Serialized Pulp Novel: The Rogue and the Merchants (Part 26)

It's been quite a long time. The last time I did some transcribing was back in February. Well, my dissertation prospectus is written, and I find I'm looking for things to take my mind off the project after a day's work. And so, don't be surprised if these serials become a daily thing again. One of these days I'll finish the transcription of this novel manuscript.

In any case, here is serial 26 of my pulp novel, The Rogue and the Merchants. As usual, here is a link to the full transcription, thus far, if you want to know more about the project, the source of the manuscript, or the story of the novel's genesis. Also, all of the illustrations I've been composing are there as well: Pulp Novel Project: The Rogue and the Merchants


***

The Rogue spoke on. He told of how he had deceived the first of the folk he had encountered with a self-inflicted wound and his acting skills and he asked that, when they all arrived to the strange village, they would restrain themselves and refrain from misrepresenting him to the people of the village. He spoke more of the villagers, emphasizing the taboo their leader, the greybeard, had voiced to him: the black-brick ruins that lingered above and beyond the village were sacrosanct. None should approach them.

After summarizing his experiences, it was well into the night, and the Rogue was eager to break away in order to make sure the four warriors from the village were still waiting. The merchants did not want him to leave--all were craven, except for Brol, whose closeness to death and fierceness in battle had stirred some courage in him: "Let him go, you cowardly fools! If those red monsters return, we know the truth now! The demonlings are cowards, nothing more! An old merchant with a quick temper routed them, and it cost but an eye! Cut one of their numbers down, and they'll fly away, screaming like little, frightened children!" He ended his speech with a rasping cough and wiped greenish-red blood from his chapped lips. He needed healing, indeed, thought the Rogue.

Before leaving the Rogue helped Rew and Tauos coordinate the packing up of the camp, and he ordered the still-panicked Paj--in spite of his mental state--to tend to the ailing Brol. The merchant assented quickly, nodded humbly. The Rogue thought it strange when he reflected on how he was, by the law of their homeland Stoh, their property, their servant, their slave; and yet, they responded to his orders now as if he was their master. Helping Brol seemed to level Paj. He helped his leader carefully and deliberately. He dabbed his forehead with a rag, wrung water into his dry mouth.

In any case, the ten remaining merchants--except for Brol and Paj--were busy organizing their departure when the Rogue left them to meet up with the five warriors.

He found them lounging just outside of the hillock upon which the merchants were bivouacked. He used as many non-verbal cues as he could muster to tell the old greybeard's son--the son who wore the wolf-cloak--that they, the merchants--had been informed and were coming back to the village with them. He was eager to discuss the demonlings with the villager-warriors, who he thought might have encountered them before--but their lack of a common language frustrated his curiosity. After he confirmed the warriors knew what was happening, he left him, returning to the merchants. They were finishing packing their horses, tying their parcels and belongings to their saddle. Rew was dousing the fire coals when the warriors and the Rogue strode into the camp's light.

*The Picture of Dorian Gray*: Literary Aesthetics, Fantasy, and the Undecided Text

A couple of days ago I tried out a book club on the West Side of Cleveland. Here's their webpage on meetup.com:  a ne{o}lit book club. The book club was great, and for my part (if you live in the Cleveland Area) I highly recommend coming to a meeting.

The book they were discussing was Oscar Wilde's famous, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). I've always loved this book! I find it really intriguing because, like Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (a ghost story), it is a text that is generally categorized as "literature" while at the same time it has many genre or weird elements.

Intuitively, I jump to describe The Picture of Dorian Gray as a fantasy. Not a "second world fantasy" like J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. It's definitely a fantasy, though.

Consider the premise: there's a magical/supernatural painting the preserves and extends the youth of a young man. All of his horrible actions--all the stains on his soul--appear on the painting rather than on his body. The painting is a kind of "objectified soul" that Dorian can look on and meditate on. This is fantasy! Wilde has definitely deviated from the reality principle here.

It's so interesting, though, that folks rarely file this novel under the rubric of fantasy. This novel seems to announce itself as literature, as high literary art. In fact, the preface to the novel is often cited in anthologies of literary criticism and aesthetic philosophy as inaugurating or at least anticipating the highest of the high literary art: aestheticism or High Modernism. Very often, folks who believe in the importance of aesthetics and literature hearken back to this preface and cite it as a kind of articulation of first principles. Here's a link to the full manuscript of the preface: The Preface to Dorian Gray. See if you disagree with me.

I'd like to highlight a brief passage from this preface: "They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty." Why is this significant here? Well, genre literature--or "weird literature" (science fiction, fantasy, supernatural horror)--has often been criticized and dismissed by literary scholars because of its apparent disregard of "literary beauty." Genre writers, the argument goes, write in a pulp style. Genre writers aren't concerned with form, only content. They don't experiment with literary aesthetics. Unlike High Modernists writers, genre writers aren't concerned with experimenting with the capacities of literary art (e.g. poetic language, narrative, genre, etc..).

I'll be honest. I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. As much as I love weird literature, there's indeed something to this knee-jerk argument. There are lots of genre writers who just don't give a fig for literature as "art." Their project, their productions, the commitment is first and foremost to entertainment--to spinning a good yarn. To be more specific, genre writers seem more concerned with creating an emotion, what literary critics might call an affect (i.e. the fantasy stirs wonders, the horror stirs horror, the science fiction stirs feelings of the sublime or vastness).

The reason why I find The Picture of Dorian of Gray so interesting it that it seems to disrupt this clean framework: (1) genre writers are clumsy writers who aren't concerned with art; (2) high modernist writers are concerned with art and their concern with art can be glimpsed in their focus on language and form.

Dorian Gray is a fantasy, an example of what I like to call "weird literature." And yet--it tends to be framed in a way that runs contrary to how genre literature--fantasy, specifically--is often described, as aesthetically naieve, as pulp. Hmm...This is why I think it's "undecided."

Dr. Moreau and Hubris: A Critical Reflection on the Character of the Mad Scientist

Yesterday I read H.G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau. I found it really intriguing. It brought to mind some thoughts about the recurring science fiction character archetype, the "mad scientist." This is such an interesting and persistent character trope throughout science fiction. Considering this kind of character makes me wonder who the first "authentic" mad scientist was: Dr. Frankenstein? Hmm...

Well, before we can even begin to answer that question, we probably need to develop a working definition of, precisely, what a "mad scientist" is.

A primary attribute of the mad scientist, it seems to me, is that they are a scientist. But what does that mean? To be a scientist? Is to say someone is a scientist also to say they have an academic position? That they lead a lab? Or, is it much less specific than that? Do non-professional researchers who understand scientific theories--are they scientists by virtue of their knowledge? Hmm... I don't think so. I think it takes more than a knowledge base to be considered a scientist. It think there's an ethos to being a scientist, and that ethos goes something along these lines: in order to be a scientist you have to be driven to understand or to know or to fill out a theory or hypothesis that stirs your imagination or captures your curiosity. 


So we figured out what the scientist part of "mad scientist" means. How about that term, mad? What does it mean to be "mad"? Mentally deranged? Well, "mad" comes from the old English word gemædde which means, "out of ones mind." It's a hunch of mind that the "mad" in "mad scientist" is more than just being irrational, insane, demented. There's so much more to it than that. I think this is the case because, on the surface, mad scientists rarely seem insane. Sure, occasionally they laugh maniacally in the worst science fiction; occasionally they indulge in eccentric behavior. But there's more to their behavior than that. This is where the word "deranged" comes in. "Deranged" comes from the old french and means "to throw out of order." No this feels right! Mad scientists are deranged. What do they throw out of order? The natural order. In the case of Dr. Moreau, he throws the natural order out of order by bringing animals out of their primal state into a perverse, civilized state. He flagrantly disregards human morality by engaging in the living surgery of animals.

So here's our new, working definition of "mad scientist":  A mad scientist is someone who is driven to understand or to know or to fill out a theory or hypothesis that stirs his or her imagination, and as a result of this impulse/obsession they upset the balance of the natural order.

It's strange. In other Wells science romances, science and technology seem to offer the promise of turning humans into gods. For example, the time machin allow the time traveler to witness time on a cosmic, semi-divine scale. Scientific theorizing and fact also carries with it risks: consider the horror of the Morlock and Eloi evolutionary fork.

The mad scientist, it seems to me, appears to be the agent, the active "reagent," if you will, of the "rising humanity to the level of gods" promised by science and technology. The mad scientist is the human, equipped with scientific theory, who would play god. Who would be a god. They're not unlike, say, the ancient alchemists who searched for the power to turn basic elements into gold and for the secret of immortality.

Like the alchemist, the key feature of the mad scientist key, their major sin, turns out to hubris.

H.G. Wells's *The Time Machine*: Amplifying Human Perception

I recently read H.G. Wells's famous novella, The Time Machine (1895). It stirred in me an interesting notion that may apply to a large portion of science fiction. In The Time Machine technology is used to amplify the human sensorium to cosmic /divine levels.

Let me explain. In the opening scenes of The Time Machine a bunch of fellas are sitting around, discussing theories of time with the Time Traveler. The Time Traveler suggests that time is a dimension not unlike width, breadth, and length; time is a "fourth dimension" we cannot perceive. He then makes another point: human subjects are limited to certain spatial dimensions. For example, height. We can walk north, south, east, and west as much as we like. We can't, however, move vertically to our pleasure because of gravity. We can, of course, jump, but the force of gravity pulls us down. This is where flying machines come in. Flying machines allow us to transcend that particular spatial dimension our particular embodied situation limits us to: "horizontality". In other words, the "flying machine" technology allows us to transcend a human limit, i.e. the ability to travel vertically.

The drama of The Time Machine turns on a very specific kind of technology, a time machine. What does this technology do? Not only does it allow humans to transcend their particular embedded nature in a specific time dimension, it allows them to do something else, something entirely different. It allows humans to perceive time on a vast, cosmic scale. This, I think, is the understated element of this story: the time traveler's ability to see all of time. He is able to travel far, far into the future, witness the fate of human civilization; further, he is able to witness the final fate of our planet. Put another way, he's able to perceive time as an eternal, omnipresent demi-god or god would percieve time.

And so, my suggestion is that technology is doing something very interesting in this novella: it's amplifying human potential in a vast way. This isn't, of course, all that can be said about this story. There's plenty to say about the ethics of expanding human potential. There's plenty to be said about the experience of expanding human consciousness--amplifying the human sensorium--and how that experience effects the Time Traveler (he doesn't seem to particularly enjoy the experience (i.e. the insights it affords him)). But because Wells is such an foundational writer for all of SF, I think it is important to point this out: in this story, technology expands human consciousness/perception to a god-like scale.

The "Humane" Narrative Pacing of George R.R. Martin's *A Game of Thrones*

Biographical aside: I finished my writing my dissertation prospectus, had it approved by my advisory committee, and then I circulated my approved document to my department. And so, that means I'm pretty much "go for launch" as far as my dissertation is concerned. This feels really good.

To celebrate, I allowed myself to fully indulge in a long fantasy novel, George R.R. Martin's, A Game of Thrones. I've been spending about 2 or 3 hours a day reading this monster. And, in spite of that, I'm still only about two thirds of the way through it. The slow pace by which I'm moving through A Game of Thrones has given me pause. Thus, I want to reflect this morning on "narrative pacing" in the "contemporary" fantasy novel (i.e. mid-1990s to today).

Fast and Slow Narrative Pacing

What do I mean by "narrative pacing"? I mean, the speed by which the narrative of the novel is related. Better to just give some examples of what I'm thinking: a fantasy novel with fast narrative pacing would have lots of crisis events very quickly. For example, in the first 3 pages there might be a fight; or the villain might make an appearance; or the major psychological conflict of the protagonist might be related. A fantasy novel with slow narrative pacing would have very few crisis events in the opening pages. Lots of time would be spent on characterization, the description of environment, the establishment of ambiance.

This distinction between slow narrative pacing and fast narrative pacing is very simplistic and I'm not suggesting we can easily fold any book into this framework. It is useful, I think, to consider how quickly a story is told. To do so throws into focus something very interesting George R.R. Martin does.

I'm not done with the novel yet, but I can tell you this: its narrative pace is very, very slow. The predominant narrative mode of the story is what I like to call the "cafe scene," by which I mean a scene that consists of a lot of folks talking about what's happening, very often over beverages (tea, ale, coffee, etc.) Indeed, the vast majority of the plot in A Game of Thrones is related, I think, through dialogue among the characters. You learn who each character is, what kind of character they are, what their desires are, where they are going, etc. etc., through their spoken words, their "direct discourse" (as narrative theorists would call it). Indeed, we might think about A Game of Thrones as a collection of dialogues as opposed to traditional novel.

There's something interesting about dialog, and this is connected to temporality. Dialog unfolds in a kind of "real time." Let me explain by highlighting an extended passage. Tyrion Lannister is yelling at his nephew Joffrey for not offering condolences to Catelyn Stark:

"You get yourself to Lord and Lady Stark, and you fall on your knees in front of them, and you tell them how very sorry you are, and that you are at their service if there is the slightest thing you can do for them or theirs in this desperate hour, and that all your prayers go with with them" (88, Bantam Edition)

As you read this the scene is mentally actualized in your mind in a specific temporal fashion: you're forced into the role of the "listener" of this dialog; thus, you, as reader, are forced into same temporal positon as the two folks having dialog, Joffrey and Tyrion. Let me try to make things clear by offering a contrast. You won't find this line in A Game of Thrones:

"Tyrion chastised Joffrey for 10 years. The boy grew up to hate him."

The temporal perspective here is much wider. The amount of years that are narrated are not connected to a basic human perspective. Here we've adopted a kind of "historical" stance.

Conclusion

What strikes me about A Game of Thrones is how it always seems anchored in that specific, human temporality. The events unfold--this is a strange way of putting things--in real time. We become "embedded" in the human perspectives of the characters. Martin does this very well. But, I think this is a narrative characteristic of much of the contemporary fantasy coming out now. That's why these novels are getting to be so very huge.

Ghost in the Shell: Meditating on the Soul-as-Software

I'm in the midst of teaching William Gibson's Neuromancer in my novel class. And so, I'm kind of on a "cyberpunk kick." Thus, suffering from some insomnia, I decided to re-watch a great anime cyberpunk from 1995, Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell.

I like anime a lot. I think the animation of many Japanese animators is startlingly beautiful. And yet, I don't go to an anime film (at least primarily) because of the medium. In other words, I generally am attracted to anime films and shows not because of the art but because of the narrative. That's not to say, of course, that often I "come" for the narrative and stay for the "art." As I watch Ghost in the Shell, it's difficult to even separate these two sources of pleasure: (1) the cyberpunk alternative future and scenarios being related and (2) the beautiful artwork and cinematography that brings it alive.

With that said, I don't have much to say about the style of the film, other than that I think, stylistically speaking, the film is gorgeous. I do want to share some thoughts, some meandering associations, that emerged as I considered what I think are some of the themes of the film. 

A major technology in the narrative is the ability for computer hackers to "hack" brains, to erase memories from human brains, and to introduce new memories into them. In this framework the brain becomes a kind of computer hardware and, accordingly, all of our experiences and personality and memories (our ghost, if you will) becomes a kind of software. 

I find this concept of the soul-as-software very intriguing. Some of what I've read has inclined me to be suspicious of this concept of soul-as-software. And yet, I find the idea intriguing nevertheless. Why so? Hmm...

In this framework of soul-as-software, who you are has become figured as a "quantity" of data. What does that mean? It means that the singularity that is you or I is something that is simply pointed to through a complicated chain of "in not this, then this," or binary logic. We become so many 1's and 0's. It's strange to think about a soul like that, as if it is so many "bits" of information. I struggle with this idea because I'm inclined to believe we're constantly changing, ever-evolving. This idea of the soul-as-software suggests, it seems, that at any given time we can be "carbon copied" or isolated as existing in a stable state. We all know that old adage that goes something like this: "we live and die every second." In other words, we're constantly in a state of creation and recreation. The film seems to suggest this isn't the case. Let me explain.

In the film there's a trash guy who gets hacked and his memories are erased; accordingly, he gets an entire new "software" installed on his brain. He comes to believe he has a wife and a daughter when in fact he's a bachelor. When he finds out all of these memories were artificial--when he finds out his entire personality was illusion--he cries. I find this one of the most interesting moments in the film. But it gives me pause. It makes me raise a series of questions: 

(1) If all of our memories are erased and nothing in left in their place, what does that leave us as? A instinct-driven animal? A zombie? 

(2) If our soul is a kind of software that may or may not be downloaded onto computers (let's imagine the technology exists), on what basis can we claim that it has authenticity over, say, an artificial and synthesized set of memories? In other words, when souls become software, on what basis can we claim that this soul as authentic and that soul as artificial?

The Status of Nature in Williams Gibson's *Neuromancer*

I'm teaching a "History of the Novel" class this semester. And I decided to end the class with William Gibson's Neuromancer. We began with Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and now we're ending with a cyberpunk. "What a strange juxtaposition!" you might say. Indeed. Why did I decide on this?

Well, here's my thought succinctly: I'm intrigued by the "status of nature" in both of the novels; more specifically, I'm interested in how the "status of nature" has changed from Robinson Crusoe to Neuromancer.

In Robinson Crusoe nature is something that the protagonist stands off from. Robinson finds himself thrown into nature after a shipwreck. He's trapped in a context that the novel figures as being outside of civilization.The island is a natural space untouched by man, a kind of primal/edenic space unsullied by any sort of cultivation. When we focus on the "status of nature," the narrative of Robinson Crusoe comes to resemble the story of a man-engineer-artist domesticating, changing, organizing, cultivating nature. Not only does Robinson adapt to his island, he makes the island adapt to him through the art of agriculture, engineering projects, the organization of social orders (e.g. his relationship to his "savage" servant Friday).

In Neuromancer nature has a completely different status. It's almost "choked out" by the industrial civilization of Gibson's imagined dystopic future. Nature has somehow disappeared and the mechanized system of human society has been completely swallowed up by it. The world has become a technological system that folks navigate like a macro-computer as users rather than, say, as in Robinson Crusoe, a space of unknown limits pervaded by mysterious unexplored regions. Consider how Case, Molly, and Armitage get around: they shoot from one continent to another on sub-orbital jets; they "tube" from one side of the sprawl to another; the leave the "gravity well" behind and linger in a totally artificial satellite-resort. Indeed, "nature" in Neuromancer has been reduced to a kind of non-entity, completely submerged in the industrial civilization.

Or has it?

I'm questioning this framework now. Why? I'm thinking of Freeside, the satellite resort where the Villa Straylight is and where the "climax" of the action takes place. On Freeside, if you remember, they have grass and gnarled trees; the food they serve in the restaurants here is not cheap "synth" material but actually real (I'm thinking of the passage where Molly criticizes a hung over Case for not eating his "real and expensive" steak). Hmm... It's interesting. To an extent Freeside is the most artificial of spaces in Neuromancer: a satellite created by humanity. It's fully artificial, an arcology, i.e. an artificial ecology. And yet! It's on Freeside where Case actually encounters nature. He smells fresh cut grass for the first time; he sees trees; he eats real steak. Hmm...on Freeside is where this hacker has a visceral confrontation with nature as such.

Could it be that the transformation of the "status of nature" we glimpse in these two novels represents something like the traditional problem of mimesis? When does artistic representation become so accurate, so fully realized, that the philosophical/metaphysical distinction between imitation and original stops making sense? Stops being useful. 

Has authentic nature in Neuromancer become just as artificial as the computer intelligence that structures and conditions the narrative? Perhaps.

A. Bertram Chandler's *The Road to the Rim*: Affect and Inverse Space Opera

I recently started reading science fiction writer A. Bertram Chandler. The novel I read was The Road to the Rim (1967). It was an interesting read. What I found most interesting about it was how it seemed to participate in a particular science fiction genre. My reflex is to call it "space opera," but further meditation makes me realize how incorrect that is. Why? My general impression/definition of space opera tends to sync with the one on Wikipedia:

"Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities."

This definition emphasizes the emotional element of space opera--melodrama, romance, adventure! This feels right for me. Of all the texts I've read or watched that folks have labeled "space opera," this intensity of emotion seems to be present. I'm particularly thinking of--of course---the original Star Wars Trilogy. Consider the bombastic music; the revenge plot; the love triangle; the epic military struggles. These are occasions for showcasing great emotional outpourings.

Disclaimer: I know "space opera" is just a useful categorizing tool and that we should use it loosely, as a kind of heuristic device for throwing into focus elements of certain science fiction narratives that we may or may not see; and so, I'm in no way trying to put forward an argument for a "definitve" definition of space opera. But, for me, it feels correct to associate space opera was an intensity of emotion.

This intensity of emotion is definitely not present in A. Bertram Chandler's The Road to the Rim. Indeed, it can be defined by a lack of emotion. Sometimes this lack of emotion, I'd say, borders on the pathological. There is a notable lack of affect in both the narration and in the characters's behaviors.

I find this so intriguing. I can see why folks would be inclined to describe this novel as a "space opera," considering it takes place completely in outer space. Also, there are space pirates, battling starships, love affairs, etc.. But the world is presented in what I would suggest is almost in "greyscale." The human emotion seems to be quite absent.

I get the sense there is a conformity in tone between the narrative as such and the military lifestyle / scenarios depicted in the novel. The protagonist is one soldier in a great space fleet and a major theme is his relationship to procedure, policy, protocol, etc.. The meticulousness of the narrative style mirrors the meticulousness of the protagonist's behavior and thought patterns.

The term "hard science fiction" might apply. "Hard" might refer to the novel's inherent masculinity, it's emotionless element; and yet, "hard" is generally used to refer to the way scientific theory in framed in a science ficiton narrative. This novel, I'm convinced, is decidedly not faithful to scientific theory.

And so, considering how I've set space opera up here--a science fiction narrative set completely in outer space that showcases great human emotional outpourings--I've decided to call A. Bertram Chandler's The Road to the Rim an example of inverse space opera. Hmm... Does this label fit?