Posted by Terry Doyle on February 05, 1997 at 11:38:40:
In Reply to: Source for Yipton? posted by Parsifal Pankarow on February 04, 1997 at 22:52:59:
: In Vance's best recent work, "Araminta Station." we have his ongoing exploration of a question that seems to have intrigued him lately: who is to do Society's scut work?
: In "Night Lamp," he sidesteps the question by having the servant class be nonhumans, genetically engineered. In "Wyst," it was dealt with from a Marxist perspective (Vance's satire of Marxism, that is).
: But Yipton ios more disturbing. The origins of the Yips are deliberately left vague, byt they are definitely human and, as we see, they have a claim on the larger society, in return for their menial labor. Yipton, in its origins, seems an amalgam of Bangkok, Jakarta, Tijuana, and the West Bank.
: Who knows which of these places Mr. Vance has been to? And how and when did this question (Who does the scut work?) start to intrigue him?
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No doubt Vance is interested in how society works and who does the "scut work" is part of that. Someone has to clean the toilets and haul the garbage. In _The Last Castle_ the Meks (non-human aliens) do that work until they revolt and the Yips lackadasically do such work as pleases them at Araminta Station.
However, to suggest that Vance sidesteps the issue in Night Lamp is not the case. The Seishanee are of human origin, genetically engineered for stupidy and amiability. The folly of such is seen in the ending where the Roum are set on a course in which they will be doing menial labor in the Seishanee's stead.
It is also seen that the genetic experiments have led to Fader's most serious problems: the failed experiments of the Loklor and the white house ghouls (some political satire there perhaps?). The latter two races are the bane of Roum's existence. It seems an adequate comment that he who tries to avoid labor is cursed with even greater problems.
Likewise Jaro's tongue in cheek admission that it is indeed possible that a Roum leaving Fader might have to work for his very existence. Vance is clearly saying that to live, one need take out the slops occasionally and turn to in order to earn a living. Idleness is a dead end and idler societies are doomed.