Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- I Seed-beds: Crossing Theology, Feminism and Science Fiction
- II Sexual Universes
- III Father in Crisis, Mother Rises? 1. The Choric Fantasy
- IV Father in Crisis, Mother Rises? 2. (Extra)biblical Scenarios
- V (Counter) Apocalypses
- VI A Momentary Taste of Being
- Notes
- Index of Names and Terms
V - (Counter) Apocalypses
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- I Seed-beds: Crossing Theology, Feminism and Science Fiction
- II Sexual Universes
- III Father in Crisis, Mother Rises? 1. The Choric Fantasy
- IV Father in Crisis, Mother Rises? 2. (Extra)biblical Scenarios
- V (Counter) Apocalypses
- VI A Momentary Taste of Being
- Notes
- Index of Names and Terms
Summary
Resuming ‘A Momentary Taste of Being’ differently
Just before the cargo-module in which the alien has been confined is opened—all of the crew members are watching the actions of the investigation team on the videoscreens in keen expectation—Aaron suddenly experiences ‘an odd oceanic awareness’ (A137). In Freudian psychoanalysis, oceanic awareness is the (revived) feeling of the symbiotic– semiotic oneness with the mother, in other words, the imaginary return to paradise discussed repeatedly in the previous chapters. During this experience Aaron is affected by a flow of thoughts which contains an important textual indication for the reading of ‘A Momentary Taste of Being’.
Here we are, he thinks, tiny blobs of life millions and millions of miles from the speck that spawned us, hanging out here in the dark wastes, preparing with such complex pains to encounter a different mode of life. All of us, peculiar, wretchedly imperfect—somehow we have done this thing. Incredible, really, the ludicrous tangle of equipment, the awkward suited men, the precautions, the labor, the solemnity— Jan, Bruce, Yellaston, Tim Bron, Bustamente, Alice Berryman, Coby, Kawabata, my saintly sister, poor Frank Foy, stupid Aaron Kaye—a stream of faces pours through his mind, hostile or smiling, suffering each in his separate flawed reality: all of us. Somehow we have brought ourselves to this amazement. Perhaps we really are saving our race, he thinks, perhaps there really is a new earth and heaven ahead … (A137)
In the phrase ‘a new earth and heaven’ we remotely hear the echoes of the biblical Book of Revelation. In the context of Tiptree's science fiction cosmology, the commonplace expression becomes to point to what can be called an apocalyptic longing, a longing for the actual revelation of the end of times and the beginning of a radically new era. Considered in the light of Aaron's prior views, however, such a desire is quite remarkable. Until now we have come to know Aaron as a mild sceptic, doubting very much humanity's ability to change fundamentally so that its ‘animal part’ would be eliminated. He even fears the very striving after such a change, for it could easily turn into its own reversal, the very destruction of humankind.
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- Alien PlotsFemale Subjectivity and the Divine in the Light of James Tiptree's 'A Momentary Taste of Being', pp. 142 - 185Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2000