AKICILJ: Cambodia

[kate_nepveu]

Before I disappear into reading Harry Potter—

Is there anyone reading this who is either from Cambodia or is knowledgable about contemporary Cambodian culture, and who's read Geoff Ryman's Hugo-nominated novellete "Pol Pol's Beautiful Daughter" (pdf)? Because I read it last night and its use of Cambodia is making me uncomfortable, but I am very ignorant on the subject.

ETA: I've now booklogged this story and the rest of the nominees in the category.

Comments

[mdevnich.livejournal.com]

I have read the novelette... as far as Cambodia, I can talk about what I observed (a visit in January) but that's the extent of my knowledge.

[kate_nepveu]

So what do you think?

[mdevnich.livejournal.com]

Sorry to comment & disappear-- I got sucked into HP; and then I followed some of the links from the other comments and wanted to think about it. And this will be long...

I liked this but wasn't overwhelmed; I voted it #3.

I interpreted the ghosts as being only about the particular characters in this story. It never occurred to me Ryman could mean all Cambodians. Some views of the war, from the little I saw:

There's the fact that it damaged so many people. (Both my guides had stories (unprompted) from their childhood; and land mine victims are everywhere in Phnom Penh.) There's plenty of memorial sites with locals lighting incense and praying. There's the "genocide as tourism" circuit, where wealthy westerners visit the memorials. There are places where you would never imagine this was recent history because it's as new & shiny as nice parts of Bangkok; and it would not surprise me at all if for younger Cambodians, the genocide is just history and they want to move on. There's a lot of development going on and a lot of money coming into the country-- so a lot of opportunity for them. It appeared people were pleased to become part of the world again.

[For context: my comments right after the trip: http://mdevnich.livejournal.com/18004.html]

My biases: I always like seeing non-Europe/US SF settings. Also, I was predisposed to give Ryman credit for sensitivity after Air, because he did a great job of depicting village life in a developing country-- it really matched my experience of some of the tensions-- what values you keep, but then what you want from outside. (I base this on 2 years living in a Malian village; much less on Central Asia, where I visited for only a few weeks.)

However:

Sithi based on a RL person: I did not know this when I read it... yeah, that crosses a line. I was trying to think of other examples: Powers fictionalized a real person in Declare, but whasisname the double agent 1. is dead and 2. made himself notorious through his own actions, not because of what other people did.

[kate_nepveu]

Thanks.

Generally speaking, I don't mind fiction that incorporates actual people if those people are already in the public view/discourse. This person is not.

Also, and perhaps inconsistently, I disliked the way the story appeared to erase the existence of the actual person to replace her with someone designed to make a point.

As for the ghosts, I think either reading is plausible, depending on how you read "the victims of my father."

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

You too?

[kate_nepveu]

Yeah. I've now got a head full of Harry Potter, but it seemed to me when I was thinking about it this morning that the ultimate take-home message of the story is that modern Cambodia--*all* of it, not just those who are living off the money their evil father hide away--isn't doing enough to honor its dead. And that's a hell of a sweeping judgment to make, especially for an outsider, which made me really uncomfortable. But I don't know anything about Cambodia.

Even more so if there's an actual person with the role of the daughter here (I think that's what Niall meant in comments here, though I'm waiting for his clarification), because the emphasis on how the story's not *true* would be denying the existence of such a person.

If it had been a secondary-world fantasy story I would have liked it a lot.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I ended up elaborating here (http://bellatrys.livejournal.com/328327.html?thread=2749575#t2749575).

[kate_nepveu]

And now I went and actually read the comments to bellatrys's rant.

I didn't realize the real person is his daughter. That really creeps me out.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, the real person is called Sith and the character is Sitha (or vice versa). So it's not literally the real person, but I think it's clearly intended to be a version of the real person.

[kate_nepveu]

Yes, and somehow using a real person on top of a real country seems even more problematic to me. But then I've never liked Real Person Fic.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I think one question is to what extent Ryman's Sith is like the real Sitha. I'm not sure I'm really comfortable with either possibility -- very similar or very different -- but I think knowing which it is would help us pin down what Ryman was trying to do with the story. Because I doubt he made that choice casually -- I don't think this is a case where a writer produced a problematic story by not putting enough thought into it, I think it's a case of Ryman shooting for something and missing. I'm just not entirely certain what that "something" is.

[kate_nepveu]

According to a news report I found, in 2002 she was taking a class in English among friends.

I've booklogged the category, with links, here: http://www.steelypips.org/weblog/2007/07/2007_novelette.php

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Good discussion. (Although looking at your reactions to most of the other stories, we have very different tastes in many ways. [g] FWIW, I do not think the ending of "The Djinn's Wife" is meant to indicate that the daughter is going to follow in her mother's footsteps.)

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

This review touches on that story. (http://bellatrys.livejournal.com/328327.html)

[kate_nepveu]

Thanks--I saw that but your reminder prompted me to read the comments.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

There's a person on my lj flist who is working there right now--she often posts--but I don't know if the read it. Her user name is something like Changwphem (if I scroll back I'll lose this window and screw up my machine yet again today.)

[kate_nepveu]

Thanks, and I hope your computer behaves.