[tt] NYTBR: Jeanette Winterson: The Stone Gods

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Jeanette Winterson:  The Stone Gods
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/books/review/Cokal-t.html
[First chapter appended.]

She, Robot
By SUSANN COKAL

THE STONE GODS
By Jeanette Winterson.
207 pp. Harcourt. $24.

The apocalypse is coming. You'll need something to read. "The Stone
Gods," Jeanette Winterson's new novel, makes an excellent choice
for desert-planet reading -- scary, beautiful, witty and wistful by
turns, dipping into the known past as it explores potential
futures. Among the possibilities: Humans alter their genes to
preserve youth and get plastic "macro-surgery" to exaggerate what's
left. They create robot traffic cops and take Robo sapiens lovers
or visit a perverts-only sex club. Amid ecological disaster and
impending war, there's also good news: a new, livable planet just
discovered. But don't get your hopes up -- the newfound land is
still home to dinosaurs.

Winterson has previously pulled off such tours de force as a
genderless narrator ("Written on the Body"), a magic-realist vision
of the Napoleonic wars ("The Passion") and a computer-savvy
storyteller blurring fiction and reality ("The PowerBook"). In her
essay collection, "Art Objects" (the title's second word is most
appropriately parsed as a verb), she describes our attitude to
difficult literature: "We want it and we don't want it, often
simultaneously, and at the same time as a book is working
intravenously we are working to immunize ourselves against it."
True art is like a complicated lover; it seduces, then destroys and
reorders the psyche, whether we want it to or not.

"The Stone Gods" sets about this task with brio. In the opening
section, Spike, a sexy Robo sapiens, has just come home to the
Earth-like Orbus after exploring Planet Blue. She will soon be
recycled for parts; her mission now is to empty herself of
information to the media expert Billie Crusoe, who is also a
scientist, also beautiful, and the book's primary narrator. Planet
Blue gives the government an opportunity to eradicate a few
nuisances. These include Billie, who stubbornly holds on to a
traditional farm ("a message in a bottle from another time") and is
consequently suspected of terrorism. She ships off on the very next
mission -- along with another nuisance, a woman who's been fighting
to be "fixed" as a 12-year-old to please her pedophile husband --
and with Spike, rescued from the recycling bin by a space captain
named Handsome who wants to teach her what love is. Spike, of
course, would rather learn from Billie, and does in the section's
final pages.

Planet Blue turns out to be idyllic, just right for canoeing and
long walks. But the dinosaurs mean it is uninhabitable for large
human colonies, so (taking a lesson from history) the clever minds
at the Central Power send an asteroid. The results are predictably
disastrous for the dinosaurs and the rest of the planet, including
our heroes.

This potential future is also a potential past. Captain Handsome
suggests that humans have done this before -- sent versions of
ourselves to a promising new world and killed off both monsters and
civilization, leaving the race to evolve back to a sophisticated
state of self-destructiveness. The pattern is recapitulated in
miniature, too; in a mid-book interlude set on Easter Island in
1774, one of Captain Cook's sailors watches feuding tribes cut down
the island's last tree and topple each other's enormous stone
idols, proving that mankind, "wherever found, Civilized or Savage,
cannot keep to any purpose for much length of time, except the
purpose of destroying himself."

Could the future really be so bad? It's probably much worse. The
novel's final section jumps to an era known as Post-3 War, in a
world similar to but even harsher than the Orbus of Part 1. It
turns out the early version was largely fiction -- there is no
Planet Blue, for example. In a more recognizable reality, the
characters live in reduced circumstances; Spike is just a head that
Billie carries in a sling, and Billie's job is to program
information so that Spike, as the first Robo sapiens, may one day
guide world powers rationally. When a field trip leads them into an
outland of nuclear radiation, ravaged forests and castoffs with
damaged souls and bodies, both will be forced to reinvent
themselves.

"The Stone Gods" is a Baedeker for Earth's future, with the reader
as another sapiens on a world tour, being informed and programmed
to make intelligent decisions. It begs the question of whether true
art can be openly didactic: to make her points, Winterson deploys
amounts of exposition, description and philosophical debate unusual
in contemporary novels. Some sections may seem aggressively
lecturing, especially given that the future described is to some
degree familiar. For example, many people do believe that a
cataclysmic world war and environmental devastation are just a
matter of time, and robots are already here.

It is when the characters truly engage with one another, rather
than with their own ideas, that Winterson's story transcends the
established facts and common fantasies; it becomes art, and thus
makes its case most powerfully. This is, I think, her point: we
grow more through feeling than through intellect. There is
undeniable poignancy to the romantic scene in which the first
Spike, trying to save energy during the ice age, begins to
dismantle her body and finds she has a heart after all. Tenderly,
Billie tries to define love for her in one last lesson: "Maybe it's
recognition, perhaps discovery, sometimes it's sacrifice, always
it's treasure. It's a journey on foot to another place." And Spike
guesses: "I think it's the chance to be human."

Winterson is an unquestionably virtuoso stylist. She can twist
phrases like a vaudevillian; when Billie asks for a single drink,
the bartender says, "This isn't a singles bar." Her more serious
moments evoke lush emotion: "Far out, too far to see with the human
eye or to hear with the human ear, is everything we have lost. ...
Sometimes, in our dreams, we see the boxed-up miseries and fears,
orbiting two miles up, outside our little world."

With sentences like these, it is hard not to feel a glimmer of
hope. So whether or not you already know the fate of the Earth,
read "The Stone Gods" for new discoveries in language, love and
what it means to be human -- all things worth importing to a desert
island or a new planet, or (most of all) the grim future.

Susann Cokal, whose most recent novel is Breath and Bones, is a
frequent contributor to the Book Review.


First chapter of 'The Stone Gods'
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/books/chapters/first-chapter-stone-gods.html

By JEANETTE WINTERSON

Planet Blue

This new world weighs a yatto-gram.

But everything is trial-size; tread-on-me tiny or
blurred-out-of-focus huge. There are leaves that have grown as big
as cities, and there are birds that nest in cockleshells. On the
white sand there are long-toed clawprints deep as nightmares, and
there are rock pools in hand-hollows finned by invisible fish.

Trees like skyscrapers, and housing as many. Grass the height of
hedges, nuts the swell of pumpkins. Sardines that would take two
men to land them. Eggs, pale-blue-shelled, each the weight of a
breaking universe.

And, underneath, mushrooms soft and small as a mouse ear. A crack
like a cut, and inside a million million microbes wondering what to
do next. Spores that wait for the wind and never look back.

Moss that is concentrating on being green.

A man pushes forward with a microphone 'And is there oxygen?' Yes,
there is. 'And fresh water?' Abundant. 'And no pollution?' None.
Are there minerals? Is there gold? What's the weather like? Does it
rain a lot? Has anyone tried the fish? Are there any humans? No,
there are not any humans. Any intelligent life at all?

Depends what you mean by intelligent. There is something there,
yes, and it's very big and very good at its job.

A picture of a scaly-coated monster with metal-plated jaws appears
on the overhead screen. The crowd shrieks and swoons. No! Yes! No!
Yes!

The most efficient killing machine ever invented before gun-powder.
Not bad for a thing with a body the size of a stadium and a brain
the size of a jam-jar.

I am here today to answer questions: 'The lady in pink'

'Are these monsters we can see vegetarian?'

'Ma'am, would you be vegetarian with teeth like that?'

It's the wrong answer. I am here to reassure. A scientist steps
forward. That's better. Scientists are automatically reassuring.

This is a very exciting, and very reassuring, day.

We are here today to witness the chance of a lifetime. The chance
of many lifetimes. The best chance we have had since life began. We
are running out of planet and we have found a new one. Through all
the bright-formed rocks that jewel the sky, we searched until we
found the one we will call home. We're moving on, that's all.
Everyone has to do that some time or other, sooner or later, it's
only natural.

My name is Billie Crusoe.

'Excuse me, is your name Billie Crusoe?'

'That's me.'

'From Enhancement Services?'

'Yes, Every Day a New Day.' (As we say in Enhancement.)

'Can you tell viewers how the new planet will affect their lives?'

'Yes, I can. The new planet offers us the opportunity to do things
differently. We've had a lot of brilliant successes here on Orbus
well, we are the success story of the universe, aren't we? I mean
to say, no other planet hosts human life.'

The interviewer nods and smiles vigorously.

'But we have taken a few wrong turnings. Made a few mistakes. We
have limited natural resources at our disposal, and a rising
population that is by no means in agreement as to how our world as
a whole should share out these remaining resources. Conflict is
likely. A new planet means that we can begin to redistribute
ourselves. It will mean a better quality of life for everyone the
ones who leave, and the ones who stay.'

'So a win-win situation?'

'That's right, winning numbers all the way.'

Through the golden arches that are the city gates, the President of
the Central Power is arriving. The arches stand like angels, their
wings folded back against the lesser lights or the skyline.

The laser-gates, which look so solid, appear and disappear, like
the wall that rings the city, a visible and invisible sign of
progress and power.

Look in the light the slight shimmer is their long energy. They are
the aura of the city: emblem and warning, its halo and shield.

The President's cavalcade has reached the Circle. Flags, carpets,
flowers, flunkeys, hitmen, pressmen, frontmen, back-up, support,
medics, techies, crew, rig, lights, sound, real-time, archive,
relay, vox-pop, popcorn, polish, makeup, dust-down, ready, green
GO.

The President is making a speech. The Central Power has funded the
space mission for hundreds of years, and it is understood that any
discoveries belong to us. He compares us to the men who found the
Indies, the Americas, the Arctic Circle; he becomes emotional, he
reaches for a line of poetry. For a moment, there it is, in
handwriting that nobody can read, slanting under the images of
Planet Blue She is all States, all Princes I ...

The President is making a speech.

Unique moment for mankind ... unrivalled opportunity ... war
averted ... summit planned between the Central Power, Eastern
Caliphate, and our friends in the SinoMosco Pact. Peaceful
compromise promised. New planets for old. Full pictures and
information across the twenty-two geo-cities of the Central Power
by tomorrow morning. New colonizing mission being made ready.
Monsters will be humanely destroyed, with the possible exception of
scientific capture of one or two types for the Zooeum.

Into the Circle come the spacemen themselves, in shiny titanium
pressure suits, oversize helmets under their arms. These are men
glamorous as comets, trailing fame in fire-tails.

There's a robot with them well, a Robo sapiens, incredibly sexy,
with that look of regret they all have before they are dismantled.
It's policy; all information-sensitive robots are dismantled after
mission, so that their data cannot be accessed by hostile forces.
She's been across the universe, and now she's going to the
recycling unit. The great thing about robots, even these Robo
sapiens, is that nobody feels sorry for them. They are only
machines.

She stands there, while the silver-suited saviours shake the
President's hand. She's going to tell us all about the chemical and
mineral composition of the new planet, its atmospheric readings,
its possible history and potential evolution. Then, when the public
part is done, she'll go backstage, transfer all her data, and open
her power cells until her last robot flicker.

The End.

It's a kind of suicide, a kind of bleeding to death, but they show
no emotion because emotions are not part of their programming.

Amazing to look so convincing and be nothing but silicon and a
circuit-board.

She glances over to the Support Stand and catches my eye. I can't
help blushing. I think she has read my mind. They can do that.

This is a great day for science. The last hundred years have been
hell. The doomsters and the environmentalists kept telling us we
were as good as dead and, hey presto, not only do we find a new
planet, but it is perfect for new life. This time, we'll be more
careful. This time we will learn from our mistakes. The new planet
will be home to the universe's first advanced civilization. It will
be a democracy because whatever we say in public, the Eastern
Caliphate isn't going to be allowed within a yatto-mile of the
place. We'll shoot 'em down before they land. No, we won't shoot
them down, because the President of the Central Power has just
announced a new world programme of No War. We will not shoot down
the Eastern Caliphate, we will robustly repel them.

The way the thinking is going in private, we'll leave this rundown
rotting planet to the Caliphate and the SinoMosco Pact, and they
can bomb each other to paste while the peace-loving folks of the
Central Power ship civilization to the new world.

The new world El Dorado, Atlantis, the Gold Coast, Newfoundland,
Plymouth Rock, Rapanaui, Utopia, Planet Blue. Chanc'd upon, spied
through a glass darkly, drunken stories strapped to a barrel of
rum, shipwreck, a Bible Compass, a giant fish led us there, a storm
whirled us to this isle. In the wilderness of space, we found ...

My name is Billie Crusoe. Here comes my boss, Manfred. He's the
kind of man who was born to rise and rise: a human elevator.

'Billie, have you voiced through the downloads?'

'Yes, everything is there sketches, diagrams, and a step-by-step
explanation of how Planet Blue will change all our lives.'

'We have to present this positively.'

'It is positive, isn't it? Are you saying there are presentation
problems with the chance that everyone is dying for?'

'Don't use the word "dying".'

'But Orbus is dying.'

'Orbus is not dying. Orbus is evolving in a way that is hostile to
human life.'

'OK, so it's the planet's fault. We didn't do anything, did we?
Just [expletive] it to death and kicked it when it wouldn't get
up.'

'I know how you feel. I don't say you're entirely wrong in your
analysis, but that isn't the way we can present the situation. The
President has sent a memo this morning to instruct Enhancement
Services and Media Services to work together on this. We don't want
any stupid questions any difficulties. The last thing the Central
Power needs now is any unrest of our own. There will be trouble
enough with the Caliphate and the Pact.'

'Because you're not giving a ride to either the Believers or the
Collective?'

'When did they ever do anything for us?'

The Central Power is trying to live responsibly on a crowded
planet, and that bunch are still scanning the skies for God, and
draining the Last drops of oil out of the ground. They can go to
Hell.'

Manfred looked down at my notebook. He frowned his
older-man-thinker-type-sexy frown. 'Billie, if you weren't so
eccentric, you'd fit in better here. Why are you writing in a
notebook? Nobody reads and writes any more there's no need. Why
can't you use a SpeechPad like everybody else?'

'Notebook. Pencil. They have an old-fashioned charm that I like.'

'And I like the present just as it is. You still living in that
bio-bubble thing?'

'You mean the farm? Of course I am. If I'd been able to make it pay
I wouldn't be working for you. But a world that clones its meat in
the lab and engineers its crops underground thinks natural food is
dirty and diseased.'

'It is.'

'Yeah. And pigs are planes. So the farm is leased to Living Museum
and I am enslaved to you.'

'You don't get many scientists coming across to work in Enhancement
... It's not exactly a career move.'

I had a feeling that something else was here one of those ice-bound
conversations that skate over the corpse in the lake. 'Is there a
problem with my work?'

Manfred shrugged. 'Like I said, a Science Service high-flyer
doesn't need to take a job with Enhancement.'

'You work for Enhancement.'

He was getting impatient. 'Billie, I'm going to be running the
whole shooting match within two years. I have a graph. I have a
Promotion Plan. I'm heading for the top floor.' (Yep, there he
goes, Penthouse Man.) 'You aren't heading anywhere. You could have
been promoted to Management within six months, but you're still on
the ground, visiting people in their homes.'

'That's me, a cross between a District Nurse and an Insurance
Salesman.'

'What's a District Nurse?'

'Never mind. History is a hobby of mine. It's not illegal, and
neither is the farm, and neither is wanting a simple life. No
graph, no Promotion Plan. OK?'

'OK. OK.'

He held up his hands. He turned to leave. 'Oh, you should move your
Solo. Enforcement just gave you a ticket.'

'But I have a permit!'

'Take it up with Enforcement.'

'Manfred, this has been going on for a year I clear them, they
start again. I'm not paranoid, but if someone is out to get me, I
would like to know.'

'No one is out to get you. But move the Solo. I would if I were
you.'

He swung his handsome body and handsome head out and away to higher
things.

Manfred is one of those confident men who have had themselves
genetically Fixed as late-forties. Most men prefer to Fix younger
than that, and there are no women who Fix past thirty. 'The DNA
Dynasty', they called us, when the first generation of humans had
successful recoding. Age is information failure. The body loses
fluency. Command stations no longer connect with satellite
stations. Relay breaks down. The body is designed to repair and
renew itself, and most cells are only about a third as old as our
birth years, but mitochondrial DNA is as old as we are, and has
always accumulated mutations and distortions faster than DNA in the
nucleus. For centuries we couldn't fix that and now we can.

Science can't fix everything, though women feel they have to look
youthful, men less so, and the lifestyle programmes are full of the
appeal of the older man. Everybody wants one young girls and gay
toyboys adore Manfred. His boyfriend has designed a robot that
looks like him. Myself, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

I went downstairs, through the clotted ranks of Security and
Support, officially known as Enforcement Services and Enhancement
Services, but the SS has a better ring to it than the EE. We work
together a lot of the time, soft-cop hard-cop kind of thing. It's
my job that is, our job in Enhancement to explain to people that
they really do want to live their lives in a way that is good for
them and good for the Community. Enforcement steps in when it
doesn't quite work out.

I know all the guys in Enforcement. I wave and smile. They nod, and
let me pass.

Outside, there's a line of Solos and a line of Limos.

S is for Solo a single-seater solar-powered transport vehicle. L is
for Limo, a multi-seater hydrogen hybrid. S is for short-distance.
L is for long-distance. Single-letter recognition is taught in
schools.

In front of one of these vehicles, and one only, a CanCop is
punching numbers into the Coder wired into his arm. CanCops are
always around for back-up at high-security events all they are is
robots, soup cans with the power of Arrest.

On one of the long line of vehicles and only one, mine a bright
yellow laser-light is covering the windshield. That's my penalty
notice. Unless I press the yellow button on the parking meter next
to it, I will not be able to drive away because I will not be able
to see out of my glass. It's a clever system you have to accept
guilt before you can drive away and protest your innocence.

P is for Parking Meter. Slide up to the kerb, get out, look around,
and the shiny solar-powered parking meter says to you, in its shiny
solar-powered parking-meter voice Hi there! You can park here for
thirty minutes. I will bill your account directly. Welcome to the
neighbourhood.

The meter then photographs your licence plate, connects to your
Parking Account, which you must keep in credit at all times, and
sends a digital receipt to your HomeScreen or your WorkScreen,
whichever you have nominated. That's all there is to it, unless you
run late, in which case the meter will laser-light your windshield
in such a way as to make it impossible for you to drive off without
accepting the Penalty.

So here I am and I've been booked, even though I have a great big
permit on the front of the car, with the date and time of my
arrival and the impressive symbol of the Central Power.

I have been booked again. If I were the paranoid type, which I am,
I might almost start to believe that ... Believe what?

I wave my arms at the CanCop, and point to the permit. He shrugs
his tin shoulders. The guys from Enforcement are laughing it's true
this kind of cock-up, or cop-up, happens all the time, and it's a
bore but not a problem ... The trouble is that, for me, it's
becoming a big problem.

I get out my Omni the phone that does everything and it
automatically accesses the Parking Bureau Help Line. A sympathetic
face flashes up in blonde pixels on my phone. 'DUE TO ...' I slam
her off before she gets any further.

D is for Due to. Whenever anybody calls to complain, a sympathetic
person well, a sympathetic robot, actually, because they are
programmed to be more sympathetic than persons. Anyway, this
sympathetic robot says, 'DUE TO', and you know that due to a high
volume of calls, due to heavy demand, due to staff shortages, due
to difficulties, due to system failure, due to freak storms, due to
little green men squatting the offices, well, DUE TO, nobody is
going to speak to you, at least not in this lifetime.

(Continues...)