We Who Are About To...
Ratings13
Average rating3.5
One woman's quest to die with dignity may doom them all. A multi-dimensional explosion hurls the starship's few passengers across the galaxies and onto an uncharted barren tundra. With no technical skills and scant supplies, the survivors face a bleak end in an alien world. One brave woman holds the daring answer, but it is the most desperate one possible. Elegant and electric, We Who Are About To... brings us face to face with our basic assumptions about our will to live. While most of the stranded tourists decide to defy the odds and insist on colonizing the planet and creating life, the narrator decides to practice the art of dying. When she is threatened with compulsory reproduction, she defends herself with lethal force. Originally published in 1977, this is one of the most subtle, complex, and exciting science fiction novels ever written about the attempt to survive a hostile alien environment. It is characteristic of Russ's genius that such a readable novel is also one of her most intellectually intricate.
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This is just a near-perfect novella, in my opinion. A fascinating take on how we face death, and how we ought to, wrapped up in a neat little sci-fi plot. Also: And ending that doesn't back away from the difficulties that death presents.
Not an easy read emotionally but such a trip psychologically. I guess this is my favorite “new wave” novel.
The cold, violent language of the narrator perfectly paralleled with the atmospehere of the naked planet a part of humanity resides in. This humanity defines themselves the true civility. Are they? A woman objecting the colonizer mindset.The only passenger among 8 who wants to die. Which one resembles with the concept of survival tendencies? The male's words on the woman's body and his lectures on the importance of the her as the future hope for humanity, or the woman's lectures on the wretchedness of this place and the futureless life in this new realm with thousand possibilities of getting poisoned. Is this story really about how to survive? Is this a solution, or the whole narration reflects angry words of Joanna Russ, as she said herself “I think I will not trust anyone who isn't angry”. Is she the Nobody herself. Is she just a couragrous, outspoken nihilist, or a poetic character finding for a hope somewhere in her memories and unconscious' screams. Maybe she didn't even yearn for a hope. This was my first experience in a science fiction world, where I got stuck where the interior of narrator's thoughts and emotions shows itself. Even talking about the future, her words are so direct, so real that you wonder if you're picturing all her described images around you, as the reader. Since she is talking to me, to you. A great feminist, or better to be said, woman's raw diction on the idea of dystopia, with lost imaginaries in her scattered utopias in the past. Not necessarily framed as utopian in her mind. No good ending, no explicit violence, however, the air contains layers of anger, modesty, anger, heated conflicts, artificial hopes, violent words, and anger again. These depictions make a resonance with the setting of the story. Burning sunrises in an unknown, dark planet, dry weather, dry land. Bare and coarse. Don't look for a formulized plot in this story. It will evaporate your hopes and feelings when you try to form any meaning from “civilization”, “humanity” and the futuristic desires.
