Andrea Leistra wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Oct 2000, Claire Bickell wrote:
>
>> Andrea Leistra wrote:
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>>> After reading _The Wasp Factory_, _Use of Weapons_ seems very tame indeed.
>>>
>> You think? Wasp Factory is icky, but it's really about fucked up
>> individuals, with less implication for the broader society. But Use of
>> Weapons, is a story of a person capable of great evil being used by a society
>> capable of great evil. Icky on a grander scale. And, for me, ultimately
>> more disturbing.
>>
> I don't necessarily see 'icky' and 'evil' as the same thing. The stuff in the
> back of my fridge is icky, but not evil (it hasn't been there *quite* long
> enough to evolve sentience).
>
Sorry, I was using icky in the technical sense to mean morally unpleasant.
And I don't really like the term evil at all (so I shouldn't have used it).
> This is necessarily going to involve spoilers for both books, including
> *major* ones for UoW. You Have Been Warned.
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> Well, the ickyness of _Wasp Factory_ was much more immediate, less removed;
> Zakalwe in UoW was *capable* of great evil, sure, and had in fact perpetrated
> great evil in the past, but at the time of the later timeline in the book
> (this is really hard to talk about, we need more tenses or something) I didn't
> have the impression that he *would*. Again, I really need to reread it,
> because the second time through, when you know who Zakalwe really is and what
> he has done, I can easily see that his later actions, after The Chair, would
> appear in a different light. And while the Culture is *capable* of evil, in
> the sense of pure physical prowess, they're too nice to actually bother with
> it -- Special Circumstances might screw something up, but they always mean
> well, for some not too unreasonable definitions of "well". Certainly they
> aren't out blowing up stars with inhabited systems for _fun_, though they
> certainly could.
>
This I disagree with. They mean well. Yes, in general, with all the
obvious provisos and qualifications that go with that. But ultimately
they're about interferring with other civilisations because it it makes them
feel better. As Consider Phlebas makes clear, they don't interfer because
of any moral impreative, other than the desire to give their lives some
meaning. That's certainly not an aim that unambiguously good.
The Culture is certainly physically capable of evil, but it is also a
society capable of countencing acts of great evil against individuals, for
some ultimate good, defined by them.
And, arguably is is highly responsible of the Culture to use a weapon like
Zakalwe ans allow it to run off by itself and inflict damage on people and
societies. Like letting ROUs run around without the moral imperative to
refrain from the violence they're capable of.
> In _The Wasp Factory_, though, you have people who are evil to the full extent
> of their capabilities -- not just an abstract potential, but really there
> acting it out. And there are *no* redeeming features, no hope, no promise for
> redemption, no sympathetic characters. Just nasty people doing nasty things
> in a nasty world.
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Yes, exactly. Nasty people doing nasty things in a nasty world. There are
no justifications. And these are individuals acting against other
individuals. And while it is a nasty world, there's no sense of large scale
intent for good or evil.
> This isn't to say I thought it was a bad book, because I didn't. I even found
> parts of it very funny (the phone calls, primarily, and frighteningly enough
> the giant-kite bit). I just think it's a whole lot darker than UoW.
I also think it's great. It is, as you say, nasty people doing nasty things
in a nasty world. I don't see how UoW is any different.
Claire Bickell
