Status
Available
Publication
Fawcett (1983), 381 pages
Description
Hailed as a classic of speculative fiction, Marge Piercy's landmark novel is a transformative vision of two futures-and what it takes to will one or the other into reality. Harrowing and prescient, Woman on the Edge of Time speaks to a new generation on whom these choices weigh more heavily than ever before. Connie Ramos is a Mexican American woman living on the streets of New York. Once ambitious and proud, she has lost her child, her husband, her dignity-and now they want to take her sanity. After being unjustly committed to a mental institution, Connie is contacted by an envoy from the year 2137, who shows her a time of sexual and racial equality, environmental purity, and unprecedented self-actualization. But Connie also bears witness to another potential outcome: a society of grotesque exploitation in which the barrier between person and commodity has finally been eroded. One will become our world. And Connie herself may strike the decisive blow.… (more)
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Media reviews
It is the most serious and fully imagined Utopia since Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed, and even the cynical reader will leave it refreshed and rallied--as Piercy intended.
User reviews
LibraryThing member TadAD
This is a story that tackled an ambitious set of themes: environmentalism, feminism, child rearing, treatment of the mentally ill, socialism, criminal justice, war, racial prejudice, genetic engineering...whew, and in just 376 pages! The basic premise of the plot is that Consuela Ramos is a woman
To some extent, it was a story whose ambition exceeded its grasp. While many of her thoughts are interesting...even fascinatingly novel (men taking temporary hormone treatments so they can experience the mother/child bonding of breast feeding)...there's an overarching ADD quality to the story line as Piercy tries to keep so many balls in the air. Moreover, it's difficult to read this as a quality example of any subgenre of science fiction.
We can disregard technological science fiction right away; Piercy is too careless of the implications of future technology to make it satisfying.
Piercy does make an attempt at an alternate futures story. The future characters state it explicitly, "...at certain cruxes of history...forces are in conflict....Alternate futures are equally or almost equally probable...We are struggling to exist." Unfortunately, she doesn't remain focused on it and is too vague in presenting the cause and effect that will make one future or another come true. Further, she commits the cardinal sin of introducing the Grandfather Paradox and then simply dropping further consideration with it unresolved. At best, we have to ignore this subplot and consider the time travel as merely a weak mechanism that allows Piercy to present her society.
We're left with its social science fiction persona, the cautionary tale vs. utopian vision aspect. Piercy tackles this with gusto, presenting a culture that is focused upon erasing all the ills of our society. As I mentioned above, I found some of her visions interesting (even if they caused me to squirm a bit), particularly in regard to erasing the gender gap and elevating the "female" in our society. Quite frankly, I would have enjoyed this book quite a bit more if she had let most of her other subjects go and explored this a bit more. Yet, even this aspect of the book palled eventually because that society began to feel like the popular image of Michael Metelica's Brotherhood of the Spirit rather than some living and breathing society. It was as if Piercy took all the social dreams from the Summer of Love (1967) through when she wrote it (1976) and packaged them up in an Aquarian Age utopia rather than a logical extension of our future.
If this doesn't work well as science fiction...if we take away that veneer...what do we have left? The answer is an indictment of our treatment of the have nots in our society, especially the treatment of the mentally ill. This theme is actually the bulk of the book's content and it's a forceful polemic against the warehousing, the lack of treatment and the basic abrogation of rights that exists in this area. Piercy made a good choice in her protagonist in this regard; Connie is a sympathetic character: poor, minority, likable, well-intentioned, unlucky, and mistreated by her family. And yet, for all that we do like her, she is what they say she is: violent, irresponsible and addicted. Some healing is appropriate. This aspect of the story becomes a grim pounding after a while (cut half of it and use those pages to fill in the gaps in the future story is my advice), but it is effective.
In the end, I think this is a story you might want to read to get a flavor of that late 60s/early 70s thinking about our society and utopian possibilities. In that regard, it's rather interesting. However, if your goal is just a good science fiction book, regardless of any historical context, then you might want to pass this one by.
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with some history of violence who ends up in an infamous New York mental institution. She has episodes that, from her perspective, involve her traveling in time psychically to about 150 years in the future to a culture that has tackled many of the afore-mentioned issues head-on, and she is given some hints that her life might be somewhat pivotal in determining if that future actually comes to pass. Piercy is coy with the reader about whether these episodes are real or whether they are mental breaks.To some extent, it was a story whose ambition exceeded its grasp. While many of her thoughts are interesting...even fascinatingly novel (men taking temporary hormone treatments so they can experience the mother/child bonding of breast feeding)...there's an overarching ADD quality to the story line as Piercy tries to keep so many balls in the air. Moreover, it's difficult to read this as a quality example of any subgenre of science fiction.
We can disregard technological science fiction right away; Piercy is too careless of the implications of future technology to make it satisfying.
Piercy does make an attempt at an alternate futures story. The future characters state it explicitly, "...at certain cruxes of history...forces are in conflict....Alternate futures are equally or almost equally probable...We are struggling to exist." Unfortunately, she doesn't remain focused on it and is too vague in presenting the cause and effect that will make one future or another come true. Further, she commits the cardinal sin of introducing the Grandfather Paradox and then simply dropping further consideration with it unresolved. At best, we have to ignore this subplot and consider the time travel as merely a weak mechanism that allows Piercy to present her society.
We're left with its social science fiction persona, the cautionary tale vs. utopian vision aspect. Piercy tackles this with gusto, presenting a culture that is focused upon erasing all the ills of our society. As I mentioned above, I found some of her visions interesting (even if they caused me to squirm a bit), particularly in regard to erasing the gender gap and elevating the "female" in our society. Quite frankly, I would have enjoyed this book quite a bit more if she had let most of her other subjects go and explored this a bit more. Yet, even this aspect of the book palled eventually because that society began to feel like the popular image of Michael Metelica's Brotherhood of the Spirit rather than some living and breathing society. It was as if Piercy took all the social dreams from the Summer of Love (1967) through when she wrote it (1976) and packaged them up in an Aquarian Age utopia rather than a logical extension of our future.
If this doesn't work well as science fiction...if we take away that veneer...what do we have left? The answer is an indictment of our treatment of the have nots in our society, especially the treatment of the mentally ill. This theme is actually the bulk of the book's content and it's a forceful polemic against the warehousing, the lack of treatment and the basic abrogation of rights that exists in this area. Piercy made a good choice in her protagonist in this regard; Connie is a sympathetic character: poor, minority, likable, well-intentioned, unlucky, and mistreated by her family. And yet, for all that we do like her, she is what they say she is: violent, irresponsible and addicted. Some healing is appropriate. This aspect of the story becomes a grim pounding after a while (cut half of it and use those pages to fill in the gaps in the future story is my advice), but it is effective.
In the end, I think this is a story you might want to read to get a flavor of that late 60s/early 70s thinking about our society and utopian possibilities. In that regard, it's rather interesting. However, if your goal is just a good science fiction book, regardless of any historical context, then you might want to pass this one by.
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LibraryThing member sturlington
After bashing her niece's pimp with a bottle, Connie Ramos is committed to a mental hospital, where she begins telepathically time traveling to a utopian future.
Published in 1976, Woman on the Edge of Time reminded me quite a lot of two other feminist speculative fiction classics of roughly the
Of more interest in Piercy's novel is the present-day life of Connie Ramos, who is poor, Hispanic, undereducated, mentally ill and pretty much a victim of all our social institutions. Connie's plight, having been committed and then subjected to heinous experiments against her will, almost make us cheer her drastic actions after she accepts that she is at war. She is at war against our systems themselves, and the deck is well stacked against her. It's never very clear if Connie is literally time-traveling or if she is hallucinating as an escape. Given the epilogue with her medical history, I'm inclined to believe the latter, but I don't know if that is what Piercy intended as the author. There is a lot here to chew on, but I'm not sure Piercy has assembled it into a cohesive story. She seems to be trying to say so much that nothing comes through as powerfully as she might have intended. If she had focused on Connie in the present, and scaled back all the future scenes, using them more as an indicator of Connie's troubled psyche, this probably would have been a much more effective novel.
Read in 2015 for the SFFCat.
Published in 1976, Woman on the Edge of Time reminded me quite a lot of two other feminist speculative fiction classics of roughly the
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same period: The Female Man by Joanna Russ and Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin. All three present idealized anarchist utopias, as well as brief depictions of a dystopian counterpart. These utopian communities are presented as environmentally conscious and sustainable, having achieved equality among the sexes and races (albeit in different ways), where the people live communally and in harmony with nature. (Of the three, I liked Le Guin's the best, but it is the most recently published and the most fully baked, I think.) These are not novels so much as vehicles for ideas about how people could possibly be, and after reading so many of these--including a few minor versions not mentioned--I feel I've exhausted this narrow sub-genre. The ideas are attractive, but having moved well past the Age of Aquarius, they seem much more unworkable, relying on an idealized vision of human nature.Of more interest in Piercy's novel is the present-day life of Connie Ramos, who is poor, Hispanic, undereducated, mentally ill and pretty much a victim of all our social institutions. Connie's plight, having been committed and then subjected to heinous experiments against her will, almost make us cheer her drastic actions after she accepts that she is at war. She is at war against our systems themselves, and the deck is well stacked against her. It's never very clear if Connie is literally time-traveling or if she is hallucinating as an escape. Given the epilogue with her medical history, I'm inclined to believe the latter, but I don't know if that is what Piercy intended as the author. There is a lot here to chew on, but I'm not sure Piercy has assembled it into a cohesive story. She seems to be trying to say so much that nothing comes through as powerfully as she might have intended. If she had focused on Connie in the present, and scaled back all the future scenes, using them more as an indicator of Connie's troubled psyche, this probably would have been a much more effective novel.
Read in 2015 for the SFFCat.
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LibraryThing member amaraduende
I need to reread this. I've thought about it often since reading it the first time. I especially always think of Piercy's word "per" as a singular gender neutral third person pronoun whenever I hear myself awkwardly saying "he or she" or (shudder) "they" to mean the same thing.
I remember loving
Aug 2010
I reread this book hoping for more enjoyment - not that it's worse on the second pass but I got so damn depressed thinking about how our world is really messed up compared to the future Connie visits.
May 2011
Reread for the third time. This book makes me so sad. It also makes me want to be a better person. And it makes me wish we had more beauty in our lives, like the people of Mattapoiset do with their celebrations of death, holidays, the way they work, they way they play...
I remember loving
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the story and thinking about how interesting and well-thought out all of the utopian ideas were. Aug 2010
I reread this book hoping for more enjoyment - not that it's worse on the second pass but I got so damn depressed thinking about how our world is really messed up compared to the future Connie visits.
May 2011
Reread for the third time. This book makes me so sad. It also makes me want to be a better person. And it makes me wish we had more beauty in our lives, like the people of Mattapoiset do with their celebrations of death, holidays, the way they work, they way they play...
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LibraryThing member owen1218
I kind of hate Marge Piercy's idea of utopia, with its' androgynous people, birth machines, anomie, and cultural appropriation. I did not find her vision nearly radical enough. Yes, the people are now dedicated to restoring the planet, but they still see it as something to exploit for human
On the other hand, I love most everything else about the book. All the scenes outside of the utopian future are excellent, and so are many of the author's insights. Her writing is very strong, and the conclusion was my favorite part of the whole book.
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interests. They still tamper with genetics, watch television, and domesticate rivers. They might not be greedy, but they're still basically self-centered and individualistic. The writing is also at its worst in these scenes. It is not very convincing. As in many utopias, the inhabitants lack conflict with one another (for the most part), and are just simply too aware of their own culture's beliefs and attitudes. Generally speaking when someone internalizes a value they aren't going to have an easy time articulating it, but that isn't the case for people here.On the other hand, I love most everything else about the book. All the scenes outside of the utopian future are excellent, and so are many of the author's insights. Her writing is very strong, and the conclusion was my favorite part of the whole book.
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LibraryThing member veevoxvoom
What is real? What is the future? What is the role of women and poverty in our society? Woman on the Edge of Time was written in the 70s and tells the tale of Connie, a Latino woman who lives in what today would be called the 'hood'. She's on welfare, her daughter was taken away by case workers,
Those who read a lot of sci-fi may find Woman on the Edge of Time dated and typical, but I genuinely enjoyed descriptions of the future that Luciente shows Connie. It's a utopia without any gender roles or poverty, where everybody gathers in tightly knit communities to share means of production, and where children are born from test tubes but have three mothers ( male or female) in order to break the bonds of heteronormativity. Piercy has a skill for world-building, but it's also her curse because it made the non-sci-fi parts of her novel less interesting. And Connie as a character seemed overly forced in her actions and responses, as if Piercy was trying to make her represent an idea rather than a person.
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and her niece is a whore fighting with her pimp. In trying to help her niece, Connie lands herself in a mental hospital where she starts getting visits from Luciente, a woman who claims to be from the future.Those who read a lot of sci-fi may find Woman on the Edge of Time dated and typical, but I genuinely enjoyed descriptions of the future that Luciente shows Connie. It's a utopia without any gender roles or poverty, where everybody gathers in tightly knit communities to share means of production, and where children are born from test tubes but have three mothers ( male or female) in order to break the bonds of heteronormativity. Piercy has a skill for world-building, but it's also her curse because it made the non-sci-fi parts of her novel less interesting. And Connie as a character seemed overly forced in her actions and responses, as if Piercy was trying to make her represent an idea rather than a person.
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LibraryThing member olliesmith160
Piercy presents us with multiple worlds of utopia and dystopia which are both disorientating and fascinating to the reader. A really important feminist utopian novel which explores some key issues not only of its time, but of times before and after it.
The unlikely heroine of the book 'travels'
This book is full of wonderful ideas and innovative style. However, it is a challenge to read and can demand a little too much patience from the reader. It can be read as somewhat of a bleak work, but there is beauty and hope in there too.
A rewarding, if not somewhat challenging read.
The unlikely heroine of the book 'travels'
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between times and realities to discover a future which is the complete opposite of her expectations. Piercy does not present us with a future of space crafts and techno-centric society. Rather, a wonderful mix of the rural, old and familiar is entwined with progressive thoughts on society and technology.This book is full of wonderful ideas and innovative style. However, it is a challenge to read and can demand a little too much patience from the reader. It can be read as somewhat of a bleak work, but there is beauty and hope in there too.
A rewarding, if not somewhat challenging read.
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LibraryThing member Citizenjoyce
Connie's ultimate crime is that she is poor and powerless, a woman and a member of an ethnic minority. People with a great deal or very little power sometimes use her as an example, sometimes harm her for their own enjoyment or to gain some little benefit for themselves but most of all she is
This book is as relevant as when it was written in the 1970's because the same fights remain, the rich and powerful do whatever they want, the poor and undereducated are made to stay in their place and be grateful for what they have. Three cheers for Connie.
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ignored. Her capabilities are undervalued at all times and encouraged seldom. Her desires, her understanding of reality are completely irrelevant to almost everyone. There are some people who love and respect her, they mostly are people of color and always are people without power. Is she mentally ill? Does she hallucinate a world in which individuals and the earth are valued while wholesome people war with the ultimate capitalist culture, or does she really visit other times and other places through the strength of her mind? This book is as relevant as when it was written in the 1970's because the same fights remain, the rich and powerful do whatever they want, the poor and undereducated are made to stay in their place and be grateful for what they have. Three cheers for Connie.
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LibraryThing member andreablythe
After smashing her niece's pimp in the face with a bottle, Connie Ramos is declared violently insane. Trapped in the terrible tedium of the asylum ward, Connie, as a receiver, is able to escapes via her connection with Luciente to the year 2137. She sees first hand a utopian society, in which
Connie is clearly sane, much more so than the many people on the outside, from the doctors (who see themselves as heroic gods) to her niece (who lets herself be beaten, abused and used over and over again) to her brother (who wishes to control everyone and everything around him). However, it's never really clear whether this utopia she visits is a real place or not. Piercy presents the time traveling in such a straightforward manner and the future in such rich detail, that one at first takes it for granted that its real, just as Connie does.
Real or not real doesn't really matter, however, for this vision of the future presents Connie with a different way of seeing not only the world around her, but also herself full of struggles and suffering. It also gives her the strength to fight back.
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division of gender and race is nonexistent and people live in peace and connection with the earth and its animals. Meanwhile, in her own time, the doctors have signed her up for a dangerous experiment that could sever her from herself forever. Connie is clearly sane, much more so than the many people on the outside, from the doctors (who see themselves as heroic gods) to her niece (who lets herself be beaten, abused and used over and over again) to her brother (who wishes to control everyone and everything around him). However, it's never really clear whether this utopia she visits is a real place or not. Piercy presents the time traveling in such a straightforward manner and the future in such rich detail, that one at first takes it for granted that its real, just as Connie does.
Real or not real doesn't really matter, however, for this vision of the future presents Connie with a different way of seeing not only the world around her, but also herself full of struggles and suffering. It also gives her the strength to fight back.
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LibraryThing member csoki637
A scathing critique of psychiatry. Imaginative, thoughtfully written. I wish it hadn't ended so abruptly; I would have gladly followed Connie and Luciente through at least 200 more pages.
LibraryThing member fred_mouse
This book was a real struggle to read -- as evidenced by the fact that it has taken me most of a year to finish it. The stark presentation of the interaction between the US mental health system of the 1970s, poverty, and generalised racism, sexism, and othering of the mentally ill means this is
For those who like reading the nastier dystopias or gritty modern day realistic literature, this will probably not be so difficult. In other settings, I might have read the horrors experienced by the protagonist, Connie, as artistic licence. But there was nothing here that spoke to me of Connie's experiences as fiction, more that the sequence, the specifics that happen to her as being the fiction.
Connie's visions of a utopian future are detailed, and fascinating, with a strong honesty regarding the level of personal and systemic control that needs to be kept to maintain such a system in the face of human greed and other failings. A semi-communist utopia, with minimal personal possessions, temporary artworks, shared means of production coupled with free movement, complex consensus decision making, and an ongoing war somewhere. All this, and her counter vision of a rigid hierarchical and restricted future, are intricately detailed, and masterfully described.
Connie is not a protagonist I wanted to identify with. To me, from a different time and place, culturally removed, she is very alien. I comprehend her existence, but I don't understand it; the control exerted over her by the doctors, aided by her brother, terrifies me. This aspect of the story is not SF, it is brutal, and it is honest.
This books does a great job of dissecting both a possible future (or two) and a present/past. It works well as an exploration of philosophies about how people work together. Well worth reading once.
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very confronting. Given this, along with aspects of the unreliable narrator, which makes some of the scenes very difficult to follow, I found it best read in small chunks. For those who like reading the nastier dystopias or gritty modern day realistic literature, this will probably not be so difficult. In other settings, I might have read the horrors experienced by the protagonist, Connie, as artistic licence. But there was nothing here that spoke to me of Connie's experiences as fiction, more that the sequence, the specifics that happen to her as being the fiction.
Connie's visions of a utopian future are detailed, and fascinating, with a strong honesty regarding the level of personal and systemic control that needs to be kept to maintain such a system in the face of human greed and other failings. A semi-communist utopia, with minimal personal possessions, temporary artworks, shared means of production coupled with free movement, complex consensus decision making, and an ongoing war somewhere. All this, and her counter vision of a rigid hierarchical and restricted future, are intricately detailed, and masterfully described.
Connie is not a protagonist I wanted to identify with. To me, from a different time and place, culturally removed, she is very alien. I comprehend her existence, but I don't understand it; the control exerted over her by the doctors, aided by her brother, terrifies me. This aspect of the story is not SF, it is brutal, and it is honest.
This books does a great job of dissecting both a possible future (or two) and a present/past. It works well as an exploration of philosophies about how people work together. Well worth reading once.
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LibraryThing member brakketh
Wonderful science fiction, one of those novels that blurs mental illness and experiences outside of the norm in this case a visitor from the future. Very bleak in places but an excellent novel.
LibraryThing member tloeffler
Connie Ramos is a thirty-something Chicano New Yorker who is institutionalized by her niece's pimp because she smashed him in the face (deservedly) with a frying pan. She is perfectly sane, but in the maddeningly primitive mental institutions of the 1970s, nothing she can do will prove this.
Connie
A very, very good book.
Connie
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does, however, have an interesting quirk. She is able to communicate with the future (2137). She clings to this future life and her friends there as a means of trying to escape before the institution doctors use her in a brain control experiment. A very, very good book.
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LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing
This is my favorite kind of feminist book, akin in many ways to the stories of Octavia Butler and Joanna Russ. Consuelo is a woman living a hopeless life in modern America. Her lover is dead, her child has been taken from her, and there is literally no one alive who respects her. She is mired in a
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mental hospital, where she begins having visions of the future. Show Less
LibraryThing member dbsovereign
Brutal, frightening and intense, this book is a tough slog only because it's so bleak. Gut wrenching descriptions of mental institutions and of people being abused in them. Is she really seeing into the future or is it just part of her disease? Don't we all crave some glimmering of hope at our most
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desperate moments? Show Less
LibraryThing member BurrowK
I love this book so much. It perfectly displays what I as a feminist am fighting for. It shows a beautiful utopia (not a classic utopia, there are problems and such, but classic utopias never really work now do they?) I've read it over and over whenever I feel down. It's such a beautiful vision.
LibraryThing member LinMeg
Poor woman in USA is telepathically transported to a possible idyllic future where some of the ideals of the women's movement have become the principles of a new society. She also has a brief visit to a dystopia where an opposite extreme has been realised.
LibraryThing member walkwoman
I found this book for a quarter in a yard sale about 20 years ago. It was my introduction to Marge Piercy and when I finished I went to my local library to find any and all Marge Piercy books. It is in the category of feminist science fiction if there is such a thing. I am typically not a huge
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science fiction reader, but this book told a story and addressed issues of domestic violence long before the media did. Show Less
LibraryThing member Virtual_Jo
Is she mad or is she really travelling to a future society? A classic feminist sci-fi.
LibraryThing member mostlyliterary
A friend of mine was reading this book recently, which reminded me I had read it -- a long time ago. I remember liking it, but the details have faded a bit.
LibraryThing member thesmellofbooks
I read this when it first came out several millenia ago. I was working in a rape crisis centre at the time and was immersed in the women's movement in every aspect of my life. This was a very popular book among my friends, and I, being a long time science fiction and fantasy fan, was pleased to
The actual book, however, does not stand out in my memory. It didn't move me terribly much as a story, though I liked it well enough to finish it. Still, it was important to have these ideas represented in fiction, and to have a chance to envision the world in these ways. In that sense it is historically important for me, if not in the sense of one of my favourite books.
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have a chance to read it and other sf with feminist themes. The actual book, however, does not stand out in my memory. It didn't move me terribly much as a story, though I liked it well enough to finish it. Still, it was important to have these ideas represented in fiction, and to have a chance to envision the world in these ways. In that sense it is historically important for me, if not in the sense of one of my favourite books.
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LibraryThing member gerleliz
I did not like this book. I found it dated.
LibraryThing member jentifer
Julien, one of my favorite teen patrons, just came and told me to read this so it's on my list.
LibraryThing member DavidGreene
Influenced my work. Utopia and Dystopia all in one story.
LibraryThing member cattriona
I quite enjoyed this book, despite some of its darker themes. I think the portions about time travel were reasonable, non-sterotypical (rockets and lasers and all) and did not require me to suspend my belief to enjoy the book.
LibraryThing member AriadneAranea
The narrator, Connie, is wrongly committed to a mental institution but escapes (whether really or only by way of an extended fantasy of escape) to a utopian future world. The utopian vision may be problematic in some ways (that's the problem with utopias) but this is a masterful piece of work.
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Reminiscent of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, but much, much better. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1976
ISBN
0449204855 / 9780449204856