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"The Speed of Dark"
Jul. 22nd, 2008 12:44 amI've just finished reading Elizabeth Moon's "The Speed of Dark", and I highly recommend it. I picked this up because I was looking for something to grab at the library, thought to pick up Moon's "Deed of Paksenarrion" (which I've read once, and keep looking to buy at the used book store) but saw this instead. Has anyone here read it?
The Speed of Dark is set in the near future, and is told (mostly) from the viewpoint of a high-functioning autistic man named Lou. There are little futuristic touches here and there, but the major ones are that (a) at some point, doctors have learned how to train even drastically autistic children so that they can function in society, (b) sometime after that point, doctors learn how to cure autism in infants, meaning that Lou and his friends (in their 30s) are the last autistic generation, and (c) in the course of the book we discover that there is a new experimental technique which might be able to reverse autism in adults as well. The book deals a lot with the ethics of "curing" someone of something which has defined their entire personality. It also deals a lot with autist-autist and autistic-normal relations in what feels like a realistic way, though I would love to get the reactions of some of the Aspergic people I knew in Boston. (Mind you, this book came out in 2002 while I was still in Boston...no wait, I was still in Chicago in 2002.) Mind you, there may be a difference between Aspergic people and Lou, who would be a full-blown autistic person without the treatment interventions.
I think I've mentioned before that I went through a period where I self-diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome, going so far as to join the Asperger's Association of New England and attending weekly group meetings. I read the descriptions and the symptoms of Asperger's and found so much there that fit me. After several years, however, I came to the decision that while I may have some difficulties with socializing etc, they were hardly great enough to require a diagnosis (at worst, "social anxiety" would be more appropriate). Reading this book, I started making the same connections, noticing little things that Lou would say or do and feel a great amount of empathy towards him. I hate having people behind me too. I don't like people asking me "Howya doing?" when they don't really want to know. I like finding patterns in floor tiles and ceilings and whatnot. I'm in no way autistic, but one could argue that autism is merely the exaggeration of a particular personality type, one end of the autistic spectrum, and if so then I'm probably somewhere on the scale. It's not a disability for me, and I wouldn't dare claim to understand the difficulties that true autists and Aspergics have in life.
There's been a backlash on Slashdot and other geeky websites against ("backlash against"? "towards"? i dunno what preposition to use) people who self-diagnose as Aspergic or claim to be mildly autistic, and I think much of that backlash is from the mistaken assumption that these people are trying to claim that they are disabled and deserve special treatment and/or waivers for bad behavior. And some of them might very well be doing that. But there is value in identifying yourself with the shallow end of the autistic spectrum, even if you aren't looking for handouts. It can make one feel better about the quirks one already has. It can give one a sense of community. And it can even help one cope better, I think: for example, when Lou and his fellow autists in the book are upset by life, they have a variety of coping mechanisms: bouncing on a trampoline, listening to specific music, looking for patterns, burying oneself in blankets-- maybe the same coping mechanisms, which they have developed because they NEED them, would be helpful to anyone on the spectrum.
OK, time for bed because Miriam is going to wake me up in the morning when she wants to get up, and Jen will want to go to work instead of staying home and letting me sleep in. :P
(Oh P.S. we have successfully moved in to our new house, which is very nice, but I haven't written about it because I haven't felt moved by it and it seems like a long story. I'll get to it soon.)
The Speed of Dark is set in the near future, and is told (mostly) from the viewpoint of a high-functioning autistic man named Lou. There are little futuristic touches here and there, but the major ones are that (a) at some point, doctors have learned how to train even drastically autistic children so that they can function in society, (b) sometime after that point, doctors learn how to cure autism in infants, meaning that Lou and his friends (in their 30s) are the last autistic generation, and (c) in the course of the book we discover that there is a new experimental technique which might be able to reverse autism in adults as well. The book deals a lot with the ethics of "curing" someone of something which has defined their entire personality. It also deals a lot with autist-autist and autistic-normal relations in what feels like a realistic way, though I would love to get the reactions of some of the Aspergic people I knew in Boston. (Mind you, this book came out in 2002 while I was still in Boston...no wait, I was still in Chicago in 2002.) Mind you, there may be a difference between Aspergic people and Lou, who would be a full-blown autistic person without the treatment interventions.
I think I've mentioned before that I went through a period where I self-diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome, going so far as to join the Asperger's Association of New England and attending weekly group meetings. I read the descriptions and the symptoms of Asperger's and found so much there that fit me. After several years, however, I came to the decision that while I may have some difficulties with socializing etc, they were hardly great enough to require a diagnosis (at worst, "social anxiety" would be more appropriate). Reading this book, I started making the same connections, noticing little things that Lou would say or do and feel a great amount of empathy towards him. I hate having people behind me too. I don't like people asking me "Howya doing?" when they don't really want to know. I like finding patterns in floor tiles and ceilings and whatnot. I'm in no way autistic, but one could argue that autism is merely the exaggeration of a particular personality type, one end of the autistic spectrum, and if so then I'm probably somewhere on the scale. It's not a disability for me, and I wouldn't dare claim to understand the difficulties that true autists and Aspergics have in life.
There's been a backlash on Slashdot and other geeky websites against ("backlash against"? "towards"? i dunno what preposition to use) people who self-diagnose as Aspergic or claim to be mildly autistic, and I think much of that backlash is from the mistaken assumption that these people are trying to claim that they are disabled and deserve special treatment and/or waivers for bad behavior. And some of them might very well be doing that. But there is value in identifying yourself with the shallow end of the autistic spectrum, even if you aren't looking for handouts. It can make one feel better about the quirks one already has. It can give one a sense of community. And it can even help one cope better, I think: for example, when Lou and his fellow autists in the book are upset by life, they have a variety of coping mechanisms: bouncing on a trampoline, listening to specific music, looking for patterns, burying oneself in blankets-- maybe the same coping mechanisms, which they have developed because they NEED them, would be helpful to anyone on the spectrum.
OK, time for bed because Miriam is going to wake me up in the morning when she wants to get up, and Jen will want to go to work instead of staying home and letting me sleep in. :P
(Oh P.S. we have successfully moved in to our new house, which is very nice, but I haven't written about it because I haven't felt moved by it and it seems like a long story. I'll get to it soon.)
