April 23rd, 2006
by
lquilter
This blog is a group blog of feminists writing about sf. Feminism and sf are defined broadly. Ahem.
The group will probably always be in transition but it is particularly in transition now (spring/summer 2006). Hopefully by the end of the summer we’ll have a stable stable of bloggers. Some time after that we’ll bring in guest bloggers who are afraid of long-term commitment. (Just kidding, future guest bloggers.)
This blog is hosted by feministsf.net which is a loose set of feminist sf projects run by various different people. Laura Quilter, Liz Henry, and Janice Dawley were the first to join the blog; others have been coming on or have committed to join. A permanent list will be issued as soon as it doesn’t have to be updated all that often.
… we’ve removed registration requirements and implemented spam filters instead.
Some of Us Are
* Angry Black Woman (pseudonym)
* Ariel Wetzel
* Debbie Notkin
* Heather Whipple
* Hiromi Goto
* Ide Cyan (pseudonym)
* Janet Lafler
* Janice Dawley
* Kameron Hurley
* Laura Quilter
* Liz Henry
* Naamen
* Pam Noles
* Ragnell (pseudonym)
* Yonmei (pseudonym)
* Shannan Palma
* Tycho Garen (pseudonym)
(plus some others who’ll be coming along shortly)
Folks here may post occasionally or frequently, and they may well cross-post to their other blogs or fora. That’s cool with us!
… LiveJournal syndication
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Comment (1)
I’m a little new at submitting to blog sites, and hopefully these comments won’t get sent off in the wrong section or category. :)
I’ve watched the Feminist Sci Fi site grow and develop over the years. One of the entries in it has always been a favorite story of mine; one which struck me poignantly because of its prophetic vision that has started to come fully home to roost in the past few years.
It was a diamond in the rough; but perhaps because of all the corners cut to make it a 20 page short story, and because it was submitted in a pulp rag, much got lost in the translation and vision. It was always classified at the Fem Sci. Fi. as “anti-feminist”, and I think this was completely off.
So, in recent times, instead actually carrying out the exercise of reviewing it and explaining, what I actually started doing was rewriting it, and significantly expanding on it, to draw out all the tacit elements of the story; ultimately with an eye to adapting it for a screenplay. This also meant spending a brief time talking with the author and his son, just before he passed away, to get some of his insights on what lay behind the story.
The story was written in 1939, as the first of a 3 part series, by the recently deceased Nelson Bond. Its title, in the envisioned transformation, is “The Place of the Gods”; but it was originally published under the names “The Priestess Who Rebelled” and “The Pilgrimmage”.
For those who have never read the story, it comes out like a cross between the Wizard of Oz and Planet of the Apes. But instead of being about species, it’s about gender. There is, in fact, much in common with Rod Serling’s 1968 screenplay and the sequel, and I don’t think this is entirely a conincidence.
What I’ll do here, is provide a short summary of the transformed and fleshed out story, scene by scene. I’d really be interested in getting additional perspective on the matter, because my intent has always been to fully convert this into a poignant tragedy with deep-set feminist undertones.
The story opens like a museum tour of ancient artifacts, statues. One-by-one, we see scenes parading before us, of history unrolling before our eyes. As we approach the 20th century, there is a greater number of depictions flashing by of child prostitution, gang rapes, increasingly violent wars, extremism, terrorism, men engaging in mass murders.
The music background gets more and more chaotic, as we head into the 20th century. The wars become world wars; I, II, then III (the Cold War), then IV (the War on Terrorism). Buildings are seen falling, people running in fear; young girls strapped down, raped, flogged; women and children sold in slavery. Intermixed with this are scenes of ever-larger protests and marches. It’s the 1960′s, then the decades roll on, and we’re in the 21st century.
At climax, we see huge bombs going off, rockets being fired into the sky, the music stops abruptly, punctuated by the loud scream of despair, as the earth rapidly recedes into the blackness of outer space — as if from the vantage of a hurried exodus.
The screams reverberate into the dying echoes of a lost world and it’s the end of the “Prologue”.
In the second scene, the darkness gives way to a forest, and a female narrator is heard “beware of the creature called Man.” Wild animal-like men are seen rummaging around in the woods, and then the sound of a drum beat startles them all.
The narrator goes on to read the opening verses of the SCUM Manifesto “he is trapped halfway between the world of apes and men”, as the chase proceeds in the forest. Creatures in grotesque masks are barely seen through the foliage hunting down the men-like creature. All this is taking place with the steady tribal drum rhythm in the background.
Eventually the chase herds the men into nets, the masked hunters drag the quarry into a nearby village, and as the narrator closes with “he is aware of what HE is; and aware of what he is NOT”, the men are deposited in holding cells, the drum beat comes to a stop, with a chrous of wild screams of women. The hunters take off their masks, and from beneath comes out the flowing long hair of women.
In the following scene, we eventually see that the story is focused on the coming of age of a young girl, Meg, who has approached the aging leader of the tribe, the Clan Mother, just at the point when she feels her nearing mortality. The two develop a very close relation, like mother and daughter, and much of the story is about the sadness of Meg losing the only mother she’s ever known.
The Clan Mother is portrayed much like a mother superior. She holds the village together against the wild that surrounds the village. The animal-like men are called the “Wild Ones”, and also Predators, and constantly harass the village, picking off women and young girls to bring to their rape dens.
In a flashback to an earlier time, we see a hunting party being ambushed in a clearing surrounding a large forest, as the hunting women are deluged by the wild men, dragged kicking and screaming into the woods. This — the Siege of Loovil — was where the Clan Mother’s special daughter Beth had died, and we see a scene where the much younger Clan Mother is stooped over a stretcher carrying a dying Beth, whose dying words as “Mother?”
In a later scene, a young girl is seen at the edge of the woods, when the trees suddenly rustle, and an attacker emerges and abducts her. There is a poignant confrontation between the girl’s mother, who was nearby when the abduction occurred, and the Clan Mother. The hunting women are all demanding retribution, but only the Clan Mother knows the secret of the Wild Men and that they must be preserved.
Some of the novel elements introduced into the story (but implied in the original version) are: all the grown women in the Clan are married to one another, the marriage occurring when a girl reaches the age of adulthood. The united front is based on a saying of the Ancient Ones “together we may stand, but divided we shall surely fall.”
A second novel element is the sacrificial ceremony at the Temple of Jarg (the ruins of what had once been the Washington Monument). There, in what may be the last ceremony, all the tribes from the area gather in a Dionysian procession, which basically involves the rape and impaling of several captured Wild Ones.
An third novel element occurs, when the Clan Mother explains to Meg, as they both look out on the ocean shoreline, that the world used to once be flat. The Blessed realm of the gods once lay far to the west, but women tried to steal immortality, the Blessed realm was taken away, and the world made round. All that’s left of the realm of the gods is the Place of the Gods.
This is the point when Meg is told of her pilgrimmage. If Meg is to become the next Clan Mother, then she must travel to the Place of the Gods, to learn the secret of the world. The time is rapidly approaching, moreover, because the Clan Mother’s life is coming to an end.
During her trip to the destination, she has a mystical dream in which spurious elements of the story sequels make brief appearances. The Gods appear to Meg as natural forces in the woods. In another part of the dream, a light shines on Meg in the darkness as a voice utters “The Secret of Life”. Then the dream switches and we see the dying Clan Mother on a stretcher, just like Beth had been, speaking her dying words to Meg, “keep the secret”.
This dream stays with her and colors the remainder of her trip.
As is well-known to those who have read the story, toward the second half of her quest, Meg encounters a fully upright, sentient male human being named Daiv. In the reworked story, he is presented as half Hispanic, half Native American from a tribe whose name “Kirki” has more than a passing resemblance to the Cherokee (and to the city Albuquerque).
It is, particularly, the budding romance between the two that needed to be fully drawn out, since it was not told in any detail in the original. All we actually see from the original story is a few arguments, a kiss at the end and Meg’s sudden awakening brought about by the kiss.
This commentary is already getting long, so I won’t go too much further with the description, other than to point out that in the reworked version, there is a lot more going on that the kiss (but nothing sexual). When the kiss occurs, it’s of a form that’s quite elaborate, the choreography best serving as the subject matter for a book on the theory of Knots. Meg, in the reworked version, does not get an eye-opener with the kiss, but a sudden surge of sensation which angers her.
Her reaction is to slap Daiv, quickly back away and quietly stare darkly at him, shaking uncontrollably, as if she’s suddenly discovered that he’s one of the Predator Wild Ones, too. There is a reconciliation of sorts, but Meg finally enters the Place of the Gods alone (as in the original story), not with Daiv.
The reworked version of the story ends abruptly as Meg breaks down in utter despair upon the site of the Place of the Gods. She finally lears the secret she’s not supposed to tell.
We slowly scan up the broken shards of boulders strewn about the foot of the hills, up the dark shadow cast by large features unseen, until we come fully into view of the badly broken, time-worn image of a ruined American landmark. The scene fades to black with nothing more than the sounds of Meg sobbing in despair, and the words “Shall not perish from this Earth”.
Time permitting, and opportunity permitting, I will present a more detailed outline in pieces, here or elsewhere. Some of this is currently present on a web site (which may be found by searching “The Place of the Gods”), which contains much more detail. Over time I’m adding visual elements and fleshing out and massaging the outline presented there. Some of the imagery (particularly that surrounding the dream sequence) is quite spectacular, though I did not produce it, myself.