[.ca] The Speed of Dark (ISBN 0345481399)

From Amazon.com:
Corporate life in early 21st-century America is even more ruthless than it was at the turn of the millennium. Lou Arrendale, well compensated for his remarkable pattern-recognition skills, enjoys his job and expects never to lose it. But he has a new boss, a man who thinks Lou and the others in his building are a liability. Lou and his coworkers are autistic. And the new boss is going to fire Lou and all his coworkers--unless they agree to undergo an experimental new procedure to "cure" them. In The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon has created a powerful, complex, and believable portrayal of a man who varies radically from what is defined as "normal." The author insightfully explores the nature of "normality," identity, choice, responsibility, free will, illness and health, and good and evil. The Speed of Dark is a powerful, moving, illuminating novel in the tradition of Flowers for Algernon, Forrest Gump, and Rain Man . --Cynthia Ward

Corporate Autism:
Although I am not an avid fan of the science fiction genre, I did love this book along with Celia Rees' young adult novel, "The Truth Out There," both of which merge different literary genres and have delightful characters with autism. This book together with Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" make for some excellent adult literature about autism. The protagonist of this story, Lou Arrendale, is a man who has autism. He works for a large company as a systems/patterns analyst. His cubicle is adorned with mobiles and other sensory treats that provide patterns for him to focus on when he goes on sensory overload. Visual patterns can be very soothing and this finding is not limited to people on the autism/Asperger's (a/A) spectrum. Many neurotypical (NT) people love watching fish in aquaria, for example. I loved the way physics was included in this story; Lou's co-worker, Linda, who has severe autism and loves astronomy wonders if light as a speed and if its inverse, darkness does as well. Linda poses an interesting question: if light has a speed, would it not be pulled into a black hole by gravity? I think that light probably has a METAphysical speed, just as time is a metaphyiscal gauge and its counterpart space is a physical measure. I love that sort of thing. Lou, while clearly autistic sounds closer to the Asperger's end of the spectrum. He is bright; verbal; independent and able to grasp very abstract concepts. His autism is manfested in his slavishness to routines, even when those routines are not practical. He does his grocery shopping on Tuesdays regardless; he does his laundry at the same time on the same day of the week; there are certain programs he watches and computer contacts he makes when he is home and these activities are generally performed at the same time. Lou is also a fencer. His fencing coaches, Tom and Lucia, take him under his wing and commiserate with his dissatisfaction over the Center and an especially unpleasant client named Emma there. Emma is rude and hostile; she makes personal attacks on Lou one Tuesday when he is shopping. She tells him that his crush on Marjory, a fencing partner will come to nothing as Marjory is NT and only sees Lou as an experiement or charity case. I didn't like the way Lou naively defended Emma, even when it was plain to all and sundry just how hateful she was. Someone else has targeted Lou. Three attacks have been made on his car. His tires are slashed; his windshield broken and later, a bomb is found under the hood. Unmasking the culprit and subduing the culprit is where Lou demonstrates his pattern analytical skills; the legal penalty for malicious mischief is to have a computer chip embedded in the brain so as to rewire/reprogram the brain from future violence. The book is beautifully written. One humorous thing I caught was in Chapter 12, when Lou, says "Mr. Arendale (meaning Mr. Aldrin, his company supervisor) looks worried." Lou IS Mr. Arrendale! A piece of political humor can be found as well in a text Lou is reading by an author named Clinton whose co-author has the middle name of Rodham. Clever! I like that. Lou and the other people in his unit, all of whom have autism are given the option to undergo an experimental treatment to restructure their brains and "cure" them of the neurobiological condition. Naturally there are questions; their angel of a supervisor Mr. Aldrin goes to bat for them and is able to rescind a previous order the company's CEO, Mr. Crenshaw, who is an autistophobe and wants to eliminate Lou's unit from the company. Mr. Aldrin is able to go through the legal channels to ensure job security and to make this a voluntary and not a compulsory decision. A masterpiece of a book that recognizes the sensory responses and concerns of people with autism. My favorite part was when Lou dispells a tired myth about people with autism not caring what others think of them. That is not true. People with autism as do NT people care very much about how others perceive them. "What will people think of me" has long been a plaint among many people in deciding whether or not to disclose having autism. As Lou said in the book, NT people self-stim and engage in repetition and other behaviors that they are highly critical of when done by people with autism. Lou does an exemplary job of pointing out this double standard. I really like the way Lou ruminates over Scripture; the beautiful description of a Catholic mass and his assessment of very esoteric concepts. This is light years and full speed ahead of the cliche Rainman routine! This book deserves a place of honor!

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE:
4.5 Stars. What made me want to read this novel was two-fold: it won the Nebula Award and it has often been referred to in the same breath as "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes. The Nebula Award is not always given to the book I would choose, but any story mentioned with Daniel Keyes' fantastic short story(later expanded by the author into a fine novel) is worth any Science Fiction fan's attention. As for the title of my review, "CHAPTER TWENTY ONE" is the chapter in "The Speed of Dark" where I thought that perhaps this novel had initially been a short story and later expanded, as well. I will return to this book again many times in the future just to read from that chapter to the end of the book. I lost sleep reading this book, which is always a sign that the novel has me enthralled. As for negatives, there are a few minor complaints such as one of the villainous characters in the story getting his come-uppance a little too easily, "And the day...is saved!" That plot resolution was too tidy and too quickly resolved. The first twenty chapters are solid 4-star material with some excellent writing and a genuinely original perspective from the protagonist, Lou Arrendale, who is an autistic man given the chance at a cure for his condition. The only other negative I felt sour about was the all-too-expected and somewhat sanctimonious scene in the novel where Lou is trying to figure out what is "normal" anyway? If the world were predominantly autistic would "normal" people seek treatment to fit in better with society? Anyway, that section does not last long. I have never been a fan of writers who have their characters self-reflect for pages on end, but that very short section was the only moment where I thought the author let out the slack a little too far. The rest is very enjoyable. This book is thoughtfully written and obviously very personal for the author, Elizabeth Moon, who is the mother of an autistic child. While reading this book don't be surprised to find yourself finding patterns in multi-colored carpet fibers or architecture or other things with a definite or potential mathematical structure to them. The main character's profession involves pattern analysis and it echoed into my own life on more than one occasion. This book affected me on many levels, altering my perspective about people and how they relate to one another, and to a lesser degree whether or not "change" is a good thing or not when considering individuality. Any book that makes me think is definitely worth recommending to others. On the cover of this novel is a picure of a white-and-red pinwheel with several rows of binary numbers overlapping the cover from top to bottom. After reading this book the cover makes more sense than ever before. That, and I will never look at a pinwheel in the future without thinking fondly about this book. Pick up this splendid novel and enjoy! Thank you for reading my review.

Thoughtful, but sometimes frustrating:
This book is moderately interesting and mostly well thought out. It portrays the normal life of an autistic person credibly, and cautiously approaches some important dilemmas about identity. But what it leaves out is sometimes frustrating. The ending is a bit too cryptic. The ape research that plays an important role in the story is hardly explained at all, as if it could only be understood by experts, when it seems to me that the research must have included some observations of behavioral changes in the apes that an average person could understand and which should influence the protagonist in his difficult choice.

Should he? Shouldn't he?:
I work for an organization that serves people with disabilities. We have started a disability book club in which we choose a book with a primary character with a disability, all read it, get together and talk about the themes raised in the book. Speed of Dark was our first book. It was a perfect one to start with. The book raises so many questions about disability, about autism, about the human condition. The question of cure, the idea of 'needing fixed' was a huge one for the book club members. We all felt very passionately about the end of the book. This is a book that leaves one feeling conflicted ... should he take the cure? is he fine the way he is? what could be gained? what could be lost? This book allows a glimpse into a mind that works well but works differently. Elizabeth Moon manages to create a character that it is impossible not to identify with ... despite the autism maybe even because of the autism. A great read, but warning ... you will need to talk about the ending with someone ... absolutely need to.

A fascinating look on people!:
"The Speed of Dark" tells a story of an autistic man, Lou, in a near future. The date is not specified, but it should be around 2040. Our protagonist works for a big firm, doing pattern recognition, but a new manager deciedes, that he will be better as a guinea pig for a new method to cure autism. So, this looks like a thriller, a man against the system, that kind of thing. But it's not. This story, told from Lous' point of view, is a tale of his trying to understand 'normal' people. And it's a wonderful look on people, which managed to paint the autistic persons more human, then the 'normal' ones. Lous' attempts to understand human behaviour, to see patterns in it are very interesting, and gave me food for thought for a long time to come. There are several drawbacks to the novel. One is the black and white colors of the characters, which make the bad guys of the novel more caricatures, then realistic characters. While it can be justified by the overall structure and purpose of the novel, I would liek them, at least, not to be so in-your-face-arrogant-SOBs. Another drawback for me was the adrupt ending of the book. I won't get into the details, but at one point Lou had to make a very seriouse decision. The results of it are given just a couple of pages, and one of the storylines, which was very important, and a delight to read, got only ONE SENTENCE! Still, this book told me a lot, not only about autistic people, but also about myself. Read it.