Robo Sapiens to the Rescue

Jeanette Winterson - The Stone Gods, Camberwell: Penguin Group, 2007.

By Elizabeth Edwards

The Stone Gods is Jeanette Winterson’s most recent novel. Since she is a publicly- acknowledged lesbian author, Winterson’s novels are often only read in terms of their engagement with lesbian issues. Similarly, her novels have often been categorised as purely operating in the genre of magic-realism. Texts do not produce one authoritative meaning; they are open and allow for a myriad of possible interpretations when readers engage with the words on the page. A fully engaged reader will realise that Winterson has pushed the boundaries of genre in The Stone Gods. It is a polemical novel that deals with questions of femininity and naturalised homosexuality, whist operating as a type of science fiction love story that delineates time and space, problematises colonisation and explores what it means to be human. The Stone Gods speaks with relevance on issues concerning today’s world: global warming, depleted natural resources and rapidly advancing technology, and how these phenomena have the potential to affect the continuance of human existence. Time in The Stone Gods is not linear. Through the novel’s structure, Winterson explores the notion of the past’s interaction with the present and future. A female protagonist, Billie Crusoe, exists in the four parts of the novel, all set in different time periods. Life is trapped in a continual cycle of destruction, as Billie and her society continue to repeat the mistakes of their past. It is as though humans, despite their best intentions, bring about their inevitable demise and the contamination of their planet. In this way, time seems to have a circular quality rather than being simply flat-planed. Much of the novel is set on the planet Orbus, where humans have upset the environmental balance necessary for supporting human life. Hope for homo sapiens now lies with robo sapiens - robots capable of emulating human consciousness without emotion. Spike, an attractive female robo sapien has discovered a new planet, pristine and capable of supporting life – Planet Blue. It is now Spike and Billie’s mission to stake out this new planet before the mass-relocation occurs. On their mission to re-direct an asteroid towards Planet Blue, Billie and Spike explore the boundaries between humans and robots and whether love can cross over such differences. Winterson’s text explores the impact that colonisation has upon both the minds of native inhabitants and their natural environment. Part II of The Stone Gods fictitiously describes James Cook’s explorations to Easter Island in 1774, where the character Billie Crusoe befriends a native, Spikkers. Twenty-first century readers engaging with this text hold an appreciation of the devastation that the imperial movement brought upon the island; disease, slave raids as well as ecological collapse. Colonisation is not simply the act of taking possession of another’s land; it is the complete destruction of another culture, language and systems of beliefs. It is through the character of Spikkers that the reader gains an understanding of the infiltrating and indoctrinating nature of colonisation. While Spikkers engages with the traditional rituals of his people in building stone idols, his existence as a colonised native is complicated by Western modes of belief: ‘I saw at once it was a Bible box and, sure enough, inside were three Bibles; one written in Dutch, one in Spanish, and the King James” (129). A sense of inevitability pervades this text, as Billie once again engages in a perpetual cycle of colonisation and destruction - if not of an island or continent, then an entire planet. Winterson’s intertextual engagement with Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, challenges earlier assumptions concerning colonisation and white superiority: ‘My name’s Friday,’ he said. ‘What’s yours?’ I said, ‘Billy Crusoe’ (188). In this scene Friday wasn’t named by Crusoe and, thus, retained his identity as an autonomous individual. Winterson thereby undermines earlier literary assumptions concerning colonisation. In The Stone Gods, Winterson destabilises assumptions concerning heterosexuality and gender. Throughout the novel, Billie and Spike engage in relations with women. Love, in The Stone Gods is exclusively represented through lesbian relationships and, by showing this, Winterson silences and marginalises heterosexual relations with men. Winterson also undermines traditional literary assumptions concerning heterosexuality, through intertextuality with Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, in Billie’s description of Spike: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a robot in want of hands can use her mouth’ (208). Through Winterson’s carefully constructed language choices, the novel not only marginalizes heterosexuality but plays a role in the naturalisation of homosexuality: ‘You’re not straight are you?’ (24). Interestingly, Winterson invokes questions of femininity and the role of women that are current in today’s world, but places these concerns in a futuristic setting. A grim prospect for women is envisaged: ‘The future of women is uncertain. We don’t breed in the womb anymore, and if we aren’t wanted for sex…’ (26). It is the text’s engagement with gender and the naturalisation of homosexuality that gives The Stone Gods its polemical edge. Elizabeth Edwards is studying for an Arts/Law Combined degree at The University of Queensland