The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Stone Gods
Book Review: FINDING REASONS WHERE THERE ARE NONE?
Summary: 3 Stars
As the author of the "Complete Guide to Easter Island" and a devoted Rapanuiphile, I believe I am qualified to comment on those aspects of this novel that deal with Easter Island -- even though I realize this may prove irritating to those who say such a narrow focus of criticism doesn't do justice to the work at large. But my point is if one area of the author's coverage provokes criticism, the prospective reader may justly wonder if this is a trend, an aberration, or just a quirk of the writing. But if the reader cares about details like this, even in fiction with an historical base, I am comfortable trying to find reasons to explain it, even if there are none
"The Stone Gods" is the latest of nearly twenty books written by Jeanette Winterson that, according to other reviewers, are either very well liked or generally hated. Being unfamiliar with her work, I make no such comparisons here, and, indeed, the emphasis in this review is on the Easter Island portion of the novel whence the title largely derives. "The Stone Gods" is written in the science-fiction genre not because it particularly belongs there but because it is required for the narrative to function. Even the author, in a recent interview, says she doesn't like sci-fi. I mention this because the novel is set in a future where the Earth (referred to as "Orbus") is a highly-technological but dystopic world on the brink of ecological apocalypse and where the recent discovery of a new, habitable world (called "Planet Blue") offers salvation. This scenario will be no doubt familiar to those who have seen the movie "Blade Runner" but that's where any comparison ends even if one may be inspired to wonder if Winterson has lightly borrowed plot material from another source.
The protagonist, a lamely named "Billie Crusoe", is charged with exploring Planet Blue, and does so, along with jump-cuts to several other narratives each featuring its own Billie and its own ecological crises, from Easter Island in the 1700s to a post-nuclear Britain where corporations have replaced government (which smacks of the theme of the film "Rollerball" --another apparent borrowing) to a world like Earth 65 million years in the future. All this zigging and zagging creates the sense that the novel is really just a collection of lazily-linked short stories rather than a novel -- or, moreover, a novel without a consistent narrative (think "Monty Python's Meaning of Life"; i.e., vignettes with an ad hoc thread allegedly holding them together). And though the language is stylish and playful, evidencing great imagination on the author's part, it is not sufficient to creatively describe material that hovers only slightly above the ordinary even if it deals with complex issues such as gender polarities or sexual identity, especially when a didactic voice prevails. And this one has a message, yes, which makes for a nice segue to the Easter Island portion of the novel.
Here, the "Billie" character consists of a seaman named "Billy" left behind when the Cook expedition of 1774 departed the island. In so far as this "Billy" is one of several belonging to those narrative vignettes, one doesn't necessarily have to be inordinately bothered by the fact that no such character existed in history (at least Cook's journals make no reference to anyone being left behind and there's no other evidence to support this). But tinkering with history in this way is risky. James Cameron avoided this potential problem with the introduction of his character "Jack Dawson" in the film "Titanic", even though no such character existed, because Jack ostensibly managed to get on board the ship by winning someone else's ticket in a poker game -- so naturally there would be no record of him.
Despite this perhaps necessary indifference to historical fact, it's obvious that Winterson did some research on Easter Island circa the 1770s and thus Billy's observations clearly reflect more of what we know today than what anyone in 1774 would have known. Yet Winterson could have been more accurate and therefore more convincing -- as if she concluded that, so long as she could create an "historical" character that didn't exist, why should she worry about other fudges? For example, the explanation for Billy being left behind is because of a hostile reception the Cook expedition receives from Easter Islanders. Yet Cook received no hostile reception and he himself said the islanders neither had nor employed either sticks or rocks, a remark that draws specific inferences from the disastrous confrontation between islanders and sailors in 1722. So is Winterson confusing the two visits? For another example, Billy meets a "deserter" from the Roggeveen expedition, a man named "Spikkers" who has no historical counterpart (at least no such mention of a desertion appears in Roggeveen's journals and, again, there's no evidence to substantiate this character's existence). And while there is discussion about the "Bird Man" (which is not unreasonable; symbols characteristic of the cult were used by the islanders in "signing" the Spanish Treaty of Annexation in 1770), descriptions of the competition are thoroughly confused and confusing, as Winterson seems to have competitors start the race by climbing UP the Rano Kau volcano to recover the "manu tara" egg and she says they strapped bone and wood spikes to their bodies to aid in their ascent, which is a completely fictional invention. (Spikkers, incidentally, also participates in the competition and falls to his death; maybe this is Winterson's attempt to erase the character from history like Jack Dawson?) And for some reason Winterson associates the Ariki Mau (or paramount chief) with the "White Man" in opposition to adherents of the Bird Man cult, where no such juxtaposition has ever been known to exist. The goofs don't end here. Winterson proclaims the volcanic peninsula of Poike as the home of the Bird Man (when it fact the "home" is on the complete opposite side of the island), describes the "moai" as facing out to sea (when they all face inland to ceremonial areas), and says the "ahu" or ceremonial platforms consist of "great plinths of wood and stone". Wood? They are made of stone. Period.
Since the central theme of the novel is the environmental imbalance that substantiates the contrast between Orbus (Earth) and Blue Planet -- the ecological apocalypse clearly facing the planet Earth today in the "Easter Island as microcosm" paradigm -- it's not surprising that a sequence would inevitably ensue during which the last palm tree on the island would be chopped down. This is a popular theme these days but Pacific scientists and scholars have come to understand that it was a constellation of factors that brought about the demise of Easter Island, including human actions and environmental conditions. But Winterson takes it a step into a weird dimension by having all the island women stand against the island men in trying to protect the tree. The women are slapped down, literally, and the tree similarly falls to the ground under the indifferent but skillful hands of the axeman. This is sexism at its worst, for presumably only women are nurturers? Only women understand the consequences of resource depletion? Easter Islanders were no doubt partly culpable for the deforestation of their island because they so desperately needed the wood from the trees but is it really necessary to confine the blame to the island's men? Nor is there any legendary, cultural, or historic basis for this scene and its implications.
To be fair, Winterson describes Billy's astonishment at the falling of this last tree, and the denuding of the island itself, in terms appropriate for anyone contemplating the extent to which Easter Island can function as a microcosm of the Earth: "I gazed at the stump of the Palm", Billy says. "Why would a man destroy the very thing he most needs?" Why indeed? But mankind, as Winterson says, "must always be finding reasons where there are none, and comfort in a purpose that hardly exists". So, too, there must be a reason for the decadence of Easter Island, the potential demise of planet Earth, and even a book as ramshackle as The Stone Gods". We're slowly gaining an understanding of the first two, but I think it'll be a while before anyone fully grasps the third.
Book Review: For those who like grotesque
Summary: 1 Stars
This book gave me a headache. It is definitely not for those who are looking for an easy, entertaining read. If the thought of having sex with 12 year old children and robots is not appalling to you, then you might like this book. I could not finish it.
I reached for this book without knowing anything about it. I read the short blurbs on the back of it, and I assumed that the story was going to be clever, funny and entertaining. Meanwhile, I did not find any of those elements in it. As other reviewers mentioned, this book is about the destructive and self absorbed nature of human beings, and it contains many sexualy charged elements, such as pedophilia and zoophilia, which rightfully so, the author intends to be appalling to the reader.
If you are reading those reviews before reaching for this book, you are doing the right thing. This is not a book you would want to read without any warning. I simply went to the library, and checked it out because it caught my eye. It was a big mistake.
Book Review: It's ok, but probably not my favorite
Summary: 3 Stars
This book is somewhat difficult to follow. It's possible that I just didn't get the connections, but it transitions abruptly between a semi-dystopic future into a swashbuckling past, without any real connection between the two eras. In addition, the third section of the novel, which returns to the first time period, doesn't seem to mesh quite well with the first section. I think that it might have been better if the third and second sections were reordered, and the second section edited to allow for more continuity. I wasn't quite sure how the sailor & Easter Island fit into the whole scheme of things.Book Review: Mediocre - Love Story or SF? Too Many Undeveloped Ideas
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought the book because I was especially interested in one of the three stories: Planet Blue. I wanted to discover how the author would handle the SF subject of humanities dilemma facing a dying planet. I was highly disappointed. From the style of the writing to the plot, nothing appealed to me. I forced myself to read through it to see how the end would turn up, which proved a waste of time. The story suggests a handful of intriguing ideas but these are never properly developed leaving you with the feeling of an incomplete novel.
Everything is odd and awkward in the story. First, there is a "love" story between the main (female) character Billie and a female robot named Spike that goes nowhere. Then, the robot is showing more desire to be human than the humans themselves (?) - a theme already brought in by Data in Star Trek The Next Generation, and hardly developed in this novel. It goes on with the author's attempt to create a universe half way between 1984 and Blade Runner (?), which only results in serving the reader cliches after cliches of the typical gloomy modern and decadent civilization that humanity is heading into. Next, the captain of the ship en route to Planet Blue decides it is a great idea to modify the course of a meteorite to hit Planet Blue in order to destroy unwanted dinosaurs (?) - yeah right, like I will believe that - this humanity would have the technology to push a meteorite off from its trajectory not even thinking that it would obviously jeopardize the chance of the new humanity's settlement on the planet, but they don't have the technology to simply kill the dinosaurs with a virus or other much more direct methods (?); SF is not an open genre for anything at the push of a button, is it? And the choice of the meteorite is a pathetic attempt to "emulate" a still much debated theory that might have taken place billions of years ago on earth. And then we have the choice of names for the characters like "Handsome" for the captain of the ship transporting our main characters, who barely displays the charisma, composure, and leadership expected from a captain. Can you imagine this dialogue: "Hello Captain Handsome, this is Darth Vader here, how's things with your dinosaurs in your neck of the woods? Don't hesitate to send me an email if you need my help with that, I am good at destroying things. How about you, what are you good at Captain Handsome? Is Handsome a nickname or your mommy really thought it was going to be groovy?" I made my point. Finally there is the writing style with long winded confusing and boring sentences, trying to be more poetic than realistic, and the choice of narration in the first person, which locks the reader in the mind of one character and one character only (?). First person is a narration style that I find totally inappropriate for this story - the use of multiple point of views would have broadened the story and brought depth to the many intriguing yet unexplored SF elements of the plot. Everything in the story contributed to an awkward and mediocre ensemble.
There is so much better SF out there, don't waste your time with this book. I can't imagine how an agent or an editor could have accepted such pale imitation of Science-Fiction.
Book Review: More Than Survival
Summary: 4 Stars
Billy Crusoe seems to view the world lightly but she's got serious problems with the way the inhabitants of earth are hell-bent on destroying it. The novel opens with Billy about to be exiled to a planet being prepared for colonization before the earth goes kaput. She's a rebel who is one of the last owners of an organic farm in a world that prides itself on not only reconstituting most food in chemical form but also is very close to reconstituting the DNA of humans who wish to be ageless, beautiful and just perfect! Imagine wanting to be a teenager to stop one's philandering husband from pursuing much younger woman - tongue in cheek for sure!
There are numerous references to starting over from Robinson Caruso's heroic adventures, including a flashback to 1774 in which Billy travels to Easter Island with the famed Captain Cook's band. What is about human beings that just can't see the forest for the trees as even here they cut down all the trees to fashion their stone gods? Billie realizes they destroy their God-given earth to attempt to get closer to their imagined gods - situational irony in the extreme but typical flawed human style.
We then are returned to post-war (WW III) in which we have another flashback of how Billy was separated from the mother she loved, indeed adored. Technology has taken over human reproduction and mothers and fathers are an anachronism to be jettisoned. Indeed independent human thought, feeling and goal-oriented living are just passe. Everything is planned by the "authorities" and it is clear that Billie's hunger for connection and love is deep and unshared by her medicated and inebriated earthling friends.
At first the reader will think that Billie falling in love with a robot is just plain silly, even stupid! But the conversation that flows from their evolving romantic relationship envelops the reader into a curious fascination, for Spike is more than just a hunk of metal who is programmed to automatically respond in word or deed. This is, for this reviewer, the most out-of-the-box portion of this novel that makes it very special. Spike and Billie communicate beyond the trite to the touching, essential and vibrant realities of living that soar far above survival, the book's repetitive theme, to transcending technology and touching the stars, replete with poetry, music and more!
The Stone Gods is an unusual but dynamic read that is a must for science fiction lovers or those who just dabble therein! It's fresh, bright, complex and surreal! Nicely done, Ms. Winterson!
Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on May 19, 2008