Status
Call number
Collection
Publication
Description
Fiction. Science Fiction & Fantasy. HTML: When the first warm breeze of Doomsday came wafting over the Shenandoah Valley, the Sumners were ready. Using their enormous wealth, the family had forged an isolated post-holocaust citadel. Their descendants would have everything they needed to raise food and do the scientific research necessary for survival. But the family was soon plagued by sterility, and the creation of clones offered the only answer. And that final pocket of human civilization lost the very human spirit it was meant to preserve as man and mannequin turned on one another. Sweeping, dramatic, rich with humanity, and rigorous in its science, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is widely regarded as a high point of both humanistic and hard science fiction. It won science fiction's Hugo Award and Locus Award on its first publication and is as compelling today as it was then..… (more)
Media reviews
User reviews
The story is told in three parts, each following a similar arc, each ending in a main character leaving the family’s compound. In the first section, a brilliant doctor helps develop the cloning process but is ousted by his own younger clones, who are already exhibiting disturbing behaviors, such as losing their individual identities. In the second part, a clone is separated from her sister clones when she goes on an expedition to look for supplies in the ruined cities. As a result, she develops an individual personality and an artistic vision that the other clones interpret as madness when she returns to the compound. She must flee to keep from living a life as a drugged-up “breeder.” In the final section, her son is being raised by the clones but clearly doesn’t belong among them. Only he has the ingenuity and creativity necessary for continued survival as the machines and systems set up by the original survivalists begin to break down.
What I thought about as I read this book was recent news stories about children so micro-managed by their “helicopter” parents that they have no ability to cope with the real world and break down as soon as they get to college. The young clones in the story reminded me of younger generations so coddled that they cannot make a decision on their own. How can we survive and advance as a species when we lose our individuality and cannot think for ourselves? is the question.
This is exactly the dilemma faced by the clones. They become so used to a life where they never have to think for themselves that they lose all of their creativity and problem-solving abilities. They become dependent on machines they don’t understand, and when those break down, they cannot come up with creative ways to fix them. So they are doomed. Only those who can establish an individual identity through isolation from the main group are able to learn how to survive.
It may seem on the surface that this novel is a somewhat dated horror story about cloning. But look deeper–the story brings up issues that are very relevant today. Wilhelm is raising a warning flag that we should safeguard our individuality and nurture our creativity if we want to survive.
I was slow to warm to the middle part of the story when enough time has passed that all the original humans from the initial story have passed on and the focus is on the succeeding generations of clones. It was a little hard to sort out the characters but as the story continued things made more sense. However I think the author dropped the ball on a few things within the story which prevents me from really liking this. Not a perfect book but I definitely enjoyed reading this.
The tone of the story is pastoral rather than couched in hard science. Avoiding the tedium of explaining how and why things work the way they do, Wilhelm instead chooses to focus on the social ramifications and on the character development - which is very strong. Reminiscent of writers like Simak and Brackett, Wilhelm's prose is both direct and lyrical. Her characters have very real motivations and it's not difficult to empathize with them as they work through their issues.
Fully deserving the nominations and awards it received, this book was a great read for me. I recommend it to anyone - fan of SF or not. It's one of those books that is more about the fiction than the science - and that's a good thing.
It suffers mostly from being so brief. There's quite a bit of room for expansion, and although I'm normally a big fan of terseness,
It is a very interesting and very cogent take on cloning, a superbly imagined scenario regarding the problems that might arise in such a society.
I may try again later but I dont see why its part of the SF Masterworks series to be honest.
The novel starts out with two cousins, David and Celia, who are in love. Wilhelm uses their love to point out differences between naturally born humans and the first generation of clones.
Three Celias came into view, swinging easily with the weight of the baskets, a stair-step succession of Celias. He shouldn't do that, he reminded himself harshly. They weren't Celias, none of them had that name. They were Mary and Ann and something else. He couldn't remember for a moment the third one's name, and he knew it didn't matter. They were each and every one Celia. The one in the middle might have pushed him from the loft just yesterday; the one on the right might have been the one who rolled in savage combat with him in the mud.
These new clones have a unique sense of empathy. They are extremely close to their “sisters,” but don't reach out well to others. Sex is something the clones are obligated to have and something they enjoy, especially in large groups, but it is never a drive that pushes them into one on one, romantic relationships. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang was first published in 1977 and I wonder if this aspect might have been a reaction to the Sex, drugs, and rock and roll philosophy of the sixties and early seventies.
There are a number of problems inherent in the idea behind this plot. First of all, there are life forms that are not affected by the pollution. Trees seem to grow fine and so does grass. But beyond this and other technicalities are the problems of a plot about people who have trouble caring for each other. Wilhelm works her way through this by having some characters who still can care.
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang would make a good book club selection because the ideas have the potential to stimulate a great discussion. I found the reviews on Goodreads to be fascinating while the novel itself never captured me completely.
Steve Lindahl - author of Motherless Soul and White Horse Regressions
An interesting and well-written story, with characters that I found myself rooting for, nearly every one. Definitely deserving of its Hugo and Locus awards, and definitely recommended.
Science fiction stories usually concern the impact of the progress of science on human beings. When the science part
Did I just say “human beings”? Well, as far as Kate Wilhelm’s Hugo and Locus award-winning novel, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is concerned, you can add the word “almost” – since most of the characters in this story are clones.
The Story
The novel is a dystopia: one that many science fiction writers seem to love – the whole world having gone to hell on a handcart. Wars, pollution and pestilence of Biblical proportions are slowly wiping out life on earth. To compound the problem, human beings and animals are becoming increasingly sterile. It seems that the world is doomed to extinction.
The filthy rich Sumner family, up in their farm on the Shenandoah Valley, have read the signs early and have found a solution. They will preserve an island of stability and sanity in a world gone volatile and mad in their mountain citadel – and led by the gifted Dr. Walt, Harry Vlasic and David Sumner, they develop the ultimate answer to sterility – cloning.
So far, so good. Only, they discover too late that clones are not humans in the true sense of the word. Much more single-minded and efficient than their originals, and sharing an extra-sensory empathy with one another, they soon take over… and the world seems ready for a new species. A society where individuality is unknown and any deviation from the group is frowned upon; where sex is a group activity and the production of children, other than the cloned ones, is by harvesting a handful of fertile women as “breeders”. It is the end of humankind as we know it.
Or is it?
On a field trip to gather information and building materials (a perilous one that a few hardy individuals periodically make – it is literally a matter of life and death for any clone to be separated from the group for too long), Molly, the artist, is touched and permanently changed by nature. She can’t go back to the group existence any more: she has rediscovered humanity. Her art becomes steadily less utilitarian and more idiosyncratic, and she begins questioning group values. Of course, this striving for individuality is major deviant behaviour among the clones, so they isolate her in the old house, with its hoard of books. Unknown to them, she is carrying something else – the son of the doctor Ben in her womb.
Molly and her son Mark enjoy an idyllic existence in the old house for five years until they are ultimately discovered. Mark is taken away to live in the communal nursery with other children, and Molly is assigned the role of a breeder, a baby – producing machine.
But once touched by nature, man cannot become a machine again. As the clone community declines because of lack of innovation, abhorrence of nature and the steadily dwindling resources from a dead world, Mark, the earth-child, provides the spark to ensure that humanity is born again.
***
The novel is structured in three parts: the first part (and in my opinion, the weakest) showing the development of the society of the clones and their takeover, the second part detailing Molly’s “conversion” and the third, the renaissance of humanity through Mark. Even though it attempts to be nothing other than science fiction, the mythical overtones are hard to miss. David Sumner is the original savior prophet/ hero, who creates the chosen race and is ultimately sacrificed by them: Molly, the Mother of God/ Mother Goddess: and Mark, the persecuted God Child/ Hero/ Messiah of the new world.
Kate Wilhelm wrote this novel in the seventies, when the cold war was going strong. For Western Europeans and Americans, the Soviet Union was the Devil Incarnate and the ultimate dystopia, a place where human beings have lost all claims to individuality and function only as cogs in the machine, as epitomised by the communist bloc (we now understand that this was far removed from the truth). In those days, a communist takeover of the world was a real threat in the mind of the average American; the end of civilisation as we know it. Part of the success of this novel is that that particular paranoia is explored in detail, without being judgmental.
“The Freedom of the Individual” is at the heart of the American secular religion, sometimes (in the opinion of citizens of other countries) carried to ridiculous extremes (one cannot imagine a philosophy like Ayn Rand’s meriting serious consideration anywhere else in the world). Collectivism of any kind is to be abhorred. So imagine the situation if the human race becomes collective, not through force, not through choice, but as an inherent feature of their biological make-up? That is what the author does, and her prediction on the fate of such a society is clear and unambiguous: death by atrophy of the spirit.
The passage reproduced below encapsulates the author’s philosophy in a nutshell.
…He looked over the class, and continued. “Our goal is to remove the need for sexual reproduction. Then we will be able to plan our future. If we need road builders, we can clone fifty or a hundred for this purpose, train them from infancy, and send them out to fulfill their destiny. We can clone boat builders, sailors, send them out to the sea to locate the course of the fish our first explorers discovered in the Potomac. A hundred farmers, to relieve those who would prefer to be working over the test tubes than hoeing rows of carrots.”
Another ripple of laughter passed over the students. Barry smiled also; without exception they all worked their hours in the fields.
“For the first time since mankind walked the face of the earth,” he said, “there will be no misfits.”
“And no geniuses,” a voice said lazily, and he looked to the rear of the class to see Mark, still slouched down in his chair, his blue eyes bright, grinning slightly. Deliberately he winked at Barry, then closed both eyes again, and apparently returned to sleep.
The community where everybody is forced to work in the fields and children belong to the group and not to their parents seems like a parody of Chairman Mao’s China.
It is interesting to note that Mark saves the society because he is more in tune with nature than the clones who needs the presence of each other for sustenance and cannot survive alone. While stressing individuality, Ms. Wilhelm also seems to advocating the recognition of our umbilical tie to Mother Earth (Gaia, Bhumi, call her whatever you will). Presumably it was the separation which brought about the unnamed catastrophe at the beginning of the story – a scenario which eerily parallels the situation we find ourselves in today…
I also
One other point that doesn't really count as a caveat - it took me until part-way through the book before I really twigged that this is one of those narrative structures which jumps periods of time. Maybe there was something about the very first sections that made me not quite get that this was how it was working, but a couple of times towards the beginning I flipped back through the pages to see if I'd missed any of the detail. For instance, there is a reference to meeting someone because they wouldn't want her to bump into "those lot down below" and only later do you find out why - obviously this is a good compact way of storytelling, but somehow there was something about the way it was done that led me to miss it at first.
The other thing that is more a personal preference than a quibble - the author does that thing where descendents of the characters you start with end up playing very similar roles, or having similar characteristics, as the original characters did. In a novel where cloning plays a big part this is obviously rather more appropriate than in a novel such as [book: Sarum The Novel of England], where the author re-uses the same characteristics over centuries! It is a stylistic feature that I'm not overly keen on, however.
(I have added a tag for feminism here because while it's not strictly a piece of feminist sf, it clearly has equal relationships between men and women in a way that is laudable for not being elaborated on within the book.)
That said, the main themes alone, and the questions it raises are so absorbing, it would be hard not to get drawn into how it all pans out. Some of the scenes are very touching and beautiful, and at other times quite disturbing (usually the seeming coldness of the clones and their decision process).
From a personal point of view, this was an interesting development in the thread that seems to be emerging in my recent choice of reads. For example, I have recently finished Ayn Rand's Anthem, and found the premise of her outlook almost as disturbing as the communist dystopia she was depicting. Her premise that the individual is king and society has no right to make any uniformity acceptable, is a major theme in Wilhelm's book. However, whereas Rand almost leaves you cowering under the sheer defiant challenge, Wilhelm takes you on a journey over time to watch as society evolves and changes. Although Wilhelm clearly has her own point of view, the writing allows for the reader's mind to develop its own opinions and attitudes.
Warrants 4 stars as a sci-fi classic, but the many faults make it an imperfect read.
Even with the skipping of years in-between segments, the story-line stays pretty continuous and the reader is really able to develop a bond with the characters in a way that I wouldn't think possible with each segment introducing new individuals (or are there actually individuals in a cloned society!)
Overall, this is a wonderful novel filled with adventure, mystery and tough questions regarding what it really is to be either an individual or part of a community. I would highly recommend, not only to science fiction fans but to anyone who wants to be able to have something to think about while also having an enjoyable reading experience.
Predictable--oh, yeah. With some rather disconcerting jumps in the plot. So-so.
The (very thin) scientific
Not only is there no logical reason that clones would develop the traits that Wilhelm gives them, the book's message about the importance of creativity and individuality seems like a straw man argument. Would anyone seriously argue that the ability to innovate is NOT important? Maybe there's a bit of a cold-war era residual paranoia about communism that contributed to this; I'm not sure.
The "happy" ending of the book is also problematic. OK, the one 'individual' man kidnaps a harem of fertile women and sets out to repopulate the earth with hardworking innovators. Hmm. Are we concerned about genetic diversity, anyone? The numbers of individuals required for a viable population? Nah, everything'll be fine. (I'm fairly certain that people did know about the problems associated with extreme inbreeding even in 1976.)
I have to admit that I still found the book enjoyable - I just like this sort of apocalyptic novel. But it's definitely flawed.
All in all - it's nothing to write home about, but it's an okay story if you've got nothing better on your plate, or you want to hear an okay science fiction/post-apocalyptic story.
As a biologist, I’m not quite sure what to make of the biological science. Wilhelm shows humanity in crisis from widespread infertility, threatening extinction of the species. This isn’t impossible. Male fertility is currently declining, blamed in an article I read, on high environmental hormone levels from contraceptives. Other environmental causes are clearly possible. The solution the characters in the story choose is cloning – with unanticipated results from which she derives most of the conflict. Wilhelm depicts a progressive loss of mental capacity (especially creativity) in successive generations of clones. This is possible, I suppose, although I would expect there to be a parallel decline in general viability, and this is not seen in the story. Wilhelm’s depiction of the twin-effect within each clone (I’m using the word in the original sense of “a group of genetically identical individuals”) is both interesting and plausible given what I know about twins, especially identical twins.
Wilhelm moves through three generations of characters in the course of the book, and I was often a uncertain how old each point-of-view character (there are four) had become. Frequent time-jumps were one of the more confusing aspect of the story. Although they allowed Wilhelm to cover a lot of temporal ground – which she needed to do – they were often very poorly marked in the narrative, leaving me to deduce that a chunk of time had just passed and to guess at how much it might have been. As a person who likes to identify with central characters, I was disappointed that several of them were simply dropped when they ceased to have a bearing on the story. The circumstances were such that they were possibly, or presumably, slated to die in the near future. While I don’t enjoy watching characters I’ve come to care about die, not having their fates made clear left me a bit closure-hungry. With the exceptions of these criticisms, the writing was generally effective, even evocative when dealing with unusual events and experiences. Overall, the book is well worth a read.
Awards
Language
Original language
Original publication date
Physical description
ISBN
Local notes
Omslaget viser fem kvindeansigter, der ligner hinanden meget
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Similar in this library
Pages
DDC/MDS
813.54 |