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Summary
Part One: Robe and Ring, Chapters 1—3
H.S. Curie journal entry
H.S. Curie, who remains otherwise unidentified, writes that scythes must keep a journal of the people they kill. Though scythes do kill, they use the euphemism “gleaning.” Curie believes all people are both innocent and guilty and that scythes must also record their feelings about their work as a testament to the world.
Chapter 1: No Dimming of the Sun
An unexpected visit from a scythe wearing an ivory robe throws the Terranova home into a terrified uproar. Citra, the family’s teenage daughter, reflects that people admire scythes while also fearing them. The Terranovas assume the scythe has come to glean one of them, but they still politely serve him dinner and make small talk with him. The scythe identifies himself as Faraday. As is scythe custom, he chose his own name inspired by an important historical figure, called a Patron Historic, and he explains his reasons for picking Faraday. While Citra’s brother Ben chatters about his scythe collector cards, Citra asks Faraday about his age. Though her mother chastises her for rudeness, Faraday compliments Citra on her honest curiosity.
After dinner, Citra cannot stand the suspense any longer and berates Faraday for the mental torture he’s subjecting them to. Faraday finds her directness refreshing. He grants Citra’s mother, Jenny, immunity from gleaning for a year and finally admits that he is actually going to glean their neighbor, and that he only stopped by because he was hungry and the neighbor was not home. Before leaving with one of the Terranovas’ knives, he tells Citra she would make a good scythe. She tells him she would not want to be a scythe, and Faraday notes that this reluctance is exactly why she would make a good one. Faraday returns the knife later that night and insists they keep it, arguing that it will remind them that scythes are just tools wielded by humanity. Citra throws the knife away once he leaves.
H.S. Curie journal entry
Curie explains why scythes came into existence. Society’s advancements have eradicated disease and natural death, but people must still die, so scythes have usurped this prerogative from nature.
Chapter 2: .303%
Rowan waits by his friend Tyger’s revival center bedside. Tyger engages in splatting, a thrill-seeking recreation of jumping from high places. While splatting does not appeal to Rowan, he shares Tyger’s general sense of boredom and frustration. Rowan calls them both “lettuce kids,” a term he invented to refer to himself and others who are forgotten in their complicated, distant families, like lettuce in a sandwich. Rowan’s mother, who presents as thirty-five years old, is irritated with her mother who recently regenerated to twenty-five in a process called “turning the corner.” Rowan doesn’t understand the obsession with resetting to younger ages.
At school, Rowan encounters a scythe wearing an ivory robe and reluctantly leads him to the principal’s office. The scythe asks for Kohl Whitlock, a star football player. Rowan insists on staying because he feels protective of Kohl, though Kohl does not even know Rowan’s name. Rowan demands to know why the scythe has targeted Kohl, and the scythe explains that Kohl fits the profile of a teen drunk-driving death from the time when mortal death still existed. Beyond that, Kohl was a random choice. Despite the scythe’s warning, Rowan insists on holding Kohl’s hand during the fatal electric shock. Rowan’s courage and kindness impress the scythe, who nonetheless warns him that nobody else will feel the same way. Soon after, the rest of the school begins blaming Rowan for the gleaning, accusing him of morbid curiosity.
H.S. Curie journal entry
Curie explains that in 2042, a computer system called the Thunderhead became infinite. But once all knowledge became accessible through the Thunderhead, people lost interest in knowledge for its own sake. People conquered natural death in the same year. Soon, the world adopted the Chinese calendar method by which years are named but not numbered.
Chapter 3: The Force of Destiny
Citra receives an invitation to the opera that is presumably from a secret admirer. There, she sits with another teenager named Rowan, who has also received a mysterious invitation. Scythe Faraday arrives, and both Rowan and Citra recognize him. Faraday invites them to a museum the next morning that highlights art from the mortal age. Faraday educates them on mortal-age art and extends an invitation to them to become his apprentices for a year. He warns them that only one, however, would become a formal apprentice, while the other would return to their normal life. Faraday believes both demonstrate strong character and sees their lack of interest in being a scythe as promising. Citra and Rowan struggle with the decision.
Analysis
These chapters juxtapose epistolary journal entries from a scythe known only as H.S. Curie with a more traditional narrative, efficiently conveying large amounts of expository information and worldbuilding. In the novel’s unique setting, a futuristic America has conquered natural death and enjoys a technologically advanced state, with life monitored by an AI overseer called the Thunderhead. Character conversations and dialogue fill in some of the background on scythes, but most of the worldbuilding information comes from the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie. Though Curie’s role remains unidentified at this point in the novel, her reflections on history and the profession provide readers with key background information in a relatively compact way. Because Citra and Rowan are teenagers existing in the world they have always known, they lack the proper framework to contextualize their own post-mortal society without help from Faraday, so Curie’s philosophical journal entries provide a counterpoint to Citra and Rowan’s relative ignorance. .
Citra and Rowan’s family backgrounds are depicted as a means of comparing and contrasting the two characters, which is further underscored by their reactions to the art Faraday shows them. Rowan’s family represents the post-mortal age. It is convoluted and messy, which is demonstrated when his grandmother turns the corner to appear younger than his mother. On the surface, Rowan’s family has everything this new world offers, but Rowan finds their connection empty and unsatisfying. He has a similar reaction to contemporary art after Faraday introduces him to more evocative, emotionally engaging mortal-age works. By contrast, Citra’s family serves as a nostalgic throwback to mortal times. She and her family are close and still value the tradition of having a meal together. Rowan notes that her family seems to actually care where she is at night, unlike his. Citra does not share Rowan’s visceral reaction to the mortal-age art and even argues with Faraday when he calls post-mortal art boring. Her differing standpoint makes sense given that her family provides her with emotional affirmation and connection that Rowan lacks. The mortal art does not move her in the same way because she is nowhere near as disconnected from it day-to-day as Rowan is.
Through Rowan’s experience, these early chapters establish that defeating death does not inherently lead to a perfect world. In the world of Scythedom, boredom and immortality disturbingly combine. Rowan’s friend Tyger’s unsettling hobby of committing suicide for fun highlights an unexpected consequence of the absence of natural death. When people have ready access to unfathomable amounts of information and technology and can largely avoid death and aging, they become complacent, and their lives are less unique and interesting. People who live in this world may not fear death, but they also lead relatively sheltered lives of convenience, where a simple baked ziti is an unexpected luxury amidst highly synthesized food sources. At the art museum, Rowan realizes that post-mortal art is tepid and lifeless compared to the vibrant work created by artists who lived in a time when death was a given. Paradoxically, by rejecting natural death and wholeheartedly embracing modern technology, this post-mortal society has also rejected a vital part of life. Furthermore, despite the genuine technological advances this society enjoys, societal ills like social exclusion and unhappiness still exist. This enhanced world, while seemingly perfect on the surface, does not protect Rowan from unhappy social experiences at school or at home.
Scythedom is a complex and, at times, ironic culture that repeatedly makes references to mortal-age culture. Though this world seems to no longer have a need for agriculture, relying on synthetic food and priding itself on its technology, scythes explicitly harken back to ancient mortal-age agricultural practices and imagery. Rather than establishing new traditions surrounding death, this society instead reshapes and rehashes traditional ones. As Rowan’s harrowing experience with Kohl’s gleaning demonstrates, people in this post-mortal society still recognize the importance of mercy and believe that people should not die alone, even if following through on those convictions is difficult. The concept of the Patron Historic also owes more to the mortal age than it does to the time of the novel; Faraday, for example, has chosen to name himself after an influential nineteenth-century scientist rather than a post-mortal figure. Faraday’s argument with Citra’s parents about whether there is any longer room for improvement in their world suggests that because people believe they already know everything worth knowing, there will be no further scientific advancements or significant post-mortal figures. Ironically, the scythes exalt the very people who have been made obsolete by the Thunderhead.
Scythes enjoy a peculiar status in this society, both revered and feared because they are one of the only elements of mystery left. As Curie’s journal notes, people can easily access knowledge in this futuristic world, and scythes must document their work for the world. Nevertheless, scythes largely remain shrouded in mystery. The Terranovas know snippets of superficial information about scythes, including the rules about the color of their robes, and Citra’s brother Ben is intrigued enough to collect cards about them that resemble mortal-age children’s baseball cards. Nonetheless, rumors and gossip constitute a substantial amount of their knowledge about scythes, and few know much beyond that. For example, Citra’s family does not know if scythes require their victims to cook for them before gleanings. Faraday also confirms several times that individual scythes differ in how they operate, further enhancing the mystique. Encountering one scythe is no guarantee of how meeting a second scythe will unfold. Scythes, therefore, serve a primordial human need for mystery and danger in this overly synthetic world that otherwise shields people from death, danger, and disease.
