Megan Morrissey Kelley

Book Review 2

He, She, and It

The term cyberpunk literature often brings about images of bodies fused with microchips and weaponry, worlds on the brink of environmental destruction, and “big brother” type conspiracies which spawn rebellion.  The action rich literature filled with cybernauts and cyborgs hardly seems conducive to storylines overflowing with human desire, love, and the complexity of the parental bond, yet somehow Marge Piercy truly captured it all in her novel He, She, and It.  For those readers who are interested in the issues that arise in the coupling of futuristic cyborgs and good old fashioned love, Piercy’s He, She, and It  has much to offer.

Marge Piercy is a writer, a poet, a feminist, and a Jewish woman who was born into the depression, and came of age in a world on the cusp of change.   It is therefore, not surprising that her novel He, She, and It  beautifully captures each of these themes and more.   Published in 1991, He, She, and It was born of Piercy’s post Women’s Rights Movement conscience when environmental issues were becoming topic of grave concern and technology was catapulted towards the verge of exploding into the habits and homes of most, making the world highly accessible through the interconnected  world wide web.   

In the year 2059 intergalactic travel is a reality, the blue skies once synonymous with the planet Earth are mere memories left over from a time before environmental devastation.   Cleaning bots keep streets and homes tidy in climate controlled neighborhoods, and computerized houses keep homeowners apprised of visitors and maintain order when their sensors tell them their human inhabitants are sleeping or plugged into their terminals watching stimies, or interfacing with other holograms in the virtual vastness of cyberspace.  Yet, tucked away neatly in the corporate Y-S enclave, only her futuristic clothing and a computerized judge set apart the age old struggles of Shira Shipman.  Her marriage lacks passion and true love.  Shira is forced to recognize that she is incapable of changing her husband Josh, or molding him to meet her needs.  Shira wants more from life than the comfort of monotony, hence He, She, and It opens with the scene of Shira’s divorce and her losing custody battle for Ari, the couple’s only child.  The story, all too familiar by contemporary standards, takes a surprising twist when Josh is transferred to the Pacifica Platform and he and Ari leave the planet Earth at the will of the all powerful Y-S Corporation.

Shira Shipman, a woman in her late 20’s, is suddenly faced with the feat of finding her place in a world where nine tenths of the population have been relegated to the Glop, the dark underworld of gang warfare, drug infestation, famine, and disease.  With the exception of a few remaining free towns, the rest of the population is ruled by enclaves of corporations known as “mulits” that couple as both employer and government.  Among the Y-S corporate enclave, Shira “always felt too physical here, too loud, too female, too Jewish, too dark, too exuberant, too emotional,” (5) and without her child, Shira is left feeling further betrayed and alienated by her multi.  Shira seeks solace in Tivka, the Jewish free town in which she was raised by her grandmother, Malkah.  On a quest to get her son back and sort through the aftermath of her marriage, Shira returns to Tivka where the seemingly modern-day plot set in a futuristic world collides with extreme cybernetics and readers are challenged to uncover the duality between the past and the future, human and machine, order and chaos, emotion and programmed thought, as well as question some very fundamental notions in regard to love, morality, and what precisely it is that makes us human.

                “Most of the people who lived in free towns like the one she had grown up in could have sold themselves to the multi directly, instead of contracting for specific jobs, but elected to stay outside the enclaves because of some personal choice: a minority religion, a sexual preference not condoned by a particular multi, perhaps simply an archaic desire for freedom,” (31).  Avram, family friend, co-worker to Malkah, father of Shira’s childhood sweetheart, as well as a cybernetic scientist extraordinaire, revels in the work he does, unbound by mulit law.  “We want to remain ourselves.  We want our independence.  Our freedom,” (283).  Joining Avram in his lab functions initially as a means of distracting Shira from her personal devastation, however, her job to aid in the socialization and education of a highly illegal cyborg named Yod soon proves more than a preoccupation and much more than a profession. 

                Yod was created by Avram and programmed by Malkah in the likeness of a human, which is against corporate law.  Yod’s intended purpose is protection, however, readers soon learn that our creations do not always follow the path that was chosen or produced for them.  Shira, overcome by Yod’s ability to not only understand but reflect, soon joins the cyborg in a quest to gain freedom, answers, acceptance, and even love.  Unexpectedly, the journey brings Shira exactly those things she sought for Yod. 

                Piercy’s words are prophetic and beautiful as her character Malkah bridges the gap between history and future through a bedtime story for Yod, the story of Golem, which is interwoven throughout the novel:

Once upon a time is how stories begin.  Half artist, half scientist, I know that much.   A mother and a grandmother, I have been telling stories for fifty years.  As the children grow, so do the tales, from line drawings in motion to the full range of colors and shadings, layered thickly as paste or blood.  Some moral tales belong to kindergarten, the age of being afraid of the dark, the age of venturing from the house alone for a short distance, admonitory fables in primary crayons.  But other tales are always with us.  (17).

And thus, Piercy has woven a tale to remind readers that not everything is as it appears, and often underneath, the future is not so distant from long ago once upon a times.