The Speed of Dark

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

In The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon blends science fiction, neuroscience, and her own experience to speculate about a future in which scientists have nearly eliminated the symptoms of autism. Lou Arrendale???s cohort is the last of the impaired autistics. Thanks to early intervention programs, Lou and his colleagues are verbal, take care of themselves, and work for a pharmaceutical company that makes use of their savant abilities, yet they lack the social understanding needed to integrate into ???normal??? society. But that could all change because Lou???s company has just received approval to begin clinical trials on a procedure that may cure them of their disorder, and the boss wants to use Lou and his co-workers as the first guinea pigs.

Because Elizabeth Moon has a teenager with autism, a background in science (and science fiction), and has done a lot of research, The Speed of Dark feels like an authentic account of an autistic man???s cognitive processes. I was completely fascinated by Lou???s revelations about the way he thinks, the things he understands and remembers, the environmental stimuli that he either doesn???t notice or can???t ignore, and the way he uses music and motion to help him integrate and regulate sensory input. This was really well done (except that I feel pretty sure that Lou wouldn???t use the term ???object permanence??? to explain ???shape constancy???). Few readers could fail to become emotionally attached to Lou and to root for him as he struggles to understand who he is and how he fits in, tests his strengths and challenges himself to excel, makes friends and enemies, falls in love, learns how his brain works and, most importantly, decides who he wants to be.

The focus on Lou deprives the other characters of some depth, but perhaps they seem this way because we view them mainly from Lou???s perspective. Marjory, the girl Lou has fallen in love with, exhibits very little personality, and Mr. Crenshaw, the ???villain,??? is so completely over-the-top that I kept thinking of Mr. Waternoose from Monsters, Inc. In fact, in Brilliance Audio???s version, the reader, Jay Snyder, sounds just like Mr. Waternoose (who was played by James Coburn). By the way, I highly recommend this audiobook because the novel is written in the first person and Snyder???s voice, which so perfectly captures Lou???s social awkwardness, adds to the emotional impact and makes Lou???s stilted language not only easier to ???read,??? but actually quite charming.

The Speed of Dark, which won the Nebula Award, is one of those novels that makes you feel the whole spectrum of emotions, changes the way you think, and stays with you forever. Its portrayal of a devastating behavioral disorder is all at once beautiful, humorous, enlightening, heart-wrenching, poignant, and hopeful.

“The Speed of Dark” follows a period in the life of an autistic man, Lou Arrendale, told mostly from his perspective. From the back cover of the book:

“Thoughtful, poignant and unforgettable, The Speed of
Dark is a gripping exploration into the world of Lou
Arrendale, an autistic man who is offered a chance to
try a brand-new experimental “cure” for his condition.
Now Lou must decide if he should submit to a surgery
that might completely change the way he views the
world...and the very essence of who he is.”

There is so much more to the story than this implies
though. Lou is a highly functional autistic. He has
a job, drives a car, has his own apartment, and
conducts his own affairs...in many ways better than I
do! He interacts with those considered “normal” on a
regular basis, including the participation in a weekly
fencing group. The conflict over the experimental
cure is much more than a should I/shouldn't I issue.
He has to overcome other challenges during the
book that no one should ever be confronted with.

I'd heard that The Speed of Dark, by Elizabeth Moon, was a rewrite of Flowers of Algernon by Daniel Keyes, only with an autistic man rather than a mentally handicapped one. In one respect this is true. At the beginning of the novel the protagonist of The Speed of Dark is pressured by his company to be a subject testing a drug ostensibly designed to get rid of autism. But the novel itself is about so much more, to the point that the fear of having to participate in this medical procedure almost takes a back seat to all of the other issues facing Lou Arrendale. Issues like: what is normal? What is the nature of personality (if he has this treatment will he cease to be himself? Will he still like the same things? Will he be able to do the work he enjoys?). What is the speed of Dark? (Is it the absence of light or does it travel faster than light, thereby arriving first?)

Told mostly, but not exclusively, from Lou's point of view, we get a very well researched idea of how autistic people see the world. A point of view that helps to broaden your own as a reader and human being.

It's a great novel. Well written and with an ending you won't see coming.