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?
I think that threads and connections are central to the development of Tomasula's story, and so this is probably the reason that etymology, language, and evolution are so interwoven into the story. He keeps coming back to language and etymology in his discussion of eugenics because these are components that can be applied to the practice of eugenics. Etymology shows us origin and the way that things changes over time (which is central to the practice of eugenics). Language can be an important force that propels forward the practice of eugenics. Additionally, I do believe that Tomasula is making a statement of language being a tool for the progression of eugenics.
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