A woman from a possible future, in which Earth is called Whileaway, comes back to what was the modern day at the time of writing. It doesn't really fit in with her other famous short story set on Whileaway where Whileaway is another planet and has been free of men for centuries with the short story dealing with first contact when some men turn up in a spaceship. This novel is more fantastic than SF and features women who are the same character but from very different alternative realities - at least I think so! ( )

I read this ages ago, but someone reminded me that Jael's world has what are basically trans women living in the "male" space and the book treats them hideously. Like. They're presented as clearly women, and treated as women inside the male-only space, including being subject to abuse for being women, they're literally called "feminine", but they're not "real women". As soon as the main character women see a "half-changed", they get angry and hate them. The "changed and half-changed" are presented as horribly as possible. It's fucking vile. Like. Trans women were not totally unknown when Russ wrote this book. But she talks about them with a hatred that the men don't receive. Being a "half-man" is worse than being a "real man" to her, I guess.

The rest of the book has its moments and some deeply moving parts and it's incredibly personal but also often incredibly confusing because of the weird structure. It's very stereotypically second-wave feminist. Some of the ideas are good but I can't rate a book highly which has such a "Transexual Empire" vision of trans women. ( )

I confess I couldn't get into this the way I anticipated (and I tried twice), but there were some quotable bits:

…I wept aloud, I wrung my hands, crying: I am a poet! I am Shelley! I am a genius! … Lady, your slip’s showing. …

There is the vanity training, the obedience training, the self-effacement training, the deference training, the dependency training, the passivity training, the rivalry training, the stupidity training, the placation training. How am I to put this together with my human life, my intellectual life, my solitude, my transcendence, my brains, and my fearful, fearful ambition? I failed miserably and thought it was my own fault. You can’t unite woman and human any more than you can unite matter and anti-matter; they are designed to not to be stable together and they make just as big an explosion inside the head of the unfortunate girl who believes in both.

Do you enjoy playing with other people’s children-for ten minutes? Good! This reveals that you have Maternal Instinct and you will be forever wretched if you do not instantly have a baby of your own (or three or four) and take care of that unfortunate victimized object twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, for eighteen years, all by yourself. (Don’t expect much help.)

Are you lonely? Good! This shows that you have Feminine Incompleteness; get married and do all your husband’s personal services, buck him up when he’s low, teach him about sex (if he wants you to), praise his technique (if he doesn’t), have a family if he wants a family, follow him if he changes cities, get a job if he needs you to get a job, and this too goes on seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year forever and ever amen unless you find yourself a divorcee at thirty with (probably two) small children. (Be a shrew and ruin yourself, too, how about it?) ( )

This was a good book but difficult to follow. There are four woman all versions of the same one in different parallel worlds whose names all start with J. As a result I kept confusing them. But that may be because I took a few weeks to read what is a relatively short book. And I do wonder if Joanna Russ intended for the reader to confuse these different characters. What I very much appreciated about this novel was the palpable sense of rage that must be felt by women living in a patriarchal society. I have never before gotten a sense of the injustice and belittlement that must be felt by women as I have reading this book. And from that perspective alone, this book is worth reading. ( )

This book is bizarre, experimental, disturbing, and oddly fun. ( )