“But the book is also self-aware of the shortcomings of white narratives—for better or for worse, there’s a recurring thread of meta commentary about history, historiography, and mythology that often undercuts the power of Swan’s ambition (herself, a white American author) for the novel. For better or for worse, WTVE is very much a product of its creator in the way it approaches everything from gender to class and race (even the minor Southeast Asian character of Chantrea, particularly, felt a little careless) and at times I felt that it deliberately avoided prodding humanity’s uglier side for the sake of its overall message about self-determination and survival.
Let's start with the crap writing. The first sentence is a textbook run-on. It's what your high school English teacher circled in red. Secondly, Ong repeats “for better or for worse” twice within forty words. I understand this is breaking an unwritten rule, but a rule nonetheless, and one a person reviewing for a site like Tor should be cognizant of, or at least its editors. If anything, it sounds awkward. The phrase “for the novel” is superfluous and “very much” sounds juvenile. And there is another repetition: the word: “felt”, this time within eight words. (So many feelings!) The second sentence is likewise a run-on. And finally, the phrase inside parentheses is a syntactical disaster.
Am I the only one who has problems with a reviewer who has trouble writing being given a platform to critique the writing of others? Regardless, let's see the clean version so we can look at the concepts:
“But the book is also self-aware of the shortcomings of white narratives. There’s a recurring thread of meta-commentary about history, historiography, and mythology that often undercuts the power of Swan’s ambition, who is herself a white, American author. For better or worse, WTVE is a product of its creator in the way it approaches everything from gender to class and race. (For example, the minor southeast Asian character Chantrea seemed a little careless.) At times I felt that it deliberately avoided prodding humanity’s uglier side for the sake of its overall message about self-determination and survival.
Ahh, much better—at least to the English ear. Now, let's look at the logic in the mind's ear.
Ong states that Swan's meta-commentary on history, historiography, and myth undercuts the book's ambition, an ambition that Ong seems to think is self-determination and survival. I will address the superficiality of this interpretation in a moment, but for now just pause and think about how history, historiography, and mythology could undercut human self-determination and survival. They don't. Firstly, the human species is built on self-determination and survival. That is our history. We would be the dodo otherwise—a stain on the underwear of time. It permeates everything we do as a species, and therefore cannot be separated from history, myth, etc. Secondly, the majority of the novel is set in the present to near-future. Swan indeed includes a bit of history, but it's set alongside the present and future. The book's theme is to be found across that spectrum, not in one section looking entirely backward.
It's possible to understand why Ong assumes the book's themes are self-determination and survival. The title hints at a braveness to push ahead in a stark situation, and indeed many of the characters have to fight through odds to achieve something. But that is incidental. Below the surface is commentary on the evolution of our quality of life. (If you want to say it's an American quality of life, I wouldn't argue.) Swan frames the recent past and present as a time of plenty—as a golden age starring the abundance of resources, availability of technology, social assistance, and medicine. And then its lost, forcing humanity into a soft reset. The final twenty-thirty pages of the novel drip with the idea that we should not take for granted the quality of life we have today and should pay attention to signs that quality of life may be changing negatively. The ostensible emphasis on self-determination and survival is just a consequence of having taken things for granted. Following that, the decisions we as a species make in those modes may not always be optimal. This takes us to the third point, the denouement of the novel, which full-on addresses the “uglier side of humanity.” I will not spoil things here except to say certain characters' intentions are revealed, and they are revealed to be shortsighted. To say the least, ugly. In other words, Ong's meaning of ugliness must be found elsewhere (or she didn't understand the book). And to close this topic, the better interpretation of the title is experiencing a proverbially empty Earth in appreciation of what is absent—pretentious, but it works.
But there is still an elephant in the room. In fact, it is a purple with orange polka-dots elephant who identifies as Marvin the Martian. Sorry. It's just that when I encounter paradoxical phrases like “white narratives” my brain becomes so befuddled that it has no choice but to resort to humor to alleviate the absurdity. What is the absurdity? Answer this question: what is a “white narrative”? Black pages with white text? Sorry, but Ong's response to the question seems equally formulaic: the author has white skin, therefore it is a white narrative. Let's go Aristotelian and humor Ong on that formula. Why select skin color, as opposed to something else, for example gender, as the fulcrum of criticism? Why skin color rather than street address? Why skin color rather than length of hair? Why not taste for oranges? Number of neck moles? Total lifetime fingernails clipped? After all, skin color is an arbitrary selection given the infinitude of ways humans can be taxonimized. Why arbitrary? Because there is no other way to understand the “white” in “white narrative”. It is impossible for there to be something, anything that could exist in every, single book written by white-skinned people that does not exist in any other book written by people of different skin color. I've read a couple thousand books in my life by people from all walks of life and have yet to see that pattern in the tea leaves. And all this is without asking the definition of “white skin”. (Percentage of melanin? Minutes to turn red on a Mediterranean beach?) Confronted by this wall of irrationality, the only thing I can do is toast martian elephants.
Ok, ok, Aristotle can go home. We know Ong is playing the modern DEI whack-a-mole game. So, let's play along and assume such a thing as “white narratives” exist, and therefore are capable of having “shortcomings”. But again, questions arise. What could those shortcomings possibly be that are unique to writers with white skin? I thought every person on Earth, regardless of skin color, is in some way fallible—capable of writing poorly and capable of having opinions that are out of social favor. White-skinned people do not have a monopoly on failings and shortcomings. The shortcoming Ong seems to focus on is that Swan's novel is “very much a product of its creator in the way it approaches everything from gender to class and race.” Unfortunately, we are given no direct clues about what Ong means by “approach”. We do have some indirect clues in the final sentence, however. It seems that Swan's approach has not prodded the ugly side of life enough. But as described above, Swan has poked humanity's penchant for shortsightedness with a big spear. So, it seems safe to say Ong was not talking about that. So what could she be talking about by “approach”? Well, we can't say 100% for certain except that it likely has something to do with said arbitrary DEI demographics. The paradoxical loop keeps looping.
To take a step back for a moment, I struggle mightily to understand DEI-related criticism—the pile of straw laying around the camel's back, the myriad of such criticism produced the past decade. It's an exclusionary perspective, i.e. that by not including genders, classes, and races not of the author's own, the author has done something incorrect. Drawing the logical conclusion, had Swan included all races, genders, and classes not of her own then the book would have no “white narrative shortcomings”. Let's humor that for a moment. 100% inclusive to receive praise. Got it. But wait, the follow on question is a kicker: do all authors, and by default all fiction, therefore need to be 100% inclusive to be praised? That's a vast-vast expanse of humanity to include. Do engineers, astronomers, ice cream salesmen, people with athlete's foot, and every other sub-sub-sub-sub-group likewise have legitimate gripes if their facet of existence is not represented in every narrative ever published? The taxonomy of humanity is infinite, after all. Mass murders, foot fetishists, dog-owners, siamese twins, hermits—where does it end?
The last point I will address in my criticism of Ong's review regards the quantity of detail inherent to said taxonomic approach. Ong writes: “...even the minor Southeast Asian character of Chantrea, particularly, felt a little careless”. Ong's sentiment seems that Chantrea does not have enough nuance in order properly represent her race/class/gender. This leads to the logical question, is every character in every narrative required to have said nuance? Are authors to be criticized for having lightly sketched secondary characters? Are novels and stories to have fully fleshed minor characters—ethnicity, breakfast preferences, penis length (imaginary and physical), etc.—such that Ong and those who think like her will withhold disapproval? If so, we're in for some extended page counts and unfocused tale telling. I don't think the rainforests could keep up with the demand from epic fantasy, for example.
Imagine reviewing books like Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four or Tolstoy's War and Peace or Austen's Pride and Prejudice through Ong's lenses? There are not enough Africans in 19th century Russia! Elizabeth Bennett didn't have enough lesbian encounters! Sure, Winston Smith was treated like crap, but what of the people of lower class?!?! Yes, you're laughing. It is absurd. So why then are books like Swan's held accountable as such? They shouldn't be. The better lenses through which to view Walk the Vanished Earth are environmentalism, behaviorism, and the usage of technology. You will find much more of value in Swan's book by doing so. Considering the book has zero racist / sexist / classist / fill in the DEI blank comments, focusing on the author's skin color and their characters' demographics is of little to no value. Let's look to the forest not the trees for real meaning, yes?
And, I get it, I do. Personal opinion is unavoidable in a review. It's the nature of the beast. Assuming the reviewer can string words into sentences and ideas reasonably well, the goal, however, should be objectivity. Opinion inevitably slips through, but the more verifiable the reviewer is in their reviews, the better value they offer the reader—the person who is deciding whether or not to invest in the book themselves. In Ong's case, her subjective waffling has done the book, author, and review reader a disservice. Walk the Vanished Earth is not a subtly white nationalist tale tied to independence and survival. Taking off her socialist glasses would have potentially allowed Ong to see more facts about the book and not given this impression.
Fun fact, the polish word for “camel” is wielbłąd, which loosely translates to ”many errors”. Meaning, a broken camel is indeed an ugly thing. Thus, it's time for the far left to give up on this DEI whack-a-mole nonsense and focus on practical matters. (Don't worry, the far right likewise needs to give up on puritanical ideologies.) Thus, have you ever noticed that the way to incorporate different races into a functioning society is not to hyper focus on it, rather to ignore it and try to relate to the person behind the skin color? We're all universally human there. Getting snagged on superficial details, as does Ong's review, is limiting real progress. Good intentions pave the road to hell, yes? Which, by the way is likewise an appropriate metaphor for a part of Swan's theme in Walk the Vanished Earth.
If any of this sounds interesting, do read the novel and form your own opinion.
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