maybe it doesn't entirely deserve.
It is still very much everything Samuel R. Delany is known for - a narrative that focuses on a particular concept (in this case, Delany's undying fascination with linguistics and cultural anthropology) and uses the plot and the characters to unpack it. Joneny is a student of anthropology stuck on having to write a report on a number of cultures. In the manner of every hot-headed young student, he singles out one of them and attempts to persuade his professor that he should not have to waste his time on researching such an insignificant culture - which, he argues, has contributed nothing but simple poems about things that they never actually experienced. His professor, like every good anthropologist and mentor, challenges him to prove himself wrong.
From personal experience of working in research (both medical and anthropological), Joneny's indignation over having to unpack his own biases and self-centered perspectives is sadly rather representative of a common flaw that constantly resurfaces in the academic community (young and old). For this alone, this book is, in a way, timeless in its value. Assuming nothing and observing carefully, to resolve an intellectual mystery, is proper science; and a science fiction book is an excellent vessel for stories about the scientific mindset.
The characters in this book are actually quite strong; I could mostly believe their emotional journeys, other than the bits where the narrative ran over some development for the sake of brevity. For a book written in 1965 is also has a very delightful subversion of a common trope that plagued female characters in science fiction almost non-stop even to this day.
The downfalls of this book is Delany's desire to keep it short; in the foreword of the edition I read, he described this as the book that he had written while bogged down and burned out in the middle of a seemingly endless trilogy, so he distracted himself by writing this to "remind himself how to end things." I don't think the reminder was so much about plot structure as it was about typing out the page with a big ol' "The End" attached to it. The biggest emotional point in the story is resolved more with the author's assertion that it is resolved rather than actually seeing it resolved; it is only rescued by the fact that the entire arc is seen through the eyes of Joneny, for whom that stunted emotional point is also extremely meaningful and serves to end his emotional journey that we have seen developing since the beginning of the book. Some of the passages, either due to Delany's then-lack of experience, or again due to the desire to keep it short, cheekily reveal too much too quickly to speed the story along. It is very readable and believeable until you start thinking about why the character would reveal such a thing so early, and then the suspension of disbelief gets shattered. But if you just accept that the book is kept short for the sake of shortness it is still quite enjoyable.
After finishing reading this book, I went out and found an original copy (from 1965) to add to my collection. Suffice it to say, I highly recommend it.
It is still very much everything Samuel R. Delany is known for - a narrative that focuses on a particular concept (in this case, Delany's undying fascination with linguistics and cultural anthropology) and uses the plot and the characters to unpack it. Joneny is a student of anthropology stuck on having to write a report on a number of cultures. In the manner of every hot-headed young student, he singles out one of them and attempts to persuade his professor that he should not have to waste his time on researching such an insignificant culture - which, he argues, has contributed nothing but simple poems about things that they never actually experienced. His professor, like every good anthropologist and mentor, challenges him to prove himself wrong.
From personal experience of working in research (both medical and anthropological), Joneny's indignation over having to unpack his own biases and self-centered perspectives is sadly rather representative of a common flaw that constantly resurfaces in the academic community (young and old). For this alone, this book is, in a way, timeless in its value. Assuming nothing and observing carefully, to resolve an intellectual mystery, is proper science; and a science fiction book is an excellent vessel for stories about the scientific mindset.
The characters in this book are actually quite strong; I could mostly believe their emotional journeys, other than the bits where the narrative ran over some development for the sake of brevity. For a book written in 1965 is also has a very delightful subversion of a common trope that plagued female characters in science fiction almost non-stop even to this day.
Spoiler
In the mysterious-pregnancy-with-an-alien, the female character who gets pregnant is a respected and intelligent captain of the one of the ships; not only is she treated as an equal by the entity, she is given the choice of whether she wants the pregnancy or not, and her reasons for accepting it are not "all women secretly just want to have babies" but rather a considerably more masculine "I will have hundreds of descendants who fulfill my greatest desire - a human race built to survive among the stars". Oh also she gets the fetus transferred to a gestation tank because she doesn't want to actually carry the pregnancy to term. No big deal.The downfalls of this book is Delany's desire to keep it short; in the foreword of the edition I read, he described this as the book that he had written while bogged down and burned out in the middle of a seemingly endless trilogy, so he distracted himself by writing this to "remind himself how to end things." I don't think the reminder was so much about plot structure as it was about typing out the page with a big ol' "The End" attached to it. The biggest emotional point in the story is resolved more with the author's assertion that it is resolved rather than actually seeing it resolved; it is only rescued by the fact that the entire arc is seen through the eyes of Joneny, for whom that stunted emotional point is also extremely meaningful and serves to end his
After finishing reading this book, I went out and found an original copy (from 1965) to add to my collection. Suffice it to say, I highly recommend it.