Book Review: Arslan by M. J. Engh
Jul. 15th, 2011 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiI read M. J. Engh's alternate history novel, Arslan (pub. 1976), on the ambivalent recommendation of sixish and an equally ambivalent reception on Amazon: some call it a work of genius; others are lukewarm. I went in with lukewarm expectations and emerge duly impressed.
Arslan is the story of the conquest of the modern world by a charismatic dictator from Bukhara (in Uzbekistan, though I think the borders are different in the novel). The novel is narrated from the perspective of two Midwestern Americans who are among his conquered, Franklin Bond, a former middle school principal, and Hunt Morgan, one of the students from Bond's former school. While the early part of the novel is much concerned with the ideology of world conquest, the later part emphasizes the interrelationships among Franklin, Hunt, and Arslan. The narrative is not entirely even or flawlessly plausible; however, it is thought-provoking, creepy, different, and emotionally moving.
Spoilers Follow
A Complex Discourse
Arslan eschews easy answers, both politically and personally. Arslan's proposed project is to greatly limit (or completely halt) human reproduction and social centralization in order to create a more ecologically balanced, less polluting, less destructive, more sustainable (at least for other species) world. While I would vote for limiting reproduction rather than driving humanity extinct, there's much in his ideology I agree with. In fact, so much of it is echoed in the ideology of my Kiri society that I spent a good fourth of the book in furious conversation with Arslan about where his plan was sensible and where it missed the boat. And while his plan ultimately does not turn out exactly as he had hoped, he does, in fact, succeed in creating a much more sustainable, less destructive world, which, as he notes early on, will probably take centuries to return to being as miserable as it was before his reign.
This doesn't mean, however, that I would want to be one of his conquered Americans. Nor am I insensible to the fact that if I did inhabit his world, I would never be in conversation with him because women exist to be in brothels or kitchens and never, ever to be conversed with. It is not easy to approve of someone who is variously a fascist, sadist, rapist, and kills people in vengeance with his bare hands. And yet... it is impossible (for me at any rate) not to like him.sixish described him as "affably evil." He's not really evil, of course, though he is damn scary, but affable he undeniably can be. He is a gifted psychologist, with both the stick and carrot, an ingenious human being across several different types of intelligence, genuinely courageous, morally consistent, witty, and frankly amiable when he's not making shows of force or (rarely) truly infuriated. Arslan, like his utopian vision, is difficult to pin down: good and bad, right and wrong, hateful and charming bundled up together.
This complexity is reflected in the ambivalent attitudes of Franklin, who becomes Arslan's right-hand American in the town of Kraftsville, and Hunt, who begins as his sex slave and ends as something like his friend (?), loyal follower (?), family (?).
It is, especially early on, a discomforting read because it is a challenging one. It refuses easy definition.
Why Isn't This Story Famous?
It is hailed as a brilliant work by the likes of Orson Scott Card and Samuel Delany; it's certainly not excluded from "the academy" of professional science fiction, yet it has flown decidedly under the radar, earning fewer popular mentions (in my experience) even than Ecotopia, that rather boring hippie, utopian tract that tackles similar ecological issues and dates from about the same year. Arslan is better than Ecotopia and, indeed, better than many a decent spec fic novel, so why is it so comparatively invisible?
I suspect two reasons:
1) It has no hero-protagonist. Our nominees are the fascist dictator with sadistic overtones (the prot-antagonist); the stodgy, middle-aged school principal with courage and intelligence but little imagination whose great "success" is becoming mayor of a conquered Illinois town; and the toy boy who, in external terms, doesn't accomplish much of anything. There is no Paul Atreides, nor even a Harry Potter, on whom the "average reader" can hang his identification.
2) Homophobia: much of the story is concerned with the relationship between Arslan and Hunt, which is often sexual, occasionally romantic, and ultimately mutually accepted and affectionate (if not comfortable). I'm a little surprised this book made it into mainstream publication in 1976, much less into the reviews of folks of the stature of Card and Delany. The audience to which it was delivered was, of course, no less homophobic than the '70s small town folk who label Hunt as "queer" in within the text. The fact that the story's primary relationship is homosexual and not discredited (despite its many disturbing aspects) was probably enough to ensure the book a modest readership. One wonders how its reception would differ if it were first published today.
The BL Connection and Gender Discourse
It's fascinating how closely this 1970s American novel resembles the Japanese manga/light novel BL surge of the 1980s. It is paradigmatic of the overpowering and scary yet somehow enthralling seme and the "tough uke" who has to assert his masculinity/identity/individuality in the face of feminization and subjugation (Hunt is right in the tradition in Ash, Riki, and Kagetora, the only difference being that he never rises to be a leader but is truly a devoted follower of his charismatic seme.) I wonder about the historical moment that produced such similar texts, probably with little direct cross-pollination.
The BL movement is also associated with the trope of using male characters to represent women and/or women's issues, while women themselves tend to be effaced. Arslan is also paradigmatic of this: it has two first-person narrators and three main characters, all men (with Hunt representing women's concerns). It has no significant female character and no female voice at all, beyond the most peripheral, throwaway lines. Indeed, all the three of the main characters have a dismissive attitude toward women, every one of them assuming women are rather incapable and none pondering whether women might actually have anything intelligent to contribute. It's always interesting to get this from a female writer; it's a curious self-erasure. Arslan does show traces of understanding of women's underlying importance, especially in its depiction of how quickly Franklin's household goes to ruins after the death of his long-suffering domestic angel. But these moments are fleeting.
Upshot
I would have appreciated more gender discourse. And I would have appreciated more discussion of the pros and cons of Arslan's vision vs. the state of the state of the current world. Nonetheless, the story remains provocative and compelling. Highly recommended to those not easily creeped out, and especially those interested in BL-paradigm stories and/or ecological utopian/dystopian discourse.
sixish and an equally ambivalent reception on Amazon: some call it a work of genius; others are lukewarm. I went in with lukewarm expectations and emerge duly impressed. Arslan is the story of the conquest of the modern world by a charismatic dictator from Bukhara (in Uzbekistan, though I think the borders are different in the novel). The novel is narrated from the perspective of two Midwestern Americans who are among his conquered, Franklin Bond, a former middle school principal, and Hunt Morgan, one of the students from Bond's former school. While the early part of the novel is much concerned with the ideology of world conquest, the later part emphasizes the interrelationships among Franklin, Hunt, and Arslan. The narrative is not entirely even or flawlessly plausible; however, it is thought-provoking, creepy, different, and emotionally moving.
Spoilers Follow
A Complex Discourse
Arslan eschews easy answers, both politically and personally. Arslan's proposed project is to greatly limit (or completely halt) human reproduction and social centralization in order to create a more ecologically balanced, less polluting, less destructive, more sustainable (at least for other species) world. While I would vote for limiting reproduction rather than driving humanity extinct, there's much in his ideology I agree with. In fact, so much of it is echoed in the ideology of my Kiri society that I spent a good fourth of the book in furious conversation with Arslan about where his plan was sensible and where it missed the boat. And while his plan ultimately does not turn out exactly as he had hoped, he does, in fact, succeed in creating a much more sustainable, less destructive world, which, as he notes early on, will probably take centuries to return to being as miserable as it was before his reign.
This doesn't mean, however, that I would want to be one of his conquered Americans. Nor am I insensible to the fact that if I did inhabit his world, I would never be in conversation with him because women exist to be in brothels or kitchens and never, ever to be conversed with. It is not easy to approve of someone who is variously a fascist, sadist, rapist, and kills people in vengeance with his bare hands. And yet... it is impossible (for me at any rate) not to like him.
sixish described him as "affably evil." He's not really evil, of course, though he is damn scary, but affable he undeniably can be. He is a gifted psychologist, with both the stick and carrot, an ingenious human being across several different types of intelligence, genuinely courageous, morally consistent, witty, and frankly amiable when he's not making shows of force or (rarely) truly infuriated. Arslan, like his utopian vision, is difficult to pin down: good and bad, right and wrong, hateful and charming bundled up together.This complexity is reflected in the ambivalent attitudes of Franklin, who becomes Arslan's right-hand American in the town of Kraftsville, and Hunt, who begins as his sex slave and ends as something like his friend (?), loyal follower (?), family (?).
It is, especially early on, a discomforting read because it is a challenging one. It refuses easy definition.
Why Isn't This Story Famous?
It is hailed as a brilliant work by the likes of Orson Scott Card and Samuel Delany; it's certainly not excluded from "the academy" of professional science fiction, yet it has flown decidedly under the radar, earning fewer popular mentions (in my experience) even than Ecotopia, that rather boring hippie, utopian tract that tackles similar ecological issues and dates from about the same year. Arslan is better than Ecotopia and, indeed, better than many a decent spec fic novel, so why is it so comparatively invisible?
I suspect two reasons:
1) It has no hero-protagonist. Our nominees are the fascist dictator with sadistic overtones (the prot-antagonist); the stodgy, middle-aged school principal with courage and intelligence but little imagination whose great "success" is becoming mayor of a conquered Illinois town; and the toy boy who, in external terms, doesn't accomplish much of anything. There is no Paul Atreides, nor even a Harry Potter, on whom the "average reader" can hang his identification.
2) Homophobia: much of the story is concerned with the relationship between Arslan and Hunt, which is often sexual, occasionally romantic, and ultimately mutually accepted and affectionate (if not comfortable). I'm a little surprised this book made it into mainstream publication in 1976, much less into the reviews of folks of the stature of Card and Delany. The audience to which it was delivered was, of course, no less homophobic than the '70s small town folk who label Hunt as "queer" in within the text. The fact that the story's primary relationship is homosexual and not discredited (despite its many disturbing aspects) was probably enough to ensure the book a modest readership. One wonders how its reception would differ if it were first published today.
The BL Connection and Gender Discourse
It's fascinating how closely this 1970s American novel resembles the Japanese manga/light novel BL surge of the 1980s. It is paradigmatic of the overpowering and scary yet somehow enthralling seme and the "tough uke" who has to assert his masculinity/identity/individuality in the face of feminization and subjugation (Hunt is right in the tradition in Ash, Riki, and Kagetora, the only difference being that he never rises to be a leader but is truly a devoted follower of his charismatic seme.) I wonder about the historical moment that produced such similar texts, probably with little direct cross-pollination.
The BL movement is also associated with the trope of using male characters to represent women and/or women's issues, while women themselves tend to be effaced. Arslan is also paradigmatic of this: it has two first-person narrators and three main characters, all men (with Hunt representing women's concerns). It has no significant female character and no female voice at all, beyond the most peripheral, throwaway lines. Indeed, all the three of the main characters have a dismissive attitude toward women, every one of them assuming women are rather incapable and none pondering whether women might actually have anything intelligent to contribute. It's always interesting to get this from a female writer; it's a curious self-erasure. Arslan does show traces of understanding of women's underlying importance, especially in its depiction of how quickly Franklin's household goes to ruins after the death of his long-suffering domestic angel. But these moments are fleeting.
Upshot
I would have appreciated more gender discourse. And I would have appreciated more discussion of the pros and cons of Arslan's vision vs. the state of the state of the current world. Nonetheless, the story remains provocative and compelling. Highly recommended to those not easily creeped out, and especially those interested in BL-paradigm stories and/or ecological utopian/dystopian discourse.
