"Nova" and Historical Consciousness

Samuel Delany’s novel "Nova" is packed with political, social and cultural insights that appear timeless; the human beings of the 32nd century have achieved enormous philosophical and technological progress, but they interact with one another in a way that is still recognizable and comprehensible by the human beings of today. Delany paints a portrait of history that, in the words of Kyrin (The Black Cockatoo’s pseudo-historian and the narrator of much of the novel) is “a great web that spreads across the galaxy, as far as man.” (174) For Kyrin, the history of his era cannot be taken as a linear progression, with direct notions of cause and effect, beginning and end: it must be seen as a fabric, with ripples whose initial cause is often difficult to ascertain. This non-teleological view of history helps Kyrin justify the writing of a novel, in an age where novels are viewed as hopelessly obsolete. Even in an era where sensory syrynxes can convincingly replicate realities and tell stories, a medium from ancient past continues to offer an important means of constructing meaning.

Kyrin’s commentary provides Delany with a means of justifying the anachronisms and ancient allusions that pervade the text. Much of the story’s plot is derived from the legend of King Arthur and the Holy Grail. The race for Illyrion is crafted from fragments of English pirate novels and other glamorous narratives of colonialist exploration. The blind prophet Dan seems to be a blatant reference to the blind prophet Tiresius, who makes multiple appearances in Homer, Sophocles and Dante. Even the format of Delany’s historical commentary seems drawn from elsewhere: Kyrin’s certain disconcerting similarities to the historical commentary that pervades books III and IV of “War and Peace.” When described in this manner, Nova seems like no more than an amalgamation of others’ ideas. As experienced, Nova presents itself as an incredibly original text, seamlessly fusing tropes from the past and commentary on the present with a narrative set in the world of the future.

The universe of Nova is one where faster than light travel is possible, but humans still believe in tarot card readings: after Mouse denounces the credibility of Tarot, Kyrin tells him that “…the idea that all these symbols, filtered down through five thousand years of mythology, are basically meaningless and have no bearing on man’s mind and actions, strikes a little bell of nihilism ringing.” (123) To Kyrin, the weight of tradition is something that should not be absolutely authoritative, but should never be ignored entirely; concepts that are long-lived have lasted for a reason.

The major thematic elements of the novel, when combined with Kyrin’s explicit explanations of 32nd century historiography, helps convince the reader that ideas that may seem dated often have enduring meaning. Even novels, which Kyrin characterizes as “…always a historical projection of its own time” (128), can produce traditions that echo throughout space. Within Nova, Delany underlines the importance of both science fiction and ancient history: the past and future are often not far from the present.

Reading and Misreading: Author as Guide

My discussion in last week’s blog post about Tiptree and Klimt might have been a bit of a stretch, but this week’s connection between Le Guin and Tolstoy may actually be justified! In her introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin refers a few times to the battle of Borodino (xiii), which to me, brings only one thing to mind: WAR AND PEACE. Besides the problematic issue of truth and lies in fiction, an issue Tolstoy dealt with quite a bit and that appears in both Le Guin’s introduction and the book itself, there are certain parts of The Left Hand of Darkness that seem to echo Tolstoy. For example, here is a bit of conversation between Genly Ai and the Weaver, Faxe:

“Tell me, Genry, what is known? What is sure, predictable, inevitable—the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?

“That we shall die.”

“Yes. There’s really only one question that can be answered, Genry, and we already know the answer…The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.” (70)

And here are a few lines from Pierre Bezukhov in War and Peace:

What is bad? What is good? What should we love and what hate? What do we live for? And what am I? What is life, and what is death? What Power governs it all?

There was no answer to any of these questions, except one, and that not a logical answer and not at all a reply to them. The answer was: ‘You’ll die and all will end. You’ll die and know all, or cease asking.’

…All we can know is that we know nothing. And that’s the height of human wisdom. (372)

Perhaps I imposed this connection on the two texts merely because I happened to be reading this very part of War and Peace (SLA 415 is awesome) and The Left Hand of Darkness at the same time. But, like Tolstoy in his defense of his work in “Some Words About War and Peace,” Le Guin feels the need to defend her novel in “Is Gender Necessary?” As stated in one of the bracketed sections added in 1987, Le Guin felt “resentful” of critics who looked at The Left Hand of Darkness as an essay on “gender problems” and not as a novel (8). Le Guin emphatically states that the book is in fact a novel, “the record of my consciousness, the process of my thinking” (8). This also prompts the question of just what a novel is. Tolstoy famously argues that War and Peace is not a novel at all, but that is a whole other issue.

Le Guin and Tolstoy both felt the need to explain their works more fully to readers—books on their own might be misunderstood and misread, as essays or epics or philosophical tracts instead of novels. What does it mean when an author feels the need to step forward and explain their work? Should a novel be understandable on its own, and readers free to interpret it however they wish, or should the writer exert control not only on what is read but how it is read as well?

*Side note that does not relate to the rest of my post but that might be of interest: In Plato’s Symposium, which includes a variety of short discourses on the nature of love, Aristophanes proposes that in the past, the “sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double nature, which had once a real existence, but is now lost, and the word ‘Androgynous’ is only preserved as a term of reproach.” According to Aristophanes' account, primeval man consisted of what we would think of as two different people (of the same sex or different) merged together: everyone had four hands, four feet, two faces, and two “privy members.” Zeus then split everyone in half so that “Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a man, and he is always looking for his other half.”

Obviously, the androgyny of the Gethenians is quite different from this account, but it might be interesting to compare the two.

If anyone would like to take a look at Plato’s Symposium: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html