ICE
I think the whole book has been very interesting in light of recent political upheaval.
The whole time I was thinking that this book was very much about the ways in which people and societies cope with dramatic societal and political change. and further that that change was presented in a very distilled way by the way in which the cult finds new members. It inflicts massive violent physical trauma on the bodies of the person, just like civil wars and uprisings inflict damage upon a nation, then those that live through the violence are left to cope with the new worldview they are left with and with the damage to themselves.
Joining the cult offers these people an immiediate way to bring some new structure and understanding to their lives following this trauma, which can be seen in the searching of those in a post uprising situation scrabbling for a group or political movement to latch on to. and a sense of disgust at the life they had before.
So I wanted to point out that many of the effects mentioned, such as an “awoken”‘s disgust with his/her previous life do not take place immediately. With the exception of Borenboim who tries to reenter the house after the girl first talks to his heart all of the other newly awoken in the first section flee from the new society they are presented with. To the members already in the society this no doubt appears childish and typical but it does seem to indicate that acceptance is not as instinctual as is later implied in the book.
The later bouts of hysteria do seem to bring a change in those who experience them but since all of the people who experience them are immediately indoctrinated it is difficult to tell where the indoctrination really comes from. I would liken it more to prisoners who after undergoing extreme punishment end up with their minds more or less wiped clean as far as a belief system goes and thus afterward can be taught anything their captors choose.
I have been meaning to bring up Borenboim’s immediate wish to return to the house. It is strange and out of character with the others in the story. He doesn’t fit the normal trajectory, but why do they lock him out? Is it so necessary for the path of all the newly awoken to be the same run away, think about and complain about the people, receive money, and then break down and cry? If it is necessary, then perhaps Brendon is right in that, they are being broken down and indoctrinated, but from the way that they speak about the experience it doesn’t seem to unreasonable to think that they might find some people who could be ready just from doing the heart talking.
As I mentioned in class, the most interesting aspect for the book for me has to do with the moral responsibility of the “awakened” people. Particularly because Khram makes such a big deal out of how immoral the human “meat machines” are towards each other, would blocking Borenboim and forcing him to go through the same experience as the others count as cruelty? Do they ever break their rules in their code of conduct? To what extent does using the KGB to find more blond fullies (non-empties) make moral sense given the assumption that doing things to meat machines doesn’t matter? I almost feel like they should have had their own system to begin with to find people, and that if they had started their own organization, outside of the kgb, they would have been more justified.
New question: what do they do if they have 22,999 of them, and then two die and they have to find them again? Would they by that time have enough power to hammer all blond haired people (and babies?) they felt like? I just feel like dealing with all the different natural causes of death so that a specific 23,000 could be alive at the same time sounds kind of difficult.
Also, we didn’t mention in class that guy who said that it would happen in a year and so many months. Is that just set up for the next book? What are we supposed to take that to imply? Does he actually see it? Is the ice telling him?
Is the ice, as a character, the reason why Khram can see into people? Doesn’t that sound like an alien-thing to be able to do? What other sci-fi signs do we have?
-Masha
The explanation that I came up with for the cult’s locking out of Borenboim initially is because their methods at that time were to allow the trauma of the “awakening” encounter to sink in, rather than mitigating the damage done. It seems that whatever special properties the ICE has, it carries out its effect over several days, culminating in the attacks of tears each victim experiences. Without this period of mental breakdown their brainwashing (possibly) techniques may not be as effective. They therefore seek to release the awaked so as to let the psychological damage reach critical levels.
Another idea is that the victim must not be around the cult during the period of total mental breakdown as it is a personal journey of radical self discovery that would be less effective/valuable if the subject was in reach of cult members. Without anyone to reach out to the internal changes must be much more intense.