MZB Adoration

I am not even sure what got me headed down this Wikipedia road, but I spent the better part of an hour reading about books by Marion Zimmer Bradley that I had somehow neglected to read. It's easy to let this happen because she never really wrote her books in any kind of order. When I have the mental capacity to read again, I'll look into them. Her Darkover novels were a big part of my younger years. I think I read the first one when I was in third or fourth grade and they shaped a lot of my ideas about fiction and about life.

MZB's books were the first place where I began to see issues like feminism and gender fluidity tackled as actual points of the plot. I'm sure some people would see her treatment of such issues as heavy handed, but at the time, they didn't feel that way. In fact, even now I feel like there were times when her writing handled these issues with an emotional complexity I've not seen in many other places.

How often do we read about a woman who has secluded herself from men and their patriarchy who finds herself befriending man? How often do we read about a gay man feeling guilt over his sexual feelings for another man when he knows that man was sexually assaulted? MZB explored so many different types of relationships. From siblings who can't seem to find common ground to a father who loves his son so much he would go into exile with him.

MZB also managed to do a lot of interesting things thematically. One that has always stuck with me is how she shaped the different philosophies of her time periods. During the Age of Chaos, psi technology was seen as the answer to all problems, but when this got too out of hand, most of it was banned. In following ages, the psi powers were more regulated and controlled.  Eventually, however, this control became too extreme and things began to shift back to viewing such powers as important. By allowing the philosophies of her people to alter over time, she was able to build a world with far more emotional and intellectual realism.

What impressed me the most about MZB's work was her willingness to open Darkover up for other authors. She allowed people to create within her world. She gave them freedom to explore their own ideas and characters. In a time when I see a lot of authors who act like they hate fanfiction more than anything, it makes me happy to know that some of my favorite authors (MZB, Lovecraft) allowed their worlds to be open, meaning that new life could be given to future works.

Right now, my mind is just in too much chaos to really focus enough to read anything. It's part of the process of recovery, I suppose. I know this will pass. when it does, I'll finish out her books. I relish the idea, actually.