Etymology and Language in the Flatland

Tomasula's Vas blends a whole lot of threads together to make his "opera." Tackling the kinds of big ideas like lineage, reproductive rights, eugenics, genetic modification both natural and artificial, and a base narrative about a man with a wife and child, Vas is complicated and encompassing. But I'm most interested in his connection of all the above topics - topics of science and politics - to etymology.

On page 179, he writes that Square "looked at Oval, [and] he could see an etymology of himself within the dimensions of her face." In earlier parts of the book, he draws out etymological family trees for the characters and their names. This is a book where library volumes are compared to "a vast Victorian collection of mollusks"(68), and where the authors spends about ten pages discussing the evolution and destruction of languages around the world, past, present, and future (75-85).

Why do you think this is so important to Tomasula? Why does he keep coming back to language and etymology in his discussion of eugenics? Is he making a postcolonial statement on language being a eugenic tool?

The Odd Opera in Flatland

As I was getting ready to type up this blog I had two friends in my living room. I mentioned that it was time to get out my book with a cover that looks like flesh. They were a little confused at that so I passed them the book and naturally the cover weirded them out. What weirded them out the most was when they opened the book and their faces scrunched up and they asked if this was some sort of cult book. I told them that my professor would never assign us such a thing. Clearly the structure and inside of the book is very odd. Incredibly so, and my friends got very confused and a little disturbed looking through it. Mostly confused. We English majors might be used to a novel like this compared to say a Japanese and Psychology major. However, it did get me thinking...

For what reason is the novel set up this way? What does it achieve? It is certainly not set up like a normal novel and the extra text around the plot is confusing yet important. There are things like mentions of "Babel?" and "Birth of a nation" on page 52. Though it seemingly doesn't apply to the passage on the "mystery of the world" it might apply to the whole concept and plot of the novel overall (Tomasula 52). Do you think that these outlying words are important?

And another and final question I want to ask because I'm genuinely curious... Who do you think this novel is written for? What is the intended audience for such a strangely put together novel? Is there an intended audience?