I thought I would add another post today, as tomorrow my schedule
may get somewhat busy, and I don't know how much writing and posting I will be
able to do for the next while. Blondeau's stories ("The Borax Road
Affair" and "Finding Flotsom") are compelling in their portrayal
of times set hundreds of years in the future, with characters both strong and
complex. He writes about what our world might be like with a vision that not
many of us today share, or are willing to share. When most of us look at the
future we usually have some rainbow and unicorn view of a technologically
advanced civilization where all our current problems have been resolved. I,
like many of us, grew up on a diet of Star Trek and its ilk, and part of
me is still waiting to be beamed aboard the Enterprise or to have Scotty
scan away all those pesky bodily ills we acquire as we age.
We live in a time of Trumpian revisionism, of "truthiness", where the truth seems as free-flowing as the course of a wild river in springtime. Facts and fiction make strange bedfellows these days. Yet fictional depictions of the future can hold truths that may someday be etched in stone. At the very least they challenge our preconceptions of what's real and possible, and give us tools and templates to examine our world with a clearer vision.
We live in a time of Trumpian revisionism, of "truthiness", where the truth seems as free-flowing as the course of a wild river in springtime. Facts and fiction make strange bedfellows these days. Yet fictional depictions of the future can hold truths that may someday be etched in stone. At the very least they challenge our preconceptions of what's real and possible, and give us tools and templates to examine our world with a clearer vision.
“The Borax1 Road Affair” by Bill
Blondeau (After Oil 3: Years of Rebirth,
Founder’s House, 2015)
The story opens with the
arrival by horseback of a delegation of “Tonorónos” to the walled citadel of
“Cass Merides”, where they are welcomed by “Dun” Corro, the Cass’s ruler, to
the very important conference that is to be held there. The delegation from
Tonorón is led by Dun Heitor, whose “bristling mustachios, and fierce watchful
face were the very picture of a Humano warrior of the dry hills”. Both groups
are joined by a third from “the Furnace” who will act as mediators to settle
the long-festering dispute* between the prideful Duns. The setting is several
hundred years in the future, if not more. Global warming has wreaked havoc on
North America and an arid, windy climate is the norm in the region where our
story takes place, but just where, exactly, is difficult to pinpoint:
Initially, the dry American Southwest seemed most likely. The use of Latino
names and traditions suggests Arizona or California, but when the Furnace
ambassador, Firix, proposes the construction of a road south to the “Dead Dry”
(an all but uninhabitable region due to global warming) to mine the borax
necessary for their industries, there is a “frisson of superstitious awe” in
the audience because the Dead Dry, we are told, “was in many respects the Hell
of Circumpolar cultures.” As well,
we learn that the proposed mining operation is “thousands of miles to the
south.” A further clue is in his description of the katabateco—winds that blow strongly down from the mountains onto
the hotter, dry plains, like the actual katabatic
winds that are formed and travel in regions where high, cold elevations are
in close proximity to dry, warm lowlands. Thus, the story’s setting may be where
the Rocky Mountains and foothills fall away onto the prairies or northern
forest areas of Canada—though in Blondeau’s future, the land has been
transformed into a region where dryland permaculture is practiced. But ultimately, where the story takes place is not particularly relevant. What is
significant is how much of the past has fallen away and how well Blondeau
creates such a richly textured present.
With a third-person narration, the story
opens like a spaghetti western movie, with the ritual procession of potential
duelists, displays of skilled horsemanship, colourful uniforms, flags and the
pride (and machismo) of all participants in a precarious balance. It is a
pageant that is orchestrated with ritual and ceremony, and carefully crafted language
that belies the underlying tensions and potential violence of the gathering.
Blondeau’s narration alternates from descriptions of the pageantry to providing
the reader with the thoughts of some of the main characters, and we quickly
come to understand that the mindscapes of the Humanos (as the elites are
called) are decidedly different than our own. We learn they are trained in
mnemonic techniques that allow them to retain and process large amounts of
information by compartmentalizing their brains to act almost like computers.
These techniques allow them to analyze the information they gather—say
recalling a family’s distant genetic heritage, or the significance of an
inflection in someone’s speech pattern—all while carrying on a seemingly
innocuous conversation. Talk about multi-tasking!
And it is through the thoughts of Dina
Zemena, “Breedmistress” of Cass Merides and mother of Dun Corro, we learn of a
less savory aspect of Humano training—the breeding of humans** into regimented
castes and specialities. As she looks over the gathering of Merideaza
inhabitants and guests, Zemena reflects on the various bloodlines she has bred
over the years, including the “servitors and work slaves” who “had little else
of interest about them: competent and placid, human stock bred to less that
Humano potential.” There are “companions” selected for “allure and
sensitivity…to discerning the mood and affect of their assigned guests”; and
deadly bodyguards called “Hounds” that are “human slavestock bred for reflexes,
focus, and wide spectrum awareness; trained to kill and to slink, assassin and
commando.” In the Lower Hall of Cass Merides, Zemena’s “inner eye”, or what
Humanos call their “imtir”, recalls
the genealogies of various bloodlines going back generations, including members
of the Humano elites. She also uses her imtir
to examine the dining guests seated there following the meeting of the
delegations earlier in the day. Her attention is drawn to the ambassador from
the Furnace, and she feels a growing unease. Her imtir tabulations concerning Firix are interrupted by her deeper,
intuitive “sconsciende”+ which warns her that the
ambassador is a hidden threat.
Later, as she walks in the “sunken lanes
of the Cass Merides gardens” with Heitor and the “Outwalker” Patru, the peace
of the early evening is disturbed for Zemena by the inexplicable level of
threat that Heitor subtly exhibits in his words and demeanor. Patru, too,
senses a disturbance in the air; he hears disquieting singing in the distance
that he realizes is another example of the specialized mental abilities
developed by Humanos. It was “…the Singing that Humanos used to cast thoughts
into the imtir of others. He disliked
it, recognizing the kind of dueling Song that he had heard on only a few occasions.”
Earlier in the day, Ambassador Firix had told the assembled delegates the story
of the famous ‘singing duel’ of some years before between Heitor and Corro,
where Corro’s hypnotic singing had so entranced Heitor that the younger Dun was
able to take the unwitting Heitor’s sword from its scabbard, thus defeating and
humiliating him (and of course continuing the feud into the next generation).
In the garden, Patru listens for the distant clash of dueling swords that he’s
sure will follow the ending of the battle Song, but the singing and any
attendant sounds are lost in the rising winds. These subtle elements of threat
and violence foreshadow the larger events of conflict and war soon to follow.
A major theme that Blondeau explores in
this well-crafted tale is dead-ends. The Humano culture is exemplified by the
highly specialized mental skills of its elites and by its rigidly maintained
caste system. Within the Cass society, adepts use their imtirs for much of their interactions with other Humanos, and to
gather and process information when dealing with non-Humanos such as the
Outwalker Patru and the Furnace ambassador Firix. It is a remarkable
achievement and, narratively, a clever extrapolation by Blondeau on the
potential for the human mind to achieve what currently computers do for us.
Nevertheless, Zemena has a revelation as she studies the ambassador. She is
aware that Firix has a secret but she is unable to discover it because her mind
is not open for interrogation or manipulation as would a Humano’s mind. She has
a briefly chilling thought: “Have we so specialized ourselves that we are at a
disadvantage when dealing with a formidable imtir-blind
individual?” In light of the events that follow, Zemena’s concern is warranted.
It is interesting that this ‘blindness’ to others is shared by Firix who is
surprised at her own response to the gathered Humanos, as she thinks: “I like
these people.” Similarly, Zemena, as they walk in the flower gardens that
evening, realizes she “likes” Heitor, the man who years earlier had killed her
husband in a duel. And when she uses her imtir
to ‘scan’ the various delegates seated at dinner, she perhaps senses its
shortcomings when she thinks, quite poignantly: “We live and walk alone, all of
us. We know so little of one another, studying half-guessed fabrications.” The
special mental abilities of the Humanos may inadvertently put them at a remove
from others—to their peril. As well, the special training that an ambassador
must undergo, as Zemena notes: the “years of training in concealment and
schooling appearances and verbal misdirection…” may have a similar effect on
Firix—narrowing her perspective and limiting her ability to understand other
people.
Is the Humano way of life more precarious
and at risk than anyone would have thought? Is it vulnerable to attack from
“barbarian” outsiders who Humanos consider barely human? Is it a dead-end, a
‘hothouse’ culture, protected from extinction by only the thinnest glass?
As for the Ambassador’s people, we learn that
the Furnace is politically divided between two groups; one of which would allow
the industrial technologies they inherited from the past to wind down naturally
as the resources required to maintain them (such as borax reserves) become
depleted++. Called the
“Successionists”, they are those who would move away from the past. Succession is an ecological term used
to describe “the process of change in the species structure of an ecological
community over time. The time scale can be decades (for example, after a
wildfire), or even millions of years after a mass extinction.” 2 Their chief rivals are
the “Exceptionists” who “would have wrestled against fate and loss and destiny”
to maintain the “crucibles” and manufactories that are the foundation of their
society, and who are vociferous supporters of the Borax Road project. We learn
that Firix is decidedly in the former camp and, in fact, she conspires to
disrupt the peace talks between the two Duns and promote a frontier conflict
that will block the only viable route for the road in the ensuing chaos of open
warfare between the Humano Houses. In her desperation to counter the rising
political power of the Exceptionists, she acts to bring her own culture’s
social project to an end (and to make room for the successor societies to
follow). And she is successful in her bid, though not entirely in the way she
planned.
The inevitable decline of Furnace
society—one that bases it wealth and power on salvaging materials from the
ruins of a nearby “Waster” city, and relying on non-renewable resources or ones
that are difficult and expensive to acquire—is a pretty obvious example of a
way of life that is past it pull date, even if many who live there will have to
be dragged kicking and screaming to that conclusion. There is irony in the fact
that many of the products manufactured by the furnace include solar panels,
solar powered steam engines, windmills and the like—technologies that do not
require fossil fuels—but at the same time, the legacy industrialism of the Waster
times carries with it the potential for future societies, such as those
existing in the Humano’s time, to readopt their ancestors’ destructive
ways—unless there are countering forces to balance and modify this tendency.
Firix alludes to this during her speech to the delegates when she thinks with
admiration of the Humano, and how they “were a sword-and-bow culture [the Furnace has gun technology] not
because they lacked the ability to learn but because they were dedicated to
being able to craft their own tools, instruments, and weapons. Successors make their own.” As a
Successionist, she believes in this ethos, to the point where she conspires to
cause death and destruction in a bid to stop the Exceptionist faction within
her society.
Patru, the Outwalker, travels the world
studying different cultures and ways of living. His description of the “mad
confusion” of the lively Siberian seaport of Xishia as its inhabitants prepare
for the coming of an arctic storm contrasts with the placid tidiness of the
food gardens surrounding Cass Merides and the “purposeful activity” of the work
slaves as they prepare for the
approaching katabateco
windstorm. He describes the differences
between each community’s response to the imminent storms, and comments to Zemena
and Heitor that he has never seen a place anywhere “so clean as Casa Merides”,
which might be as close as the cautious and discreet traveller will come to
giving a ‘backhand’ compliment. I suspect that Patru does not put cleanliness
particularly high on his list of the qualities that make a society strong and
sustainable and worthy of survival. The wildness of Xishia, he tells his
listeners, is “perhaps the closest a man can come, in this day and age, to
understanding the free chaotic allure of the old Waster way of life”, and
stands in sharp contrast to the controlled orderliness of Cass Merides. The
Outwalker comes from lands far to the east called the Nofori Tanglewoods, and
Blondeau’s use of the word “Tanglewoods” is significant. The word brings to mind
things caught up, tangled; mixed together like brambles or tumbleweeds or like
the ‘batches’ of knowledge from distant lands brought together by the
Outwalkers and ‘interwoven’ at Nofori. It is interesting that, at one point,
Zemena thinks about Patru and how he comes from such a great distance away “…out there in the Dry. They [Outwalkers]
are wise to fear the effects of isolation”.
Perhaps Zemena’s fear that Humano society has become too “specialized”, too
isolated to survive is one shared by the Outwalkers, as well?
Patru’s role is seen as a corrective, a
way to bridge the differences between (and correct the deficiencies within)
Humano and Furnace cultures. In a way, he is like a tumbleweed coming into a
new ecological niche (by chance captured by the Merideza) and is present at a
moment when war’s wildfires ‘clear the ground’, in a sense, for a successor
society. And like a weed, his knowledge can act as the first seeding for new
growth.
Finally, Blondeau’s use of the word
“Potential” is interesting. Zemena uses it to describe Corro as “the exemplar
of Humano Potential” and later characterizes Heitor as “a titan”. “Exemplar”
and “titan” describe each Humano as essentially finished works, final products
of Humano breeding techniques. Here, the example of a climax community within an ecological niche comes to mind—the type
of growth that has reached its full potential and where, according to the
theory of secession, the local environment has been altered over time by the
community, to the point where the community itself begins to degrade—after
which, it can only give way over time to other forms as environmental impacts,
age and invasive species make inroads into its established order. However, potential—with a small p—suggests
something that is, as yet, not actual, and still having the
capacity to become something. An example of this type of potential is when
Zemena recalls how she overrode her late-husband’s demand that the Hound,
Alesha, having being found sterile—thus having no potential as breeding
stock—be put to death. Zemena, who thought of Alesha as “the greatest of all
the bloodlines [she] had cultivated”, sensed something more in her creation and
kept her alive, even though the Hound had reached her full ‘Potential’ in
Humano terms. Zemena sees there is more to her beyond the ‘dead end’ of her
bloodline. In ecological terms, there are trees in a forest that die off for
any number of reasons, but both their time of growth and death are part of the
larger cycle of growth and death of the forest as a whole. Just because Alesha
can no longer ‘grow’ in the sense of reproducing doesn’t mean she is unable to
remain an integral part of Cass Merides. And it was a good thing Zemena sensed
this in Alesha, for in later years the Hound saved Corro’s life on more than
one occasion, as she bravely did Zemena’s own life at the story’s climax.
Despite the “[p]roud creature” being a genetic dead-end, Alesha still had much
more to offer. And, as an aside, it is interesting Zemena does not offer
similar examples of female Humano
‘exemplars’ or ‘titans’. (Surely, Zemena herself would qualify in this
category?) Alesha, sterile and of “slavestock”, is the only example of a
superior female bloodline Zemena acknowledges, though, while using her imtir to analyze the assembled guests
she examines a woman from Cass Estresa: “Carnente herself burned bright in
Zemena’s vision. Such of Carnente’s imtir
as Zemena had been able to understand, or guess, floated in the air around her,
and seemed good and well-shaped.” There
is a contrast between the demonstrative “Potential” of male elites in Humano
culture and the hidden potential of its females. (Blondeau explores this
further in his 2016 short story “Finding Flotsam”, set many centuries, or
perhaps a millennia or more forward from the time of the Humanos, where he
presents a remarkable upending of gender roles.)
At the story’s end, we see Patru and
Zemena sitting together on an outdoor balcony overlooking the flatlands of
Calicar Barran’ as the “Hell Wind” rises in the east. We learn that war has
broken out between Cass Merides and Cass Tonoróno; that Heitor has been killed
and the fate of Corro is unknown. Zemena confides to Patru that she will use
guile and subterfuge in her dealings with the Furnace and the treacherous new
ruler of Cass Tonoróno, and that she will keep Firix on a short leash and use
the Furnace ambassador to fight the Exceptionists; methods the Outwalker
playfully chides her as being “theatrical.” In other words, Zemena will adopt
new, non-Humano ways of dealing with others, theatrical or not.
As they sit watching the rising winds,
Patru imagines in his mind the great project of the Borax Road that will never
come to be. It is road that has come to an end, and is perhaps one of many he
has contemplated in his travels. Zemena, meanwhile, looks to the future. She
waits for the return of the “longed-for shapes of men and women”, of her son
Corro, alive or dead. Then, perhaps between them (like wind blowing down from
the cold plateaus to combine with airs on the hot plains below), the potential
for something new will grow.
Postscript: There are two elements that I neglected to
address in my essay—one is the structure of Humano society, with each Cass
headed by a male Dun. It is a society ruled by men. There are powerful women, such as Zemena, the Breedmistress (whose name
advises us that Humano breeding practices are traditionally done by women).
Corro’s chief advisor, for example, his “syndic”, is female; there are female
guards and fighters like Alesha, valued for their physical prowess yet, as
Zemena looks out over the gathered Humanos, she feels slighted:
And here
we all sit, she thought. Impetuous Trihanj is now Corro’s most loyal syndic and
Corro, triumphant in war and intrigue, the exemplar of Humano Potential, sits
at the head of the Table—while I, as Breedmistress, review the ladies being
paraded for his notice.
Such an
imbalance in the power structure of Humano society, and such bitterness coming
from the mother of Corro—whom we might think would be content as the ‘queen
mother’ of Cass Merides—suggests a society that may be approaching a crossroads
in its development.
The second is religion or spirituality—an
element noticeably absent from both Humano and Furnace societies. This suggests
a human-centric ethos that might be seen as another legacy from the Waster
years. While there are elements of the ecological process of “succession” found
in both Humano and Furnace cultures that might someday form the basis of a Gaian, earth-centric belief system; that
is a very long way off. The “sconsciende”
or “hidden undermind” that Zemena
experiences as she examines Ambassador Firix, might represent an emergent,
non-rational, proto-spiritualism that will someday emerge into more robust
forms. I was reminded of this lack of
any spiritual side to the cultures and people portrayed in this story after
reading Bill Blondeau’s “Finding Flotsam” where faith, gods, sin and redemption
are abundantly in evidence.
* We are
told that Cass Merides’s Dun Greguru, father to Corro and husband of Zemena,
was killed in a duel years before by Heitor, and that Corro later defeated
Heitor in a “Singing duel”, perpetuating the hostilities between the two
Houses.
** Of
course, images of “bottle babies” from Brave New World come to mind, as do
variations on the theme of eugenics, the “Master Race”, today’s “designer
babies” and so on. Zemena is committed to the process of manipulating human
bloodlines; it is the basis for stability in Humano culture and practiced by
all the Cass holdings. The pride she takes in the results of her endeavors is
that of a successful horse breeder noting the strengths and potential of a
prize racehorse. Given Blondeau’s depictions of the richness and refinement of
Cass Merides’ life (at least for the elites), the reader can be forgiven a
grudging admiration for what the Breedmistress and her tradition have
accomplished. Humano society is stable and successful, if highly regimented.
Even the decade-long conflict between Cass Merides and Cass Tonoróno has not
disrupted the flow of life around the citadel, nor harmed its economy. (The
fact that the Humanos believe in “Successionist” principles, and are
consequently more self-sufficient, also may have something to do with the stability
of Cass society.)
Here, the character of Patru—an
“Outwalker” who spends his life travelling the world—provides a corrective.
Patru is being held prisoner by Dun Corro for unspecified reasons, though he is
treated more like a respected guest. During a garden walk with Heitor and
Zemena he comments that the Humano are in many respects “greater individuals
than any I have encountered”, but his comments on Humano slaves and the fact
that both his people and the Humanos come from the same “breed of people as the
Wasters [Us!], nearly bring him to grief with the thin-skinned and
potentially violent Heitor. Finally, he says: “Forgive me, I beg you both. I
meant no insult to the Humano breeding endeavors.” Here, Blondeau provides a
glimpse, somewhat jarring from a
narrative perspective, of the Outwalker’s thoughts: “Even if I think them
unlikely to bear fruit.”
[Blondeau’s inclusion of Patru’s thoughts
is a little jarring because the third person limited narration includes the
thoughts of Zemena (our story’s protagonist) and Firix (the antagonist), and
one from Corro. The character of Patru is helpful as a device to provide
information about the broader world, and to present a counterpoint to Humano
social values. However, within a short story narrative, multiple perspectives
can be tricky—the more we know about a character, generally the more we want to
know. (Thus, plotlines can go off in unproductive directions and characters can
be left twisting in the wind.) It is one thing for a third person narration to tell us what a character thinks or
feels, but to reveal those thoughts and feelings directly is where a careful balancing of perspective is necessary.
With longer narratives this isn’t a problem; that’s what novels are for, after
all. Blondeau avoids this difficulty for the most part, though as I read the
passage where Patru’s thoughts are revealed directly, almost two-thirds of the
way through the story, I wondered if another major point of view was being
introduced at what seemed rather late in the narrative.
As for Patru, he is interesting in his own
right, and the more Blondeau unveils him (directly or with third-person
narration), the more we want to know about him, and his travels, and what he
has seen and learned. The same goes for Corro, Zemena’s son. Will he survive?
We want to know! Other characters beg for life—Alesha, Trihanj, even Zemena’s
“ghosts”! Yep, it’s time for Bill to turn this delightful tale into a novel!
There is certainly enough for one.]
Will the Humano society as it is currently
configured survive? Should it? Is it ultimately a sterile experiment in social
engineering, barren like the Hound Alesa or merely monstrous and deserving of
an end? Are there elements in it worth preserving, like its permaculture technology,
for example? Other peoples with other types of societies in other regions of
this future world exist—the “brawling cities of the Siberian Coast”, for
example. What is the right and proper way for humans to live and order
themselves? And is there a single template?
+ “The
counterpoint of the brilliantly rational imtir
is the sconsciende, the hidden
undermind, wellspring of luck and fate, of disaster and intuition, of shadows
that cannot be dispelled by thought.”
++ It
should be noted that the technologies and products developed by the Furnace
include windmills, solar powered steam engines, solar panels; in other words,
they are not simply perpetuating industrial practices that rely solely on
fossil fuels (which by this time may be difficult to access or depleted
entirely). What the Exceptionists would do in terms of the types of
technologies and industrial practices they
might promote is a good question. Firix comments that “El Exception is the same
old evil that pushed the Wasters.” She goes on to say that she finds beauty in
the precision engineering of their techniques and that she, “loves the things
we make in our crucibles. But…I believe that humanity can no more reject the temptation of those old arts than
humanity can reject the drive to fecundity.” Even ‘green’ technologies and
products of the Furnace, according to Firix, have an inherent tendency to
continue the excesses of the Waster era. [As an aside, the image of unbridled
procreation contrasts with the careful (if problematic) Humano breeding
program. What such a discipline might potentially contribute in the future is
unknown.]
1.
Borax has many
uses: The Humanos use borax in the production of mirrors for solar panels.
Another important use for borax is as a flux;
adding ammonium chloride to it for welding iron and steel. It lowers the
melting point of the unwanted iron oxide (scale), allowing it to run
off. Borax is also used mixed with water as a flux when soldering jewelry
metals such as gold or silver. It allows the molten solder to flow evenly over
the joint in question. Borax is also a good flux for "pre-tinning"
tungsten with zinc – making the tungsten soft-solderable. Borax is often used
as a flux for forge welding. Borax was first discovered in dry lake beds in Tibet and was imported via the Silk
Road to the Arabian Peninsula in the 8th Century AD. It first came into common
use in the late 19th century when Francis Marion Smith's Pacific Coast Borax
Company began to market and popularize a large variety of applications
under the 20 Mule Team Borax trademark, named for the method by which
borax was originally hauled out of the California
and Nevada deserts in large enough quantities to make it cheap and commonly
available.
2. The
community begins with relatively few pioneering plants and animals, and
develops through increasing complexity until it becomes stable or
self-perpetuating as a climax community. The ʺengineʺ of succession, the cause
of ecosystem change, is the impact of established species upon their own
environments. A consequence of living is the sometimes subtle and sometimes
overt alteration of one's own environment.
Succession was among the first theories
advanced in ecology. The study of succession remains at the core of ecological
science. Ecological succession was first documented in the Indiana Dunes of
Northwest Indiana which led to efforts to preserve the Indiana Dunes. Henry Chandler Cowles published his work as a paper in
the Botanical Gazette in 1899:
"The Ecological Relations of the Vegetation of the Sand Dunes of
Lake Michigan".
[Thanks, as always, to Wikipedia for the reference quotes!]
[Thanks, as always, to Wikipedia for the reference quotes!]
“Finding Flotsam” by Bill Blondeau, (After Oil 4: The Future’s Distant Shores, Founder’s House, 2016)
Picture by DeviantArt
|
One
of the things that makes “Finding Flotsam” a compelling a read is Blondeau’s
descriptive language—of the sea, the winds, the sky—and clouds like the feared
“Fingerbones” that descend in storms, as Rahifa describes to the Ragfin’s crew:
But who
can know when a Fingerbone want to descend? And what can any woman do when
Fingerbone come plunging down? […] Little warning we had. Little warning, no
chance. Shriek came sudden from up above…sound to shake the bones out of you.
Moments work only, Limstrake broken.
Fingerbone ripped the sticks out. Ruin, cordage and spar overside.
It’s a
compelling image of high altitude cloud formations falling to the sea surface
to wreak havoc on the helpless ship; all the more so because the clouds appear
shaped like skeletal fingers, suggesting it is the ‘hand of man’ that has
created such deadly storms. But there is beauty on the wild seas, too.
Blondeau’s third-person narration describes Lasirenn, as anthropomorphized
elements of sky and wind: “Lasirenn, whose wonderful silken moonfan of a tail
lifts the swells of the world, Lasirenn, with her hair of sunrise and sunset
cirrus…” And later, Eastwind prays to the goddess to guide their ship to
Flotsam: “The wild clouds, like brooms and feathers, flared out around the setting
sun. ‘Your hair is so beautiful,’ she whispered aloud.” And finally, after
their arrival on Flotsam as Eastwind holds the dying Rahifa in her arms, she
looks to the morning sky “[a]nd Lasirenn’s blazing hair unfurled redgold
overhead, in a deep blue sky that spoke of storms to come, next day, or the day
after.”
Blondeau’s main theme in “Finding Flotsam”
is transformation (or perhaps the
ecological process of “succession”, something he examines in his earlier story,
“The Borax Road Affair”, might be another way of putting it), and with
transformation is the element of re-combining, of bringing together bits and
pieces, by accident or intentionally—of people, of religions and beliefs, of
past and present, and of lands (like Flotsam), and making something else. For
example, we learn during their taking of the Crew Oath, that Rahifa and
Eastwind are unfamiliar with the captain’s shark god they must swear by, giving
the reader the impression of a world full of local gods and beliefs. But by the
story’s end the crew of the Ragfin
are united under Eastwind as their new captain and will follow Lasirenn. The
goddess and the beliefs around her unite those on board the ship; like
‘flotsam’ they will congregate and change as individuals into a greater whole.
Lasirenn, too, has transformed. Originally a deity located in the sea and
depicted as a mermaid, she is now seen as part of the winds (“she who breaths
the storms”) and the clouds and sky, though her moonfan tail (that “lifts the
swells of the world”) recalls her mermaid beginnings. Hers has become a ‘larger
project’ in a sense; it is through her that the actions of the winds and the
waves occur. She is the goddess of the sea and
the sky; it remains to be seen whether she will become the goddess of the land,
as well. The mermaid Lasirenn no longer pulls people down under the water to
drown1, instead, those
like Eastwind look skyward and appeal to her in prayer, but in both her earlier
version and her current form, everyone is transformed by her touch.
The mysterious, seldom-seen city of
Flotsam is a physical example of the process of transformation. Having begun as
a mass of seaweed (the Sargasso Sea?), it was used as a dumping area for
various chemicals and weapons. Over time, marine debris (flotsam and jetsam) accumulated until
“[c]enturies of wind and wave had humped its ever-thickening mats up into a
series of ridges and arches and folds, clothed in forest, fading inland.” It
became a place of habitation and life, and for Eastwind and Rahifa and the many
seafarers like them, it was a place of hope and wonder. Aloft on the mast,
shortening sail with Squallbone Ponela, the woman tells Eastwind about the
floating city: “[It is] one of the biggest weed raft any ocean. Old Biologist
use it for wartime dump, they. Fill it with horrible things. After centuries,
mutagen they decay or get chelated out. Wild speciation they calm down…” Over
the centuries Flotsam has transformed, but the component parts that make it up
are still there, however much altered. Other examples of transformation include
the breaking apart of the whaling weapons that had been part of Captain Usad’s Ragfin—the deadly iron spars repurposed
and “made clean again in a forge.” The “Watch Hex” (used to guide a ship’s
crew, but under Usad was a means to control and manipulate them) will be
re-designed, “scoured, replotted and regraved…to a more wholesome purpose” by
the “Healer and Figurator”, Basilika. A third example is Eastwind, herself. We
are told she is someone who is “…a descendant of the Old Biologists’ decadent
genetic whimsy: her dark brown skin streaked with elegant black decorative
marks, rich green hair flaring in the wind, burned silver at the tips and
crown.” And her eyes are “keen as a cat’s in the gloom”. In Eastwind’s case she is the deliberate
product of genetic manipulation; her predecessors having been bred for specific
purposes and with special attributes. Her physical prowess is demonstrated in
her ability to manoeuver the sailboard “with a near inhuman command over her body”,
and later, in her persona of “Afra Mankiller”, we witness her deadly fighting
skills. She is an ‘accretion’ of scientific experiments from the past. Hers is
a rare heritage; there are not many like her in the world.
Furthermore, we learn that she is composed
of several personas: the pirate, Afra
Mankiller, and the scholar, Traggva Steinlaugsdottir; there might be others, as
Eastwind confides to Basilka: “Few more. How many, not even entirely sure, me.
I’m newest, youngest. Was upset when my predecessors don’t tell me everything.
Secretive, they.” Accumulated within her are other complete personalities who
bring forth unique intellects and physical skills. Eastwind can summon them
from her psyche, but she does not control them. Like those who commune beneath
the waves with the Haitian Iwa, Lasiren, and live, Eastwind ‘resurfaces’, not
remembering much of what happened while she was in one of her other personas,
though aware she was helped and instructed by them. We are not told if these
personalities are, or were, actual people, or if they represent archetypes or
past lives or memories. We only know that hers is the “newest” personality to
emerge and, as she tells Basilka, she would like to live a little longer as
Eastwind. It is unclear whether Eastwind’s ability is a product of Old
Biologists’ experimentation or something that has grown naturally within her.
That Eastwind is a ‘composite’ human being, someone who has accreted to her
physical and psychic abilities over time is in keeping with the story’s main
theme in which the earth’s climate, its lands and seas; its places, people,
their beliefs and customs all transform, with the past merging into half-formed
future configurations.
Here, it is instructive to recall
Blondeau’s “The Borax Road Affair”.
That story was set several hundred years from today’s time, while “Finding
Flotsam” is hundreds of years or more further along the timeline. Elements from
the earlier story: the breeding practices of the “Humano”; the mental
discipline of “imtir” consciousness and the unpredictable “sconsciende” are developed more fully in
“Finding Flotsam”. For example, the Old Biologists’ successful breeding
experiments** include
Eastwind (who reminds the reader of Alesha, the deadly bodyguard from the
earlier story.) Additionally, creatures such as Belladonna, the rigging cat
with opposable thumbs and a prehensile tail; and the vicious half-lizard, half
“guardcat” called a “Slink” appear to be products of genetic experiments, while
the various vermin aboard the Ragfin,
the strange life forms such as the seemingly sentient “Eyes of the Sea”, and
the “less familiar tentacled creatures” in the waters of the Gyre and giant
sharks suggest the effects from wild speciation and mutagens are still active
in the world as legacies of the “Waster” past or else as uncontrolled
by-products from Old Biologists’ experiments.
It is easy enough to draw a line from
Zemena’s breeding of “slavestock” at Cass Merides that, in the future, brings
into being someone like Eastwind. Likewise, the mental discipline of imtir+, that Zemena
and her fellow Humanos call upon for guidance, may well have become part of a
selective breeding program, eventually leading to Eastwind’s abilities to
access her predecessor personas. Eastwind’s talents seem inborn and genetic, in
contrast to the imtir, which is
developed through intensive training. The imtir,
with its “ghosts” and overlays of genetic and historical information—while a
powerful tool for computation—pales in comparison to the fully integrated
personas that Eastwind adopts. It’s a difference in kind, between ‘virtual
reality’ and reality, itself. [As an aside, when I think of Eastwind’s
transformations, I think of shamanistic rituals or other ancient rites that
allow the practitioner to transcend the normal state of being.] What is less
clear is whether a line can be drawn linking the Humano sconsciende to whatever it becomes in the far future. The sconsciende is the “counterpoint of the
brilliantly rational imtir…the hidden
undermind, wellspring of luck and fate, of disaster and intuition, of shadows
that cannot be dispelled by thought”2,
and it plays a crucial role in Zemena’s uncovering the plot against Cass
Merides by the Furnace ambassador, Firix. Call it the undermind, or the
subconscious, or woman’s intuition; it is something disturbing to the rational,
mentally-disciplined Humanos. It is always with them below the surface, coming
unbidden into their minds, and it is unlikely that it would (or could) be
deliberately bred for, or later, genetically manipulated by the Old Biologists.
I think this ‘deeper well’ of the mind emerges in the future as the spiritual
underpinning of the Paritid3
religion, as evidenced in the ‘dialogues’ between Eastwind and Lasirenn.
Whether the goddess exists or is part of Eastwind’s subconscious is open for
debate. [If there can be intelligent “giant eyeballs” emerging from the morass
of the “Bad Water”, there may be other forms of sentience that we do not, as
yet, recognize or understand. So why not
a goddess or two?] Nevertheless, she is a powerful belief
system that offers hope for individuals (along with timely rebukes!)
Furthermore, the ecological principles that are understood even by common
sailors like Squallbones, suggests that, along with the Humanos’ breeding
practices, the Successionist doctrines from Zemena’s time also have been
carried into the future. Living with the consequences of environmental disaster
wrought during the Waster era has led to the development of a kind of
‘ecological philosophy’ that is complementary with the universal spiritualism
of Lasirenn; both are venues for healing—for individuals and for the
earth. It is interesting to note that
the floating city of Flotsam began as a toxic dump and over time transforms
into a place where “eco-analysts” live, giving us the sense that the science of
ecology has become a way of life.
“Finding Flotsam” is told in a limited4 third-person narration
that provides the reader with insight into Eastwind’s thoughts and on a number
of occasions, records them directly. (And ‘Lasirenn’s’ words, as Eastwind prays
to her, are recorded.) The focus on one major character but with descriptions
and insight into several others, along with dialogue and lively action, makes
for a satisfying and well-controlled plotline.
As for the plot, the storms on the sea parallel the storms aboard the Ragfin and within Eastwind herself. Both
she and Rahifa struggle to survive the waves of the Storm Belt and the
hostilities of the Ragfin’s
ensorcelled crew. Eastwind struggles within herself, as well, as her faith in
Lasirenn is challenged by the dark allure of the shark god, “Arusimatè”. And
though they overcome their challenges, the story’s ending is bittersweet.
We are left to wonder what the fate of
Eastwind will be now that she has arrived at Flotsam. What type of place is it?
Who lives there? What kinds of activities occur on that legendary floating
island? We are given few details. Is it the place of “Makarita, the Paritid
legend of the afterlife”? Likely it’s not. After all, one activity we know
occurs on Flotsam is that slaves are traded there; the Ragfin was bringing a “Man” to Flotsam to be exchanged for an
“eco-analyst” who, in turn, would be sold elsewhere. But it is also a place
where the eco-analysts are trained. In other words, it is a place of many
parts, some good, some bad; some toxic, some pure, all of them accumulated,
altered, saved, discarded, lost and found again over the many years, and it is
still growing, still changing. What Flotsam will become, and what Eastwind’s
future will be—what the future will
be—are unknown. All that is known with any certainty is that there will be
storms to come, but perhaps this time the clearing skies and fair winds of
Lasirenn will follow.
Postscript: One thing that should
be the most jarring or unnerving revelation about Blondeau’s future world
(depending on your sex, I guess) is the fact that the population appears to be
mostly female. We are not told if this came about as a result of environmental
factors, radiation, etc., or by other means, such as conflict. That said, the
name of Eastwind’s militant persona, Afra Mankiller,
is suggestive. (Additionally, I can imagine Zemena, Breedmistress of Cass
Merides from the “Borax Road” story, sitting with Patru on the balcony
overlooking the Calicar Barran’ and thinking very hard about the kind of future
she wants!) Nor are we told how the
birth rate in this future world is maintained (other than through
breeder-slavers who traffic in males, that rarest of commodities). In many
ways, Eastwind’s world is the same as our own—it has evil and violence,
struggle and pain aplenty, as we witness aboard the Ragfin. But with men no longer around there seems to be room, at
least in this imagined world, for something else, something better, perhaps, to
grow.
* Lasiren
(“La Siren”) is a Haitian Vodou
Iwa or spirit. She is the marine manifestation of Ezili, the Iwa of love and
beauty. Depicted in the form of a mermaid, she is queen of the ocean and mother
of all marine life (and arguably, the mother of all life, since the sea is the cradle of life on Earth).
** I
assume the Old Biologists are successors to “Borax Road” Breedmistresses like
Zemena, who carried the Humano science of genetic manipulation along further
and darker lines, who may have lived centuries before the time of “Finding
Flotsam”.
+ In addition to the imtir being developed further in “Finding Flotsam”, the Humano
“Singing” skill is evidenced in the “Crew’s Oath” speech that Captain Usad uses
to control the Ragfin’s crew (along
with the “Watch Hex” runes), and it is found in the “Oration” chant that
Traggva uses to break the captain’s spell and free the crew from her malign
influence. It is another example of traits from Humano breeding practices
brought forward and manipulated by Old Biologists’ genetic experiments.
++ I was reminded of the novel of the far future by Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness, where, on the distant planet of Winter,
humans have evolved into ‘bi-sexual’ beings. Most of the time Winter’s
inhabitants are genderless, neither male nor female. Throughout the year an
individual adopts either male or female characteristics, including their
reproductive capacities, and becomes available for sexual relations.
Importantly, whether an individual becomes male or female is essentially random
and not within their personal control. There are no ‘permanent’ males or
females, only individuals changing with circumstances and potential sexual
partners into one or the other sex. All social roles, including child-rearing,
are thus shared by all inhabitants. It is a genderless society where social
ordering based on sex does not exist; similar to the world in which Eastwind
and Rahifa live.
1. “In her mermaid myths Lasirenn
captures people and pulls them underwater. Some merely drown, others return
alive but altered by their communion with the goddess. Most of the returnees
are women. They disappear for three days, or three weeks or three years and
when they return they are changed. Their skin is paler, their hair is longer
and straighter, and they have gained secret knowledge of healing. When they
first come back they are disoriented. They cannot speak and do not remember
what has happened to them. After some time the story emerges of them being
instructed by Lasirenn under the water.” https://books.google.ca/books?id=7_tPCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA151&ots=ItUsD99Nr8&dq=lasiren%20vodou&pg=PA151#v=onepage&q=lasiren%20vodou&f=false
2. Blondeau, Bill, “The Borax Road
Affair”, After Oil 3: The Years of
Rebirth. ed. John Michael Greer founders House Publishing, 2015.
3.
“Paritid”
is similar to the word paritis [Latin] – Conjugation of
pariō second-person plural present active indicative – (“to give birth, to
bear”)--Proto-Italic *parjō, from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to bring
forth”) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pario#Latin
4.
“(2) The limited
point of view: The narrator tells the story in the third person, but within
the confines of what is experienced, thought, and felt by a single character
(or at most by very few characters) within the story.” A Glossary of Literary Terms,
Fifth Edition, M.H. Abrahams, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. 1988
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