Customer Reviews

The Child Garden: A Low Comedy

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a truly wonderful book, that deserves a lot more attention than it got. Ryman has an incredible range, a gift for characterization, and has mastered the art for precise observation that he can nevertheless make iconic. This book is very ambitious - and he gets away with it. He weaves together Marx, the theory of relativity, hologram productions of Dante, vampires, and genetic engineering - and it works. This is one of those books that I press into my friends' hands saying, "You have got to read this." Then I have to show up at their door to get it back because they love it so much that they don't want to give it back. If you like this book you should also read "Was," Ryman's book that tackles "The Wizard of Oz." He is a truly great modern writer.

I've read this book four or five times, and I get something new out of it every times. Somehow Ryman manages to make the book engrossing and compelling, yet multi-layered and as complex as any book I've read. Ryman has created a truly original fantasy society - all too rare in science fiction - and he mixes innovative details about bio-engineering with ruminations on Dante and the nature of love. Amazingly rich.

Like his brilliant "mainstream" novel "Was", "The Child Garden" is a novel that works on many levels, it leaves your mind reeling. Like Delany, LeGuin, and Crowley, Ryman is one of the masters of "serious" science fiction. This novels interweaves a lesbian coming out story with bio-engineering extrapolation in a future London. But the coming out story is just a springboard for ideas about the Self in Society, about alienation, memory, human connection. And Ryman somehow manages to weave consensus politics and the struggle of the artist into the bio-engineering theme. On top of this, the entire novel is about Art's healing powers. Through all this cerebral imagery, there are unforgettable characters, wit, and a whole lot of love. Few science fiction novels -- and novels about ideas in general -- can make one weep and think. This novel is the rare one that does both

One of my favorite books ever in the world. I love it so much. I'll never get over it.

Very convoluted like the virus infected brains of the people of earth in this book. Almost a utopian, communist maifesto. I like it but am afraid I will have to read it again. He writes moving, interesting and unique descriptions of a world that has grown young and aimless; with everyone trying to recapture their youth and the dire consequences of manipulating our DNA. I wonder how he feels about GE food? Very thought provoking. Highly recommended.

Take your chances with this book. I didn't like it really. I bought it because it was an award winner. And though the details of the story were cool, it was too pretentious for me to get into. I give 2 stars for originality and being able to convey the fantastic in rich detail. But there was nothing underneath it to hold it together. I just have to voice this opinion - you will of course make your own decisions. But the Marxism and the opera and the flash-back-forward-around was not so much impressive as tedious.

In an average year, I read about a hundred works of fiction ranging across all genres, and only fail to finish two or three. This Arthur C. Clarke Award-winner is one of this year's few... I had previously enjoyed Ryman's 253, and the book cover synopsis sounded promising, but I just could not connect with this one at all. The setup, a post-apocalyptic tropical London in which the population is all young and children are educated via viruses. In order to maintain civilization, subjects such as law, politics, and art are distributed via these viruses so that destiny is reduced to pure biology. There's a monolithic "Consensus" which runs the country, making sure that any unconformity is rooted out. This is all solid stuff that has formed the basis for many a disturbing exercise in speculative fiction.

And of course, the story is about an outsider, a girl named Milena who is naturally resistant to viruses and is trying to hide this. She'd rather discover life on her own, and discovers the beauty of music through a talented outcast polar bear. This develops into a strange lesbian relationship with the bear and after about a hundred pages I just didn't care about any of the characters and the story didn't seem to be leading anywhere of interest. There were a few interesting bits and pieces, such as the genetically engineered postman who has instant recall and spends his days delivering messages around the neighborhood, but these are few and far between. I don't like to give up on books, and I don't necessarily think it's a bad book, but it certainly wasn't to my taste whatsoever.

finished reading this today after carrying it in my bag for more than a month. Didn't do much for me although I had assumed I was going to love it.

I admired the other Ryman novels I've read, particularly Lust because its premise seemed silly (a gay guy can conjure up a copy of anyone for whom he feels lust, and that copy will be willing to have sex with him) yet within that silliness Ryman managed to find the conflict and character development and stuff. He showed great imagination in the way he worked out all the consequences of his idea, and he found ways to offset the power given to the lead so that it became something more than wish fulfillment. I think Ryman has a gift for finding deep meanings behind his strange story ideas to make the reader care what happens.

The same gift is on display in "The Child Garden" when it devotes pages and pages to a lesbian relationship between a human girl and a genetically engineered polar bear who likes to call the human girl christopher robin. strange, but by the time you get that far into the book Ryman has made it all seem psychologically true.

But I didn't care. Maybe because it seemed that in Ryman's future London diseases could do anything good or bad to anyone (make people only able to sing but not talk, make people immortal, put the voice of a dead person in the main character's head) and the lead could manipulate her own DNA with thought and who knows what else. I just couldn't care. I lost patience with the difficult chronology and going back to the same event multiple times to flesh out details or show the same information from the main character's changing perspective or whatever. I usually love this sort of thing. Don't know what was up when I read this, espcially after I enjoyed Lust so much. Maybe I have different expectations for science fiction than for fantasy.

Probably the best book I've read in years (and I just finished an MA in Lit, so I've read a lot of them! :) . It's a cross between Aldous Huxley and Kurt Vonnegut, only without the cynicism! The category of science-fiction isn't broad enough to contain it, and I'd likely label it Speculative Fiction instead.

I'm writing this review in response to people who seem to feel Ryman's world of the future is a dystopia. I feel the point of the book is that you're left unsure in this regard. We're told the story from the point of view of an outsider to the system certainly everyone in the system is very nice to her. They are always willing to help even if it sometimes means bending their own laws (Hiding Rolfa) or going far out of their way to do so (as with the previous case or helping Milena in her career). Even the main body of gov't is not a hinderance, but as benevolent as the individuals despite Mileana's mistrust. And it's not as though the people who have gone through the reading are stepford wives either. They are still unique individuals as we see through the affair between Berowne and the Princess. People are just nicer and know more (if not necessarily more intelligent). I do not believe Ryman meant this book to be anti-genetic engineering so much as just showing us how it can change and letting us make up our own minds. As for me I don't see any harm in the possiblity of our world turning into that of this book as it is definately going change in some way. Certainly we are different from the societies before us, so as change must I see no harm in this coming. It's just different not bad.

On the other hand, I would never want to be read myself. I am a very happy well adjusted homosexual and that is something I advocate doesn't need to be fixed. Of course, perhaps I make to much out of orientation, certainly in heaven people won't have any sexual desire at all. And perhaps this means it is something I should not be so worried about giving up on earth despite the knowledge that I won't miss it once I've left it either with death or with being read. I mention this quandary because this and indeed all of Ryman's books (I've actually only read this Was and Lust, but I'm assuming) give rise to constant reveries on my staunchest beliefs. It is for this reason I always think of them as, if not specifically Christian, religious books. Very few authors have the ability to keep me tossing and turning all night from considering what they've written. I think that perhaps C.S. Lewis is the only other. I can't reccomend Ryman well enough and believe those who haven't read him are missing out on something extraordinary.