ecl@mtgzy.UUCP (e.c.leeper) (03/28/86)
REGIMENT OF WOMEN by Thomas Berger Delta, 1973 (1982), $7.95. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper I read this book because I have remembered it getting a good review somewhere. It just goes to show: when you get older, your memory DOES start going! This book is unbelievably bad. The premise is that society has somehow been turned around; women have all the power and men are helpless. At first I thought this might be an alternate history novel, but, no, as it goes on, you discover that this society has developed from ours. How, you ask? How the heck should I know? Women dress in trousers and ties; men wear dresses and bras. Why, you ask? How the heck should I know? Women bind their breasts to flatten them; men get silicone injections in theirs. Why, you ask? How the heck should I know? Although the story can't take place more than a hundred years in the future, test tube babies are the only method of reproduction and no one (well, hardly anyone) can remember society being any different. How, you ask? How the heck should I know? But there's still sex--except it consists of women with dildoes sodomizing men. Why, you ask? How the heck should I know?! Now, I agree that in science fiction there must be a suspension of disbelief. But there are limits. The situation set up here is so ludicrous, yet it is presented (so far as I can tell) in such seriousness that I cannot believe that it is intended as satire. (Obviously some people do, because the back blurbs rave about it.) It's as though Berger wrote a normal "women's lib" novel on a word processor, changed all the male references to female and vice versa, and then patched a few things here and there. (And badly--although he talks about the "Mono Liso," with "his" enigmatic smile, Berger slips up and leaves it as "Los Angeles" in spite of the masculine gender of the article.) Berger also has some strange ideas about women--he seems to think that if women wear trousers all the time, it will wear the hair on their legs off. I wish! Oh, the plot? Well, Georgie Cornell, a secretary with a publishing firm, finds himself caught up in the "men's lib" underground. He starts out as a nebbish and ends up pretty much the same way, so you can't claim that character development is this novel's strong point. The female lead (she's call Harriet through most of the book, but ends up nameless) starts out with some backbone, but gives that up and collapses into the stereotypical "clinging-vine" female. The ending of the novel (after they've discovered "real" sex, of course--note that Berger has given himself the excuse to write both "deviant" and "straight" sex scenes) is truly wretched. There have been many good books written about sexual-role-reversal societies. This is not one of them. Evelyn C. Leeper ...ihnp4!mtgzz!ecl (or ihnp4!mtgzy!ecl) ****************************************************************************** * Get a Usenetter on the ballot at Confederation! * * Nominate MARK R. LEEPER for Hugo for Best Fan Writer in 1986! * * Nominate SF-LOVERS' DIGEST for Hugo for Best Fanzine in 1986! * ******************************************************************************