Book 222: San Marino (Italian) – Androceo: storia di virus e di stelle = Androceo: story of a virus and of stars (Milena ERCOLANI)

 

The year 2030 AD was in progress, when over the whole of Earth there spread a malignant morbidity, unknown to science, a highly contagious virus that hit male chromosomes, destroying them. So it was that within a short time an epidemic spread that brought death to hundreds and hundreds of millions of males throughout the world. Gaia was hitting back with the same violence and fury that men had used against her, to the advantage and salvation of all the creatures of the Blue Planet. The few survivors weakened, reduced to an almost larval state. Only the women were not hit by the virus, but had to put up with the bewilderment and the pain of seeing their fathers, sons, brothers, and friends die beside them. No one was spared by the contagion, all got sick.

[my translation]

This was the newest novel I read for this challenge – this little country totally surrounded by Italy was one of the more difficult countries to find a novel from, and I snapped this one up almost as soon as it was published. It was also the first post-covid novel I’ve read. And it is the story of a post-virus world, Ercolani’s vision of a feminist future, though surely it would be a hell for men (and, I suspect, women too). (In the interests of full disclosure at the outset – I’m a man…)

So, in 2030 the world is hit by a strange virus which kills almost all the men, destroying their chromosomes, but not the women. The latter take over, and rule better (according to Ercolani – all men are excluded from government). They banish all the surviving, weakened, men from the surface, to an underground world (Androceo). (No mention as to whether the men agreed to this). The world falls into a stasis of sexual apartheid, which supposedly brings about understanding between men and women. The latter (only) regulate male testosterone levels to ‘keep them quiet’. Women are allowed to visit the underground, but not vice versa. The new rulers also strictly control sexual relations, trying to separate sexual pleasure from procreation. For those so privileged, partners are not allowed to have more than 15 years of age difference. Heterosexual and lesbian love is ok, but homosexual love is ‘not practiced’. Anyway, the men now have weak desires… The men are not even told about their children, who are brought up by ‘everyone’. Only pallid affections remain. Neither women nor men are supposed to care; Gwina feels herself ‘vulnerable’ to tenderness. The prominent male character, Anders, says he loves the world too much to risk seeing the stars – but he has been totally deprived of nature, and can only know the human world. He remembers the outside with ‘a little’ nostalgia…

The men are also surveilled with microchips. As well, religions have been banned. (As we see above, though, Gaia has been personified). The above-ground world has also contracted: there remains little air transport – only cargo travels.

As with all utopias, perhaps, we find ourselves in a steady state world which will apparently never change. What if the disease disipates, will all the men still be barred from the surface? Brynja (Anders’ daughter) thinks she lives in a perfect world! Another seemingly invariable characteristic of utopias and dystopias is that the characters (or at least one of them) always seem to be preaching.

Like so many utopias (More’s, Plato’s, etc.) this one filled me with horror. It seems more reminiscent of the treatment of women in Taliban Afghanistan (in mirror image) than any place you would want to live. But regardless of what you think about the conceit of the story, I feel there are lots of problems with this short (78 pages) novel. The dialogue is stiff and formal, and the plot not very interesting, but the tone is very preachy. Sadly, not one I can recommend.

ERCOLANI, Milena (1963 – ), Androceo: storia di virus e di stelle, Pegasus Edition, 2020, ISBN 978-88–7211-137-6

Book 137: Turkmenistan (English) – The Tale of Aypi (Ak Welsapar)

Clouds of downy pollen blown by the scorching wind landed on the hills and mixed with the sand, turning the entire area as grey as a wolf pelt. It was hot beyond all endurance, and a bitter, heavy-smelling breeze blew from the sea. People found no relief; first they ran out of their simple homes, then they ran back inside.

Similar to the tale from Tunisia, this is a story about the relentlessness and pitilessness of developers, and how those whose land is being ‘developed’ have to cope after they have been left with nothing (at least where they have lived for generations). And like Lion Mountain in Tunisia, this book (and its author) have been banned in Turkmenistan – Ak Welsapar had to leave in 1993. But it is the first Turkmen novel to have been translated.
Aypi is a young bride in a fishing village on (I assume) the Caspian Sea. For telling some strangers the villagers’ secrets, in exchange for a necklace which fascinated her, her husband pushed her off a cliff into the sea and the necklace dragged her down to her doom. She became the village ghost.
We find out eventually that Aypi’s real name is Ay-peri (’ay’ is ‘moon’ in Turkmen), and in a sense she always was a peri (magical female being in Persian mythology); even as a girl she was always a good swimmer and mischievous. I guess I was expecting her to somehow turn out to be more substantial – more powerful, more moral, less ethereal – but after all she is just a spirit of the dead. She doesn’t do anything practical but is just a gadfly. What she really respects are beauty and wealth. Well – that is what she is.
Three hundred years later, when the whole village is ordered to relocate to the city, and fishing is forbidden, only Araz refuses to leave (despite the authorities inflicting an unusual ice cream torture on him…), thinking everyone else is spineless.
Aypi has begun a campaign of gadfly torture on the men as revenge for them muttering about women’s weakness.
There are two main themes – the battle against (or rather acquiescence to) development, and the war of the sexes. The Tale of Aypi is a surprise – a ghost story and a tale of reincarnation perhaps from a Muslim country (Islam is almost totally unmentioned, but it is set during the time of the Soviet Union), and a feminist tale written by a man (as is Liberia’s Guanya Pau). It was very well written and enjoyable.

WELSAPAR, Ak (1956 – ), The Tale of Aypi, translated by W. M. Coulson, London, Glagoslav, 2016, ISBN 978-1-78437-983-4 (originally published 2012)