Gibbon's Decline and Fall by Sheri S. TepperMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Guh. Okay. First, if I was rating this book based on the first three or four hundred pages I probably would have rated it at least four stars. The writing is really good, the characters are believable (if not always likeable), and Tepper spends the first part of the book building a real sense of dread and tension. It's a real page-turner for the majority of the book, and you really want to know how the characters are going to extricate themselves, and the women of the world, from the situation that is brewing. Tepper builds a real sense of menace there, and the situation is all too plausible, which makes it even more frightening.
Then . . . the end happens. I'm not going to spoil it here, but if a literature teacher wanted to teach about the weaknesses of deus ex machina, the end of the this book would be an outstanding example. It just . . . ugh. Without spoiling the plot, I will point out that all of the tension and menace introduced in the first nearly four hundred pages is resolved in about fifty pages. If that many. The real "resolution", if you want to call it that, happens in one short, disappointing scene. I was just terribly, terribly disappointed in how the story was resolved and how flat all of the emotion fell at the end. I think my main complaint is that all of the horrible things that are happening to women around the world, all of the oppression and mistreatment that men are inflicting on women, is because of . . . evil, basically. Bad guy makes men do bad things. That's all. Unfortunately, I don't think the great writing in the beginning of the book makes up for the dreadfully trite ending. I might try another Tepper book from the library, but I doubt I'll purchase another one. Your mileage may vary.
Because I read this as a paper edition, I'll include my highlights here (SOME HIGHLIGHTS MIGHT INCLUDE SPOILERS):
She laughed her bubble laugh, as if she were all full of something sticky, with slow bubbles rising up. p. 43
Her voice rose to a mechanical whine, a vocal nail drawn down the chalkboard of her life. p. 66
...Society for the Perpetually Unaware and Only Dimly Cognizant. p. 66
"...Mankind is a good word." She set down her glass with a thump. "Or humankind. I'm afraid we've spent a lot of feminist energy on meaningless symbols rather than essential functions..." p. 170
"...She quoted what she called the first law of the supernatural: No God can be bigger than the gate that lets people into the presence. If the only way to that God is through a narrow little gate with picky little gatekeepers, then that God is no bigger than that gate nor wiser that the keepers..." p. 221
"...Doin' sex is all some men have to brag about, you know. Got no brains, got no ambition, got no skills, but they can fuck like a bunny. ..." p. 238
For millennia religious power and prestige had been built on a foundation of sexual proscription. Now the sudden absence of sex came like the surgeon's knife, abbreviating both doctrine and doctrinaire. What were sin fighters to do without the favorite sin? p. 259
Seemingly, even if the world died tomorrow, Jagger intended to stand with one foot atop the corpse declaring himself victorious. p. 261
It was no more that she'd expected, but it still hurt, in the way a sudden blow hurts, as much from surprise as from trauma. p. 263
"What's coming is reality. Politics has nothing to do with reality!" p. 269
"Happy? Sometimes. But, then, happy is a sometime thing. When Younger Sister broke the happiness jug, bits of it scattered everywhere, so Sophy always told us. She said not to worry about happy, just get on the way because we'll find bits of happy everywhere we go." p. 323
"...'Track by your star, but keep an eye on your feet, for some stones are set in the road to make you stumble.'..." p. 323
"...'...a mouth that gives kisses like wounds. ...'..." p.327
"...What profiteth a race to be numerous and stupid, la?..." p. 392
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