Beggars in Spain (Audible Audio Edition) Nancy Kress Theo Moffett Infinivox Books
Download As PDF : Beggars in Spain (Audible Audio Edition) Nancy Kress Theo Moffett Infinivox Books
This Hugo and Nebula Award winning story is a modern day science fiction classic.
This coming of age tale follows Leisha Camden. She is the first person genetically altered before birth so that she does not need to sleep. Her rich industrialist father pays for the procedure so that his daughter will have a competitive edge over others. It's soon discovered that Leisha's mother is also carrying a "normal" child. As Leisha grows older she finds others who've had the non-sleep genetic alteration. Compared to their age mates, the non-sleep children, who have not had I.Q. genetic manipulation, are more intelligent, better at problem-solving, and more joyous than non-engineered children. And no negative side effects reported so far.
Beggars in Spain (Audible Audio Edition) Nancy Kress Theo Moffett Infinivox Books
This passage encapsulates the central premise of the book. After all, if time is money, how advantageous is it to have fully one-third more time than everyone else? Could such an advantage even be calculated in terms we could understand?“Beggars In Spain” certainly works as a parable for economic inequality and its potential consequences. It also offers a wonderful reminder that people generally fear what they don’t understand (and that most people understand far less than they would like to believe). Furthermore, it amply demonstrates that people are resistant to change that does not directly benefit them as an individual, ESPECIALLY when said change DOES directly benefit someone else.
The book makes for awkward reading. The plot is interesting but the pacing is uneven. The tone is also inconsistent, ranging from omniscient objectivity to highly stream-of-conscious. On the one hand, the book could simply be telling a generational story; the narrative advancements support such a template. Unfortunately, the story continues to employ a protagonist that becomes more passive as the story progresses. As the central character invokes less agency on the events surrounding her, the audience becomes less engaged with her portion of the story. On the other hand, the book could be an unconventional character study, but lacks the complete focus on Leisha (and/or Jennifer, depending on one’s definition of said template) such an approach would require while also suffering from the aforementioned ‘lack of direction/action’ problem. The experience never quite becomes unpleasant but is occasionally distracting.
TLDR; if explorations of humanity are your bag, “Beggars In Spain” is worth your time. Just be ready for some drastic tonal shifts throughout.
A few quotes for good measure:
“On a few faces Leisha saw the small, cruel smiles of small, cruel people watching pain.”
“After all, Leisha, that wouldn’t do, would it? For the creators to become the creations? Who would there be to go on perfecting the art if we all got to be patrons?”
“They were afraid of her, Jennifer saw. That was not bad; fear was only the ancient word for respect.”
“The whole thing, Leisha thought, was peculiarly American, managing to combine democracy with materialism, mediocrity with enthusiasm, power with the illusion of control from below.”
“And throughout it all, the United States: rich, prosperous, myopic, magnificent in aggregate and petty in specifics, unwilling—always, always—to accord mass respect to the mind. To good fortune, to luck, to rugged individualism, to faith in God, to patriotism, to beauty, to spunk or pluck or grit or git, but never to complex intelligence and complex thought. It wasn’t sleeplessness that had caused all the rioting; it was thought and its twin consequences, change and challenge.”
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Beggars in Spain (Audible Audio Edition) Nancy Kress Theo Moffett Infinivox Books Reviews
Rather than being a single novel, this book is better described as four loosely-connected short stories. Concept explored How does society respond when a small number of people are genetically-enhanced to better succeed in life -- chiefly by intellectual improvements (including the removal of the need to sleep – which “wastes” 8 hours out of every 24 hours). Each short story leaps a decade or two, and society’s response continues to change with the decades. The first of the four stories was the most interesting to me. But to take an interesting short story and continue to expand upon it sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. This one didn’t work for me. I preferred the Foundation series (Isaac Asimov), though I admit I read that series about 30 years ago.
I haven't read anything by Nancy Kress before. I saw her name on a sci-fi list of authors, and bought this one.
It was the best book I've read in a long time. It is not terribly long, and I see its the first in a series, so I'll be reading the rest.
Kress is a spare writer, in that she does not give lengthy descirptions and very few explinations. The story is told from the point of view of the main characters, a girl engineered to be "sleepless" as well as tall, thin, and beautiful. The story is depicted from her point of view, so therefore is often communiated through her limited perspective. She is raised to believe that she is supirior, and she is in many respects, so can be oblivious to the value and feelings of others, even her non-sleepless "normal" twin sister. She sometimes doesn't realize the emotions or understand the point of others, and as readers we aren't given much direct insight into those other characters. However, Kress's minimal descriptions, I never once felt like I didn't know just how those other people were feeling nor did I never understand what they were saying.
This is a book about "difference", about fear of the unknown and fear of the seemingly superior (how "superior" can be seen as threatening rather than helpful), about how those who think they are supirior can often walk all over everything else, take everything for granted and don't realize how much they have. This is a book about prejudice and over reaction. Its about a society and who owes who what, moral obligation, law and order. It was a story I couldn't put down and stayed up way to late to read though I had to work the next day, and stuck with me through the following days. It is still fresh in my mind. This was truly a great book from an excellent writer.
However, if you are a person who needs detailed descriptions, thurough and obvious explinations, a author to hold your hand through everything, and a fairytale ending, you might find this book dissatisfying.
This passage encapsulates the central premise of the book. After all, if time is money, how advantageous is it to have fully one-third more time than everyone else? Could such an advantage even be calculated in terms we could understand?
“Beggars In Spain” certainly works as a parable for economic inequality and its potential consequences. It also offers a wonderful reminder that people generally fear what they don’t understand (and that most people understand far less than they would like to believe). Furthermore, it amply demonstrates that people are resistant to change that does not directly benefit them as an individual, ESPECIALLY when said change DOES directly benefit someone else.
The book makes for awkward reading. The plot is interesting but the pacing is uneven. The tone is also inconsistent, ranging from omniscient objectivity to highly stream-of-conscious. On the one hand, the book could simply be telling a generational story; the narrative advancements support such a template. Unfortunately, the story continues to employ a protagonist that becomes more passive as the story progresses. As the central character invokes less agency on the events surrounding her, the audience becomes less engaged with her portion of the story. On the other hand, the book could be an unconventional character study, but lacks the complete focus on Leisha (and/or Jennifer, depending on one’s definition of said template) such an approach would require while also suffering from the aforementioned ‘lack of direction/action’ problem. The experience never quite becomes unpleasant but is occasionally distracting.
TLDR; if explorations of humanity are your bag, “Beggars In Spain” is worth your time. Just be ready for some drastic tonal shifts throughout.
A few quotes for good measure
“On a few faces Leisha saw the small, cruel smiles of small, cruel people watching pain.”
“After all, Leisha, that wouldn’t do, would it? For the creators to become the creations? Who would there be to go on perfecting the art if we all got to be patrons?”
“They were afraid of her, Jennifer saw. That was not bad; fear was only the ancient word for respect.”
“The whole thing, Leisha thought, was peculiarly American, managing to combine democracy with materialism, mediocrity with enthusiasm, power with the illusion of control from below.”
“And throughout it all, the United States rich, prosperous, myopic, magnificent in aggregate and petty in specifics, unwilling—always, always—to accord mass respect to the mind. To good fortune, to luck, to rugged individualism, to faith in God, to patriotism, to beauty, to spunk or pluck or grit or git, but never to complex intelligence and complex thought. It wasn’t sleeplessness that had caused all the rioting; it was thought and its twin consequences, change and challenge.”
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