On fiction- common heroes, the best heroes? (review of "The Stars my destination" by Alfred Bester)
A warning. This review of The Stars my destination will contain mild spoilers, and since it's usually not considered decent for a review to do this, I must offer a justification.
I found out about Bester's work from one of Norman Spinrad's critical essays, "Emperor of Everything". It's one of the pieces collected in Spinrad's Science-Fiction in the Real World, a book I recommend for its insightful analysis, witty writing, and quaint overuse of the word 'puissant'. Seriously, go read it, not just the excerpts here.
But it was that essay of Spinrad's that made me very interested in Bester's book, so I'd say that whatever is revealed there is not a spoiler, but a teaser:
And let's also notice that, while the end of the book is revealed, or the crucial part of it anyway, in my opinion there's no actual spoiler there. Because we know where Gully Foyle starts, we know where he ends up, and the two are worlds apart. It must have been one hell of a journey!
I won't reveal what it is that makes Gully Foyle change into the Spinradian ultimate hero, that bit you'll have to read for yourselves. It's worth it, as the book is rightfully claimed to be one of the best that Science-Fiction has produced.
I did find the transformation however underwhelming, and writing this review is a way of coming to terms with that. Maybe it is a case of the emperor being underdressed and me squinting to try and imagine more fitting regalia, or, more likely, maybe it's simply a case of me not getting it.
The basics are as Spinrad presents them. Gully Foyle is completely unremarkable as a human being. He is brutish, cunning yes but certainly not clever, and petty. He starts the book by being regarded as disposable and left to die, and afterwards is constantly seen as inferior in some way by the other characters, even as he acquires a certain power that makes him dangerous.
Nowhere does the author's voice step in to tell us that those other characters are wrong. Foyle abandons an ally to ensure his own escape, he forces himself on a woman because needs must, and while he may disguise himself to mingle amongst those he desires vengeance on and prolong the hunt, that thirst for vengeance never dies nor is replaced by some higher purpose. Higher purposes are worthless for the consistently selfish Gully Foyle.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is our hero.
And then something happens. Maybe I was expecting something else. Something gradual, wordy, introspective and, to be honest, melodramatic. Maybe more recent stories have changed my expectations of what redemptive transformation is supposed to look like. Enough to say, I was expecting, based on Spinrad's essay, that the change would be gradual.
The significant change isn't. It's not a gradual spiritual awakening that makes Foyle into the champion of the people. The event is so sudden that I doubt any awakening occurred at all. And here, I'd venture to say, is the point.
Foyle isn't the only one wrestling with how to handle PyrE. Other characters do so as well. In stark contrast, these are all 'exceptional' people, educated, sophisticated, driven by grander visions and philosophies. I happened to identify with one of them while reading the story, and when the time came to decide what to do with PyrE, that character made the same arguments I'd have made. Which, to disappoint Mr. Spinrad, could, if uncharitably, be lumped into the "leave it in the hands of the responsible power structure" category.
You see, us "philosophical" sophisticates trust Ideas and Plans. But it is Foyle who commits himself to the "folly" of trusting the masses. Only Foyle can do that, because he is indeed their Avatar, with all the assumed defects of the Many turned up to eleven. Only Foyle can challenge Mankind to undertake a truly vast, truly transformative journey, because only Foyle is 'common' enough to trust Man.
So I disagree with Spinrad. There was no spiritual awakening for Gully Foyle. There never was meant to be one. The gauntlet is thrown to Mankind as a whole, by Foyle as its lowest common denominator, and may God help us to step up to the challenge.
It's not a story that sits well with me. I prefer my heroes to have or aspire to some transcendent quality beyond the nihilistic universe that we're apparently trapped in. Bester challenges that. After all, transcendent aspirations arise from 'lower' matter and one should not lose sight of the baser, for that is what is alive and not cold Eternal Forms. And in the end, the best teacher turned out to be not some idealist nor driven pragmatist with vainglorious dreams, but the lowly, brutish thug who takes on himself all that which we secretly fear of others.
Would I recommend "The Stars my destination"? Absolutely. I haven't even touched on how Bester brilliantly explores the consequences of new "technology" that allows nigh-instant travel for human beings, yet another reason to seek out this book if you haven't already done so. For that, but mostly to witness the moral argument that the book is making, I thoroughly recommend it.
I found out about Bester's work from one of Norman Spinrad's critical essays, "Emperor of Everything". It's one of the pieces collected in Spinrad's Science-Fiction in the Real World, a book I recommend for its insightful analysis, witty writing, and quaint overuse of the word 'puissant'. Seriously, go read it, not just the excerpts here.
But it was that essay of Spinrad's that made me very interested in Bester's book, so I'd say that whatever is revealed there is not a spoiler, but a teaser:
Norman Spinrad (excerpts from "Emperor of Everything"): Gully Foyle, space-freighter deck-ape, Everyman at a karmic nadir, opens the novel marooned on a wreck and about to expire. A spaceship approaches within rescue distance but passes him by, lighting up the depths of his dormant spirit with the fire of vengeance.
[...]we see him grow, through a process of worldly and spiritual education, into his true manhood, and we see his quest for vengeance transform itself into a quest for social justice.
[...][At the end of the novel], Foyle teleports wildly through space and time while mortally wrestling with the question of what to do with the secret substance PyrE.
PyrE is a thermonuclear explosive that can be detonated by thought alone. Anyone can do it.
[...]What is a true hero to do? Sit on the secret of PyrE and arrogate the ultimate power unto himself? Leave it in the hands of the "responsible" power structure for safety?
The ultimate moral greatness of The Stars my destination is that Gully Foyle does neither.
As the avatar of the fully awakened Everyman, he turns the fire of the gods over to Everyone: he places PyrE in the hands of the people.
"We're all in this together, let's live together or die together", he tells the worlds of men. "All right, God damn you! I challenge you, me. Die or live and be great. Blow yourself to Christ and gone or come and find me, Gully Foyle, and I make you men. I make you great. I give you the stars."Let's pause for a moment to take heed of Bester's (and the publishers' of Galaxy magazine) chutzpah there. "The Stars my destination" (also known as "Tiger! Tiger!" in the UK) first appeared in the US serialized in Galaxy magazine in 1956. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg had been executed in 1953 for leaking information about the atomic bombs to the Soviet Union. And as Joseph McCarthy's witch-hunting campaigns in the same decade showed, the Red Scare was very much active. Against this back-drop of paranoia, here comes Bester suggesting -and he's indeed not at all ambiguous on this point- that the best way to handle a potentially world-destroying artefact is complete openness.
And let's also notice that, while the end of the book is revealed, or the crucial part of it anyway, in my opinion there's no actual spoiler there. Because we know where Gully Foyle starts, we know where he ends up, and the two are worlds apart. It must have been one hell of a journey!
I won't reveal what it is that makes Gully Foyle change into the Spinradian ultimate hero, that bit you'll have to read for yourselves. It's worth it, as the book is rightfully claimed to be one of the best that Science-Fiction has produced.
I did find the transformation however underwhelming, and writing this review is a way of coming to terms with that. Maybe it is a case of the emperor being underdressed and me squinting to try and imagine more fitting regalia, or, more likely, maybe it's simply a case of me not getting it.
The basics are as Spinrad presents them. Gully Foyle is completely unremarkable as a human being. He is brutish, cunning yes but certainly not clever, and petty. He starts the book by being regarded as disposable and left to die, and afterwards is constantly seen as inferior in some way by the other characters, even as he acquires a certain power that makes him dangerous.
Nowhere does the author's voice step in to tell us that those other characters are wrong. Foyle abandons an ally to ensure his own escape, he forces himself on a woman because needs must, and while he may disguise himself to mingle amongst those he desires vengeance on and prolong the hunt, that thirst for vengeance never dies nor is replaced by some higher purpose. Higher purposes are worthless for the consistently selfish Gully Foyle.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is our hero.
And then something happens. Maybe I was expecting something else. Something gradual, wordy, introspective and, to be honest, melodramatic. Maybe more recent stories have changed my expectations of what redemptive transformation is supposed to look like. Enough to say, I was expecting, based on Spinrad's essay, that the change would be gradual.
The significant change isn't. It's not a gradual spiritual awakening that makes Foyle into the champion of the people. The event is so sudden that I doubt any awakening occurred at all. And here, I'd venture to say, is the point.
Foyle isn't the only one wrestling with how to handle PyrE. Other characters do so as well. In stark contrast, these are all 'exceptional' people, educated, sophisticated, driven by grander visions and philosophies. I happened to identify with one of them while reading the story, and when the time came to decide what to do with PyrE, that character made the same arguments I'd have made. Which, to disappoint Mr. Spinrad, could, if uncharitably, be lumped into the "leave it in the hands of the responsible power structure" category.
You see, us "philosophical" sophisticates trust Ideas and Plans. But it is Foyle who commits himself to the "folly" of trusting the masses. Only Foyle can do that, because he is indeed their Avatar, with all the assumed defects of the Many turned up to eleven. Only Foyle can challenge Mankind to undertake a truly vast, truly transformative journey, because only Foyle is 'common' enough to trust Man.
So I disagree with Spinrad. There was no spiritual awakening for Gully Foyle. There never was meant to be one. The gauntlet is thrown to Mankind as a whole, by Foyle as its lowest common denominator, and may God help us to step up to the challenge.
It's not a story that sits well with me. I prefer my heroes to have or aspire to some transcendent quality beyond the nihilistic universe that we're apparently trapped in. Bester challenges that. After all, transcendent aspirations arise from 'lower' matter and one should not lose sight of the baser, for that is what is alive and not cold Eternal Forms. And in the end, the best teacher turned out to be not some idealist nor driven pragmatist with vainglorious dreams, but the lowly, brutish thug who takes on himself all that which we secretly fear of others.
Would I recommend "The Stars my destination"? Absolutely. I haven't even touched on how Bester brilliantly explores the consequences of new "technology" that allows nigh-instant travel for human beings, yet another reason to seek out this book if you haven't already done so. For that, but mostly to witness the moral argument that the book is making, I thoroughly recommend it.
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