World Made By Hand (2)
Aug. 21st, 2008 12:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
libertangoSo, talking some more about Kunstler's novel World Made by Hand...
One of the disturbing things about this science fiction novel (Kunstler vigorously resists this label, but hey -- it quacks like sf, it waddles like sf, it sheds feathers like sf) is how poor the world-building is. This wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't that the world-building is the point.
Anyway...![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jaylake points today to this article about a kid who's managed to build a wind turbine for UK£20. One of the "features" of Kunstler's scenario is that there's no electricity. This is particularly strange when one considers that Kunstler sets his story in a clear cognate to his home of Saratoga Springs, which gets most of its power from Niagara's hydro plant, which has no vulnerability to oil, peak or otherwise. Rather than mention Niagara even once in the book, Kunstler focuses instead on the number of small hydro plants that've been dismantled regionally, and mills as well. But compared to the over 2500 megawatts of Niagara, anything local is probably a rounding error.
My point, though, is that the UK£20 wind turbine was developed specifically for places with limited infrastructure, and is mostly made from scrap. Kunstler realizes his post-oil world is full of scrap -- but apparently no one has the initiative needed to build such objects on their own. No, they don't behave like human beings in the real world, they just drown in their passivity because the author needs them to so he can make his polemical point. This is known as "bad writing".
Similarly, he posits that not even bicycles can exist. because, you know, bicycles use rubber tires, and without oil you can't either make synthetic rubber or transport natural rubber. Which is true, but irrelevant. Bicycles existed from 1817 to the 1870s without rubber tires. In fact, you can still find bikes with wooden wheels around the globe.
However, even all this can be laid aside because... well, no oil, no gasoline, yes? So, rusting hulks of cars dotting the landscape, yes? Each and every one of them sitting on top of four wheels lined by...
Rubber.
Again, Kunstler rubs the reader's nose in how this new world requires fiendish ingenuity when it comes to salvaging the detritus of industrialism.
But not, you know, too much ingenuity. Like using a substance surrounding them.
Treating your characters like marionettes, just to prove a point. I sure am glad a sophisticated literary novelist would never resort to such cheap genre hackery.
One of the disturbing things about this science fiction novel (Kunstler vigorously resists this label, but hey -- it quacks like sf, it waddles like sf, it sheds feathers like sf) is how poor the world-building is. This wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't that the world-building is the point.
Anyway...
jaylake points today to this article about a kid who's managed to build a wind turbine for UK£20. One of the "features" of Kunstler's scenario is that there's no electricity. This is particularly strange when one considers that Kunstler sets his story in a clear cognate to his home of Saratoga Springs, which gets most of its power from Niagara's hydro plant, which has no vulnerability to oil, peak or otherwise. Rather than mention Niagara even once in the book, Kunstler focuses instead on the number of small hydro plants that've been dismantled regionally, and mills as well. But compared to the over 2500 megawatts of Niagara, anything local is probably a rounding error.My point, though, is that the UK£20 wind turbine was developed specifically for places with limited infrastructure, and is mostly made from scrap. Kunstler realizes his post-oil world is full of scrap -- but apparently no one has the initiative needed to build such objects on their own. No, they don't behave like human beings in the real world, they just drown in their passivity because the author needs them to so he can make his polemical point. This is known as "bad writing".
Similarly, he posits that not even bicycles can exist. because, you know, bicycles use rubber tires, and without oil you can't either make synthetic rubber or transport natural rubber. Which is true, but irrelevant. Bicycles existed from 1817 to the 1870s without rubber tires. In fact, you can still find bikes with wooden wheels around the globe.
However, even all this can be laid aside because... well, no oil, no gasoline, yes? So, rusting hulks of cars dotting the landscape, yes? Each and every one of them sitting on top of four wheels lined by...
Rubber.
Again, Kunstler rubs the reader's nose in how this new world requires fiendish ingenuity when it comes to salvaging the detritus of industrialism.
But not, you know, too much ingenuity. Like using a substance surrounding them.
Treating your characters like marionettes, just to prove a point. I sure am glad a sophisticated literary novelist would never resort to such cheap genre hackery.
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-21 01:49 pm (UTC)You hit the nail on the head about Kunstler's writing: there is very little intellectual honesty in it. Can't stand it, myself.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-21 01:59 pm (UTC)You are certainly validating that expectation. And, may I say, in a very entertaining and ranty fashion. However I've got to ask: Why did you wade your way through that dreck in the first place?
Wading in the pool
Date: 2008-08-23 12:36 pm (UTC)Mostly, I find that Kunstler and I agree a great deal on architecture and urbanism. And I also find him entertaining.
So I was willing to read through to see just what he thinks. After that, he became entertaining in a different way -- spot the NY literary novelist screw up a classic sf trope one more time! He doesn't just reinvent the wheel, he reinvents the square wheel (no tires)! Watch him make mistakes no self-respecting novelist should make!
Keep in mind, Kunstler started in theatre, then went to novels, and only got into urban criticism through chance. World is his ninth novel. Not that you could tell. It's amusing, looking over the reviews at Amazon, how many people have missed this completely, and think this is his first novel.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 12:12 am (UTC)