I've read this book four or five times. I don't know that I learned anything new or insightful on this reading, but I did have some reactions in regards to the foreward included in this edition by Orson Scott Card. Card reacted to a criticism that the kids in the story (the main characters who have the fate of the world on their military shoulders) don't process or act like kids. Which, considering Ender is six when the story begins, I'd have to agree with the critic. Card counters that he received a letter from a group of gifted teens at a math camp who write him to tell him how on the mark he is; they too have felt smarter and more adult than other children and Card hit the nail on the head. "Well, of course they did!" I wanted to shout. They are kids. I remember being 12 years and 6 months and feeling that 12 years really should be considered a teenager. At least I felt like a teenager. And by the time I was a teenager at the ripe old age of 13, I wanted to be treated as an adult. Teenagers want to be treated old and think of themselves as old.
As I thought about that I thought about how little kids in high school seem. And even as I did that, the part of me that remembers being a teenager was annoyed at condescending 29 year old me. I guess I'm grateful for all the adults I was surrounded with who were insightful enough to remember how important it is for teenagers feel validated and who made me feel adult. I hope I remember to do that.
I guess I really liked the character of Graff, the adult in the novel who loves and recognizes the value and importance of these kids. Maybe that's what I'd really like to emulate.
I thought a lot more about this book. First off, I was annoyed by the book. I LOVED the character of Ender in Ender's Game and I originally thought that this story, told from the perspective of another character, Bean, changed the character in less than sympathetic ways. But then I changed my mind and thought that maybe it fit; we are most kind to ourselves and less kind when we filter other's personalities through our own perspective. Then I was amazed that Card could tell an entirely new and original story based on largely the same sequence of events. The book wasn't just Ender's Game from a different perspective. It was an entirely new story where, incidentally, some of the same stuff happens. I think that's pretty incredible. And while I'd like to keep Ender's Game totally separate in my mind, I appreciated this new story.
Maybe because I was already thinking about kids acting like adults, I was most interested in the idea of intelligence as it relates to human emotions. In this book at least, Bean is a kid who's genes were altered in embryo, so that he is incredibly smart. Some people in the book question whether he is even human at this point. But Bean knows that he feels emotions like other humans do, so he must still be. He is just able to control his emotions and give little priority to them because he is so smart and it wouldn't be intelligent to give way to emotion so rashly.
This made me wonder about intelligence and emotion. Do smart people control their emotions better than others? To some extent I think this is true, but the only example I have is my Dad. My Dad is a truly intelligent and well-read individual and I've never known my Dad to be offended by anyone. Is that because he's smart? Or is it because that's just his nature? I've never really thought about it before now.
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