Woman On The Edge Of Time (1985) - Plot & Excerpts
It’s interesting how the lens of three decades of life experience can sharpen the focus of certain stories—and even parts of stories. When I first read Woman on the Edge of Time not long after it was published (1976), I was barely into my 20s and already a reliable cog in the corporate machine. At that time, I enjoyed Marge Piercy’s story of a 37-year-old Chicana woman in New York whose already-complicated life takes a twist for the bizarre when she begins to communicate with an ambassador from the year 2137, but I found little to identify with personally beyond the yearning for a more egalitarian, utopian world. I read the book again when I was around the age of the main character, Consuela Ramos, and found considerably more to love—and ponder. I had naively thought when I first read the book in the late 70s that sexism, racism, and ethnocentrism were on the wane—outmoded concepts that were slowly but undeniably going the way of other counterproductive human behaviors like burning witches at the stake or equating nonconformity with insanity. Silly me. The 80s and 90s taught me otherwise, so that by the time I dipped into Woman in the late 90s, I realized how prescient some of Piercy’s observations were. And when I reread the book yet again recently, I finally found the story far richer and more nuanced than in any of my earlier readings.I am a gay single mother in my 50s who, after a severe depressive episode, has seen the inside of a mental institution. The short-term unit at McLean is a country club for harmless sadsacks compared with the more Cuckoo’s Nest setting Connie finds herself in, to be sure, but it’s a nuthouse all the same. So during this reading I found myself especially attuned to Connie’s treatment by “the system”—the way her story of the actions that led to her second commitment are ignored and read as denial and evidence of illness; the emphasis on orderly obeisance and lecturing over individual therapy and understanding; the easy assumption that “noncompliance” is dangerous and must be crushed. To be fair, I did not encounter frightened, uncaring staff during my brief stay, but it is still true that patients rarely if ever see actual doctors. At best they see counselors in group settings, but most interactions are with nurses, technicians, and pharmacists—just as they were in Piercy’s 1976 hospital. Those insights were critical in this recent reading of the book. The first time I read the book (I was a kid, remember!), I tended to believe that Ramos was indeed schizophrenic, and that she had created a very inventive but allegorically instructional alternative world to hide out in to escape the roughness of the real world. After the second reading I had no doubt that she had in fact been communicating with and visiting the world in 2137, and that her brave actions at the end of the book played a critical role in averting a disastrous future. But after this latest most recent reading, I have a different conclusion: it doesn’t matter. The book works either way, because it is above all character study, a deeply introspective look at community, evolution, survival, identity, and connectedness. Past reviewers have called the future world a “feminist utopia,” but this is hardly accurate. What they seem to be responding to is the idea that this future shows a world in which capitalism is not the driving force. It’s true: men are not in charge. But neither are women. Everyone is on charge, in turn. It’s not even socialism but communal living taken to a grand scale and extreme. It’s a world where everyone matters and is listened to, which is why it is important that Connie is not just some average housewife or middle management executive or a neurosurgeon: Connie is the epitome of the voiceless, ignored part of society—the people we brush off as “nuts” and consider less worthy of our full attention. This is not to say that Piercy is suggesting that everyone wearing a foil hat is tuned into reality and we are all fools for thinking them crazy; rather, she is contrasting what can happen when one set of people assumes graceless power over another and refuses to listen, to allow them to contribute or make their own sometimes-bad choices. It’s about what could happen if we accept totalitarianism.As an aside, I was amused to see that several reviewers considered the book dated—not the “present” period, mind you, which they accepted as a quaint period piece, but the imagined future of 2137. What we all forget too easily is that in the time since this book was written we have been barraged by a high-tech cinematic view of the future that almost invariably depicts our fate as increasingly electronic, automated, and conformist. Woman was written after the original-Star Trek series but predates the movies, the spin-off, and flashy movies like the Star Wars, Alien, and Terminator franchises. And the book helped spawn a generation of the alternative cyberpunk view of the broken, dystopian future that gave us Bladerunner and Mad Max. But realistically, none of us knows what the world will be like 125 years from now. Would we have imagined in 1887 that we could cruise down a highway at 80 mph talking to loved ones around the world through an earpiece? That our conversations at busy intersections and streets would be monitored and captured on camera without our knowledge? That pilotless drones would crisscross vast territories collecting data and firing weapons aimed by people on different continents? To think that we have any more insight into what will still be “normal” in 2137 is hubris.
I picked up this book because my local library had it listed in their "Recommended for people interested in time travel", and the blurb on the back sounded interesting enough. But I did not expect to be swept up like this, and taken on a wild ride, only to emerge bleary-eyed and confused, but also deeply shaken and moved.The story follows Connie Ramos, a Mexican-American woman who finds she can travel (or project) herself into the future, in the year 2137. Society has changed, with people living in communes. There is equality and fairness (aside: the use of the genderless 'person' and 'per' instead of the usual him/her and indications of gender being very fuzzy, made me really pleased; it's not often that a novel deals with a future in which gender-neutral pronouns are a thing), but there is also war. And as the reader discovers more and more of Mattapoisett, Luciente, Bee, Jackrabbit and the entire cast of future people, it is obvious how close to a utopia our society has become.The parts taking place in Connie's time and world, however, are much darker. I suffer from anxiety and depression, and during a particularly rough time in 2011, there were talks of going into hospital for treatment. It never happened, but since I have always been so afraid of either becoming so ill that I'm sectioned, or feeling so incapable of taking care of myself that I willingly go in for heavy psychiatric treatment. For Connie, there is no choice. And the horrific life on the wards becomes merely the beginning. From uncaring doctors and nurses, to the treatment of patients like barely cognisant animals, to the barrage of drugs, humiliation and procedures that the patients go through, it became a struggle for me to keep going. But as I kept reading, and as Connie keeps travelling more and more into the future, it became abundantly clear that Piercy wrote her character (a woman of colour) with the intent of having her be a disenfranchised voice in a world that doesn't care about her. Whether it's her brother signing over her rights (effectively robbing her of consent in a medical situation), her treatment at the hands of the medical and legal establishment, or the ways in which she is constantly mistrusted, disbelieved and outright mocked, it's clear that not only are people like Connie out there (and even today, in the 21st century, they did not miraculously vanish in the 80s), but they are still muted, ignored and treated as barely human.Slowly, it becomes obvious just how much of an indictment against society this novel is. It's not just about the utopian future of Mattapoisett, it's also about the fact that we are still a long way off from it. We are a society fixed on material gain, on acquisition at all costs, and on equating happiness with having "things", rather than love, self-betterment, community and acceptance. Luciente is not just a spokesperson for the future, she is also someone who genuinely hopes that Earth is heading towards that glorious future. For Connie, it's an eye-opening experience, and for me it was a chance to think further on how many are silenced daily, and the war that those in power wage against those with less or nothing.For me, this is a book to revisit. It's feminist literature, but it's also a manifesto for those without voices, it's a novel about human dignity, hope, and the endurance of the human spirit. Ultimately, it has moved me to my core, and it's perhaps one of the best books to end the year on. In a year in which I found myself looking as we continually lose freedoms, while also being further silenced by those who do not wish to listen, Piercy gives me the vision of a future of equality, understanding and love. And perhaps the best thing to take away from this is not so much the ending for Connie, but the ending I would like to see for our world and society: one in which the value of a human being is simply in their being alive, not in their race, gender, sexuality, materials gains or work.
What do You think about Woman On The Edge Of Time (1985)?
At last - a book I've been meaning to put on the wish list and that's on one of my group's Reads next month. (Even better - my library has a copy in house!)************************Rating: 3.3-3.5 starsIf the last two novels I had read before this had been Paul McAuley's The Quiet War and Bruce Sterling's The Caryatids then I may have nudged my rating into the 4-star category but they weren't. Instead they were Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes, Mr. Fortune's Maggot and Summer Will Show, and Piercy's writing style suffered by comparison (IMO, of course).Another strike against the novel was that I wasn't able to "get into it" for the first 100 pages or so.However: It got better. The writing, while never on the level Warner seems to reach effortlessly, did improve and there were some scenes that did leap off the page. And after Chapter 4, it became easier for me to empathize with Connie and enjoy her trips to the world of 2137.One of my groups is reading the book this month (March 2010) so I'm going to hold off on a more thorough (and spoiler-laden) review until later this month, hoping to get some insights and different POVs from the discussion threads.************************Woman on the Edge of Time (WOTEOT or Woman) is an interesting if not especially well written entry in the utopian/dystopian genre. It describes a future Earth where hierarchies have disappeared, gender roles are nonexistent, communities live in sustainable harmony with their environments and people realize their potentials. (Some people commented in the reading thread that it seemed dated in places because it was written in the '70s but I found its interest in the environment, war, out-of-control technology and social pressures to conform very contemporary.) The future isn't perfect. There's still the specter of a war against the remnants of the earlier machine, exploitative civilization (i.e., us - the 20th Century). But that culture only clings to a few enclaves on Earth and some space stations.We find out about this future through the psychic journeys of Consuelo (Connie) Ramos, a middle-aged Chicana whose life has been stifled by all the problems the future has solved. The promise of a better life was quashed when she had to drop out of college after only 2 years, having gotten pregnant by her first husband. When another lover, Claud (the only decent relationship Connie ever had), dies, she descends into a haze of depression and alcohol, loses her daughter and spends some time in a mental institution. When she tries to protect her niece Dolly from her pimp/boy friend, Connie winds up in an institution again because she's a "threat" and prone to violence. Just prior to this, Connie had been visited by a vision of Luciente, who turns out to be from 2137. Connie is a prime "receiver," and can travel with Luciente to the future, where she has a physical existence and can interact with the people she meets there in a limited way.Meanwhile, as Connie learns about the future, in the present she and her fellow inmates are threatened by a scientist who wants to experiment with brain surgery to "cure" them.For me, the selections of the novel set in the mental ward were the most affecting. Piercy manages to generate a real feeling for the helplessness and despair that its inmates feel as their lives are destroyed by the callous indifference of the staff, mental and physical abuse, and the determination of the doctors to try out their pet theories about mental health. The authors uses the future to highlight these cruelties in comparison as well as other issues that resonate today - the environment, gender conflict, war, individuals vs. community, and others.I would argue that, in the end, the future Connie visits is a hallucination that her mind constructs to give her the tools she needs to finally act against her oppressors. The ending is poignantly bleak - her rebellion is no more than a passive-aggressive attack against her immediate enemies - the doctors tormenting her and her friends. Connie manages to avoid further brain surgeries but is unable to escape her imprisonment, and ends up institutionalized for life. There's a glimmer of hope that her action may have allowed her friend Sybil to escape but the reader is left in the dark about that; and there's no certainty that Luciente's future is the real one as she has pointed out earlier that her reality is merely a possibility.I give WOTEOT a qualified recommendation. I enjoyed it eventually and found a lot to admire and hope for in Piercy's vision of the future, and I would certainly recommend it to the utopian/dystopian reading crowd.
—Terence
This book took up my every waking hour while I was reading it, and indeed by the end I was having dreams about it too! Unfortunately my unconscious brain is not a good author, and the bits of plot I dreamed were rubbish! I loved reading about the utopian society, but I didn't read it entirely without misgivings. It was fun to wonder would things be better this or that way, but also I found myself wondering what exactly the author intended at some points. I mean, I know that Connie's observation that the future men were emasculated was not to be trusted when you considered the horrors that she went through in her own time, but I wondered what Piercy intended in showing us Luciente/Diana as a destructive relationship, and also Bolivar/Jackrabbit as one which while not destructive, certainly caused pain for other characters. I know she points out the evil of homophobia elsewhere in the story (poor Skip) but am I really to believe it was a coincidence that two of the main characters had somewhat destructive gay relationships? Anyway, I worried a little about that, but overall the message was clear and Luciente's future was presented in a positive light. One thing I was delighted to see included was initiation rights for teenagers. I have thought for many years that those might sort out a lot of the problems caused by restless and irresponsible teens (and also eliminate the mental anguish a lot of people go through at that age). Towards the end it built up into a quite a suspenseful action story and I flew towards the end. There was little resolution there, but that certainly made it more open-ended and keeps you thinking about what future we are headed to.A lot of people are saying in their reviews that this is a book about the nature of sanity and insanity and no doubt it is, but funnily enough it didn't cross my mind that Connie might actually be insane until the last few pages. (Not that it would really matter if she was or not; the bits in the mental hospitals had me practically screaming in rage/fear at the injustice of Connie's plight and the smug, all-knowing air of the various people put in charge of her). Powerful stuff.
—Fiona Moyler
This is one of those books you either buy into, saying, yes, what a wonderful world it could be, or you think, what a load of shit, piled high and steaming. This is utopia as seen through the eyes of a fourth-grader, except that it was written by a grown woman taking a swing at science-fiction and missing big-time. The protagonist is a woman and Latina, which ought to make her automatically bullet-proof against any criticism, intelligent or not, but I never bought into how she ended up being opp
—Dennis
