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Ivy Reviews Olin Library Books #3

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Fiction: A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, 2019

Ambassador Mahit Dzmare of the independent artificial planet Lsel Station has been summoned to the heart of the Teixcalaan Empire. Her predecessor Yskander is dead, her mission is sabotaged, and the Empire is on the brink of a succession crisis. Armed only with a 15-year-old copy of Yskander’s personality implanted in her brain, as well as a lifelong adoration for Teixcalaanli culture and language, Mahit must convince Teixcalaan’s upper echelons—including the Emperor himself—that Lsel Station is more valuable as an ally than an annexation. By presenting readers with an unflinchingly intimate view of Teixcalaan through an outsider’s eyes, author Arkady Martine explores the pain of falling in love with the culture that’s devouring your own.

 In the Teixcalaanli language, the word for “city”, “empire”, and “civilization” are all the same. The language reflects the Teixcalaanlitzlim’s all-encompassing worldview: to be Teixcalaanli, and to be in the Empire, is to be a part of civilization. As a Stationer, Mahit is casually referred to as a “barbarian”. The novel’s Teixcalaanlitzlim characters aren’t overtly xenophobic, yet their linguistic and cultural assumption of superiority permeates every exchange that Mahit has. Similarly, in our own society, white individuals frequently perpetuate cultural racism through constant, implicit assertions of white supremacy in everyday life. By choosing to demonstrate Teixcalaanli exceptionalism as an ever-present shadow rather than one-off instances of cartoonish discrimination (as many sci-fi stories choose to do), Martine creates a rich and accurate depiction of how empires build national supremacy into their cultures.

To make matters worse for Mahit, her imago-machine—the brain implant that allows her to access Yskander’s out-of-date memories—is damaged. Instead of full communication with Yskander, Mahit only gets occasional flashes of his past emotions. On Lsel Station, every individual receives an imago-machine, which connects them to a storied history of prior Stationers’ personalities, skills, and experiences. By losing her connection to Yskander, Mahit is literally severed from Stationer culture and identity. Already surrounded by Teixcalaanli exceptionalism, Mahit’s loneliness reflects the real-world isolationism of individuals who are forced to conform to the culture of an empire that does not want them.

Martine does not use the word empire lightly—in fact, she holds a PHD in the topic: her dissertation discussed Byzantine agents operating in the Empire’s borderlands. Her expertise is what sets this novel apart from other space operas, which often utilize an off-the-shelf galactic federation, evil empire, or corporation to menacingly loom over the plot without actually introducing any nuance to the story. Martine does not absolve her empire of its sins; instead, she is honest about its contradictions. Teixcalaan’s power is both awe-inspiring and terrifying; its culture is both beautiful and encroaching. Similarly, nationalist isolationism lurks below Lsel Station’s fight for independence, and undercuts the efforts of Mahit and others to stabilize diplomatic relations. This sentiment too is realistic to real-world efforts to stave off cultural devouring—territories located near empires like the Byzantine Empire, America, and others fight bitterly to keep their local traditions alive, even at the cost of greater political stability.

At its core, A Memory Called Empire is a story with no villains. Martine demonstrates masterful worldbuilding by forcing the reader to view the story through both Teixcalaanli and Stationer perspectives, including how they view each other and themselves. Teixcalaan’s history of conquest is inseparable from its rich culture of storytelling, and the Teixcalaanlitzlim themselves are unable to separate their identity from the concept of culture itself. Lsel Station, on the other hand, is fiercely protective of its independent thought—from underground comic books that compete with Teixcalaan literature in Lsel’s popular culture, to the carefully guarded imago-technology that could lead to annexation if revealed to the Empire. As a result, a novel masquerading a spacefaring political intrigue reveals fascinating dialogue surrounding cultural exchange, assimilation, and national identity.

Ivy Reviews Olin Library Books #1

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Fiction: I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, 1995

Forty women are locked in a cage deep underground. Watched by silent guards, with no sense of how they got there or why they are imprisoned, the women are denied even the most basic of human experiences, including sunlight, physical touch, and a sense of time. What comes next is an exploration of how humans find meaning in senseless and inexplicable cruelty. Through this story, author Jacqueline Harpman asks the reader over and over again: what does it mean to be a human without history, community, knowledge, nature, or future? What does it mean to be a human without purpose?

Harpman’s nameless protagonist is a young girl with no memory of the world before the cage. Selecting a child character to narrate this story was no mistake: children are deeply curious by nature, which this story reveals as the characteristic that keeps us human, even in the bleakest of circumstances. During the women’s imprisonment, the girl battles her own dehumanizing environment with curiosity: imagining romance, the outside world, and even the passage of time. Telling this story from a youthful perspective makes even more sense upon learning that Harpman, who was born in 1929 Belgium to Jewish parents, was only eleven years old when she was forced to flee the violence of the Holocaust. She watched from afar as the majority of her family in Belgium was killed in the senseless murders of the Auschwitz concentration camp. In a sense, this story is therefore autobiographical: a story of a young girl trying to explain an unexplainably cruel world.

I particularly resonated with the protagonist’s generational disconnect from the other women, who cling to memories of a world that she has never known and may no longer exist. As a young person in the United States, I feel a similar inability to rationalize the stories I hear of decency, bipartisanship, and cultural sanity with the bizarre and nonsensical political age that has reigned since the beginning of my adolescence. But the adults in the story seem lost in the past, the girl’s insistence to understand their present reality is what keeps the women alive – and eventually, what leads them aboveground. The girl’s cynical (but justified) lesson to readers is to let go of the desire to return to a safer world that has long since passed, and instead to go out and discover what lies ahead.

Harpman herself makes a point to lay bare the readers’ yearning for meaning alongside her characters’: just as the protagonist never stops seeking an explanation for her imprisonment, you as the reader will keep turning the book’s pages to find those same answers. We the readers, alongside the nameless girl, answer Harpman’s question: to be human is to want to know.

Author’s Note

I’m starting this run of articles in the hopes that it will encourage everyone to explore the Olin library’s stacks more often. I was skeptical of the library when I first arrived – it seemed so much smaller than a traditional college library. It is, but I’ve discovered this is because we simply got rid of all the bad books and only have good books. I normally read a lot of science fiction, but our library has helped me explore political science, sociology, literary fiction, and more (the sci-fi collection is pretty impressive too). I’m starting small with this issue, but going forward I hope to include a fiction and nonfiction review so there is something for everyone. If you read any of the books I talk about, or just like talking about books, come find me!