ŷ������

I recently read a heartfelt and heartbreaking book called ‘My Tender Matador�� by Pedro Lemebel. Set in Santiago during the unsuccessful 1986 assassination attempt on Pinochet, it centres on an aging drag queen simply called the Queen of the Corner (because the ramshackle house she lives in is literally located on a corner.)

She embroiders tablecloths etc. for military wives to make ends meet. Ironically, this makes the Queen of the Corner quite extraordinarily connected in her world, even if she largely remains oblivious to political undercurrents.

It also brings her to the attention of dashing Carlos and his cadres, who charm the Queen of the Corner into letting them use her house for their clandestine meetings. The Queen is immediately taken with young Carlos, and so begins an achingly delicate courtship between the two.

However, it is abundantly clear that Carlos admires her for the unapologetic and fiercely independent way she lives her life. It is equally clear that Carlos is exploiting the Queen’s attraction to him, just as the Queen knows intuitively that he will indulge her hopeless crush so that she is comfortable with their ‘arrangement�� and considers it fair value.

Writing about toxic relationships or ones where the power dynamic is skewed can be extraordinarily difficult and rewarding, for writer and reader. Unfortunately, there seems to be a modern trend whereby the exact mechanics of such imbalances are accepted as the status quo, rather than properly examined or analysed.

I’d go so far as to say that the partner in which all the power resides is ‘celebrated�� for his dominance (yes, they are invariably male), which is transmuted into a sense of mystery, virility and eroticism tinged with danger. This ‘formula�� has found expression in everything from E.L. Grey’s ‘Fifty Shades�� to Stephanie Meyer’s ‘Twilight�� saga.

In ‘My Tender Matador��, there is something beautiful in watching Carlos the cadre gradually fall under the spell of the Queen of the Corner. Yes, it is an opportunistic or parasitic relationship, but one gradually senses the centre of power shifting between them.

Or perhaps it is a case of them both being equally open-minded about their mutual opportunism, which then paradoxically gives them the clarity to see each other as they truly are �� flawed, dishonest, damaged and deceptive. It is a kind of intimacy that results in a much deeper bond than any physical connection would have provided.

I was immediately reminded of ‘My Tender Matador�� when I began reading ‘Docile��, especially at the beginning when Alex encounters Elisha for the first time at the relatively neutral meeting ground of the Office of Debt Resolution (ODR), a very real boundary or barrier between two starkly contrasted realities.

The one is the world of Alexander Bishop III (or ‘ABIII��, as per his personal monogram), the heir of the billionaire family that owns the patent for Dociline, the drug administered to Dociles to allow them to serve their sentences of indentured slavery without incident (or any memory of the experience).

The other is Elisha’s much more familiar world of industry and agriculture. This represents a proletarian underclass where debt is hereditary. Elisha’s mother submitted to being a bondservant for her family, but returns with permanent mental damage from Dociline. And the family’s debt is still intact.

This gives Elisha no choice but to become a Docile himself, especially to protect his younger sister Abby from the same experience. When he meets Alex for the first time, Elisha is sexually inexperienced and, crucially, unsure about his own orientation (though I suspect this is merely a gambit on the part of Szpara to up the stakes between his main protagonists.)

There is an immediate spark of attraction between the two at the ODR, which is one important pillar of the narrative. The other is that Dociles have various ‘rights��, one of which is to refuse to take Dociline. Though if one has no recall of doing so or any memories of what follows, what is to stop someone simply being ‘drugged�� without consent?

This is a right that Elisha crucially invokes once Alex has accepted him as a Docile. It raises the immediate question of why Alex didn’t do a proper pre-screening of Elisha, especially given his political importance and how any choice of Docile is likely to reflect on his status and influence.

In fact, herein lies my major problem with Szpara’s narrative. His world-building is designed to drive the initial meeting between Alex and Elisha and everything that happens thereafter between them, as it is all about their ‘relationship��. The 75 chapters alternate between their first-person viewpoints.

Everything else about their world is left frustratingly opaque. There is a single reference to the concept of nexum or mancipatio, a type of debt bondage contract from the Roman Empire whereby the debtor pledged his or her person as collateral:

Debt bondage existed in the early Republic largely as a result of increasing control over the ager publicus, or public land, by individuals who acquired disproportionate wealth and power and distorted the republican ideal of a commonwealth. As farmers and laborers lost access to the land that was theoretically held in common by the Roman people (populus Romanus), they were unable to earn a living, and nexum was resorted to as security for debts.

I learned more from this cogent Wikipedia definition than I did from Szpara’s novel itself, which is especially problematic if it is to be considered SF. As for Dociline, there is a long tradition in SF of drugging populations into obedience, from Soma in Huxley’s ‘Brave New World�� to the movie ‘Soylent Green��. Exactly why Dociline is not simply applied to the population as a whole is an issue that Szpara never explores.

So what is Szpara’s key driver here? Well, to put it bluntly, Elisha is Anastasia Steele and Alex is Christian Grey. So Elisha drops his bombshell about refusing Dociline �� Again, why? He knows that, as a Docile, he will not only be forced to have sex with Alex but be passed around to Alex’s friends and their Dociles like a party favour of the week, which could be problematic especially if he does not know if he is gay or not ��

Alex then realises that he will have to ‘train�� Elisha into a submissive state more akin to a true Docile, which begins an elaborate process of reward-and-punishment, culminating (well, climaxing) in the much-telegraphed ‘first fuck��. Which is basically a rape carried out by a pampered and privileged predator.

Worryingly, Szpara writes this scene with all the heavy-handed cues of bad gay porn. I have read reviews comparing ‘Docile�� to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale��. Well, I have to say there is nothing about the Ceremony in this scene. It is tawdry and titillating, without a scrap of nuance.

Even without Dociline, Elisha finds that he enjoys being violated �� a conviction soon put to the test when Alex takes him to his first Patron and Docile ‘party�� (yes, there is an orgy scene, and even a horse race staged with Dociles as steeds.)

In order to ‘please�� Alex (and also because he is perpetually horny), Elisha embarks on a kind of ‘Stockholm Syndrome for Dummies�� auto self-initiation programme (he also learns how to cook, play the piano and go shopping, so it is not all down to his prodigious talent for being tied up and fucked silly.)

However, so successful is he at ingratiating himself into Alex’s good graces that the two soon find themselves developing ‘feelings�� for each other. But neither can tell whether or not any of this is genuine �� From this point on it is all downhill, unless you enjoyed the movie ‘Pretty Woman��. Of which this movie is much a gayer version, with none of the charm of Julia Roberts to leaven the proceedings.

I don’t want to give too much away about the plot, as this is a book that depends heavily on the twists and turns of its baroque melodrama. Suffice it to say that we end up with a half-baked courtroom thriller (not to mention a ‘mad scientists in a lab�� routine thrown in for good measure).

Probably thinking that their readers would be bored by so much plot, Szpara then throws in what is perhaps the most elaborate sex scene in the entire book (no mean feat, that.) Except the two characters involved �� why, oh why did Szpara have to resort to that particular pairing? �� renders it utterly tone-deaf to any internal logic or psychological layering.

It has absolutely no relevance beyond porn. I must admit to having to Google ‘sounding��, which I discovered involves inserting a rod up your urethra. Which is a pretty good description of reading this sleaze-bucket of a completely exploitative and non-SF excuse of a novel.