Moon, Elizabeth. The Speed of Dark. New York: Ballantine 2003. Print
Description:
If you could undergo an experimental operation tested on monkeys that would take away your mental imperfections and make you a more "normal" (their word) person, would you give up your current happy life, friends, and possibly personality and undergo the procedure?
In Elizabeth Moon's thought-provoking novel, The Speed of Dark, Lou Arrendal and his friends are faced with this question. Lou is a highly-functioning autistic with a special talent for seeing patterns in complex technical documentation. He is an unusual man in the modern world. While Autism has recently been cured in early infancy, Lou was born too late to benefit from this operation and thus cannot overcome his physical uniqueness and assume a more traditional role in society.
Lou works for a pharmaceutical biotech company which employs several other government-funded autistics with similar pattern recognition skills. But when these workers discover their company has secured rights to an experimental treatment to reverse autism and plan to offer (force?) employees to undertake this procedure, Lou and his friends must decide what to do. They recognize their unique skills that might be lost after such a treatment, and wonder about how the very untested process might affect their memories, relationships, and dreams.
Lou is a complex man, wonderfully concentrated on his work, a man who joins a fencing class of non-autistic adults, and thinks deeply about the possibilities and drawbacks about this looming decision. His friends, both autistic and non-autistic, are divided in their advice, but Lou has his own dreams that the procedure may or may not help him achieve. It is only in the final pages that Lou can make his decision and deal with the results.
His sessions with the company psychologist are particularly interesting, sad, and sometimes funny when narrated from Lou's perspective. Dr. Fornum holds the power in her evaluations for Lou to keep his job, so everything he says to her is slightly guarded so as not to be misinterpreted. Because Lou is cautious in his sessions, Dr. Fornum thinks Lou is not intelligent, has low verbal skills, poor people skills, and no future dreams. Never having to attend these mandatory sessions is a secret motivation for Lou to consider regarding the autism treatment procedure.
And then there is Lou's idea regarding the speed of dark:
First Sentences:
Questions, always questions.
Questions, always questions.
They didn't wait for the answers, either. They rushed on, piling questions on questions, covering every moment with questions, blocking off every sensation but the thorn stab of questions.
Description:
If you could undergo an experimental operation tested on monkeys that would take away your mental imperfections and make you a more "normal" (their word) person, would you give up your current happy life, friends, and possibly personality and undergo the procedure?
In Elizabeth Moon's thought-provoking novel, The Speed of Dark, Lou Arrendal and his friends are faced with this question. Lou is a highly-functioning autistic with a special talent for seeing patterns in complex technical documentation. He is an unusual man in the modern world. While Autism has recently been cured in early infancy, Lou was born too late to benefit from this operation and thus cannot overcome his physical uniqueness and assume a more traditional role in society.
Lou works for a pharmaceutical biotech company which employs several other government-funded autistics with similar pattern recognition skills. But when these workers discover their company has secured rights to an experimental treatment to reverse autism and plan to offer (force?) employees to undertake this procedure, Lou and his friends must decide what to do. They recognize their unique skills that might be lost after such a treatment, and wonder about how the very untested process might affect their memories, relationships, and dreams.
Lou is a complex man, wonderfully concentrated on his work, a man who joins a fencing class of non-autistic adults, and thinks deeply about the possibilities and drawbacks about this looming decision. His friends, both autistic and non-autistic, are divided in their advice, but Lou has his own dreams that the procedure may or may not help him achieve. It is only in the final pages that Lou can make his decision and deal with the results.
His sessions with the company psychologist are particularly interesting, sad, and sometimes funny when narrated from Lou's perspective. Dr. Fornum holds the power in her evaluations for Lou to keep his job, so everything he says to her is slightly guarded so as not to be misinterpreted. Because Lou is cautious in his sessions, Dr. Fornum thinks Lou is not intelligent, has low verbal skills, poor people skills, and no future dreams. Never having to attend these mandatory sessions is a secret motivation for Lou to consider regarding the autism treatment procedure.
And then there is Lou's idea regarding the speed of dark:
Not knowing expands faster than knowing.... So the speed of dark could be greater than the speed of light. If there always has to be dark around the light, then it has to go out ahead of it.It is a thoughtful book with an fascinating look into the world and mind of the autistic in a non-judgmental manner. Lou is an intellectual, pondering his world of colors hovering around each person, fascinated by shiny wind-blown mobiles that calm him, jumping on the company's trampolines to special music to focus his mind, and secretly harboring a desire to have a relationship with Marjorie, a fellow fencer.
If I had not been what I am, what would I have been?Lou is a wonderful character, clever, thoughtful, questioning, and caring. What decision he arrives at is both logical and unexpected, at least to me. A great, great book with so much to think about. Highest recommendation.
____________________
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
Keyes, Daniel. Flowers for Algernon
A mentally-disturbed man is given an experimental operation to make him genius-level smart, with the rewards and challenges involved. The novel is related via the diary entries kept by Charlie as he matches his progress with Algernon, the lab rat undergoing the same treatment.
