Dreamsnake

 I came to Vonda McIntyre’s Dreamsnake via a review of the book written by Ursula K. Le Guin and collected in her collection of essays called Words Are My Matter.  In that lovingly written review, Le Guin bemoaned the fact that the book was out of print, and concluded, “Dreamsnake is a classic, and should be cherished as such.”  So I went looking for a copy, and finding that our library system only carried a e-print of the book, I found one used on Ebay.

 What a wonderful book! Le Guin sites it as an influence on her, and I can see that immediately, although, I would have said that the influence worked the other way, given what Le Guin had already written by 1978 when the book was published, or even 1973 when McIntyre published the short story “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand,” which would become the first chapter of the novel.  There is a sincerity and warmth to the characters and the world, an open honesty that never falls into tweeness or cloying sweetness. Such a stance is all the more surprising when we consider that the novel is a kind of post-apocalyptic work, set in a world devastated a long time ago by nuclear war, though by this point recovering from that damage.  It is a hard world full of thoughtful people who are well-conceived.

 One of the things I loved about the book, and noticed immediately, was the way that the conflicts originated from the dramatic situations rather than from quarreling between characters.  Can Snake save young Stavin dying from a tumor?  Can Jesse, paralyzed by a spinal injury, make it to Center?  The characters are dealing with life and death and love, and emotions run high, but everyone treats everyone else with respect and integrity.  There are a few notable and necessary exceptions, of course. I say necessary because cruelty and selfishness exist in the world, and it would feel unreal to have it absent from this one.  McIntyre keeps those traits limited to a few individuals, and gives them their own set of reasons and motivations, understandable even if detestable. You don’t have characters using their emotional duress to attack and misunderstand each other.  The emotional duress is instead socially navigated and embraced and encountered head on. It was too me, utterly refreshing, and beautifully moving.

 The other thing that I loved and admired was McIntyre’s ease in envisioning and presenting a social world so much more functional than ours in many ways.  The triadic relationships are presented with ease and without explanation.  Merideth’s genderless identity is handled so deftly that I don’t know if I would have recognized it were it not for Le Guin’s review. Sex and childbirth are decoupled effortlessly in a way that makes sex this easy and beautiful act, a chance to connect and find comfort.

 In her review, Le Guin made an observation that I think captures the spirit of the book so well that it is better to quote her than to steal her sentiment:

The writer Moe Bowstern gave me a slogan I cherish: ‘Subversion Through Friendliness.’ It looks silly till you think about it. It bears considerable thinking about. Subversion through terror, shock, pain is easy—instant gratification, as it were. Subversion through friendliness is paradoxical, slow-acting, and durable. And sneaky. A moral revolutionary, rewriting rules the rest of us were still following, McIntyre subverted us so skillfully and with such lack of self-promoting hoo-ha that we scarcely noticed. And thus she has seldom if ever received the feminist honors she is due, the credit owed her by writers to whom she showed the way.

 I am not the kind of reader that always hopes for sequels. I like a book to give me everything it has to give and then end beautifully.  But I found myself wishing there was a whole slew of books set in this world with these characters. I can’t think of higher praise.