Week 7 Response – On Such A Full Sea

Doing this one a week late thanks to a fever that lasted through Fall Break. I am enjoying this book though! Ok!!! Here we go!!!!!!

Page 81-82, On Such A Full Sea

“But do you realize how difficult it is to grow fruits and vegetables outside? Uncle Kellen said to us. We forget about how ideally engineered our grow facilities are. No pests or bad weather. Uncontaminated, nutrient-rich media. And all of you now trained from an early age in the techniques of maximized production. It is only natural for you to believe that we have achieved mastery.
And you believe we haven’t, Uncle?
He snorted, snacking on his peanuts, being quiet in the way he often was, not quite responding to our questions, clearly not for lack of views but because he wanted us to formulate our own opinions rather than automatically inscribe ourselves with his, which we would have done, immediately, happily.
That’s not what’s important, he said.”

This instance of Uncle Kellen’s “talk story”, stemming from the previous pages, gradually reveals details about B-Mor’s various histories through back and forth conversation between Uncle Kellen and the narrator(s), then children. Though the children remain fairly dismissive of the “natives” or maintain firm belief in the “originals” and their superior ability to survive, this brief passage – its larger context, the historical narratives it shares, and questions and failures it raises – reveals the unraveling stability of the narrator(s) and B-Mor.

As gradually revealed throughout the novel, native citizens of B-Mor were still surviving, though under the constant pressure of debt economies, heavy policing, and overall state neglect. This precarious situation, an ongoing struggle for self-determination, found itself in direct conflict with the “originals” arriving from New China – people essentially brought as labour to displace natives, who accordingly received the kinds of resources for survival and growth.

Uncle Kellen’s dig at how B-Mor residents are taught “techniques of maximized production” undergirds the growing feeling of B-Mor’s purpose as purely productive, transactional. The listless-but-content life that residents lead appears full of satisfaction; that B-Mor is mostly work and routine – a kind of safety – is largely accepted and goes unquestioned. To Uncle Kellen, “mastery” is a false narrative. Any sort of supposed “mastery” has been supported by larger political and economic structures which required New China labourers to fulfill a need for production. Supposed mastery over a stolen land is crucial to maintaining the settler myth of native non-existence or native ineptitude, which the children (and larger population of B-Mor) clearly embody.

The writing style – marked by the gradually developing consciousness of the the narrator(s), who recalls these anecdotes and incidents of B-Mor alongside Fan’s story – poses questions, cracks, and slippages in the seemingly secure world of B-Mor. As the novel progresses, B-Mor’s stability gradually falters, as basic services and other resources begin to dwindle, as the members who make up the community begin to struggle and fall apart, and as these patterns all become more apparent. Uncle Kellen himself disappears with his wife, a troubling mystery leaving more questions than answers. What would it mean that the “originals” were forces of violent displacement, that their “mastery” was the result of intentional investment not given to native citizens of B-Mor? How might B-Mor merely be a production plant, a mass labour force, subject to the whims of larger systems of capital? How might the potential of upwards mobility be a false promise, a method of control? How is a “self made”, stable, secure B-Mor a myth?