Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Lunar Tree

Was it just me or did anyone else get this creepy feeling of incest surrounding this story? I mean, the way that the every generation of a clan, along with their boyfriends or girlfriends, clustered together in one apartment complex and seemed to have no problem having intercourse with each other? Though on the other hand, it did kind of remind me of the type of universal, free love that Valentine advocated in "Stranger in a Strange Land".
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7 comments:

  1. PetrinaOctober 20, 2009 at 6:26 PM

    I'm not sure if it was actually happening or not (Erno denies any incest in "Sunlight or Rock), but I got that feeling too.

    I think what gave me that impression was the group calling themselves the Society of Cousins, and for our society at least, cousins shouldn't have sex together.

    I wonder why the author would use the term cousin at all.

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  2. AnonymousOctober 20, 2009 at 10:32 PM

    I was wondering for a sec during The Juniper Tree whether some incest was perhaps being set up for Jack and Roz. I'm glad I was wrong, haha, that would've been weird.

    Still, interesting stories in this book.

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  3. JenniferOctober 20, 2009 at 10:43 PM

    I noticed it, too. They all acted like they were one big family, but then they were also sleeping with almost everyone in the colony. And the women treated the men more like children than like adults. It was very strange.

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  4. Eric M.October 21, 2009 at 8:19 AM

    I don't know about incest, but I was sort of depressed by the fact that there was so very little affection in the families. Eva was upset when Carey disappeared (was chopped up), but other than that, the families seem so distant within.

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  5. Ken GellerOctober 21, 2009 at 9:24 AM

    I wouldn't have had any problems with the group having sex with everyone else because it is just like a tribe or a VERY small town. Over a long time frame, everyone will be somewhat related to everyone else. But the tribe/town must continue. Mmm... genetic mutations (the reason why incest is bad).

    The thing that kinda pushes it towards awkward for me is the fact that it is labelled as "the Society of Cousins" that makes it sound more like one big family and not one big closenit set of people.

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  6. jfshultsOctober 21, 2009 at 12:23 PM

    This sort of ambiguous incest reminds me of Poe's the Fall of the House of Usher. In both stories, they seem to have a dark, almost depressing kind of aspect to it.

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  7. ihkingOctober 21, 2009 at 2:17 PM

    The free love message of Stranger in a Strange Land killed that novel for me, but the Lunar stories don't seem to put it in the same religious context that made Stranger so unappealing to me.

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