(Fantasy) You have lain in your cell long enough to forget how to walk. Then you see sunlight and realize someone has left the door open. (1,785 words; Time: 05m)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Average
"The Ones Who Know Where They Are Going," by Sarah Pinsker [bio] (edited by Sheila Williams), appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction issue 03-04|17, published on February 16, 2017 by Penny Publications.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
Pro: This is the world of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula LeGuin, from the POV of the prisoner. In this story, the narrator also has the choice to walk away, but ultimately accepts his/her fate. It’s even implied that the narrator has made this climb before, always to return to the cell.
Con: When a story is all message, no plot, action, or characters, that message should be clear, but it's really not. My best guess is that it's trying to say that people in society who suffer do so by their own choice. Perhaps someone else will have a better interpretation.
If you didn't read "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," this story will be incomprehensible.
Other Reviews: Search Web, Browse Review Sites (Issue 03-04|17)
Sarah Pinsker Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
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Con: When a story is all message, no plot, action, or characters, that message should be clear, but it's really not. My best guess is that it's trying to say that people in society who suffer do so by their own choice. Perhaps someone else will have a better interpretation.
If you didn't read "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," this story will be incomprehensible.
Other Reviews: Search Web, Browse Review Sites (Issue 03-04|17)
Sarah Pinsker Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or E-mail.
I think it's more along the lines of: the only person with the moral authority to make sacrifices, is the person doing the sacrificing.
ReplyDeleteThat's how I read it. (It's certainly not trying to pardon the Omelasians in any way...)
If it's a voluntary sacrifice, though, then it really does let them off the hook. But is that really the point?
DeleteIt clearly *doesn't* let them off the hook; the sacrifice is only under duress -- the boy is willing to sacrifice himself, to keep another boy from being broken and traumatized.
DeleteQuite the opposite; I think this is meant to be a damning contrast -- the Omelasians are willing to keep a child in hell for their comfort; the child is willing to endure hell to keep the same thing from happening to somebody else. The point of the original Omelas story is to portray the cruelty of accepting suffering as necessary or beneficial; that the utilitarian near-utopia of "only one person suffers" is monstrous. Pinsker's version takes that one step further, presenting an ennobled child POV, who is unwilling to bring about harm to another even at horrendous cost to himself.
All that being said, I think it's a pretty awful message, because it completely disregards all the suffering of, well, all of Omelas. Omelas isn't just the utopia of luxury and privilege, it's also the absence of the terrible pain and suffering that beset all cities that don't keep a sacrificial child. The child is content to let the city crumble -- it seems to me for being complicit in his captivity -- and doesn't seem to have the same compassion for, say, all the children of the city. He only cares for one child, the one who will replace him. No other forms of suffering matter.
Le Guin's original story said "you cannot justify the suffering of a single person." Pinsker's seems to me to be saying "Only the suffering of these few particular people matters." I love Pinsker's work in general, but not this one :-/
I don't think that's what Pinsker is saying at all; you're looking at the story only at face value.
DeleteI think she's displaying the hopelessness of the child's situation, the child cannot free themself—they do not have the capability. She is not arguing with Le Guin's message, she is arguing for Le Guin's message.
Le Guin's original, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", highlights the way that society has trapped itself. They are stuck in a cycle of their own making, for both of the options to continue on are awful; continue to torture the child or let them free and destroy Omelas and those that occupy it. So we give ourselves excuse after excuse because when it comes to us or the child we will almost always choose ourselves and compromise our morals for what we see as the greater good. Maybe we could've saved the child had we stopped earlier, but now Omelas is to big and there are to many people here to justify saving the singular child. It's the same dilemma we face under modern day capitalism, the abused poor working class or everyone else; if we save the former we derail the system and risk the latter.
Pinsker does not seek to argue with that point, but to highlight it. The child is stuck in the same cycle, the same dilemma. They could save themself, they could go up and be free and see the sky again. But then what happens? Surely the society will not just risk themselves because the child has disappeared, their cycle must continue in the name of what they see as the greater good. So, another child will be brought down to the basement to suffer. They have experienced first hand what this torture feels like, the excruciating pain of it, so how can they justly leave and submit someone else to that? Just as we (the people brought to see the child) cannot free the child in like with our morals and destroy Omelas because of our other morals and such created a cycle of conflict, the child cannot free itself because of their own morals and such creates another cycle of conflict.
The stories highlight the two different sides of the cycle of suffering that we have put ourselves in. In each story there are two options, one where our morals are risked and one where we try to keep them intact. Le Guin (representing society) says you either stay and risk your morals because you cannot bring down everyone in Omelas, or you leave and risk yourself to save your morals. Pinsker (representing the poor working class) says you either risk your morals to save yourself and submit someone else to the torture, or you stay and submit to save the other. It's two different sides of the same moral dilemma, and a commentary on modern day capitalism.