Microworlds - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Stanislaw Lem (ч. notes)

Notes

1

Michel Butor once expressed the opinion that a team of science-fiction writers should cooperate in the construction of a fictitious world, because such an undertaking is beyond the powers of any single individual. (This was supposed to explain the poor quality, the one-dimensionality of the existing science fiction.) I did not take those words of Butor’s seriously when I read them. And yet I have, although many years later and by myself, tried to realize the basic essence of this idea as described above. And in Borges, too — in his “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” — you can read of a secret society that creates a fictitious world in all its particulars, with the intent of turning our world into the imagined one.

2

I shall add the autobiographical element in my discursive writings to this enumeration. In brief, I am a disenchanted reformer of the world. My first novels concerned naïve Utopias, because in them I was expressing a desire for a world as peaceful as that described in them, and they are bad, in the sense in which a vain and erroneous expectation is stupid. My monograph on science fiction and futurology is an expression of my disappointment with a fiction and a nonfiction that pretend to be scientific, when neither of them turns the attention of the reader in the direction in which the world is in fact moving. My Philosophy of Chance is a failed attempt to arrive at a theory of the literary work based on empiricism; it is successful inasmuch as I taught myself with the help of this book what factors cause the rise and the decline in the fortunes of literary works. My Summa Technologiae, on the other hand, is proof of the fact that I am not yet a despairing reformer of the world. For I do not believe that mankind is for all times a hopeless and incurable case.

3

This essay is a rewritten chapter (“Sociology of Science Fiction”) from my Fantastyka i futurologia (Science Fiction and Futurology). I have polemically sharpened the original text in several instances, and added the later review of Dick’s work, which is absent from the book. I confess that I made a blunder when I wrote this monograph, since then I knew only Dick’s short stories and his Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I believed that I could rely on reviews published in the fanzines of other novels by Dick, with the result that I considered him merely a “better van Vogt,” which he is not. This mistake was due to the state of science-fiction criticism. Every fifth or eighth book is praised as “the best work of science fiction in the whole world,” its author is presented as “the greatest science-fiction author ever,” great differences between works are minimized and annulled, so much so that in the end Ubik may be regarded as a novel that is just a little better than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Naturally, what I say does not justify my mistake, because no criticism is a substitute for reading the books concerned. However, my words still describe the circumstances responsible for causing my error, because it is a physical impossibility to read every science-fiction title, so that there must be a selection; as you can see, one cannot rely on science-fiction criticism to make this selection.

4

It is quite difficult to shake off either a bad or a good tradition, once it is established. In The Issue at Hand, James Blish complains that English criticism surpasses American, and that this difference of level can be seen also on another plane — according to Blish, English publishers treat science-fiction authors with a consideration scarcely to be found in United States. His words date from the fifties. From what I know of the state of things today, this difference has decreased insofar as American criticism has improved, insignificantly, and English publishers have become a bit less considerate.

5

This does not mean that the radius of effective action of a statement varies directly with the range of a medium — i.e., in our case, that this radius grows in proportion to the increase of circulation of the periodical in which this statement is printed. In regard to circulation, many highbrow literary periodicals are no better off than the high-circulation fanzines, and the literary and theoretical publications of university faculties sometimes have tiny circulations, as low as three hundred or four hundred copies. What I am saying is that the degree of attention paid by the public to a “message” (a normative judgment) is determined by quite different factors from those of circulation. So, in some countries, an extreme degree of public opinion is paid to several “underground” papers, though these pamphlets look shabby and are circulated in very tiny editions. The authority, the weight, of such statements belongs to the imponderabilities of civilization; the public must be aware in advance that somebody important has something to say; but the “inherently wise,” or even the “eggheads,” do not possess such authority and attraction in their own right. The channels that serve to disseminate information are not built by technical and material means (such as the number of copies of a periodical distributed). Instead, these copies find their own way and have their maximum effect only if they flow into a broader structure that strengthens the message. This is the case for the highbrow periodicals because they live at the peak of the cultural pyramid. It is an extremely important phenomenon, which has been almost neglected. In many circles of fandom, people believe that one could wake the “silent majority” of the public from its slumber if only one could bomb the public incessantly with beautifully made publications with mass circulations. Most probably the public would throw these fine pamphlets into the nearest wastepaper basket because this bombardment of mass-produced science fiction would still lack the necessary influence. Authority and influence are not acquired easily.

6

This applies only to the novels by Dick that I know: Solar Lottery, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Our Friends from Frolix 8, Now Wait for Last Year, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ubik, and Galactic Pot-Healer. In addition, I have read several of Dick’s short stories, mainly in science-fiction magazines.

7

Each society is stratified according to its own pattern. In each society there are powers of selection with local effects to attract and repel individuals. Among others, such mass processes give rise to different readerships for widely differing varieties of literature. If one compared the intelligence and level of education of the average science-fiction reader in the United States and in the Soviet Union, one would draw the conclusion that the Russians know more about literature and are more intelligent than the Americans. However, this would be a fallacy; the selection processes of science-fiction readership in Russia and in the United States have taken different courses, because of the different traditions that prevail in the two countries in regard to the broader questions of the duties and psychosociological status that literature, as a whole, must play in society. Certainly the United States has the same percentage of bright boys and girls as Russia has but intelligent readers there approach science fiction far less often than they do in Russia.

8

A lack of theoretical essays on science fiction was the reason for my career as a Robinson Crusoe; like the unhappy man on a desert island, I had to sweat for years, under the most primitive conditions, to produce the necessary (intellectual) tools by myself. My tactic concerning trash was to ridicule it — i.e., to blow up its model until its nonsense, multiplied many times, became ludicrous. But this is the simplest of tactics. On my own I thought there was no better way than to avoid trash and to remove all traces of it from my work.

9

The dates given in this essay are either for first publication, whether in serial or book form, or for serial/book publication. — R. D. Mullen.

10

Slonimski, born in 1895, was a Polish poet and essayist.

11

Bertaux is a Germanist, and he published the article quoted, “Innovation als Prinzip,” in German in the volume Das 798. Jahrzehnt (Christian Wegner Verlag, 1969). — SL. The passage given in German in Dr. Lem’s original text (from which the first sentence has been reduced to the bracketed phrase in our translation) reads as follows: “Unter ‘Diagonalwissenschaften’ (um den Ausdruck von Roger Caillos aufzunehmen) verstehe ich ungefähr das, was man auch ‘formalistische’ Wissenschaften nennt, also Disziplinen, deren Gebiet sich quer durch die herkömmlichen Fächer der Realwissenschaften zieht… Eine Zeitlang hat man hoffen können, der Ansatz zu einer ähnlichen Formalisierung der Humanwissenschaften sei vom Strukturalismus zu erwarten. Leider sieht es heute aus, als ob gerade die lautesten Vertreter des Strukturalismus ihn zu einer Mythologie hätten entarten lassen — und nicht einmal zu einer brauchbaren. Das Gerede, das jetzt den Namen Strukturalismus tragt, hat den ursprünglich in ihm enthaltenen wissenschaftlichen Ansatz wahrscheinlich tödlich getroffen.” — Charles Nicol, R. D. Mullen, Darko Suvin.

12

Translated by Richard Howard (Cleveland/London: The Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1973) from Introduction à la littérature fantastique (Editions du Seuil, 1970). All quotations from Todorov are from the pages of this translation. — R. D. Mullen.

13

The difference is that Zeno’s paradoxes confront the trivial interpretation of physical processes with the contradictory results of their purely logical interpretation, whereas the paradoxes of Borges are directed toward the universe of cultural facts.

14

Strictly speaking, what has been said isn’t true insofar as there are no systems of belief (of either an orthodox or a heterodox nature) that would not hide contradictions within their structures. For them, the supreme court of decision is revelation, not logical reasoning. For instance, consider the fact that it is possible to postulate a logically impossible trinity, but not the existence and nonexistence of a God at the same time — although in both cases logic is similarly suspended. The “strictly logical” heresy in the Judas story means that his postulated “role as savior” is proved by the same logical means that belong to the arsenal of the traditional demonstrators of Christian theology. The heterodoxy arises only because Borges does not halt where, according to the Scriptures, any orthodox theological attempt at interpretation must “desist unconditionally.” Borges’s conclusions lead to a point which transcends the permissible boundaries, but this does not destroy logic, for this boundary is of an extralogical nature.

15

If Schopenhauer had never existed, and if Borges presented to us the ontological doctrine of “The World as Will,” we would never accept it as a philosophical system that must be taken seriously; we would take it as an example of a “fantastic philosophy.” As soon as nobody assents to it, a philosophy becomes automatically fantastic literature.

16

This can be seen from the fact that several times he has rewritten material supplied by others. I have not discussed this aspect of his work, for I believe that nothing can be more erroneous in criticism than to descend to the shallow passages of the work of a writer merely in order to prove their worthlessness. Besides, it is an undisputed fact that world literature is full of prose that is similar, and the immense number of such exercises alone deprives of originality any piece that can defend its individuality only by stylistic means. You can see this in the stories comprising the last two parts of the Hanser volume [which Lem was reviewing in this essay —TRANS.], especially in regard to the stylistic means employed, whose baroque character is stressed by Borges in his introduction. The more nearly a work becomes “literature,” the greater its originality (as measured by the integral of its differences from all other literary works), the more this kind of fiction, which only increases the number of already existing texts by further similar elements, must be likened to the enlargement of an ocean by the pouring of water into it — it is, rather, a work of reproduction, more related to the crafts than to creative art. Of course, ninety-five percent of all writers are just craftsmen; but the historical movement of literature, and its historical changes, are caused by the inventors, heretics, visionaries, anticonformists — the revolutionaries of writing. And this gives us the right to measure any work claiming to belong to the top in literature first of all by its originality. Many writers can entertain; but only a few can amaze, educate, and move. But because such a point of view is open to attack, I have armed this review with a warning against its subjective character. Also I do not intend to evaluate the whole work of Borges, and especially not his poetry, which I would feel I would have to read in its original Spanish form. Whatever the matter may be with his poetry (which I value highly), it does not belong to fantastic literature for the simple reason that, in my opinion (and here I am in agreement with T. Todorov), on principle there can be no fantastic poetry.

17

The foregoing essay, subscribed “July 1975” in the Polish original, has been translated from the text that appeared as the Afterword to Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Picknick am Wegesrand (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1981), pp. 189-215. The essay first came out as an afterword to the Polish translation of the Strugatskys” Piknik na obocine: Piknik na skraju drogi (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1977), pp. 265-88. For this last bit of information, and for his generous assistance in checking our rendering of Lem, we are indebted to Dr. Franz Rottensteiner, who, however, is not to be held accountable for our errors. We are equally grateful to Elizabeth Kwasniewski for her help and patience in correcting the English translation against the original Polish. — Robert M. Philmus.

18

Parenthetical references (which the translators have supplied) are to Roadside Picnic, trans. Antonina W. Bouis (New York: Macmillan, 1977). This volume also includes Tale of the Troika. — Robert M. Philmus.

19

Our entire explanation, which provides a new interpretation of the riddle presented by the landing in Roadside Picnic, may seem to be an aberration brought on by excessive pedantry, all the more so since, after all, we are not analyzing a real event, but a literary fiction. But truly scientific fantasy is distinguished by just this: that one can subject the events described in it and their rational depiction to the same proof of coherence as phenomena that occur in the extraliterary world. Such a work may start with a fictive, even an extremely fictive, premise. Yet this authorizes only an initial poetic license, which loses its validity within the story itself. This means that the storyteller may not, within the story, continue to help himself along by the ad hoc invention of whatever things or phenomena strike his fancy. Fairy tales may operate with such ad hoc inventions; for they are not at all required to explain logically or empirically the miraculous occurrences they depict. A science-fiction story that makes this fairy-tale license its own leaves the realm of the real world and puts itself in the position of the fairy tale, in which everything that is thought of or said for that very reason instantly becomes possible and must be unquestioningly accepted as true coin by the reader. In short, though the facts in a science-fiction story may be fictive, the way in which science in the fiction interprets these facts may not. Scientific theories change; but what does not change is the method of discovery that characterizes science, and it is precisely this methodology that dictates a certain type of hypothesis-formation in science fiction. Accordingly, our polemic, as an example of how criticism of science fiction should typically proceed, can be applied mutatis mutandis to every work that fulfills the main criteria of this genre.

20

We are presenting the hypothesis of the calamity in its simplest, which does not mean its most probable, version. For example, an unmanned spaceship with containers might have been sent forth without any fixed addressee in mind; it might have been outfitted with sensors that would recognize the planet to be “gifted” by virtue of predetermined parameters (such as its average temperature; its atmospheric composition, particularly the presence of free oxygen and water; an orbit favorable to ecological development; etc.). Such an automatically piloted vehicle could have approached various stars on a scouting mission. However, because it is physically impossible to manufacture technological products to survive undamaged over a journey of indeterminate length (which may take millions of earth-years), such a vehicle must have been provided with a device that would automatically destroy the contents when their “shelf life” had ended. Such a vehicle could have entered our solar system as the “shelf life” of the articles was nearing the expiry date. After all, it could also have been that the self-destruction did not occur only because the ship’s surveillance system discovered earth and dispersed the containers with their “partially spoiled” contents. The degree of damage to individual surveillance, steering, and control systems is uncertain; only the statistical probability of damage can be determined — i.e., the one thing absolutely certain is that the probability of defects occurring in the programs and their execution system increases with the passage of time. I should emphasize this point: the more complicated a device, the more inevitable are breakdowns over the course of time; this is a universal law that is independent of where in the cosmos the technology was produced or how. Therefore, the enterprise of learning about the aliens — what the Strugatskys call “xenology” — must take the statistical-probability aspect of intercivilizational contact into account as something crucial for interpreting such visits.

21

The degree to which the authors followed the fairy tale’s structural pattern in their epilogue can, for example, be seen in the passage in which “black twisted stalactites that looked like fat candles” (4:141) are mentioned. These are all that is left of the people the Golden Ball has killed — that is, all that is left of Redrick’s and Arthur’s predecessors in the quest for the accursed treasure. In fairy tales such remains — the bones of daredevils who ran out of luck — usually lie at the entrance of the dragon’s cave, at the foot of the glass mountain, etc.