A quibble I have with this book is that the plot has nothing to do with the title, other than the aliens threatening to "bomb us back to the stone age," but that is not really time travel, since I doubt that we would then be interacting with actual Neanderthals. It's also rather strange for an alien race to threaten that (or seem to, by broadcasting images of Neanderthals to earth), and the Soviets would interpret the image that way, when that is an American expression.
In my last post, I talked about a "homophobic" joke on page 16 that actually makes two very good arguments against anti-sodomy laws. On page 18, we encounter a work crew, all black, who are tearing up a perfectly good road and rebuilding it, because they are on welfare and the government therefore makes useless work for them.
This book is a fascinating look into a mind warped by internalize homophobia, but it's also interesting that in Brunner's semi-dystopian near-future, race and class relations have deteriorated considerably, cars and other products have ridiculously short planned obsolescence built in, the sea and beaches are filled with floating garbage, radiation is so high that it is forecast on the news just like the weather, and everyone is so paranoid that cars have built-in guns and gas station attendants point guns at their customers as a matter of course. Tolerance for homosexuality, and for promiscuity in general, is in the same category as the environment going to shit, higher-class decadence as a contrast for increased overcrowding and poverty, and rampant racism and class differences among the races.
And yet...Brunner is portraying what, for lack of a better term, I will call "1970s homosexuality." In Brunner's world, a typical homosexual man marries a woman, keeps up a pretense of straightness, and yet at parties starts "necking" with another man. Occasionally, he also goes in search of a man to sleep with, while his wife and the rest of society looks the other way and pretends nothing is happening. 1970s homosexuality, at least as it is portrayed here, is just another form of promiscuity, like having a mistress. (In other words, it's like the actual behavior of anti-gay evangelical Christians.)
The author also seems unaware of the existence of bisexuality, since that word is never mentioned.
But homosexuality here is still a secret, even in a world that tolerates it. The author cannot seem to comprehend a world of respected, faithful, out gay couples--much less those I know today who are legally married, raising children together, and very involved in local Christian churches. (Presbyterian and Methodist, in fact.)
The most promiscuous homosexual of Brunner's work could not conceive of being so out of the closet, and so respected by most of society, as we have today. And yet, as awful as our world can sometimes seem, we have for the most part avoided the terrible things that, in this book, came with this tolerance and acceptance as a society.
So...sorry, Brunner, your warnings just didn't hold up.
The tolerance for homosexuality portrayed in this book is also clearly the product of a bygone era. People complain about it a little, but ultimately it's just a nuisance to straight friends and family members. It's a nuisance, instead of just a part of who someone is. It's like a son who annoys his traditional parents by having hair they think is too long. The attitude seems to be along the lines of, "Well, I don't like it, but what can you do?"
And for some people even today, that is progress--unfortunately. But for somebody who is as homophobic as the author, while trying to imagine "degeneration" in society or whatever he calls it, he cannot fathom the kind of tolerance we have today. And yet, the world has not ended.
Brunner also never thought, apparently, that gay people want to be respected in society, as themselves, and not just tolerated. That what we feel is love, and not just lust. That we want to marry our partners and stay true to them. That we're not just being promiscuous.
And maybe that's what would have saved the late John Brunner from his own self-hatred. I am convinced that he was working through some personal things, in this book and maybe others.
Maybe he would have had an easier time if he had known that homosexuality doesn't have to involve cheating on your wife--that it can also involve being faithful to your husband. I imagine that most people did not know that, in the 1970s when this book was published. Perhaps "The Wrong End of Time" is actually an apt description of where Brunner himself was. Too bad he was apparently unable to grow with the times.
No comments:
Post a Comment