I am still not sure if Slow River falls into my personal definitions of science fiction. Obviously, it takes place in the future, and there are extrapolative qualities to the narrative, but it does not seem “sciency” enough to me. The water parts, although interesting, do not have the same glamorous appeal as interstellar space travel. One of the most fascinating areas of the novel, to me, was the role of pleasure in manipulating its victims’ lives. Like Molly from Neuromancer, Lore and Spanner utilize a futuristic method to distance themselves from the reality of selling their bodies to men. However, the implication remains that there is no true escape from prostitution. Although the drug makes the act itself more pleasurable, eventually one needs to wake up. Both Molly and Lore have rude awakenings to this fact, and both are forced to continue prostituting themselves once they stop using the drugs.
I am interested in the role that prostitution plays in many of the novels that we have read so far. Obviously, there is the futuristic whorehouse of Neuromancer, and there is the twosome prostitution of Lore and Spanner in Slow River. However, there is also the necessary prostitution of the humans in Lilith’s Brood. I am not quite sure if prostitution is the right word, but there is an implied obligation to having sex with the Oankali in order to stay in their good graces. Again, in Lilith’s Brood, pleasure is used as the seductor for sex, and it proves to be a powerful tool for the Oankali. Why do all of these novels portray pleasure in such a negative fashion? Or is it simply the manipulation and excess of pleasure that is the real problem?
On a somewhat-unrelated note (sorry for the rambling nature of this response paper, but there were so many interesting aspects of Slow River!), I liked her name-choices, although some were a little bit obvious. The article that we read for today mentioned the hedonistic implications of the plant’s name, but I felt like that was only one of the novel’s many Dickenson-worthy names. I brought this up in class, but I found it interesting that all of her siblings’ names had some sort of fairy-tale connection. I was trying to remember where I had heard the name Tok from, and I just realized last night that he is a character from The Wizard of Oz collection. It seemed completely contradictory that Griffith chose to give such a cold family fantasy-related names, but perhaps this irony was what she really wanted for the Van de Oest family. In addition to the family itself, my presentation group talked a little bit about Spanner and what her name implies. Although she seems firmly planted in her sector of society (Lore notes the fact that she has found her niche in the underworld), she also seems to have her hand in everything. There is always the sense that Spanner knows much more than she lets on, although she too is duped by the pleasure-inducing drug.
Because there are implications for the other characters’ names, I really want to know why Griffith chose to call the manager of the plant Magyar. It is the Hungarian term for themselves, and I cannot help but wonder why she chose this word. Maybe it is just the Hungarian blood in me, but I really want to know why!