u/tomesandtea

Welcome to our final discussion of Children of Strife.  This week, we will discuss Chapter 16.2 through the end of the book. The Marginalia post is here. You can find the Schedule here. 
 
Please mark all spoilers not included in this series using the format > ! Spoiler text here !< (without any spaces between the characters themselves or between the characters and the first and last words). 

It's been such a fun (if sometimes confusing) journey and I'm so glad to have read the books with our group! I'll always hold out hope that more books could be added to this series, but for now, thank you for reading along! Whether you were here for all the discussions or jumped in towards the end, we're glad you were here participating! Special shout-out to my fellow read runners - u/jaymae21, u/maolette, and u/nopantstime - for helping with the weekly discussions on this book, as well as to u/Joinedformyhubs, u/NightAngelRogue, u/Reasonable-Lack-6585, u/rosaletta, and u/towalktheline who helped earlier in the series!

Now onto some final chapter summaries, with questions in the comments as usual. Add your own thoughts or questions, too! 

>>>>>>>Chapter Summaries<<<<<<<<

PART 16, CONTINUED - THE THIRD AGE - Old Acquaintance, Brought to Mind:

CHAPTER 16.2:  Portifabian and Kern are working through the difficulties of communication and trying to figure out what exactly a Gerey Hartmand is! Kern is able to recall the basics about him as an unliked rival terraformer.  Portifabian has analyzed the life on the current planet and realized that the modular nature of its artificially manipulated biomass makes it easy for a designer to control… which also makes it easy for the Nodan entity to take over.  And since the Nodan entity works so quickly and creatively, the window for saving Mira or themselves (or any living thing on the planet) is swiftly closing. 

CHAPTER 16.3:  Kott has been listening and learning about the newcomers. She realizes the name Kern is significant but has to find Pil to discuss why.  They recall that Hartmand hated Kern because she was his nemesis in terraforming.  Kott has a perverse desire to shout the name across the planet just to see all the apex predators howl and rage.  She explains to Pil that the biological agent released by the newcomers is being held at bay but could easily win with enough time, permanently remaking the planet in its own image. Pil wonders if that would be so bad, and Kott realizes that neither are perfect choices: a monotonous eternal life vs. life with a definitive end both feel inadequate. She notices the shrimp-shaped newcomer scuttling away from Four Dragon Ford and decides if something is going down, it's her opening for mischief-making!

CHAPTER 16.4:  Cato wants to be more in control of the situation than he is, considering he is captain of their ship.  Kern is able to control his pod if he gets too aggressive near the humans. The Hartmand monsters haven't reappeared for him to confront. Cato wants to turn his energy towards elimination of the Nodan threat but Kern insists that they try to retrieve Alis, as she is their crew member, and give her relationship with Mira a chance to resolve the situation if possible. Sensor data from Alis’s suit indicates that she is alive and not in serious distress. (Apparently she's just chilling in the blob and not having an existential panic attack, which is exactly how I'd handle it, too.) Cato reluctantly agrees to retrieve Alis without destroying Mira. But he also takes the humans' laser cutter on his way out, so… 

CHAPTER 16.5:  Kott continues to figure out the new visitors. She's worked out that, like herself, Kern is a mind housed in a construct without her original body. However, Kott has a planet-wide consciousness to work with, and she uses it to discover how the shrimp-shaped being works. It can see and track her, and she learns to receive its signals as messages. They find each other interesting and Kott considers whether to hack the tech it is using or tempt it into her specialty, mischief-making. Kott minimizes Kern’s signal with a bunch of electromagnetic interference so it is just herself and the shrimp. 

PART 17 - THE THIRD AGE - A History of Violent Acts

CHAPTER 17.1:  Stomatopods on Kern's World spent a lot of time observing Portiid culture from afar and thinking it had nothing to do with them. The revelation that Kern had been a real organism from another planet, and that Stomatopods were surrounded by space-adventuring cultures, made it imperative that they reach out and become part of the wider world. They learned to live alongside the Humans and Portiids, adapting to interspecies cooperation and space travel.  They did it for their own protection and survival (especially when they found out that Octopuses were involved) and because sitting out this adventure would have been ridiculous. And now Cato (of the “current” generation) had been leading the effort to revive some important aspects of Stomatopod culture that values non-interference and their own space, ushering in the Escalation. 

CHAPTER 17.2:  Cato and Kott are able to have a conversation because of Pil’s original circular polarized light channel that allows the pantheon to communicate across the planet without any other living things being aware.  Cato’s specific ways of communication - via the gestures, colors, and reflective surfaces of its limbs - fit perfectly with the pantheon’s pathway. They have a conversation that goes a bit like this:

Cato: Fight me or get out of the way!
Kott:  You are a very cool and powerfully destructive robot who could totally get rid of this biohazard your group inflicted on us.  Wanna talk more about opportunities for a fun collab?
C:  Shut up. I seek Mira.
K:  Mira’s not your friend anymore because she ate Alis. Did you know I was buddies with Kern back in the day? 
C: Kern sucks. 
K:  You're right, she does suck. Does she even let you have any choices or thoughts? Don't you want to do what you're good at and kill Mira?
C: lol
K: We're holding Mira off but if you go full scorched-earth for us, we can finish the job. You have super cool armor and strong punching arms, just sayin'. 

Then Kern finds a way to disrupt the signal and Kott realizes she needs some backup. Some annoying, egomaniacal backup.  Oh, Gerey, your best friend is here to see you…

CHAPTER 17.3:  Alis and Mira are having tea and a chat inside the oozing mass that is at war with the wider world - how cozy!  Mira reflects on her existence as a sort of reverse Frankenstein / Jekyll and Hyde kind of conundrum: the monster (Nodan) created a scientist (Mira) in an effort to be a unique individual person for once, but can no longer contain their true nature.  Mira is going to die, but she wants Alis to take a part of her first so that it goes on without Mira.  Alis is furious and refuses, but Mira has already started to fade back. And that's when Cato shows up! 

CHAPTER 17.4:  Speaking with Kott has made Cato aware of how much he is at risk, but also how well he could fit into life on this planet. Cato knows that Kott is manipulative, that she is stronger than Kern because she is connected across the planet's biosphere, and that there are several other consciousnesses within the planet who are less social than Kott.  He knows Kott wants him to tap into his fighting impulses and help extinguish the Nodan entity (and Kern) on the planet; he finds himself apathetic as to which side will win. Cato comes from a Stomatopod culture with a deep history of combat and dominance, and he could potentially flourish as a lone warlord on this planet.  He confronts Mira with communication about his willingness to fight if Alis isn't turned over. The Nodan entity mimics his message but also forms Mira’s pleading face.  And then it opens so that Alis can step out. Cato wonders how much of the mind inside the body is Alis, and how much is all-consuming Nodan.  

CHAPTER 17.5:  Kern and Portifabian are debating what to do next. Portifabian is horrified to realize that they are now a fully integrated hybrid and are seamlessly thinking, analyzing, and communicating. No hope of separation in their future! Portifabian urges Kern to reach out to Hartmand for help, on the strength of their common terraforming history, but Kern finds it unthinkable. Just then, the forest erupts with shrieks and howls. Huge beasts are rushing through the trees towards them and bellowing Kern’s name. She makes a unilateral decision to enact her own plan before anyone else dies. 

CHAPTER 17.6:  When the Stomatopods entered the space race on Kern's World, it was with the intention of preserving their own culture while advancing technologically, so that the other Panspecifics couldn't dominate them.  They brought a proposal to Kern that they would like to venture into the stars and find a space for themselves (The Shoal), remaining separate from the others but adapting to the new technologies.  They expected they'd have to fight for this right, but the Panspecifics agreed and provided them with an Octopus-built ship.  Two hundred thousand Stomatopods ventured out and built on the gifted technology, enacting their warrior culture on far-flung planets until there were only 72 left! When the Portiids came to see what had happened to them, Cato remembers the feeling of realizing that winning might not always be best. Even though the fighting had been glorious. And so now, faced with Alis (or a Nodan-minded Alis-body) stepping into his killing zone, he hesitates. 

CHAPTER 17.7:  Mezclo watches the trees shake and realizes that the Life is finally coming to destroy her people. This planet has always been holding them down, extracting too much from them, never letting them get ahead. Mezclo knows they descend from a noble and advanced group of humans, based on the speeches of Captain Cosimir they have retained in their writings.  She sees a robotic spider left behind by the newcomers and gets ready to smash it as a symbol of the progress and greatness that has been stolen from them. Kern’s voice bursts from the spider, commanding the humans to listen. She explains that she is watching from orbit and sees a very large biomass gathering in the forest. Mezclo feels the unfairness of her people's coming destruction even as she is proud that they will go down fighting. Suddenly, Cato bursts from the trees covered in red gore and carrying Alis on his back.  Kern demands that the humans let them in and then prepare for an onslaught. 

PART 18 - THE THIRD AGE - Death Lives and Nature Breeds:  

CHAPTER 18.1:  Alis is partly Mira now. She carries Mira’s burden in her head and it's almost too much to handle, but she is able to communicate the plan to Kern.  She and Cato have worked out a way for them to win.  They need Kern and Cato, and they need to be with Mira.  They can be more than the sum of their parts.  They couldn't communicate when they were with Mira because the locals blocked the signal, but they will be able to do it with Portifabian. Except something has happened to the robot spider.  

CHAPTER 18.2:  Cato is humbled and embarrassed by his submission in the face of Alis. But he has seen himself through the eyes of the Portiids after the Escalation and knows the monstrous war criminal he had become through endless aggression.  It helps his shame a bit to be engaged in war against the Life on this planet now, in defense of the humans.  A huge armored boar begins breaking through the gate, so Cato prepares himself to punch it and accepts that he will probably die in the process.  Then the human consciousness controlling the boar shifts to an even more powerful beast which begins to charge.  Suddenly, the Portiid ship appears. It has grown into a spider shape with eight legs that allow it to roam the planet instead of fly.  Portifabian has become the ship! Kern explains that they all need to board so they can get to Mira for the next stage of Alis’s her plan (because even in mortal peril, Kern's gotta Kern).  Cato is amazed but also concerned that Portifabian may have been transferred against their will, and that Kern's grasp of control could lead the Panspecifics down a path of rival-AI war.  But escape is more important right now. Kern taunts Hartmand in order to draw him and all the monstrous beasts away from the human settlement. Then they escape on the Portifabian ship as the monsters give chase. 

CHAPTER 18.3:  Mezclo is awed by the spider-ship and almost calls out to hitch a ride. But she realizes her place is with the humans, preserving their history as an Archivist. The Life has held them back, but she is proud they have tried to strive nevertheless. She knows she will never be able to explain what she has seen or record it for future generations. Myth-making will have to be as good as science. She has discovered that when technology is so advanced, it seems like magic. And she is no magician. 

CHAPTER 18.4:  Kott has come to the realization that she hasn't done this much thinking in a very long time, because they purposely select for less intelligent species so they can use the biota as their puppets. She will miss the intellectual stimulation if everything goes back to the usual after they destroy the intruders.  Kott tries making this point to the pantheon, with no success.  

Milner: No time to say “Goodbye”, hello; I'm late, I'm late, I'm late! 

Dorcheson:  What's the point of anything? Why does anything need a point? Have you seen my copy of Nietzsche? 

Hartmand:  Bring me the head of Avrana Kern! I'll grind her bones to make my bread! 

Pil: Oh, did we talk earlier? Have you seen this delicious rotting log?

So she talks to Kern. They trade backstories and each can imagine the path not taken in each other's situation. Kern agrees to tell Kott what they're doing. 

CHAPTER 18.5:  Cato used to look at the Panspecifics as some sort of hippie commune that couldn't last because it wasn't dominant and powerful. His own people always wondered how decisions got made if there was no one in charge and if no one was punished for resistance or conflict.  Now he sees how it works.  His society was based on dominance, and look where it got him at the end of the Escalation. Portiid society is based on community, where they try to help others. (Even warlords who've murdered everyone around them.) The group needs Cato to do something unpalatable, which he has the right to say no to, and he really doesn't want to do it. If he refuses, they'll accept that - but Mira and Alis will die, he will die, Portifabian might die, and Avigael Kern will be sad and alone.  So he agrees to do the thing. Because he is part of their community! 

CHAPTER 18.6:  Alis calls to Mira as they approach the mass, asking her to trust their plan that they have a place she can safely go. Cato steps forward so Mira can reach out to his shell.  Alis ponders how beautiful the world must be for Cato with his twelve color receptors, and she is offering Mira those eyes.  Just then Hartmand’s spokes-monster bursts onto the scene, desperately claiming imminent victory over Kern. But the planet’s other Life responds, raining cats and other small predators onto the apex predators. A huge wall of fighting biota erupts, with even the bugs ganging up on Hartmand.  His beasts start to gain an edge, though, and Alis calls to Mira once more. 

CHAPTER 18.7:  Mira exists alongside Cato's neurology instead of replacing it, so that she can access the planet’s communication network via his sensory organs. His eyes allow her to see the network and communicate with the Life on the planet. Mira must constantly hold herself back from taking over everything, reminding herself that she is a unique individual. She can tell the world wants to kill her, but she reaches out and says hello. 

CHAPTER 18.8:  Mira lays out the choice the pantheon has to make now that she is there. She's in their network, and she shows them how she has destroyed entire worlds and how she carries civilizations worth of memory in her.  Mira offers them a place to go and do whatever they want, no matter how destructive, alone - their own spaces to play god without interference. (She knows it'll be like a prison but will feel like freedom, and I assume this means the simulation.) But Mira won't allow them to stay here torturing the humans and making monstrosities of the living things on the planet. Kott eagerly accepts, Milner joins her, and Dorcheson shrugs her assent. Pil decides he would rather be erased for good, as there's not enough of him left. Hartmand is spluttering his resistance and declaring himself the genius creator-god to the very end. 

PART 19 - THE THIRD AGE - After the Gods Left

CHAPTER 19.1:  Mezclo struggles with how she will record the story of what happened. Since the strangers and the beasts never return, Four Dragon Ford is left to clean up the mess of battle. They will have to seek help from neighboring communities to rebuild and replenish their ruined stores. After ten days, Mezclo and an Archivist from Wreck Hollow go out to the oozing mass to destroy it. A woman shape forms and speaks to them, explaining that she is taking care of the mass and all they have to do is live kindly. She will be watching. The ooze dissolves and disintegrates, leaving the archivists flummoxed as to what they will tell the others and how they will ensure incremental change - from the belief in savage gods and the brutal life that encourages - so their communities teach and live in kindness. 

CHAPTER 19.2:  Neco grapples with what has happened to her. She was consumed by the Changing Thing and her body was destroyed, but her mind was preserved. Neco talks to Alis, who orients her to what she and Mira have done to make up for that destruction. Neco’s consciousness has been transferred to their ship and a new body was constructed to match her self-image as closely as possible. Neco is welcome to return home to her people, although they can't do much about the struggles she'll face there.  They also offer Neco a full understanding of the Dissenter and all the history that has led them to this point, and Neco elects to stay with them. 

CHAPTER 19.3: Kern now lives in the mothership while Portifabian’s domain is the dropship.  Portifabian retains the robot spider form and has learned to control up to six of these bodies simultaneously. Their combined consciousness is too big now to go back to a single Portiid body. They are more akin to Kern now, which will be a shock for their people when they return home.  They also will tell the Panspecifics about Marduk, a planet which others will want to visit and study.  

CHAPTER 19.4:  Mira has completely withdrawn from Cato, who remains skeptical of her “devouring nature”. However, Alis has consented to retain some of Mira within her. Mira hopes one day for a willing Stomatopod host who would allow her access to their marvelous sensory experience again.  Alis tells Cato she enjoys the adventure of real life more than she misses the wish-fulfillment of the simulation.  She is content to settle next to Cato and feel their bond of experience and the call of their shared future, despite their differences. 

CHAPTER 19.5:   Dorcheson and Milner have been placed in their simulations on Imir, and Mira is preparing Kott for her transition. They are in a constructed reality so they can discuss the situation.  Kott asks if she could be given a body like Neco.   Mira says she only had to ask; the others never even considered it. Kott finally feels ready to be an actual human being who leads a meaningful life, after all these thousands of years.

CHAPTER 19.6:  Gerey Hartmand refused to give up his god status. He was the architect of an ecosystem that ensured a population for him to terrorize and subdue.  Now Mira has created a balance and the humans have gotten stronger, while the massive beasts Hartmand inhabits struggle to survive. Eventually there is only one monstrous beast left, howling a lonely roar into the wind. He rails against the unfairness, but Mira is there to remind him this was his choice.

Welcome to our next discussion of The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman!  This week, we will discuss Chapters 7-10. You can find the Schedule here and the Marginalia is linked here.  

References to the books we've read so far in His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust will not be considered spoilers.  Please use spoiler tags to hide references to other books/media or anything from later in this book such as chapters we haven't read yet. You can mark spoilers using the format > ! Spoiler text here ! < (without any spaces between the symbols themselves or between the symbols and the first and last words). 

Discussion questions for this week’s chapters are in the comments below. Feel free to add your own questions or thoughts, as well! In case you need a refresher, here is a recap of our reading for this week! 

~+~+~CHAPTER SUMMARIES~+~+~

CHAPTER 7 - HANNAH RELF:  Pan warns Lyra that they should keep the door to their new room locked up and not leave the alethiometer or rucksack and wallet lying around, now that they can't trust the new Master at Jordan. Lyra gets a letter from Hannah asking her to meet that afternoon about something important. At Hannah's house, Lyra is surprised that Malcolm and Alice join them.  They fill Lyra in about her origin story including the flood, the CCD, Bonneville, and the underground resistance to the Magisterium.  Hannah says that Lyra’s conversation with the Master of Jordan is confirmation that things are shifting in a bad direction.  Legislation proposed in Parliament has an item tucked inside it that would eliminate scholastic sanctuary, putting Lyra at risk and threatening academic freedom for many other Scholars. The MP leading the fight against it, Bernard Crombie, was killed in a car accident and they suspect murder. Malcolm tells Lyra that her money did come from Dr. Carne, but it didn't run out on its own; rather, he was tricked in his old age into making a bad investment. Malcolm assures Lyra that the Master was lying and all the Scholars fully support and care about Lyra.  Hannah tells the group they are now an alliance.  Lyra vows not to let her new circumstances shame her or put her at risk. Hannah says Pan will help Lyra, but Lyra privately worries because no one knows about their strained relationship.

CHAPTER 8 - LITTLE CLARENDON STREET:  Malcolm and Lyra discuss dæmons and how Malcolm can separate from Asta, although only Alice knows.  Lyra tells him about the witches and their dæmons. A bit later, while watching Pan talk to Asta, Malcolm is disturbed to realize that Pan and Lyra don't like each other.  Lyra tells Malcolm all about the murder, the policeman, and the rucksack she's hidden. He insists they go retrieve it right away, but they're minutes too late.  They find that two men pretending to be movers from J. Cross Removals have just ransacked Lyra's room and taken the rucksack. Fortunately, Lyra is clever and she has hidden all the contents among her own belongings so that nothing valuable has actually been taken.  Malcolm takes Lyra to his parents at the Trout where she can stay safely.  They feed her, offer her a job, and fill her in on more details about Malcolm’s bravery and Alice’s history.  Alice married young, but was soon widowed, and she became Lyra's caretaker soon after.  Later, Lyra has a vivid dream where she sees Will's dæmon, Kirjava, and feels the intoxicating love she shared with Will, leaving her weeping.  She also wakes with a sense that she knows why the red building from Dr. Strauss’s journal is important, and she must go there.  

Will heads to Hannah with all the papers and specimens Lyra had.  They examine everything and decide the specimens are probably rose seeds and oils connected to Tajikistan and Lop Nor, the location of a research station that has recently had several scientists go missing. Will can get the specimens identified at the Botanic Garden. They plan to take photograms of everything for Oakley Street and also inform Lyra of that secret organization in case she ever needs to seek their protection.  Malcolm worries about how quickly their enemies were able to track down Lyra and the rucksack. Hannah says it points to them using a new and controversial method of reading an alethiometer, one that avoids a single viewpoint but is very hard to learn. The man in Geneva who is so gifted in the new method is named Olivier Bonneville. 

CHAPTER 9 - THE ALCHEMIST:  Malcolm goes to the Botanic Garden to ask the director about Dr. Hassell.  He pretends to have found the items in a rucksack at a bus stop, as if someone had forgotten them. The director is very nervous and agitated; when he questions her gently, she admits that Dr. Hassell was working at the research station in Lop Nor but has gone missing and they feared he was dead.  These items make her wonder if he could have left them himself.  She briefly discusses the botanic research conducted at Lop Nor based on climate and local knowledge of plants that grow under extreme conditions, but declines to get into details. Malcolm lets it go, noticing she is acting scared and lying badly.  Afterwards, he sits quietly to think but becomes consumed by the realization that he is falling in love with Lyra despite his worries that it could be inappropriate and impossible.  

Lyra has been at the Trout a few days and the Polsteads are impressed with her industriousness but concerned about her melancholy.  Up in her room, Lyra is indeed melancholy because she and Pan are still estranged.  They don't share a pillow much anymore, and Pan accuses her of having no imagination, which hurts more than she'd have expected.  She is experimenting with the new method of reading the alethiometer.  It is different from the classical method in that the reader points all three hands at a single picture, chosen intuitively, rather than three specific pictures meant to define a question specifically. And while the classical method requires careful concentration and systematic practice with reading the interpretive books, this new method approaches interpretation as a flow state where the reader allows their mind to drift on a current of images and impressions as they arise, often leaving the reader seasick.  Lyra starts by pointing the hands at a horse but gets nowhere, so she switches them to the bird, a symbol representing dæmons in general.  She tries letting her mind recall the vivid dream with Kirjava, Will’s dæmon, and it brings her back to that scene before changing it completely. A different cat leads her to a room where a young boy resembling Will is studying an alethiometer. Lyra is shocked to discover that it isn't Will but the inventor of the new reading method, and that he is also perceiving her. He knows she is the girl his employer Marcel Delamare is so desperate to find. She slams the door between them and comes back to her senses, eagerly scribbling down her impressions and questions.  Pan watches her for a few minutes before curling up to rest on his own. 

When Lyra is asleep, Pan sneaks out with a small notebook of Dr. Hassell’s that he has hidden from Lyra.  Pan takes the notebook to an alchemist named Sebastian Makepeace, who he and Lyra had met during an incident with a deceitful witch who used to be Makepeace’s lover.  The alchemist’s name is in the book, which is full of addresses, so Pan hopes he can shed some light on it.  Makepeace explains that the notebook is a clavicula adiumenti and he adds another name that he says is missing (and needs to turn the notebook sideways to make it fit).  He encourages Pan to tell Lyra about the notebook and then return together.  Makepeace listens to Pan's concerns about Lyra reading the philosophy books, and about their growing hatred for each other.  He tells Pan that imagination is about perception, not about making things up, and pushes Pan to adjust his own thinking and try to see Lyra's perspective.  Makepeace also explains that he has found a field that is very hard to perceive and is now working on discovering whether it exists everywhere and if it varies in other places.  He is limited by the rudimentary tools and ingredients he has in his laboratory, but is making progress.  Pan takes the notebook back and wonders how he'll find a way to talk to Lyra about it.  

CHAPTER 10 - THE LINNAEUS ROOM:  Malcolm gets an invitation from Lucy Arnold, Director of the Botanic Garden, to join a small meeting that evening in the Linnaeus Room about the rapidly developing situation. This turns out to be in response to the discovery of Dr. Hassell's body at Iffley Lock, with clear signs of foul play.  Hannah passes this information along to Glenys Godwin, the Director of Oakley Street who had to retire from field work when an infection paralyzed her dæmon.  Glenys confirms for Hannah that the Linnaeus Room meeting could be important to Oakley Street because it will likely provide information about the connections between rose oil and experimental theology. (She also agrees to provide protection for Lyra.) She references a paper written by Brewster Napier on the effects of rose oil. 

Napier turns out to be one of the people at the meeting Malcolm attends. Napier informs the group that due to someone's sloppy lab work, he and a colleague named Margery Stevenson observed the effects of rose oil on the Rusakov Field (which they have to be very cautious discussing due to the Magisterium's regulations around studying Dust). Now, Margery has gone missing.  Malcolm is about to address the group next when the porter alerts them that men from the Consistorial Court of Discipline (CCD) are looking for the Director.  Malcolm has the porter secretly escort everyone else outside while he remains behind with Lucy and Charles Cape, a clergyman who is secretly a friend of Oakley Street. They get their story straight about the reason for their meeting and the topic of discussion:  Charles is an expert in the lore of plants and flowers from Central Asia and has been filling them in on the roses that grow there which can only be accessed by separating from one's dæmon, and the oil of which causes visions according to local shamen.  Then, the CCD men find them and start asking questions. By remaining calm and pointing out they didn't know Dr. Hassell’s missing papers were connected to a murder, they are able to throw the CCD men off the scent for the time being.  After they exit, Malcolm destroys the spy fly that they left behind and Charles agrees to hide the papers and specimens at Wykeham.  Malcolm decides to take the Tajik poetry book Jahan and Rukhsana so he can check something.   

Lyra and Pan are both restless and unable to sleep. Finally, they have it out.  Pan confesses that he hid the notebook from her and took it to Makepeace to find out why the alchemist's name was inside. Lyra is enraged, accusing Pan of betrayal and calling him horrible names. Pan turns the accusations right back on her, saying that she doesn't care to know how he was affected by their separation when she went to the world of the dead.  He describes the emotional pain of abandonment that nearly killed him, speculating that she kept her plans from him that day. Lyra apologizes and tries to assure him that she would never have done it on purpose, and that she's so miserable that she'd gladly die if it wouldn't also kill him.  Pan points out that she's slowly killing both of them by refusing to see the mysterious nature of the world in favor of the black-and-white logic she has been drawn to in her books. She's forgotten everything they've experienced in the past and denied it until Pan barely seems to exist.  They curl up apart, and when Lyra wakes in the morning, Pan is gone.

Welcome to our first discussion of The Autobiography of Malcolm X  by Dee Brown.  The Marginalia post is here. You can find the Schedule here. This week, we will discuss the beginning through Chapter IV.  Below are some chapter summary notes with links (note the possibility of spoilers in some of the links).  Questions for discussion are in the comments, and you can also add your own thoughts or questions if interested. 

A note to promote respectful discussion:  

• The book often incorporates outdated and derogatory terms for Black people.  Please do not type out the racist terms completely. You can refer to these terms when needed by typing “N-word” or “n***er”.  
• For other terms, you can quote or paraphrase Malcolm's own terms such as Negro where applicable.  If you are connecting the text to today's world, the current terms in use in the US are Black or African-American (both capitalized).  
• Please think over your comments with an eye on ensuring that all participants feel respected and included in the conversation.  If you don't know or understand something about US racial history or current events, ask questions instead of making assumptions.  Thank you for your efforts to make this a productive conversation and learning experience!

 

As you discuss, please use spoiler tags if you bring up anything outside of the sections we've read so far.  While this is a nonfiction book, we still want to be respectful of those who are learning the details for the first time, as well as being mindful of any spoilers from other media you might refer to as you share.  You can use the format > ! Spoiler text here ! < (without any spaces between the characters themselves or between the characters and the first and last words). 

××××××Chapter Summaries××××××

FOREWORD/INTRODUCTION: Depending on what version you're reading, you may have a foreword and/or introduction to the book. Both contain basic spoilers about the life of Malcolm X.  The foreword is by Attallah Shabazz, Malcolm's daughter.  She reflects on >!childhood family memories and her father's legacy as he is honored with a U.S. Postal Service commemorative stamp and commodified through the publicity surrounding the movie based on his life.!<  The introduction is by M. S. Handler, a white New York Times journalist who covered Malcolm X extensively and gained his trust.
Handler >!sets the stage for understanding the public and private personas of Malcolm X and his evolution over the course of his short life including his break with Elijah Muhammad. !<

CHAPTER 1 - Nightmare:  Malcolm was one of eight children born to Earl Little, a Black preacher from Georgia, and Louise Little, a woman from the British West Indies who could pass as white.  His parents were involved in the Marcus Garvey movement (the Universal Negro Improvement Association). The family moved many times during his early childhood, often to escape danger from the local white population and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan or the Black Legion. His earliest memory was of a narrow escape from their burning home. The family eventually settled in a home on the outskirts of Lansing, Michigan.  Malcolm recalls tension between his parents and abusive behavior from his father towards everyone but him.  He believes his father favored him because he had the lightest skin color of all his siblings, and his father had internalized the white lesson that lighter is superior. (He believes his mother was harder on him than his siblings for the same reason.) When Malcolm was six, his father left the house after a fight with his mother and never returned. The story was that the Black Legion had attacked him and left him on the streetcar tracks, but the insurance company didn't want to pay out the life insurance claim because they “suspected” suicide.  

With little money left as a newly-single mother of eight, Louise tried getting jobs working for white families in Lansing, but was always fired when they discovered she was Black.  Soon they were going hungry and struggling to make ends meet, leading Malcolm to start stealing.  The state Welfare agency began visiting their home, which provided food aid but also opened the door to questions over his mother's fitness as a parent. Louise's mental health began to deteriorate.  Malcolm was the first of the children to be removed from the home: he was sent to live with the Gohannases, a church family who he often ate dinner with during the peak of his family's struggles.  They treated him well and he was amply provided for, but deeply missed his family despite frequent visits.  Louise eventually had a full emotional breakdown and was institutionalized in the State Mental Hospital of Kalamazoo, far from Lansing.  The other children were sent to live with various families in the Lansing area, allowing the siblings to maintain contact. Louise was released from the hospital after 26 years and settled with Philbert, one of her sons.  Malcolm harbors deep resentment over the dissolution of his family, who never wanted to be separated even in the hardest of times, and serious anger at the treatment of his mother. He considers the state at fault for destroying his family.  

CHAPTER 2 - MASCOT:  Boxing was all the rage in 1937 after Joe Lewis became heavyweight champion of the world.  Philbert got pretty good in the amateur circuits, but Malcolm did not last long after two amateur matches. He didn't last long in school either, due to his poor deportment record. In seventh grade, 13-year-old Malcolm was sent to a detention home as the first stop on the road to reform school. 

The detention home was run by well-intentioned white people who treated Malcolm well but assumed he wasn't capable of understanding much. They would talk freely about adult topics in front of him, use the N-word constantly, and parade him before visitors like a mascot. Malcolm was polite and helpful with chores around the house. He won over the white adults and became a kind of pet of Mrs. Swerlin, who ran the detention home, so that he was never sent on to reform school. Instead, Mrs. Swerlin enrolled him in the local middle school which was almost entirely white, where he was treated much the same.  Malcolm was subjected to white behavior ranging from clueless but well-intentioned to outright racist and demeaning.  Yet Malcolm had learned that the best way to get along was to smile and cooperate, and to always stay on his side of the imaginary social wall maintained by the white population.  Malcolm was very popular and often invited to join extracurricular groups.  He was elected class president due to his excellent grades, but also due to his race making him an exotic curiosity.  Although most of his peers assumed that as a Black teenager Malcolm was very knowledgeable about sex, in reality Malcolm mostly avoided girls (especially white ones) at this point.  He mostly tried to be as white as he could, an experience that has influenced his message to contemporary Black men about the futility of integration. 

His half-sister Ella, his father's oldest daughter from his first marriage, visited from Boston around this time. She took all the Little children to visit their mother in the hospital, reminded Malcolm of what it meant to be part of a family, and heaped encouragement and praise on him. She also invited him to visit her in Boston in the summer of 1940.  This visit changed Malcolm forever. It exposed him to the rich urban Black life and culture that was available to him outside Lansing. He saw successful Black professionals, heard Black music, and experienced a vibrant Black church.  Back home, he started eighth grade unable to happily go along with being othered and called the N-word. To make matters worse one of his best teachers, Mr Ostrowski, discouraged Malcolm from a law career due to his race while encouraging the less gifted white students in their goals.  Everyone noticed Malcolm's shift in mood, which led Mrs. Swerlin to transfer him to the Lyons’ home, the only other Black family in the community.  Malcolm couldn't even express his discouragement to them, but he did ask Ella if he could move to Boston. Somehow she arranged for the state to transfer his custody to Massachusetts, and he credits this move as integral in avoiding life as one of those “brainwashed black Christians” content with menial work and striving for integration.  

CHAPTER 3 - “HOMEBOY”:  Living with Ella in Boston taught Malcolm about both the rich “Hill Negroes" and those who lived down the hill in the ghetto areas.  The people living on the Hill put on airs and tried to live like white people because they were wealthier and considered themselves superior to the Black people of the lower classes. Malcolm felt more comfortable around the “ghetto Negroes” because they acted authentically as themselves.  He made friends with a man called Shorty who worked as a ball racker in a pool hall and took Malcolm under his wing. Shorty helped Malcolm get his first job in Boston, a shoeshine job that he took over from a man named Freddie at the Roseland State Ballroom.  While working there, he got to see famous bands and performers such as Duke Ellington and Peggy Lee.  He also discovered that shoeshining was just one aspect of the job:  he made more in tips by providing the customers with condoms, bathroom hand towels, illicit substances, and covert connections with prostitutes.  Malcolm loved watching the bands perform and he marveled at the free, enthusiastic dancing of the Black crowds compared to the regimented steps performed at white dances.  He often wrote to his siblings with stories of seeing mixed race couples, famous bands, Boston’s history, and his daily life as a “hip cat” in the city who everyone called “Red” due to his reddish hair.  

Shorty introduced Malcolm to drugs and alcohol, gambling and credit, and his first zoot suit.  Shorty also helped Malcolm with his first conk, a painful process where natural hair is straightened to look more white. Malcolm looks back on this style with shame and disgust that he, like so many Black people then and after, would do such damage to their bodies to become more like white people - proof of the internalized attitude that being white is superior.  

CHAPTER 4 - LAURA:  Malcolm fell in love with dancing while working at the Roseland. In fact, he was so determined to spend more time on perfecting the lindy hop that he quit his job as a shoeshine there and joined the throngs at the Negro dances regularly.  His zoot suit payments were so consistent that the tailor was happy to sell him a second suit - a flashy grey shark-skin - and all the accessories on credit.  Ella was happy that Malcolm could now get a respectable job, and she encouraged him to work as a soda jerk at the local drugstore on the Hill.  These wealthier Black customers annoyed him greatly with their fake white accents and uppity manners, but one customer caught his eye.  At sixteen, Laura was a year older than Malcolm, although no one suspected his young age.  Laura was being raised by her strict, religious grandmother and was always reading school books at the ice cream counter.  Her life had little in common with Malcolm's after-work partying, but they both liked to lindy hop, so he invited Laura to a Negro dance at the Rosewood when Count Basie would be playing. Laura lied to her grandmother and Malcolm made sure she got home early to keep up appearances. Laura was a superb, balletic dancer.  A few weeks later, she asked Malcolm to take her to the next dance when Duke Ellington was playing.  This time, she told her grandmother the truth and threatened to drop out of school if she wasn't allowed to socialize, leading to a huge fight.  She and Malcolm participated in the “showtime” competition at the end of the dance that night, where a half-dozen of the most talented couples would have a dance-off.  They were a hit, and even Duke Ellington acknowledged them at the end! The crowd surrounded Laura to congratulate her, but Malcolm was pulled aside by a white woman who caught his eye.  

It was unusual for non-prostitute white women to attend these Negro dances, and the Black men craved their attention. Malcolm eagerly dropped Laura at home and went right back to spend the night with “Sophia”, the classy white woman from the dance.  They began seeing each other regularly. Sophia gave Malcolm's social status a boost and she also bankrolled him for their evenings out while driving them around in her Cadillac. (Since Shorty had “schooled” Malcolm, he also benefitted from an enhanced reputation.) Laura stopped coming to the drugstore after this, and the next time Malcolm saw her, she had ruined her life with rebellious and reckless behavior which Malcolm felt responsible for starting with her.  Ella, who had adored Laura, was livid to discover that Malcolm was seeing Sophia.  Malcolm also quit his job at the ice cream counter and became a busboy at the Parker House (famous for their rolls), which is where he was when he found out about the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

We will soon be delving deeper into Ursula K. LeGuin’s Hainish Cycle with Planet of Exile.  Are you excited to continue the exploration with us?

Storygraph blurb

>!The Earth colony of Landin has been stranded on Werel for ten years - and each of Werel's years is over 60 terrestrial years! After so long an exile, the lonely and dwindling human settlement is beginning to feel the strain.!<
>!Every winter - a season that lasts a decade and a half - the Earthmen have neighbours: the humanoid hilfs, a nomadic people who only settle down for the cruel cold spell. The hilfs fear the Earthmen, whom they think of as witches, and call the farborns. But both peoples have common enemies: the hordes of ravaging barbarians called gaals, and eerie preying snow ghouls.!<

>!Can the hilfs and the farborns overcome their mutual suspicions and join forces? Or will they both be annihilated?!<

Each book of the series can be read as a standalone, so if you would like to join for this read you are more than welcome, even if you haven’t read the previous books!

Still, in case you need them, here you can find the previous discussions:

• The Dispossessed
• The Word for World is Forest
• Rocannon’s World

And here is a link for the series Marginalia if you would like to see what the tentative reading order looks like!

Schedule - Discussion check-ins are posted on Sundays:

• May 17 - Ch. 1-8 - u/Manjusri
• May 24 - Ch. 9-14 - u/tomesandtea

 

Friends don’t let friends read alone/in exile; I hope you’ll join us in a few weeks!  See you then!