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A review by jenibo
Halfway Human by Carolyn Ives Gilman
4.0
Certainly a remarkable book, especially given that it is a debut novel for this Author (though written a long time ago - I have come to it late).
Halfway Human is a sensitive investigation into what makes our humanity - in so many ways it challenges and twists what we know and feel, points out our contradictions, and confirms once and for all the hypocrisies and insensitivites which make us human, which make us inhumane to others, and which lead to our desire to refuse to see the humanity in those we choose to oppress.
Tedla is brought up in a socially stratified society which needs more and more serving classes to accommodate the luxuries of the few privileged 'humans', and so s/he is denied gender and allocated to the sexless servile class who are referred to as 'it', and who cater for the every need of their masters, whilst feeling lucky to be allowed to do so. The mastery of the 'human' class in this society over their engineered, dehumanised servants, on this planet, is of course, a pathway to their own brutalisation, whilst the nobility exhibited in the unquestioning loyalty of Tedla and its class, confirms its greater understanding, sensitivity and the injustice of its situation. (irritated and disoriented by my use of the pronoun? - this is part of the brilliance of the style, that our narrator and hero/ine, so clearly human in every aspect, has been reduced to this dreadful status)
The degradations inflicted on Tedla's class are not confined to domestic abuse, though - boundaries are pushed more and more by 'masters' who are unable to resist the temptation of complete power over another creature so attractive in innocence and so uncomplaining in abuse, and Tedla becomes a sexual slave, despite its abusers' awareness that it is completely incapable of any physical gratification. But Tedla can feel love, and does, whilst believing itself to be incapable (due to inferiority) of any meaningful or worthy emotion.
The laying bare of the contradictions and hypocrisies of this society, which in so many ways reflects our own, is a fascinating journey for the reader, and the way Gilman has Tedla examine the society of its new planet (a society a lot more like our own) as an outsider - its observations on our idolisation of knowledge as a kind of religion are all very interesting. Challenging and intriguing and well worthwhile.
Halfway Human is a sensitive investigation into what makes our humanity - in so many ways it challenges and twists what we know and feel, points out our contradictions, and confirms once and for all the hypocrisies and insensitivites which make us human, which make us inhumane to others, and which lead to our desire to refuse to see the humanity in those we choose to oppress.
Tedla is brought up in a socially stratified society which needs more and more serving classes to accommodate the luxuries of the few privileged 'humans', and so s/he is denied gender and allocated to the sexless servile class who are referred to as 'it', and who cater for the every need of their masters, whilst feeling lucky to be allowed to do so. The mastery of the 'human' class in this society over their engineered, dehumanised servants, on this planet, is of course, a pathway to their own brutalisation, whilst the nobility exhibited in the unquestioning loyalty of Tedla and its class, confirms its greater understanding, sensitivity and the injustice of its situation. (irritated and disoriented by my use of the pronoun? - this is part of the brilliance of the style, that our narrator and hero/ine, so clearly human in every aspect, has been reduced to this dreadful status)
The degradations inflicted on Tedla's class are not confined to domestic abuse, though - boundaries are pushed more and more by 'masters' who are unable to resist the temptation of complete power over another creature so attractive in innocence and so uncomplaining in abuse, and Tedla becomes a sexual slave, despite its abusers' awareness that it is completely incapable of any physical gratification. But Tedla can feel love, and does, whilst believing itself to be incapable (due to inferiority) of any meaningful or worthy emotion.
The laying bare of the contradictions and hypocrisies of this society, which in so many ways reflects our own, is a fascinating journey for the reader, and the way Gilman has Tedla examine the society of its new planet (a society a lot more like our own) as an outsider - its observations on our idolisation of knowledge as a kind of religion are all very interesting. Challenging and intriguing and well worthwhile.