Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the story:


The Screwfly Solution by James Tiptree Jr.

This story was adapted for television as part of Showtime's Masters of Horror anthology, S2E07 Dec 2008

This story is part of the group discussion of James Tiptree Jr.'s short story collection Her Smoke Rose Up Forever. (See the discussion hub topic for more info.)

I kept wondering how the screwflies were going to come into it since the husband was working on different tropical parasites, so I enjoyed that reveal (and the "real estate agent") at the end. I did find the wife's letters fairly annoying, though.

It's interesting how the point of view changes at a certain point -- it's not something I see often & it breaks most of the "rules" I've heard, but the pov changes definitely works in terms of keeping the reader close to the action of the story.

"Screwfly" and "Dr. Ain" are the only two stories I've read from the collection so far & I'm wondering how many are going to deal w/epidemiology.

I've been trying to decide if this story flirts with the border of horror, or is really more sci-fi. It certainly seems to glory in the violence against women.

Told in epistolary format, a series of letters between husband and wife, while hubby is off on a field assignment. Apparently there's something going around, a disease or social movement or just a fad, in which men are into brutalizing women. Because (reasons)...

And it has a nice turn at the end, explicitly relating Barney's research on disrupting insects' mating cycle as a way of eliminating pests without hurting the surrounding ecology (as if) to the present unpleasantness.

I had a series of strange questions about Barney, though. (Dr. Barnhard Braithwaite, the next-door neighbor.) If he actually knows something, as he seems to, why is he being so coy and oblique in communicating to Alan via just a few newspaper articles? Or maybe just generally, what's the deal with Barney?

Horror, or just really, really dark sci-fi?

Real estate agent indeed...

***1/2*

Hillary wrote: "I did find the wife's letters fairly annoying, though...."

You mean the stay-at-home wife support the hubby 1950's lifestyle?

It would have made sense if she was just a stay-at-home wife, but she was also supposed to be head of research at the university. Now, you can be a homemaker & a researcher, but if you're also the latter (even if you're just a grants manager), I'd think a) you'd have at least a few interesting work-related things to talk about and b) you'd probably be trying to figure out the connections in Barney's clippings for yourself.

I didn't notice Barney's unrealistic coyness while reading, but I can't think of any justifiable explanation for it. After all, we have no reason to think that the mail is being censored (just that somewhere along the way, anything resembling wads of money might be opened/stolen).

I think the ending qualifies the story as sci fi. I didn't think the femicide epidemic seemed particularly realistic, despite the attempt at a biological explanation (had something to do w/testosterone, didn't it?). (view spoiler)[Partly b/c the raging irrational femicide just didn't seem all that convincing -- although, yes, partly b/c I had just found her really annoying for most of the story -- the ultimate fate of the wife was not as moving as it was probably meant to be. Instead, the cleverness of the tropical dissemination & the extremely backgrounded aliens were what appealed to me in the story. (hide spoiler)]

Hillary wrote: "It would have made sense if she was just a stay-at-home wife, but she was also supposed to be head of research at the university. Now, you can be a homemaker & a researcher, but if you're also the latter, I'd think a) you'd have at least a few interesting work-related things to talk about and b) you'd probably be trying to figure out the connections in Barney's clippings for yourself. ..."

Yeah, I can see that contradiction. Anne's letters all have the tone of, "I included some papers from dear old Barney. They're way too complicated for my pretty little girl's brain to understand, so I'll just let you men think about the hard stuff.”

(view spoiler)[I agree Anne's eventual suicide lacks emotional punch because she's already been established as such a week - and dare I say ditzy - character. (hide spoiler)]

So is Tiptree being ironic in her portrayal of Anne?

G33z3r wrote: So is Tiptree being ironic in her portrayal of Anne?

I want to think so, because Tiptree is not only famous for considering gender issues in her work and because the nature of the epidemic in this very story seems to take a critical view of the different rationales for justifying violence against women and the indifference some female victims of violence face & have historically faced from society at large.

However, I just don't see anything in the story itself that suggests that Anne has interests, much less intellectual interests, beyond her husband's wellbeing, the maintenance of the home, and (eventually) physical survival. So I can't read her portrayal as ironic. (Which might lend to the horror element of the tale ... that this clueless housewife might be in danger ... but not to my appreciation of Anne as a character.)

I had Netflix send me the DVD of the Masters of Horror episode based on this story (The Screwfly Solution). Horror not being one my genre, I'd not previously seen it.

An interesting enough treatment. They abandoned the epistolary format, of course, because it's a video, and invited good old Elliott Gould to play dear old Barney. Also, because Masters of Horror was made by premium cable network Starz, there is plenty of nudity to distract from the flat acting.

I wouldn't go too far out of your way to see it.

It explores a broad range of typical topics like love, violance against females, or religion. I found it to be a bit predictible, giving away too much too soon. The ending is a kind of teachery “gotcha” which I didn’t like.