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gt-teacher from Urbana, Illinois
New York Times Book Review.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A highly enjoyable if occasionally maddening book,
By kbirkin@aol.com (England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Native Tongue (Paperback)
I found this book both exasperating and highly enjoyable. I kept wanting to argue with the author about her main premiss but it was so well written it carried me along. Like its sequel, Judas Rose, it is set in a world where the backlash against women's liberation has pushed women back to the position of the early nineteenth century. It centres around the efforts of a group of women to develope a women's language, a language which they believe will change perception and alter reality when it begins to be widely spoken. I found it helped not to think too much about this proposition or look too closely at the examples of the language provided. By just assuming they had something that worked as advertised I could enjoy the story, the many twists and turns and the unexpected, but satisfying, conclusion.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating idea with some flaws,
By
This review is from: Native Tongue (Paperback)
Set in the future in a society which has stripped women of their legal rights and mankind is in contact with alien races. Linguists are more important than ever as people are needed who can learn these alien languages and assist at trade negotiations which are vital for Earth's continuing prosperity.
Because of the potential power they have, the linguists are hated and feared by society in general whilst women, both linguist and non-linguist, are considered little better than children (and annoying children at that). The book focuses on the linguist women in particular and their attempts to create a language just for women called Láadan (which Elgin actually worked on in quite a bit of detail). Elgin is a linguist herself and I found her ideas about how mankind would learn to communicate with alien life forms fascinating. I found the feminist angle to the book harder to swallow. The book was published in 1984 shortly after the Equal Rights Amendment failed in the US. Being born in the UK in the 1980s myself, it's difficult for me to imagine and appreciate the effect of the failure of this amendment. From reading this book it felt like Elgin really wanted us to hate her male characters; they're completely misogynistic with no redeeming qualities. And it worked; I did hate them and when one of them died I felt like cheering. But such one-dimensional characters don't really make for a great novel and it made her exploration of this future culture harder to believe in for me. Still, an intriguing book even with its flaws and one I'm glad I've read.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.4 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews) 31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Imaginative but dated, better social commentary than sci-fi,
By David "I read science fiction and fantasy, bu... - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Native Tongue (Native Tongue Trilogy) (Paperback)
I first read this book over 10 years ago. Even then I thought it was a little dated -- the author was clearly reacting against the Reagan era and extrapolating a hypothetical future where women have become chattel (albeit somewhat pampered chattel).This is an "idea" book, and the ideas are fascinating. Laadan, the "women's tongue," (Elgin has actually created and published Laadan books), the power of communication, very alien aliens.. these are all interesting. If you are a linguist, a feminist, or someone who just likes far-out social speculation, this book will be interesting to you. It does have a certain hold on the imagination, such that I still remember it and think about it years later. But as fiction, much less as science fiction, it leaves something to be desired. The entire premise, that the U.S. will become a sort of genteel Protestant patriarchal dictatorship, falls flat. (Some people may argue we are already heading in that direction, but I really can't see the repeal of the 19th Amendment and every man in the country becoming convinced that women have no more intellectual abilities than children.) Technology and space exploration is poorly explained, all the "sci-fi" bits are handwaved and thus there are some notable gaps in my suspension of disbelief. The aliens and the interstellar society exist as a backdrop for Elgin to explore her social views, which is fine if you are reading the book for social/feminist-linguistic theory, but will disappoint if you are reading the book for science fiction. Most annoyingly, every single male character is one-dimensional. All the men are at best condescending egotists, at worst thugs. One is left with the impression that almost spontaneously, American society was taken over by a Protestant Taliban, and not one man ever questions the new social order. Aren't there ANY men who are not chauvinistic troglodytes, with egos so fragile that their world would fall apart if a woman ever demonstrated independence and competence in his presence? Not in this book, and not in many of Elgin's other books either. I also agree with another reviewer; the first book in the Native Tongue trilogy is worth reading. The second book was mediocre and unfocused and didn't seem to come to any resolution. The third book, rather than picking up where the second book left off, did not tie up any of the loose ends from the first two books, and instead seems to be little more than a poorly edited collection of short stories that happen to be set in more or less the same universe. 12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Gentle Bite,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Native Tongue (Native Tongue Trilogy) (Paperback)
This novel has the gentle bite of the author's personality and revealing insight of society.It is a novel regarding a future society ruled by linguistics, Ms. Elgin's own area of expertise. In order to understand the alien species humanity encounters in space, linguistics holds the economic key to the universe. However, in the novel as perhaps it is in life, linguistics is ruled by men, and their wives and children are subject to their plans and demands. In the course of the novel, the linguists use genetics to breed for better linguists, but learn that their wives and children are not subjects of their control. Ms. Elgin's able to make this seemingly far-fetched idea a very realistic one. She does this through the strength of her characters, and her understanding of human nature--a very well thought out novel! 14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It inspired me to add Linguistics to my course of study!,
By S Pearce - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Native Tongue (Native Tongue Trilogy) (Paperback)
I loved this book ... it presented issues relating to prejudice from a national, class and gender perspective. Although it was written in almost a different era, it is still able to portray the enormous difficulties encountered when one is 'different'. .. Jealousies rage where there is truly no justification. .. Individuals are sacrificed for the good of the group. .. Language both empowers and divides. .. The science fiction element is sufficient to enhance the scope of a book that potentially could have been bound by western culture. I have never written to an author before, but I did this time ... and not only that, I have taken up Linguistics in addition to my Psychology studies at University. |
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