Farthing broke my heart. I have read a lot of books that end they would they should, and not necessarily the way I want them to but this one really hurt. I can't think of a better way to end the book then with what Jo Walton did, but wow - what a brave and, for lack of a better word, right thing to do. I'm going to try and work Farthing into my review of Sins of the Innocent just because they are kind of two sides of the same coin - how it was and how it might have been. It's after reading books like this one that my faith in Sci Fi as the best genre ever is really reinforced.
Oddly enough, after finishing Farthing, which is at its very heart about the price demanded in wars of freedom vs security, I then read this piece in the Guardian blog on Captain America's death and learned that it is an indictment of President Bush's America. To wit:
The point being made, over and over, is that Captain America's death symbolizes the death of the American dream. Many a commentator has argued variations on this point. Comic book heroes like Captain America and Superman represented a time in American history where the US government upheld basic rights and freedoms, not just at home but overseas. But somewhere in the last 66 years, that calculation changed.
It is a bit silly I suppose - Cap is only a comic book character after all. But still, you would have to be an utter fool not to have seen the change in what America means and stands for that has occured over the past decades (but ever more rapidly under the current president). Now we are the place where you are jailed until proven innocent, where democracy comes in a hail of bullets (something we have done for hundreds of years if truth be told), and where a soldier is valued only by words and not be care or deeds. How will I remember the Bush Administration? Guantanamo, Haditha, Abu Ghraib, Walter Reed, Valerie Plame and some U.S. attorneys who dared to just do their jobs and were fired in a grand conspiracy over lack of loyalty. And finally Captain America is dead. Who would have thought we would end up here?
Suddenly Jo Walton's world seems that much more possible which if you have read the book is terrifying news indeed.
March 15
2007
01:30 PM
If you haven't already, you might want to go read Jo Walton's response to this. Sounds like you made her day as much as she made yours.