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Cycler - Lauren McLaughlin
30/4/10 14:41
Today’s post is about ‘Cycler’ by Lauren McLaughlin, a book with an fantastic premise. Jill is a pretty typical teenage girl, focused on getting a date for the prom and bantering with her friends Ramie and Daria. Except she’s not really as normal as she’d like everyone to think, because during the four days when she should be getting her period Jill transforms into a guy, Jack. Her mother keeps Jack in the house, hiding the truth by telling people her daughter needs regular blood transfusions. Her dad is absent from life, as he lives in the basement drifting through life and offering little support.Usually I save the less structured bookish chat type posts for big books where they’re so excellent I just want to go off and splatter my excitement everywhere. I just have to share. This post is more of a Twilight style chat post, where a book has annoyed me so much I can’t see myself sticking with a proper structure for this post. And so to bullet points of the problems I had with this novel (almost definitely spoilers):
Sexism – Jack is a realistic teenage boy who uses words like ‘bitch’ and watches porn. I accept that real teenage boys use sexist language and objectify women, but I very much subscribe to Renay’s idea that it seems like any time authors want to create a realistic male voice, they head straight for sexist language, rejection of the female and objectification of women. These sexist voices tend to get praised highly as realistic teenage male voices. What she wants to know (and I do too after she pointed it out in her comments) is why this must ALWAYS be the default path for creating realistic, traditional male voices? Why don’t authors take another approach? Jack could talk about sports, or cars, or any number of traditionally male subjects. He could talk about sex, without making it all about the objectification of women. There are other avenues.
I can find reasonable textual explanations for Jack’s disregard for women. Women are keeping him virtually a prisoner with no life, so it makes sense that he would not be especially respectful about them. However, if I take that as the reasoning for his disrespectful attitude to women, why should I believe that the relationship he wants to establish with Ramie will be a healthy, happy partnership (I think that I am implicitly asked to believe this and to root for Jack by the text)? Clearly he has little respect for women for whatever reason so why should I root for him to get with Ramie, who is a kick-ass girl?
I’d also like to know why Jack emerges as a fully socialised male. He did not exist before Jill was old enough to menstruate and he has no independent memories of childhood, replying on Jill’s memories. He has limited contact with the outside world and no traditional male role model at home. This means that he wasn’t ‘taught’ his sexist behaviour. While Jill’s mum has filled her head with some pretty anti-feminist stuff, I don’t believe that her memories alone would be enough to create the sexist traits of Jack’s personality. Am I meant to believe that he sprang forth with these typical male views of women upon his first transformation? If so then that suggests that negative male behaviour is not socially created, but naturally inherent, which is certainly a point of view, but in my opinion is bull.
Stalking – ‘Cycler’ is another story where we’re asked to believe that stalker like behaviour is attractive. Jack escapes from the house to go and stare at Ramie through her window. He watches her sleeping without her knowledge and then initiates contact that lets her know he has been watching. Despite the creep factor Ramie is into this. She sets up a few precautions, like making sure her parents could hear her if she screamed, but pretty quickly she lets a mysterious stranger into her bedroom. Now, while I’d tell any of my female friends that this kind of scenario will end up with you strung up from the tree outside, I can also understand the romance of the situation (if you believe everything will turn out ok it could seem romantic). However I think we all know that just because the girl equates stalkerish behaviour with attractive behaviour, doesn’t make it so.
Homophobic language - Some nasty language about gay sex comes out of both Jack and Jill’s mouths. Jack’s comment on finding out that Jill’s potential prom date, Tommy Knutson, is gay is ‘So Mr.Dreamboat’s a bum bandit’ and he follows that up with ‘The thought of another dude touching my dirty bits makes me want to puke.’ Again it’s a realistic attitude for a teenage boy, but his comments appear without an alternative view to qualify them. The fact that Jack meets few people in the novel is a huge problem for the narrative, as nothing negative that Jack says can be directly opposed by any of the other characters since he doesn’t often speak to others. So his negative statements about women and gay people are just left there to stand, with no specific opposing viewpoint. Earlier in the novel Ramie steps up and knocks down the idea that being bisexual is bad, but she doesn’t ever say this to Jack because it just doesn’t come up when they’re together.
Jill’s views on homosexuality are more complicated. Her initial homophobic views appear when she finds out that Tommy is bisexual. Ramie’s there to shoot down those remarks and Jill gets over herself, because Tommy is hot and nice. However, during that whole getting over herself period she continues to assert that she feels sick thinking about Tommy with guys. She views the gay part of Tommy and his gay past almost as an enemy, saying ‘Whatever Tommy and his gay leg-touchers from his past have to throw at me, I can take it.’.
Now I think Lauren McLaughlin works really hard to show that Jill’s ideas evolve. She also makes sure there’s a qualifying viewpoint included about bisexuality in parts of the book, for example when Ramie and Jill fight against their friend Daria’s prejudices:
‘ “But Jill,” she says. “Aren’t you worried?”
“About what?”
Daria leans in close, “AIDS.”
“Daria!” Ramie reaches over to me to whack Daria on the shoulder. “Don’t be ignorant. Hey, Jill, has he actually had sex with a guy?”
“Not that it’s any of your business,” I say, “but no. He’s still a gay virgin.” I lower my voice to a whisper. “But not a straight one.”
“That is so gross,” Daria says.
Ramie shoots her a scowl. “No it isn’t. It’s deeply normal.”
....
Daria’s face scrunches up so much it looks like it hurts. “You still want to go to prom with him?”
“Of course,” I say. “He’s going to look so cute in a tux.”
However Jill’s comments about finding the thought of Tommy with boys sickening stuck in my mind, especially as they’re never addressed again. Jill describes her changing ideas about Tommy’s bisexuality, saying ‘The thing is, although I find the idea of him being into guys stomach-churningly mal l I don’t find him mal at all.’ but there’s no further examination of her idea that gay sex is sickening and no counter view is provided. That made me sad.
Sex with your friend’s male ego - What's really skeevy is the idea that Ramie sleeps with Jack, even though she suspects that Jack is Jill transformed. Now they’re characterised as two separate people, with two separate bodies, not as one transforming body that simultaneously hosts two minds and that’s what allows Ramie to separate Jill from Jack. Still if I was going to sleep with a guy who shares a transforming body with my best friend, I would ask her about it first. It feels weird, like Ramie takes the decision out of Jill’s hands. Also creepy because how does Ramie know that Jill isn’t in there somewhere watching it all happen? They haven’t discussed it at all and Ramie has no idea of how the specifics work. It didn’t seem like something a friend would do.
So yeah, there was quite a bit I did not like. However, to be fair there was quite a bit I did like:
‘Cycler’ is one of those fast paced books that you want to gobble up in one go, to see how everything turns out. I actually feel like this is more of an advantage for writers who write badly, than it is for writers like Lauren McLaughlin who writes well. If you write badly a fast pace keeps people from noticing, if you write well a super fast pace distracts from the writing you’ve worked so hard on. But whichever way you look at it, this book is addictive and despite my problems with it (almost because of them actually, I want to see if the sequel will make me feel better about the first book) I want the next one soon.
The teenage voices sound authentic, managing to be harsh, truthful and affectionate at the same time. The dialogue is smart and funny.
There are actual descriptions of sexual activity, although not of penetrative sex. I know this might not be to everybody’s taste, but personally I think the world could stand a lot more authentic sexual behaviour in young adult literature at the moment, as the implication of sex seems to be dominating the field right now. It’s all about balance. Also, the sexual scenes are hot!
The emotional power of this novel is strong. I could really feel how the characters felt, from their distress, to their love and that was wonderful. The scene where Jack feels he will never escape his room, really sent a jolt though me:
'Acceptance does not sand the edges off this brutal reality. Nor does it shrink the scope of its awfulness. If anything, it feeds it, enlarges it until it's so huge and terrifying I can't find room for it in my puny brain.
I drag myself back to bed and hide under the covers, the only place their cameras don't reach.
Sleep doesn't come.'
‘Cycler’ also made me think outside of my normal comfort zones. I had big problems with part of the novel for a while, as I was viewing it through my normal feminist critical filter. After a lot of hard thinking I realised I had to think about this story in a different way because feminist theory didn’t really apply here. I have to give credit to a book that stretches the way I think in new directions.
Ramie is my favourite character. Apart from the ‘I totally don’t get how this would creep my best friend out’ decision to have sex with Jack she is wonderful. She’s blunt, innovative, into experimental fashion, accepting and loyal. She is fun to be around!
Just behind her comes Tommy. I loved Tommy. Sigh:
‘ “I don’t see people as male or female. I just see people.”
I take a deep breath and try to understand this concept. “But –"
“But what?” he says. “Don’t you think this world has expended enough energy keeping men and women separate, trying to convince us we’re from Mars or Venus? For what? We’re from Earth.”
I stare dumbly.
“We’re just people,” he says. “Why does it have to matter so much?” '
If you’ve made it this far you’re a saint and I’d love to hear your own thoughts on the book.
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