Story 7: "Tikkun Olam" by RivkaT and MustangSally

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Since we had a rather long interlude with no story at all (my fault!), wendelah1 and I have chosen a special bonus story. So here it is, "Tikkun Olam" by RivkaT and MustangSally, one of the controversial classics of the fandom. Hopefully it will provoke some discussion.

This story is rated NC-17 and is not for sensitive or impressionable souls. I'm not kidding. But it's really good.

"Deaths and disclosures, universal and particular, denouements both unexpected and inexorable, transvestite melodrama on all levels including the suggestive. We transport you into a world of intrigue and illusion ... clowns, if you like, murderers -- we can do you ghosts and battles, on the skirmish level, heroes, villains, tormented lovers -- set pieces in the poetic vein; we can do you rapiers or rape or both, by all means, faithless wives and ravished virgins -- flagrante delicto at a price, but that comes under realism for which there are special terms."

Interesting discussions:

Usenet thread on prologue

Spoilerific Usenet review thread

Comments

[wendelah1]

It is a dark story, but I think it was told very much on the surface of things. I never got very emotionally involved in the fates of any of the various universes, or in their versions of our characters. It felt very cold. It is a story that I can admire but not love, and not one that I can see rereading for pleasure. The closest novel that I can think of in tone might be "Lolita," which is techically brilliant, and very disturbing but which I also found to be quite cold. I thought that Jess M.'s "The Other Man" was a much darker story, and one that I felt very involved in and rather devastated by even the second time around.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

I never got very emotionally involved in the fates of any of the various universes, or in their versions of our characters. It felt very cold.

That is a good point. Now that I think about it, I didn't get that attached to the characters either, and that is especially interesting because in "Iolokus" I really was. Even, or arguably especially, the original characters in "Iolokus" were compelling creations. You did get attached to them.

My surmise is that the characters weren't really the point of this story. It was all about the moral shape of the world, and like the sex, the characters just acted as bellwethers to demonstrate exactly how bad it had gotten. The story draws heavily on "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," and that play was not exactly about the characterization either.

I'm planning to write my own review of this story, by the way. Just that it's quicker to start by replying to other people.