The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm

For me, The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm was an interesting read with a very intriguing setting. Placing the narrative in the future, but basing it in Zimbabwe, completely turns my Euro-American perspective on its edge. I never really thought I was so biased in thinking so, but after reading through this book I feel that there must be something to that.

       While the story was set far off in the future, and deals with issues that I would never understand or can relate to, the power struggles, particularly the socio-economic disparities, was something that stood out to me. It was an interesting situation, where the good guys/heroes of The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm are from a lower class. They live in the bad part of town. Even She Elephant's actions are rationalized towards the end, as her motives her outlined as having to do with her upbringing. The caring community that raises Trashman is touching, and even the children's father suggests redistributing the wealth found in Trashman's home. All of which really touched me, and inspired me.

       As a science fiction novel, the main elements that stood out were the robots and artificial intelligence that worked in homes, the flying automobiles, and even some genetic modifications such a s the Blue Monkey. There were also elements of what could happen from environment destruction, such as the toxic landfill and even the nuclear mutilations that occur for The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm. In the novel, they discuss how their special abilities are the exception to the typical reactions to drinking the contaminated water (or rather their mothers doing so).

       The numerous cultures that are portrayed and their interactions are an interesting topic that the book goes through. Like I mentioned earlier, the reversal of the typical Euro-American gaze to a Zimbabwean world is a great idea to work through. While it seems that the world is "post-race" with the only elements of racial terms being to describe the Ear, the Eye, and the Arm as being white, brown and black, respectively, the allegiances to tribal and ethnic groups is interesting. This book could generate some interesting discussions on those notions. And I think that is what the book wants, it wants to explore these notions of cultures and groups, and that could possibly be why Nancy Farmer added the glossary of terms and cultural practices to the end.