A couple of years ago, a member of QTL gifted me this novel. It had been on my to-read list for a long time, back when I thought a regular, non-scholarly book reviewer could conjure together a deep dive into the various iterations on Frankenstein into an interesting side project. But after years of it gracing my shelf and the bookmark sitting at the end of chapter one, I decided to make a real go of it. He, She and It, by Marge Piercy, is the kind of science fiction gem that felt like it got lost in the sparkly dark that was 90s sci-fi. Sure, it won the Arthur C. Clarke award, but can you tell me the qualifying factors of that particular award?
Shira has just lost custody of her son. The megacorporation she is employed by awarded parenting privileges to the father, who is taking him up to the colonies, leaving Shira behind on an environmentally degraded Earth. She leaves the corporate zone, returning to the Jewish free city of Tikvah to work with her grandmother, Malkah. There, she meets Yod, a secret project being developed in Tikvah to aid in their defense against corporate sabotage. Yod is a cyborg, created with intelligence and emotion, but designed ultimately to kill. Shira is tasked to teach Yod how to be human and understand the position he is in. All the while, her old megacorporation is planning on stealing Yod and the technology used to create him.
Piercy’s writing is grim yet colorful. It portrays the world of the book in a matter-of-fact way, painting the scenery in broad strokes, aching for moments of detail. The relationships are portrayed tenderly, giving them time to breathe. The dialogue between characters is layered, giving the readers a hint at the dimensionality. Like a lot of stories, the history of the world is delivered through snippets of dialogue, but it’s cleverly interwoven throughout the story. As more of the world is revealed, Yod begins to understand things more. Yes, it’s expository, but in the way that a teacher has to demystify the world while adding complexity to it. These dialogues also open up to philosophical and religious conversations on the nature of Shira’s task and what it means to be human. As I explain it, I realize it’s all pretty standard genre fare, but Piercy sells it in a way that really allows it to sink in. The characters make it feel that much more important to pay attention since their relationship dynamics are so fleshed out.
The characters in He, She and It feel like they are molded by the tragedy of their lives, and the histories that have passed before their first breath. It’s not a one-to-one in the way a lot more contemporary genre fiction is, with specific events spawning character flaws. It’s more of the amalgamation, the gravity of their choices mixing with the circumstances of their fate that drives them. Their actions are informed by their lives, but also by how other characters have reacted to them in the past. As a reader, I felt like I was seeing a snapshot of their lives, not the unspooling of everything that makes them who they are.
The world of the novella is a dystopia where the climate has degraded to the point that people are living in domes, competing within large corporations for vaunted positions to be sent to colonies in outer space. Certain hours of the day are deemed completely unsafe to the human body due to the large amounts of pollution in the air and the radiation that penetrates the atmosphere. Free cities exist, but are under constant threat of being taken over and annexed by the larger and better-resourced corporations. Unless they have something the corps want, they are largely left alone. It’s a mean world where every instance of your waking time must be spent finding a way to advance or be more useful to those that you serve. I appreciated that so much attention was paid to the environmental damage in pursuit of relentless progress. The scenes where Shira and Yod ventured beyond the dome were some of my favorites even though they detailed the complete breakdown of the world. They tried to find some solace in the natural world despite their inability to fully engage with it. Sure, they had to go through extra safety measures to be able to enjoy it, but the fact that they put the effort in just to take a swim in the polluted ocean touched me deeply. It’s both a lament for the loss and a longing to reconnect.
The fundamental tension at the heart of the story is something that resonates clearly in today’s world, should we create tools with intelligence, especially if they are to engage in war. The war bit is a little more subtle as the narrative explores corporate sabotage and data access (more relevance), but the first half should be no stranger to anyone reading the news today. Yod and Joseph are both creations of defense, given intelligence so that they can conform to the communities they are defending. They become partially realized people through care and community involvement, but they often wrestle with their existence because their primary purpose is to be a tool. They are alienated and have a hard time conforming despite the attention they receive. How much of a person can they really be if they have minor connections to the humans they are protecting, if their primary purpose is to be non-human in service of humans?
This is further complicated by Shira and Yod’s relationship. What starts off as Shira showing Yod how to be human slowly develops into a sexual and romantic relationship. Yod is caring, kind, and sympathetic to Shira’s needs. It’s a complicated relationship because Shira is in a mentorship role for Yod. She has been burned in the past – by Yod’s creator’s son, no less, and Yod is willing to understand her. But how much of that can really be chalked up to his personality, or his programming? I don’t know if the book engages in this conversation of social reproduction and its intricacies, the sort of weirdness of teaching someone to be human (whether they are a cyborg, golem, or human), but it puts it on display. Can something that is specifically created to serve, protect, and possibly destroy be an autonomous being with the ability to choose to do those things? Did Yod truly fall in love with Shira, or was he following a sort of programming? Where He, She and It falls in the end on these questions leads to some very complicated feelings. And it’s hard to parse through them in a single review.
I should also mention that there is a complete second half to the book that takes place within Prague in the 1500s, and details the story of the Golem. These chapters are interspersed between the main story, framed as Malkah telling this story to Yod, informing him of the history that led to his creation. Often, these chapters mirror the present story, but have different nuances. They follow Joseph, the Golem, and his creator as they defend the Jewish areas of Prague from the Christian pogroms that ransack their communities annually. Unlike the future sections, these engage more with the creator of the Golem. It details the negotiations he has with the rest of Prague in order to maintain some form of peace, despite the constant attacks they face. It just deepens the context
He, She and It is an experience. Not in the strap in, you’re going for a ride sense. Piercy’s examination of creation is a long conversation that invests in its characters to make it root within your brain. The folks at the center of the story have tangled pasts, clashing motivations, and an abundance of feelings surrounding their current predicament. The bits of wisdom that are scattered throughout are truly scattered, not relying on a single character or force that proclaims ultimate good. Culminating actions are decided upon by the community, despite certain characters pushing for it to be otherwise. It’s a book with messy people involved in a messy experiment and it’s beautiful.
Rating: He, She and It – Don’t Reinvent the wheel, pick this one up.
-Alex
