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And Chaos Died por Joanna Russ
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And Chaos Died (1970 original; edición 1979)

por Joanna Russ

MiembrosReseñasPopularidadValoración promediaMenciones
392364,227 (3.21)9
This Nebula Award-nominated "work of awesome originality" (Robert Silverberg) is a mind-blowing exploration of telepathy and power on an Earth-like planet.   Earthman Jai Vedh was on a star voyage when his ship blew up, leaving him stranded on an uncharted Earth-like planet. In this strange new land, he's amazed to discover a colony of humans who lost contact with their home world centuries before. They've developed telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation--and structured a sophisticated social system out of these abilities.   Under the tutelage of a female mentor named Evne, Jai Vedh begins to develop his own mental powers. But when an unexpected rescue arrives, the Earth he returns to is nothing like he remembered . . .   Wildly imaginative, wholly original, and boldly experimental in form, And Chaos Died "is a spectacular experience to undergo" (Samuel R. Delany).      … (más)
Miembro:boxofdelights
Título:And Chaos Died
Autores:Joanna Russ
Información:Berkley (1979), Paperback
Colecciones:Tu biblioteca, dacha
Valoración:
Etiquetas:mmpb, fiction, unread, unreviewed, sf

Información de la obra

La Muerte del caos por Joanna Russ (1970)

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review of
Joanna Russ's And Chaos Died
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 17-20, 2020

For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/1305947-joanna-russ?chapter=1

Long before I started reviewing the bks I read I'd read Joanna Russ's The Female Man (1975) b/c I was interested in gender issues. I also read her Picnic on Paradise (1968). I remember thinking they were ok but, basically, they didn't do much for me. It took And Chaos Died (1970) for me to finally be impressed.

The 1st epigraph puts the title in context.

"They had noticed that, whereas everyone else had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing and so on, Chaos had none. So they decided to make the experiment of boring holes in him. Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died.
— Chuang Tzu" - p 5

I'd 1st come across that story in John Cage's "Indeterminacy", text 27:

The Four Mists of Chaos,
the North, the East,
the West,
and the South,
went to visit
Chaos himself.
He treated them all very
kindly and when they were
thinking of leaving,
they consulted among
themselves how they might repay
his hospitality.
Since they had noticed
that he had no holes
in his body,
as they each had (eyes,
nose, mouth, ears, etc.),
they decided
each day to provide
him with an opening.
At the
end of seven days,
Kwang-tse tells us,
Chaos died.

Notice that in this telling the holes are provided rather than bored. That gives quite a different impression, doesn't it? It's not so aggressive.

The gist of the book concerns how people change under telepathic conditions. It's excellent for that. Two humans have crash-landed on a planet where the human occupants are ordinarily telepathic & have other abilities that the unwilling guests are uncomfortable w/.

""I am not going any."

"Jai saw fingers flashing among cards, for some reason, someone picking out words, lips moving, looking over her shoulder and laughing: yes, that's it

""I am not going any where," corrected the woman. She shook hands abruptly with the Captain. She said "Galactica, yes?" Again the words were perfect, slightly seperated. "Ja?" she said, then shook her head. "Sorry. I am not used." She made a face. She stepped toward Jai, twitching down the skirt of her short, sleeveless shift, brown. (Russet, he thought professionally. Spice, chocolate, sand, taupe, Morocco. What nonsense.) She sat down abruptly on the grass, crossing her knees. "I'm not used to talking this at all," she finally said, rather quickly. "My hobby. You fit well, yes?"" - p 13

The main male character is gay, a probably somewhat unusual characterization in SF in 1970, hence manifesting Russ's gender-bending tendencies.

""I don't like women," said Jai Vedh suddenly and dryly. "I never have. I'm a homosexual."

""Oh?" said the Captain, taken aback for a moment" - p 17

The shipwrecked pair try to puzzle out what's happening around them.

""What in the name of Everything is going on?" said the Captain. "What? Do you know?"

""Everything," said Jai Vedh.

""Huh?"

""I don't mean I know everything; I know nothing. I don't know." And he sat and buried his face in his hands.

""Books!" said the Captain, somewhat more steadily. "Books, not tapes. There can't be three dozen in the library, they're that rare. And here they are. Who the devil puts real books in an escape capsule?"

""The same person who put you and me in it together," said Jai Vedh." - p 21

Fortunately, the door-latch started talking to them.

"My apologies, squeaked the door-latch. The woman clung to the doorway like a fish.

"Frontal attack . . . too much stress . . . inconvenience for you . . . try in morning . . . next week . . . next month . . . times cures all things . . . you'll forget." - p 28

THEN they came down in the landing capsule.

"They came down in the escape capsule the next morning: Jai Vedh safely strapped in and trying to control his air-sickness. Outside the round porthole, the cloud strata streamed by; the ship bucked like a freight elevator. They blasted a crater in the woods and around that a good, flat, rock rim—fused rock and mud with the steam driven out of it. Not even the ashes of the burnt grass remained. They stepped out on to the orange grass under the yellow-leaved trees—it was autumn. The Captain shook hands unaffectedly with the young woman in the simple brown dress who had been delegated to welcome them." - p 33

""I know, I know," she interrupted, suddenly ducking round the doorway into the sun. "You must go back to your ship and cannibalize the motor for a radio. That's what one always does, isn't it? You have such trite ideas." She was swinging by one hand, into visibility and out of it; she added, "If you wait, you know, we'll bring you the equipment we came down with."

""Your what?" said the Captain.

""Our equipment," she said. "If you work hard, you can make your ship over in six months and not wait the rest of your life for a rescue. You would find that dull, I think."

""And you never rescued yourselves!" said Jai Vedh suddenly. "Because you didn't want to. Am I right?"

""You would guess eggs if you saw the shells," said the woman; "That's a compliment. Come on,"" - p 35

""By the way," she said in a low voice, "I know what it means to cannibalize; it means to eat something. I heard about that." She seemed to hesitate in the half-dark.

""But tell me, please," she said, "what does it mean exactly—radio?"" - p 36

It's Russ's wonderful way of making speech confusing in a way accounted for by telepathy that makes this novel as great as it is. Note that the woman says "cannibalize the motor for a radio" but then shows that she doesn't quite understand "cannibalize" & doesn't understand "radio" at all. So where did she get the words from & how did she succeed in stringing them together in a way that makes sense?

The Captain, at least, is inclined to think that the planet they've crashed on is primitive — &, yet, they have a one syllable word for a specific large prime number. That doesn't compute.

""Eleven thousand, nine hundred and seventy-seven is Ftun. I give you my own, improper, accented version. One syllable.["]" - p 47

We're not talking one, many here.

The children aren't telepaths yet.

""I can talk," said the little girl. There was a moment's silence.

""Actually," she continued with sudden fluency, "it's because they're grown-ups. Grown-ups are horrid. They say 'Oh, he'll be all right.' They haven't the slightest compassion. This is because they can whatchamacallit. I can't whatchamacallit because I'm nine. I can talk, however, as you see. Now you say something."

""Telepath," said Jai Vedh automatically.

""No," said the little girl. "Talk, not telepath. Say 'how do you do.'["]" - p 59

Another nice detail, eh? Imagining the dilemma of children surrounded by telepaths who barely talk.

""My name," said Jai solemnly, "is Jai Vedh. Then we do what's called 'shaking hands.' " He put his out. She held out hers.

""Up and down?" she said. "How very interesting. I am Evne's daughter, my name is Evniki, that means little Evne and I am parthenogenetic.["]"

[..]

""I'm nine," she went on pedantically, "but actually I'm fifteen. I've slowed myself down. That's called 'dragging your feet.' Mother keeps telling me 'Evniki, don't drag your feet,' but catch me hurrying into it!["]" - p 60

"["]It develops in adolescence. It allows you to know where everyone is, what everyone is thinking and feeling. Everyone else knows what you are thinking and feeling. You can transport yourself from place to place instantaneously, you can levitate, you can perceive and manipulate objects at a distance, from what size I don't know but it goes down to the microscopic—no, the sub-microscopic—size. And I think you can perceive everything directly: mass, charge, anything. And you play with them. You play with the wavelength of light.

"". . . and with gravity . . ." he added." - p 64

Russ's treatment of these incredible abilities is another thing that makes this novel great. Instead of completely weaponizing them into a reductionist us-vs-them scenario, she humanizes these abilities & shows those w/ them as playful. It's fun. A character explains.

"["]Chuang Tzu speaks of ming, generalized internal perception; this is ming. You and I are like the ivy plant and the squirrel, this is an old fable, the squirrel on the branch runs down to where the branches join and up again, but the ivy plant, which is bound to the branch, cannot see where the squirrel went and says: 'How did you get from here to there instantaneously? How did you get a nutshell from here to there instantaneously?' The squirrel explains. The ivy plant says 'Branch? What are you talking about, "branch"? There is no "branch"; there is no "down"; there is only this.'" - p 66

Fascinating, eh? I wonder, though, whether the old fable fails to take into account the root network.

""Hold your breath!" (shaking her) "And talk! Talk! Talk!"

""No!" screamed Evne. "Can't! Forgot!" and she flung herself away into the bushes and the heather, rolling over and over, then tearing things up and hitting her knees with her fists, and finally—with a kind of return to sanity—deliberately and vehemently beating her head against the ground. Jai felt pain in his temples until his head rang." - p 75

It's easy to forget how to speak when you're telepathic, esp if you're experiencing emotional upheaval.

Jai discovers what books are like on this planet.

"The ninth book appeared to be a collection of anatomical sketches and cross-sections; the binding cracked loudly as he opened the book, and the open page said to him in a whisper:

"Everyone understands a picture.

"He gave it to know that this was not entirely true.

"But take you, for instance, said the page in a soft flattering voice. You—

"He shut the book. Opened again to the same page, it at once began, softly, Everyone understands a picture, and he shut it again and put it under his arm. It was a machine. It had not, of course, spoken in words." - p 79

A search party arrives that's been looking for the crashed people. That doesn't bode well for the people already there.

"Some information,emphatic but inexplicable, about the relation of a (complex) to a (complex) to a (complex) shot at him out of the Northwest, crossed the sky, and disappeared below the Southeastern horizon.

"She said:

""It's your radio. They've come."" - p 86

Things have been rolling along pretty rough & tumble & then this?

""I'm thinking," replies Evne in the voice of a golem. "I love you," she croaks. She wheels about, heads in another direction; one arm (alive) tremblingly pleads with him, walks itself up his arm into his armpit and nests there in great fear of the world outside, cozily snoozing, singing We two, We two. They went into new country, gullies choked with scrub, elderberry bushes, things that whipped back into their bodies and faces. Evne talked to herself in a series of unitelligible nasalities like those of the drowned, bubbles like a corpse's voice. "Don't be alarmed," she says in a voice of scraped lead and walks into a bees' nest; no one was stung." - p 87

I, personally, find that to be a scene of great emotional power. Alas, the landing search party has some ideas for exploitation that, um, the sympathetic reader just. can't. agree. w/.

"officers discussed with a sober Captain the military uses of the think-folk, to study, to duplicate. to betray." - p 94

Jai & Evne are taken aboard. They're in a guest room, the guest is coming.

"She had milk-blue eyes, cropped straw hair, a butcher's smock, and spiked sandals. She had enormous breasts, two wells of silicone jelly, enormous buttocks, a faked, crowded waist, dyed eyes, dyed hair, and no uterus. Jai forced himself to concentrate on the unaltered parts that interlaced with the rest, the pearly organs that budded around her lungs and in her abdomen, lacy strips of flesh marking repeated surgical scars, some normal circulation left; you could, after all, think of her as the victim of a bad accident." - pp 98-99

Hi. Lar. I. Ous.

The attempts to militarily exploit our heroes backfire far more dramatically than was expected because their abilities are far beyond the military's imaginings.

"There were people running along the corridor outside, new people with souls so bad, so murderously professional, that it stood the hair up on his head. There were things whose purpose he did not even want to guess at. He bellowed again.

"God will provide, said the wisp, playfully or prudishly.

"So he jumped.


"He came down in a park, at night. There was nobody near." - p 114

Jai Vedh has developed abilities thanks to Evne that enable him to teleport from the spaceship where the military was thinking they had him captive to Earth. Nice. Earth is quite a place.

"The girl had thrown her arms around another passer-by and was saying, "You have disappointing eyes. I don't like you. Do you want to fuck?["]" - p 119

The Earth is overpopulated w/ humans.

For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/1305947-joanna-russ?chapter=1 ( )
  tENTATIVELY | Apr 3, 2022 |
http://shawjonathan.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/joanna-russ-and-chaos-died/

A lot of the time it’s hard to tell what’s going on in this book, though it does become slightly less bewildering after the first 20-page section. The main reason for the bewilderment is that the main character, Jai Vedh, having crash-landed on an alien planet, encounters people there who communicate mentally, reading each other’s feelings and thoughts but also perceiving the world at a molecular level and communing with plants (a wise daisy plays a crucial role) and even inanimate objects. When they communicate with ‘visuals’, their words are oddly elliptical, responding to things the others aren’t quite aware they’ve even thought or felt, let alone expressed, and drawing on the others’ vocabularies (‘I’m not used to talking this at all,’ is one of the first sentences he hears spoken). Nothing is explained; the reader, if anything, understands even less than Jai Vedh.

Jai Vedh identifies as homosexual in the early pages, but he becomes sexually and psychically involved with a woman of the planet and is soon telepathing and teleporting with the best of them. He’s captured and taken back to ‘Old Earth’, a late 60s nightmare of overpopulation, pollution, corrupt authoritarian government, and psychedelic licentiousness, where he escapes death many times, befriends a boy who tries to kill him, and so on. Through all this he uses his mental skills without ever gaining complete control of them, so that he often isn’t at all sure whose thoughts and feelings he’s experiencing and has trouble seeing what’s physically in front of his eyes because other aspects of reality, whether microscopic or purely psychic, are claiming his attention – and the prose takes us along with him.

According to Samuel Delaney, The Female Man was written partly as a critique of this novel. ( )
3 vota shawjonathan | May 9, 2011 |
Succumbs to the need to be trippy for trippy's sake, but there are some interesting ideas inside. ( )
1 vota selfnoise | Jun 12, 2008 |
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Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés. Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing, the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its own capacity....Fuss, the god of the Southern Ocean, and Fret, the god of the Northern Ocean, happened once to meet in the realm of chaos, the god of the center. chaos treated them very handsomely and they discussed together what they could do to repay his kindness. They had noticed that, whereas everyone else had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing and so on, Chaos had none. So they decided to make the experiment of boring holes in him. Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died.
--Chuan Tzu, translated by Arthur Waley
There is a point beyond which you can't go without the aid of the machine....there is a limit to how loud you can shout. After that, you have to get yourself an amplifier.
"Limiting Factor" by theodore R. Cogswell
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To Sidney J. Perelman and Vladimir Nabokov
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His name was Jai Vedh.
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Wikipedia en inglés (1)

This Nebula Award-nominated "work of awesome originality" (Robert Silverberg) is a mind-blowing exploration of telepathy and power on an Earth-like planet.   Earthman Jai Vedh was on a star voyage when his ship blew up, leaving him stranded on an uncharted Earth-like planet. In this strange new land, he's amazed to discover a colony of humans who lost contact with their home world centuries before. They've developed telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation--and structured a sophisticated social system out of these abilities.   Under the tutelage of a female mentor named Evne, Jai Vedh begins to develop his own mental powers. But when an unexpected rescue arrives, the Earth he returns to is nothing like he remembered . . .   Wildly imaginative, wholly original, and boldly experimental in form, And Chaos Died "is a spectacular experience to undergo" (Samuel R. Delany).      

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