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| Cover by Kelly Freas |
| THE RUINS OF ISIS Marion Zimmer Bradley New York: Pocket Books, August 1978 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-671-82819-6 | ||||
| ISBN-10 0-671-82819-3 | 298pp. | SC | $1.95 | |
Certain ruins on the planet called Isis were of great age, perhaps as much as 2 million years old. It was even possible that they might confirm the long-rumored existence of the Builders, an advanced but extinct race which some thought had seeded the galaxy with intelligent life. Cendri Owain and Dallard Malocq, scholars from the planet University, had been invited to come to Isis and study these ruins. Actually, Scholar Dame Lurriana di Velo had been invited; but she had been injured, and Cendri and Dallard were standing in for her.
Which raised a set of problems. Isis was a matriarchy — a place where women held sway and men were thought to be incapable of serious intellectual effort. Dallard was a man, and one raised on Pioneer, a planet with a strong patriarchial tradition. He and Cendri were married, and per Pioneer custom she had taken his name. He was the archaeologist and expert on the Builders; she specialized in anthropology. Finally, she was posing as a Scholar Dame although she had not yet earned that status; thus, Dal outranked her. Yet she represented him as her subordinate. It was the only way Isis would accept a research team. There would be repercussions if the ruse was revealed.
Other complications met them on their arrival. Rezali, the High Matriarch of Isis, had fallen into a coma without naming her successor, and the two candidates were bitterly at odds — over, among other things, the reality of the Builders. Then there were the frequent earthquakes, with occasional tidal waves which devastated pearl-diving villages along the seashore, not incidentally cutting the planet's income from its primary export. The scholars were housed in the Residence of Vaniya, one of the two Pro-Matriarchs, and she was kept busy dealing with the needs of people displaced by earthquake and fire. All of this meant delay after delay in their being admitted to the ruins.
A mysterious force, or some hidden entity, abides amid the ageless black towers that are the focus of so much curiosity. It manifests itself during nightly processions led by Vaniya, one of the two Pro-matriarchs. They enter the central plaza of We-were-guided, as they call the place, where the obsolete starship that brought them to Isis becomes enveloped in a soft glow of light, and the members of the procession experience an ethereal presence that wraps them in a sense of overwhelming love. This presence also, at times, communicates useful information — such as the fact that an earthquake has occurred far out to sea, and a tidal wave is on the way. It has the reputation of knowing everything that happens on the planet, a reputation it apparently deserves, for it locates the hidden robe and ring that assure Vaniya's right to succeed the old Matriarch, and later tells where her daughter is being held hostage by a men's rebellion.
This presence, we ultimately learn, is an ancient race of non-corporeal entities unrelated to the Builders. They communicate only in that one spot, yet can perceive events anywhere on the planet. They can assess the entire content of a human mind in an instant. And they describe themselves as curious, but exhibit a singular lack of curiosity about the humans whose love they need to survive. For when Dal and Cendri approach them at the end of the story, they reveal that they accepted the view of the women of Isis that men were inferior creatures. Having met Dal, and Vaniya's male Companion Rhu, they now regard this as deception. To punish Vaniya, they withdraw their support. Thus they play an essential part in resolving the crisis of male rebellion against the slavery in which they are held by the Matriarchate — slavery which will surely lead the Unity to impose sanctions on Isis.
"The Lady Miranda laughed. She said, "The very fact that men are accepted as scholars points to prejudice and inequity," she said. (sic) It is a biological fact, long proven by any impartial scientist, that the average man's brain is smaller than the brain of a woman, that female children are taller and heavier at puberty, and of course after puberty, males are so much at the mercy of their compulsive sex drives that it is impossible to educate them. Male children, of course, can be educated, if it is skillfully done. But only in a society where males make the rules could anyone accept the idea of a true scholarship for adult functioning males." – Pages 33-4 |
These delays kept Dal from doing the work he had come to Isis to do, while Cendri was free to study the society of Isis. All of this only added to Dal's frustration at being thought Cendri's Companion, treated by the women of Isis as an insignificant plaything. It was not long before he was quarreling with Cendri, not long after that when he began surreptitiously exchanging an odd hand signal with men he met, and mouthing the slogan, "We were not born in chains." Then he began taking every opportunity to speak to men out of any woman's hearing. It became apparent that revolution was in the air.
Something else was in the air. Children were everywhere in the city, and Cendri continually puzzled over how they came to be. As far as she knew, men were kept apart from women — except for Companions, which only Ladies of high station possessed. In her conversations with female friends she made, like Vaniya's third daughter Miranda, there was frequent mention of "visiting the sea" — a phrase which occcasioned furtive smiles and giggles. It seems to me that, being trained as an anthropologist, and having knowledge of many worlds as well as experience on cosmopolitan University, Cendri ought to have been able to at least hazard a guess that the phrase was a euphemism for some sort of periodic mating ritual. But this is not the case. And so, invited by Laurina, she finds herself at the seashore, having watched the men spear-fishing, having eaten the cooked fish, waiting near midnight with the women of Isis for she knows not what.
"Then she saw them coming, a long solemn line, up from the shore. Cendri heard some woman—a very young one, by the sound—giggling nervously, and someone near her reproved her in a whisper. At her side Cendri felt Laurina's fingers clutch at her arm, with a deep, convulsive gasp. And suddenly Cendri understood." "So this is how men and women come together. Solemnly, by moonlight, in ritual: "visiting the sea." She should have known. Miranda's jokes about fish dinners. And now she was here, a part of it. Something in Cendri panicked, cried out to her wildly to get away, she had no part in this, she could not . . . yet some other part of her was excited and exhilarated, wanting to see it through, knowing that anyway there was no way she could remove herself now from the women of Isis, clustered here and awaiting their seasonal ritual of mating." – Pages 229-230 |
And so she entertains eleven men (or is it thirteen?) who greet her with the ritual phrase, "In the name of the Goddess who has bidden us to visit the sea..." Each one, she finds, is gentle and respectful. Most hold her afterward and whisper a brief endearment before leaving her with the traditional sea-gift. One, a youth, even weeps at the intensity of the experience. She, however, feels little emotion — until, after the last man departs with the dawn, Laurina embraces her...
So this is a Marion Zimmer Bradley sex scene. To my male sensibility it's arguably prurient, especially in the lesbianism aspect. Yet it also fits into the logic of the story. Even Cendri's unlikely cluelessness is required to set up the scene. For with it, Bradley has two points to make. Point 1: The sexual drive in most adult men and women is strong, and prohibiting its expression often brings undesirable results. Therefore, it is seldom absolutely prohibited. Point 2: Sexual feeling is strongly tied to emotional bonding. In a society which denies the opportunity for women to bond with men in friendship, but encourages them to become friends with each other, any emotion attendant to sexual encounters will naturally follow the friendship bond.
It does, however, fly in the face of real anthropology in one respect. Males go to great lengths to make sure that any issue from a woman is due to their sperm, not someone else's.2 But the way Bradley portrays it on Isis, patriarchial lineage is truly random: No one knows who the father of any child is, or cares. She makes a point of having female characters say so explicitly several times. And, of course, men on Isis lack the freedom to enforce this inbuilt edict.
Despite minor lapses, this is a well-crafted story, both dramatically and in its fidelity to social science. I liked it much better than Web of Light.
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