My Fair Ladies by Julie Wosk

My Fair Ladies: Female Robots, Androids, and Other Artificial Eves by Julie Wosk

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Great read.

This book describes and convincingly explains many instances of artificial women and women acting artificially from fiction, film, art, and performance art.

I was particularly struck by the discussion of the "uncanny valley," the unsettling moment when someone, perhaps the object of love, turns out to be a robot, or someone thought to be a robot turns out to be human.

Also, for me, the description and analysis of the many instances of Ray Bradbury's Electric Grandmother and its variants struck home strongly, evoking memories that had me teary eyed as I read.

And the analysis of the many iterations of the Pygmalion theme in both art and story over the course of 2000 years made me think of Shakespeare rewriting and transforming plays/plots/characters that others had created, finding the true story and bringing the characters to life.



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