A Door Into Ocean

How do you review a book like A Door Into Ocean?

Typically I'd sum up the plot's critical elements, introduce you to the primary characters, and then spell out, at a broad level, what I considered the highs and lows to be.

That's not gonna work here. For starters, I'm not sure I can summarize the central plot. At play here is identity—both individual and community—ecology, biology, the nature of the military-industrial complex, a hierarchical society's effect on psychology, the nature of fear, consciousness, humanity, and death. And more! It's a lot, and it feels like I read a series rather than a 406-page book.

And yet, it's also quite simple. On the water-covered moon called Shora a society of women live in harmony with their unusual home. Deep purple—on account of microbes in their skin that help them retain oxygen while swimming—they also sport extra-long, webbed digits and a body devoid of hair. This last fact is very noticeable as they don't wear clothing. They call themselves Sharers, and they are the only sentient beings native to their planet. Though spread across the globe, they live as one tribe.

Their way of life, previously undisturbed for centuries or more, is finally encountering a reckoning. Traders arrived some years past, pitching the world into unfamiliar territory. How much do they let modern conveniences overtake their way of life? And what of the unintended consequences of these conveniences—are they worth it? Then there's the traders' effect on the local ecology.

You get the idea.

Merwen, the closest thing this egalitarian group has to a leader, wants to understand these traders and their kind. n search of understading, she visits the nearby planet of Valedon, where she meets Spinel. Young and searching for an identity, he agrees to return with her to Shora.

The transition isn't easy for anyone, yet Merwen is convinced that Spinel's presence among them is critically important. This scenario comprises most of the first half of A Door Into Ocean.

I have read quite a few of these "outsider" types of stories for ForFemFan, but I never tire of them. They're a perfect platform from which to introduce a well-honed world while exploring the nuance of identity. In my mind, they're as timeless as the Heroes journey—if done well.

And Slonczewski does it well. From the anthropological to the biological, everything about Shora and its people is different yet vaguely familiar and infinitely endearing. I could go into specifics, but I'll refrain. I enjoyed experiencing the peculiarities of the Sharers without introduction. I will, however, warn you that when Slonczewski has a complicated piece of information she wants to impart, she simply goes for it. Expect the occasional long paragraph, or page, dead-ass explaining the biology of a type of sea creature.

The only "miss" for me in these chapters was the political nuance. 

Spinel's presence is the primary focus, not the sole one. Elsewhere, another Sharer-adopted Valedon is living her life, and it's a lot more political. As the child of the high-powered politician who initiated trading with Shora and the partner of some high-powered military officer, it's through her that we get hints and foreshadowing that Shora's current tribulations with the traders are relatively low-stakes.

The problem here is that I'm terrible at reading between the lines, and I feel like most of the big reveals are … revealed through inference. Here's a made-up example:

"You must realize the situation is untenable, which is why His Lordship has canceled his visit." The man shrugged apologetically.

"You bastard!" She said, startled by her own outburst.

Like, obviously, I understand that "his Lordship canceling === bad." But I'd need to know the woman's relationship to the man, the woman's relationship to His Lordship, and His Lordship's relationship with wherever he's (now) not headed to understand why it’s bad and the potential ramifications of this change of behavior.

As those pieces of information were spread out across chapters (as this was not the primary focus) and were also often inferred rather than clearly stated, every bit of political intrigue added to the pile only made less sense to me. It was clear, though, that this pile was stacking up against the Sharers. And every time I hit one of those moments where I could feel the impending doom, I struggled to keep reading.

Not because I didn't like the book; I loved it. In a way, I felt like the Sharers themselves: here was a thing I loved and respected and wanted to remain precisely as it was despite the inevitability of strife and change.

So when a full-on occupation of Shora replaces the now minor problem of the traders, I struggled. This struggle was exasperated by my natural tendency to come out swinging.

For example, take a day in fifth-grade when a high-schooler stole a classmate's hat and taunted her about it. I could have gone for an adult. I could have tried to convince him to give it back. I could have sat in front of the door and refused to let him back inside until he returned it. I could have decided it was none of my business—I didn't even like that classmate—and go back to playing.

Instead, I tackled him in the back of the knees, causing them to buckle, then jumped on his back and hit him until he dropped it.

So when the women of Shora faced their injustice with non-violence, my brain screamed for someone to tackle the army by the back of the knees and hit them until they went home. I get why that wasn't their approach. I even respect that not being their approach. But them not doing the thing that I would have wanted to do in their stead provoked anxiety within me and only amplified the novel's tension.

I devoured the second half of A Door Into Ocean. It's well-written and easy to read, true. And I loved the characters and cared about them and wanted to see them through their ordeals, yes. But by-and-large, I read with such speed because I needed to banish that tension, and the only remedy was to finish reading the book. For better or for worse, once I knew what happened, I could relax.

Some people love novels putting the screws to them in this manner; I am not among them. My preferred narrative is nuanced and bursting with character and without staggering amounts of tension.

The tension in A Door Into Ocean follows reason and the trajectory of the storytelling. We get a close look at the instigator and understand why he behaves the way he does. The story is told well, or else I would have quit reading. I simply prefer lighter stories.

I'm glad that I read A Door Into Ocean; none of these comments are negative, per se. I simply hope to make the story's progression apparent, so you know what sort of story you're getting into and can plan accordingly.

This is the end of my traditional review, but I do have one more topic to discuss: "gender essentialism" in A Door Into Ocean. Many reviews seem to think the novel is a study in "women are nurturing and prone to non-violence; men are the opposite."

I disagree. I could get into specifics within the novel that refute this presumption, but I don't want to spoil anything. Also, thanks to the capstone project of my obscenely expensive but otherwise worthless degree, I have a more holistic argument against the idea that the Sharer's non-violence is (unreasonably) born out of them being women.

Violence is often a direct reaction to "the other." Homogenous groups are, on average, less violent than heterogeneous groups because of the shared group identity. This idea is not hypothetical; you can study it anywhere a group of people have suitable land/resources and either few neighbors or neighbors of similar physical characteristics and ideologies. Hundreds of years later, non-violence is often still the first response to violence, simply because they're unfamiliar or uncomfortable with using violence as a tool. It makes sense that people--communities--stick to what they know.

The Sharers are one tribe of people with ideological and physical equality. They sometimes disagree, of course, but their ideology allows room for disagreement. Despite covering the globe, they're few in number and have the means to communicate with each other at a great distance. Their decision making, when technologically feasible, takes place on a global scale. And hell, they're even all women.

This level of homogeny is unparalleled in the real world. There is no "other" on Shora, and countless generations have passed where problems can and were solved without violence.

I could dig deeper, but I'll spare you. My point here is, despite culture being a vast, nuanced, and incredibly interesting amorphous "thing," there is real-world evidence that corroborates the notion that the Sharer's predisposition to non-violence is based on their homogeny rather than the author’s belief in gender essentialism.

Then why are the Sharers women, you ask, if not for gender-essentialist nonsense?

I argue it's because of reproduction.

Even in a distant future with remarkable biological prowess, it would be much more difficult for a society of folks with XY chromosomes to reproduce. It would also likely involve something technological—for lack of a better term, an incubator—to gestate the resulting embryo. This separation from nature is anathema to the Sharers.

It also would require some conscious selection: if somehow an embryo could result from combining sperm, then they'd have to consciously select for children with XY chromosomes, which again kind of goes against Sharers' nature.

On the flip side, using one ovum to fertilize a second is possible in our current world, at least with mice. Given the Sharers can crack that biological hack, which they obviously can, everything else plays out. Gestation is accomplished the old-fashioned way, and by fusing ovum to ovum you're always guaranteed children with XX chromosomes. This ensures the homogeny necessary for the Sharers to be believable while also striking that shocking difference with their oppressors.

To me, it seems like the Sharers are women because logically and biologically, for the story to work, Sharers must be women. And considering Slonczewski is known for her biological acumen and creativity, I think this is a fairly safe assumption.

Dissertation over. :) 

Cover Art by Unknown