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The
monster without is the monster within. That's been a theme of literature
since Beowulf fought Grendel, since Frankenstein animated a collection
of loose body parts, since Dr. Jekyll turned into Mr. Hyde. The
latest addition to this literary investigation is Michel Faber's
UNDER THE SKIN. Faber's highly entertaining and thought-provoking
novel creeps up on you with the realization that there are no easy
answers, no purely good or bad choices in how we deal with monsters
--- both those of our own device and those others have created to
plague us. And he accomplishes this through a protagonist who, though
alien in form, even alien unto herself, nonetheless embodies the
complex paradoxes of the human condition.
Isserley
picks up hitch hikers. But only male hitch hikers of a certain muscular
build. She makes awkward conversation with them to determine if
anyone is expecting them or will miss them. Those that pass the
interview will wish they hadn't. In the first of a series of inversions,
Faber puts a female in the predatory role in an erotically charged
opening, made all the more ironical when we discover that Isserley
is not only sexually mutilated,
but is an alien creature whose purpose on the roadways of the Scottish
Highlands actually involves another primal appetite.
Isserley,
who once thought her sexuality would entitle her to a place amongst
the elite of her home planet, has chosen this assignment. While
preferable to the alternative fate at home, it required subjecting
her to a painful and humiliating operation to enable her to sit
upright. Perhaps most insulting and ludicrous of all, she is equipped
with huge, balloon-like breasts with which to lure her victims.
The aliens have discovered what human women have known all along:
even the remotest suggestion of sex makes guys stupid. And also
sometimes dangerous.
So
yet another inversion here is for the alien to be a highly sympathetic
character, not the cliche menace of pulp science fiction, and for
the story to be told from the alien's point of view. Though Isserley
may naturally walk on all fours with a furred skin that wouldn't
put her out of place in a herd of sheep, her psychology is decidedly
human. Faber reinforces the point by having Isserley and her fellows
refer to themselves as "human," while our own species
are called "vodsels." How Isserley justifies her behavior
towards vodsels echoes not only our own justifications for the treatment
of animals, but people of foreign nationalities, races, and religion.
That what is different can be treated differently.
Despite
her isolation and decidedly dim prospects for a return to "normal"
life, Isserley has some consolations --- she prides herself on doing
a good job, and the natural beauty of Earth far exceeds that of
her ecologically devastated homeland. This is all threatened both
by the arrival of Amlis Vess, son of the owner of Vess Industries
for whom she works, and a technological advancement that will eliminate
the need for her employment.
Amlis
is the pampered heir whose privileged situation makes it very easy
for him to rebel against his father and the sullied commercial activities
of his father's company. For this, Isserley hates him. Yet she also
can't help but be attracted to him and, despite the hopelessness
that the handsome Amlis would have any interest in her maimed body,
Isserley permits herself the vaguest fantasy that he might find
an interest in her, might possibly provide an escape to a better
life.
Isserley
does escape, but not as she might expect, in a bittersweet ending
that makes you smile, even as it disturbs you, about how life turns
out for us all, regardless of our physical make-up and where we
call home.
---
Reviewed by David Soyka
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