The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2021, part 19: Octavia Cade

 

THE PLEASURE OF READING IN 2021
by Octavia Cade

I’m not sure if “pleasure” is the right word for reading this year. “Necessity,” maybe? Or perhaps “obligation.” Neither of these sounds exciting. As the global experience of pandemic drags on, however, it’s inescapably changing my reading experience. I both want the escapism and lack the concentration for it; I’ve found myself reading less this year, though it could be that the reading itself is taking more effort.

I wonder, though, if the effort is the point. Some books require effort. Not just to understand, if the subject is complex, but to persevere if the subject is revolting. Unquestionably, the finest book I read this year, by a significant margin, was Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington. You make think, from the title alone, that the book is grim reading. I assure you it is worse. I flipped through parts of it last year when researching a story of my own and promised myself I’d give it the attention it deserved this year. That attention was sporadic. There were times I literally flinched from the page, and I could only ever stomach a chapter at a time.

Many times I would have been happy to close the pages forever, but some books are too important to let lie.

I read Medical Apartheid with a friend. It was a good decision. Routinely, one of us would finish a chapter and then reach out to the other with incomprehension and disgust, tempered with absolute admiration for Washington. Her writing is amazing. I have slogged through some dreadful science and science history writing in my time, but Washington’s prose is never less than riveting. I have a PhD in science communication and hers is outstanding: a model to follow in communication and ethics both.

It is not, however, escapism. Nor, I think, is my favorite speculative fiction read this year: the recently published Foxhunt by New Zealand writer Rem Wigmore. It’s an argument for predation, even in societies that have developed into what are largely sustainable and compassionate communities. Well. Perhaps “argument” is less accurate than “acknowledgement”: the idea that the predatory instinct exists, and will not cease to exist in human interactions, and the way to navigate such predation is to channel it to productive purpose. It’s a fascinating story, much more gently confronting than my nonfiction read of the year, but it’s no coincidence, I think, that science and medicine, in both books, is the refuge of those who would hurt others, and exploit them for gain.

Is it the experience of pandemic that makes these books speak so strongly to me? The presence of prejudice and politics and science, how they come together in ways that are both beneficial to some and absolutely toxic to others. I don’t think there’s an exact correlation here, and I have no time for anti-vaxxers, so please don’t wander off believing that I think vaccines are giant experiments on the gullible unwitting, because I don’t. I can see, though, I think, how distrust develops, how it is shaped, and how deserved it can be.

And that, perhaps, is worth the effort.

 

Octavia Cade is a New Zealand writer with a PhD in science communication. She's sold around 60 stories to markets such as Clarkesworld, Asimov's, and F&SF. Her latest book is the climate fiction novella The Impossible Resurrection of Grief from Stelliform Press. She's won four Sir Julius Vogel awards for speculative fiction, and she was the 2020 writer in residence at Massey University. Aqueduct Press published her long poem, Mary Shelley Makes a Monster in 2019.