Ezra leads the way. Binalong Bay, Bay of Fires. July 2021.
The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird
An interesting premise. I found it interesting when PD James used it in The Children of Men. Unfortunately, it is wasted by pedestrian writing, far too many awkwardly composed narrative voices, an embarrassing grasp of medical science and a decidedly dubious moral compass.
Let me start with the latter. Sweeney-Baird goes to great pains to critique patriarchy, the treacherous power dynamics of a craven civil service, and global capitalism's failures that are leads humanity to its (almost) destruction. So far, so good. The criticism is reasonable, and there's an internal logic to the narrative arc, initially at least.
Despite the crowded field of voices, there is a convergence towards an inevitable global capitalism and craven civil service that the first third of the book goes to great pains to stress has led to the disaster confronting humanity. I would not have a problem with this if I believed that this is the point that the author endeavours to make, but here it pushes against the first few hundred pages.
Despite the cacophony of voices - I lost count at more than a dozen - there is an awful lack of diversity of thought or belief. With gender at the heart of the matter, I was shocked at the dated and confused understanding of the sex and gender distinction.
There’s a conservatism at the heart of the piece. Despite the many words expended on the virtues of old-fashioned British grit, American ingenuity, and the general pre-eminence of feminine logic, at the novel's end, there is a reversion to the 'normality' of pre-pandemic attitudes, ideology and political machinations (albeit with more women in power). Indeed, the convergence of these voices to a rather staid and predictable desire for 'motherhood' is a disheartening result to all revolutionary fervour that presage the denouement.
I understand that this is written from a western perspective, but in the context of such a feminist approach, the 'othering' of Asia (in the mysterious rise of female Chinese warlords) and utter absence of African, Latin American, Pacific Islander or Slavic voices (beyond a single 'battered' Russian housewife and some damaged Moldovan victims of sex trafficking right at the end) is downright uncomfortable.
⭐ ⭐
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