The Dream Hotel AND Hum: Because We Are Very Scared . . .
We are doing two-in-one! Both deal with similar themes and both are dystopian, but shimmy close to reality. Like, could these things really happen? In Hum by Helen Phillips, we’re kinda/probably in New York City, but maybe not, and the world is a mess. Air quality sucks. It’s hot. But there are still subways! However, the future is AI performing surgery and holding kids on their fake laps. This mom, Mae, has an experimental surgery to make her face unrecognizable to AI–a stab at privacy. Then, her family pays for a little getaway–one can stay in the “Botanical Gardens” in the City for a few nights. It’s a rare opportunity to see plants. But things get crazy.
In The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami, the near-future involves the government’s Risk Assessment Administration having an office dedicated to keeping Americans safe by predicting their likelihood of committing a crime. This likelihood is created through an algorithm that Americans have been supplying the government through innocuous-seeming data collection (their social media presence, for example), including a tool that consumers can sign up for that analyzes your dreams (an implant that helps one sleep–but also happens to gain access to one’s dreams). Dreams are the main thing. Upon returning to the U.S. from a work conference in London, our main character, Sara, is detained at LAX as her husband is circling the airport with their sixteen-month-old twins in the backseat. Sara’s risk score has crept past the “safe” spot (500), and she’s considered a threat and must be detained for a mandatory two-week period at a government retention center that officials work very hard to say is not prison. The reader knows better.
Jennifer: I do have to start off with a weird little personal story, hopefully of no consequence. I recently flew to Portland on a dreamy writer’s retreat on the Oregon coast. I got to the airport, got to the TSA, and–for some reason–I was chosen to go through a new and easy process called “Clear.” Free trial, the wave of the future, facial recognition and fingerprints, very nice saleswoman, official airport/TSA stuff: no wait in line. I did it. I shouldn’t have done it. I don’t know why I was so freakin’ gullible. In a matter of minutes, I had my face scanned, my fingerprints scanned, and I was CLEAR. I think fear of TSA motivated me.
I canceled it upon returning home–BUT I now have my face and fingerprints out there.
How does it relate to our books?
Well, I’m kinda nervous.
What did you think of these two novels? Did you like one better than the other?
Lara: Hmmm. I don’t want to freak you out, but I am surprised you did that. Is it any worse than my Apple watch, Oura Ring, or social media presence? I have no idea.
Jennifer: You did Oura, but I did Clear! We’re both f@#%ed! (No, seriously, I can’t believe I did it either–dumb.)
Lara: But it’s books like these (and a recent article in the Guardian about the UK developing a ‘murder prediction tool’ or the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a 10-year Moratorium on State AI Laws that have me concerned about our future (among many other things)… not because I am planning a murder, of course.
Jennifer: We’re going crazy, but I also heard Elon Muski s working on a brain implant! Stop the Madness!
Lara: But about these books, I would say I liked them equally. There are gaps; they aren’t perfect, but what they are really good at is getting you to think. I am thinking more about how much of a personal footprint I have out there in the interwebs. In talking about The Dream Hotel at my indie bookstore’s book club last month, I was surprised to hear how many people acknowledged dumping their smart watches in favor of a traditional one (or dumb one).
The books are very different. I would say that both are semi-terrifying, have moments of realness or where we could be, and one offered a glimmer of hope whereas the other did not.’
Thematically, they both cover the topic of government surveillance which we are seeing more of in the real world.
What did you think?
Jennifer: I also liked them both–though I liked Hum more. I do think they both get at the issue of government surveillance very well; however, each book emphasizes different aspects. I’d say that, for me, the aspect of motherhood in Hum hit hard. I was haunted when I read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, and this book had a similar effect.
I think The Dream Hotel hits a different nerve.
Lara: It definitely did for me. I think, of the two, The Dream Hotel seems more plausible/realistic/already-kind-of-happening when you think about digital surveillance, and things like being detained for your online actions/behaviors. Sara is a mother with YOUNG children at home. Because dreams she’s had where she’s at her wits end with her husband, she’s supposedly a risk for harming him. I am sorry, but what working mother with a young child or children hasn’t been exasperated and directed that at her husband? With that logic, all mothers should be locked up.
“Disappointingly there is no news on the RAA. Instead, the paper is running an editorial on criminal justice reform, which causes retention, a humane tool for reducing violence because it saves American communities, both the trauma of the crime and the cost of prosecuting it. It’s time to leave antiquated notions of punishment behind, the editorial concludes, and expand our bias, free, science based Crime prevention system.”
What’s also problematic and resembles real life is that Sara is told she will be retained for two weeks, but her release date keeps changing. The hoops she has to jump through get higher and more complicated, much the way it is for people who are incarcerated (but note, Sara is repeatedly told she’s not in prison).
“Maybe past and present aren’t all that different, she thinks. The strange thing – the amazing thing, really – is that we’ve managed to find work-arounds to surveillance: we speak in whispers, look for cameras, blind spots, pass contraband through the toilet or showers, even as we know that breaking the rules may lengthen our confinement.”
Jennifer: So, I do want to point this subtlety out, as well. I listened to the audiobook of The Dream Hotel and, in it, the protagonist’s name (Sara) is pronounced differently, depending on who’s doing the talking. It is pronounced with an Arabic accent by those who know her, and with an American accent by those who are “officials.” It’s a subtle way of undermining her individuality.
Lara: OH! That’s interesting! I don’t remember a distinction in the print version. That’s also a tactic used by people in power to devalue.
Jennifer: I’m going to throw in this other book I’m reading. I wouldn’t have picked it up had it not been mentioned at the book club you referenced above. In the discussion on The Dream Hotel, The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan was mentioned. It’s good so far–but I think the plight of mom hits me hard. It’s not easy being a mom!
But surveillance. . .
I like this quote from Hum:
“We are all villains,” the hum said. “The system only gives us villainous options.”
I guess one question that both of these books raise is this: Is this surveillance thing inevitable? (Haven’t we all seen those memes about Alexa spying on us? Maybe Putin or Elon or Vance is already watching us through our phones!)
How much is real here? Is this our future?
Lara: I think it’s real and I think that it’s already happening and has been happening for a long time. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but if you think we haven’t been monitored for a long time…. And it’s not just this administration. I think it will get more advanced.
Jennifer: By the way, these books hit me personally close to home in another way besides the mom-stuff and my Anxious Generation nerves. I admit to being AI-phobic. It harks back to my other life as an English professor. Every single day, almost, I am confronted by ChatGPT in the classroom–doing the work of English composition students. Now, if I’m on my high horse, I’ll insist that good writing involves good thinking, and losing one’s ability to write definitely affects one’s ability to critically think. That said, my husband just went back to school and got his MBA, and he insists upon its ethical uses in academia. I’m, like, Whatever.
I seriously think I’ve experienced the same thoughts mentioned in this Hum passage:
“But were the words his own, or were they an option offered him by his phone? He never called her “love” and was generally meticulous with commas and periods. Then again, he could have been in a rush, which would explain the poor punctuation and the uncharacteristic term of endearment, shorthand for tenderness he didn’t have time to express. But Jem’s phone knew that the occasional dropped piece of punctuation was typical of his texting tendencies at times, the error evidence of authenticity, and so the phone might reproduce the error, in order to reproduce the authenticity.”
Do you think these books touch upon our “loss of authenticity”? Are we losing our senses of self?
Lara: Absolutely. I think interacting via screens is eroding our ability to forge real connection and empathy for one another. It’s absolutely a contributing factor to the divisiveness we feel about nearly everything.
Jennifer: Another issue relevant to both books is our own willingness to submit to this New World Order. I’m not a great sleeper, but I’m thinking, I wouldn’t get a brain implant EVER.
. . . but I did that CLEAR thing!
And I have friends who are careful about posting political stuff on social media because of jobs, but I always fall back on my main vocation: I’m a freakin’ WRITER.
. . . so I say what I want.
BUT I admit: I’m better than a teenager and I have a life, but I get phone-addiction. I may not be dipping into weirdo conspiracies or porn, but I watch A LOT of cat-and-dog reels.
There’s a scene in Hum–I can’t find it–in which Mae simply cannot resist looking at her phone when it dings.
. . . Sadly, I get it.
Are you phone-addicted?
Lara: It’s totally embarrassing, but yes! So much so that I installed an app that shuts down my primary social media apps for most of the day and then around 9 p.m. I do have to say it’s allowing me to read more. And I think my feelings of dread are waning, so there’s that.
Jennifer: The wooms scared me in Hum also. Frankly, this book scared me.
Couples (kids too) sleep in their separate “wooms”–these AI-mood machines that comfort you, hold-you-close-like-a-tiny-dancer/give you forest sounds/show you what you want to watch on the screens (commercial free if you pay like Spotify premium)–unless the couple shares the bed for sex before returning to their wooms. But, if one of them watches porn on their woom screens, no one blinks an eye. It’s just the dystopian norm.
I did read a review somewhere (on goodreads, I think) that suggested that Hum was too focused on motherhood, and might not appeal to those who are not moms. Would you agree?
Lara: Let’s be honest. More women read fiction. More women read books by women authors. More women read books that feature women. If men want to understand women more, there’s a path. The reality is most men don’t and won’t. Not bitterness, just facts.
We’ve kind of pointed to these books’ doom and gloom. Do you recommend them? I do. They both give you a lot to think about – and ideally talk about.
Jennifer: Ha! I do! Hum, more so, but yes. I admire smart books that creatively touch upon pressing issues. What else have you been reading?
Lara: SO MUCH. I am telling you limiting your social media usage is amazing for your reading time. Okay, since we last met, I have read EIGHT books (that includes the two discussed here). The best of the bunch were: Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson (a must on audio with Marin Ireland narrating); The Names by Florence Knapp, Old School Indian by Aaron John Curtis, A Family Matter by Claire Lynch, On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed, and Stay: A Story of Family Love, and Other Traumas by Julie Fingersh.
Jennifer: I’ll only highlight a few. I loved Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You: It’s a collection of linked stories, focusing on Trelawny, the son of Jamaican-born parents in Miami. I listened to Ethan Hawke narrating Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Cynical book. Smart man. Good Ethan. And I’m currently reading a book that I think I’ll continue to think well of: Peace Like a River by Leif Enger.
Up Next!
It’s Oprah’s current book club selection: The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong.