Customer Reviews

Native Tongue

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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!

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.

Does language interfere with how much of the universe we see/hear/feel? The hoary 'universal translator' (i.e. most authors wouldn't have had a story without this machine..) is finally replaced with a workable system. If you want someone to speak like a native, then they have to grow up speaking the language. The wonder of the ideas expressed are a perfect complement to Janet Kagan's HELLSPARK and Jack Vance's LANGUAGES OF PAO. It's almost unfortunate that the (wonderfull) feminist storyline overshadows some of the other ideas. Still, anyone who would ignore someone's real ability, because 'man was created to be in charge' deserves whatever happens to him. (Yes, I am male.)

This is a truly glorious book! It combines linguistics, science fiction, feminist thought and alternative history all in one. The introduction of Laadan as a women's language fascinates me with its concept. The characters are extremely well-drawn and believable. The little side jaunts to the average woman's life in this time period is almost scary to imagine possible. It's enough to make a woman look at men differently for awhile. For men, it provides excellent insight into women's perspective.

Native Tongue reads as though someone had crafted an interesting and beautiful SciFi novella, but then battered and distorted it with the crude hammer of Feminism, somehow doubling its length in the process. In some places there are distinct paragraphs, pages, or chapters that seem haphazardly inserted into the text, written in a different style and without the nuance of character or theme of the surrounding words, just to drive home some blatant idea about gender relations. The unevenness of the quality of writing gets worse as the book goes on, with strange thematic tangents away from gender and onto, say, euthanasia or religion.

The only characters I liked less than the flat, distorted stereotypes of nearly all the men in the book were the scheming, plotting, conniving, conspiring, secretive, lying (and sometimes murdering) women; i.e.: nearly all the women in the book. The only character I had any real measure of sympathy for (and I wouldn't go so far as to say I liked her) was Nazareth, and I'm quite sure most of that was because of the author's manipulative torture of the character, forcing the reader into sympathy through the extremes she is put through again and again. The "evil" patriarchs don't even add up to good villains; they are cardboard cutouts, caricatures of a nightmare a Feminist carries about what men are like inside. Based on the dystopian literature I've read by them, Feminists seem to have a very twisted & perverted view of 1) the world, generally, and 2) the male mind, specifically. Their male characters (and the bizarre worlds they've created for them, which only a Feminist could dream up) are the sort of flat, stereotype-driven distortions which would be thrown out if based on race rather than gender.

I think the worst thing about the ideas of the book is that every example of things the "women's language" (Láadan) might do better than "men's languages" (as all other human languages are implied to be) are things that I would appreciate having language for, even though I am a man - and which, generally, I believe adding words for the appropriate "Encodings" would be sufficient to accomplish. (i.e.: I do not believe a new language entire is required.) The thoughts and experiences the author attributes to "women" are, I believe, really just "human" - and the terrible behaviors she attributes solely to men I have known women to perpetrate. (Along with men often being just as conniving, scheming, and conspiratorial as her female characters.) Please, give me better ways to express myself, regardless of my gender!

Basically, this is a speculative feminist science fiction novel based on linguistics. I've taken a bunch of linguistics classes and the book contains quite a lot of ideas taken almost directly from the field of modern linguistics. As such, if the reader isn't at least a little familiar with some of the terminology and concepts (ie: Universal Grammar, Language Acquisition, etc) parts of it may be confusing, although many of the concepts referred to are at least somewhat elaborated upon in the book. This isn't a fast-paced action scifi-novel, and as such may feel a bit slow if you go into it expecting such a book. It has more of a Margaret Atwood feel to it. In all, highly recommended.

This book would be less interesting to anyone not interested in languages, the culture surrounding languages, and certain linguistic theories; how much less interesting, I cannot say. Given that this is a story so fundamentally about language, surrounded by language, immersed in language (to a degree that is almost humorous), my first inclination would be to suggest that the overall reading would fall flat without this interest, but I'm really not so sure. It's also well-written, and while I wouldn't say the writing style is all that distinctive, the characters are very 'real' (well, the female ones, at least). While the book is mostly speculation, I think there is also enough plot to draw people in on its own merit.

There are a number of concepts, theories and ideas fundamental to different premises and plot points of this book with which I disagree. I say this not because I have any expertise or intelligence that suggests you should care about my opinions on these matters, but because I enjoyed, and was fascinated by, every one of these premises and plot points in spite of this, and followed along the relevant threads with a great deal of joy. Very interesting read.

I first read this book about 15 years ago, and I've gone back to reread it every couple of years since. This is one of the best "sci-fi" books I've ever read. It is not often that a book is well written, entertaining and makes you think. The whole dynamic about the importance of language and how it shapes our thoughts, the power/financial relationships of world governments and families that control information & of course the role of women in society are well thought out in a "real-possible" tale. This is what sci-fi is supposed to be.

This is truly a brilliant book. Like "The handmaiden's tale" it sketches a future in which women don't have equal rights. Like "Memoirs of a spacewoman" it is written from a distinctly feminine perspective. However, it quite outclasses these books, by at least two orders of magnitude. It is believable science fiction, full of interesting ideas and truly mindstretching. In addition it is warmly human, at least for such a bitingly incisive book. As I said, a brilliant book!