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If I had read Ursula K. Le Guin’s Very Far Away From Anywhere Else as a teenager, which I believe would have blown the top off my head. It’s not magical or SFnal, but a slim contemporary novel, YA before the Twilightification of YA.
In his senior year of high school, budding scientist Owen meets his classmate Natalie, a serious musician with aspirations to become a composer, and for the first time in their lives the two of them find someone they can talk to—but really talk to, about the real things that deeply matter to them, truth and art and thinking and feeling and life. “We decided that it was no good asking what is the meaning of life, because life isn’t the answer, life is the question, and you, yourself, are the answer.”
It’s like Madeleine L’Engle’s A Ring of Endless Light, not so much in the content – although A Ring of Endless Light is also about very much about art and science and the relationship between both those things and the creative urge, so perhaps to a certain extent in content too. But both books are shaped by their main characters’ struggle with ideas, are about teenagers grappling with the big questions, in a way that real teenagers often do but that books for teenagers often don’t.
I thought it chickened out a bit at the end, though. There’s a big section in the middle where Owen muses for a while about how we’re all engineered by “movies and books and advertising and all the various sexual engineers, whether they’re scientists or salesman,” to think that “Man Plus Woman Equals Sex,” then explains that he nearly ruined things by deciding he was in love with Natalie: “I hadn’t fallen in love with her, please notice that I didn’t say that; I had decided that I was in love with her.”
And this ends up almost destroying their relationship. They return to the beach where they had a wonderful day earlier, only this time Owen kisses Natalie, and Natalie rejects him. “If what we have isn’t enough, then forget it. Because it’s all we do have. And you know it! And it’s a lot! But if it’s not enough, then let it be. Forget it!”
And then they are Torn Asunder for months. Only then Owen sees an advertisement for a concert where a few of Natalie’s compositions will be performed for the first time. Of course he has to go—and they meet up afterward—and it turns out that they are, in fact, in love.
Well, okay. That sorts of pulls the rug out from under this whole critique of the sexual engineers, but sure.
But maybe the point is that all that sexual engineering forced Owen to jump immediately to the conclusion that This Must Be Love, and therefore try to bend their relationship into the shape that movies and books and advertising call Love, and in doing so almost break it? Whereas they might not have been torn asunder if he hadn’t tried to force its growth, but let it develop naturally.
Honestly, mixed feelings. Thematically, I think this ending was a mistake, because it undercuts the middle, and in particular that powerful beach scene. But also, they are so in love. Do I really want them torn asunder permanently for mere thematic reasons?
In his senior year of high school, budding scientist Owen meets his classmate Natalie, a serious musician with aspirations to become a composer, and for the first time in their lives the two of them find someone they can talk to—but really talk to, about the real things that deeply matter to them, truth and art and thinking and feeling and life. “We decided that it was no good asking what is the meaning of life, because life isn’t the answer, life is the question, and you, yourself, are the answer.”
It’s like Madeleine L’Engle’s A Ring of Endless Light, not so much in the content – although A Ring of Endless Light is also about very much about art and science and the relationship between both those things and the creative urge, so perhaps to a certain extent in content too. But both books are shaped by their main characters’ struggle with ideas, are about teenagers grappling with the big questions, in a way that real teenagers often do but that books for teenagers often don’t.
I thought it chickened out a bit at the end, though. There’s a big section in the middle where Owen muses for a while about how we’re all engineered by “movies and books and advertising and all the various sexual engineers, whether they’re scientists or salesman,” to think that “Man Plus Woman Equals Sex,” then explains that he nearly ruined things by deciding he was in love with Natalie: “I hadn’t fallen in love with her, please notice that I didn’t say that; I had decided that I was in love with her.”
And this ends up almost destroying their relationship. They return to the beach where they had a wonderful day earlier, only this time Owen kisses Natalie, and Natalie rejects him. “If what we have isn’t enough, then forget it. Because it’s all we do have. And you know it! And it’s a lot! But if it’s not enough, then let it be. Forget it!”
And then they are Torn Asunder for months. Only then Owen sees an advertisement for a concert where a few of Natalie’s compositions will be performed for the first time. Of course he has to go—and they meet up afterward—and it turns out that they are, in fact, in love.
Well, okay. That sorts of pulls the rug out from under this whole critique of the sexual engineers, but sure.
But maybe the point is that all that sexual engineering forced Owen to jump immediately to the conclusion that This Must Be Love, and therefore try to bend their relationship into the shape that movies and books and advertising call Love, and in doing so almost break it? Whereas they might not have been torn asunder if he hadn’t tried to force its growth, but let it develop naturally.
Honestly, mixed feelings. Thematically, I think this ending was a mistake, because it undercuts the middle, and in particular that powerful beach scene. But also, they are so in love. Do I really want them torn asunder permanently for mere thematic reasons?
