Clifford D. Simak: Way Station (1963)

Possibly one of the most original plots ever conceived within the often astonishing SF frame. Way Station is a somewhat forgotten classic from 1963 which will surprise the reader with a strange, if perfectly defined, scenario.

Over the last decades, Clifford D. Simak has lost much of the popularity he used to enjoy among readers of the genre. In the 1970s, the Wisconsin-born master had been included among a handful of greatest SF writers. He is in any case responsible for some of the most important classics in scientific fiction, a branch of literature so full of ideas and clever designs of the future. Even though many of the Simak works (including his best) could be a bit difficult to get hold of today, at least outside the second-hand book market. 

Simak is a representative for what was called no less than "pastoral" science fiction, a label that can give the reader a clue on the nature of his universe. In Simak´s novels we may have characters inserted in an American mid-west rural environment, fond of traditions of country life and with a longing for a long gone past, this being mixed up with an unmistakable SF atrezzo. In Way Station we will have alien races, a inmense galactic background and an inconceivable technology sharing stage with nature, country landscapes and in some case a mid19th century nostalgia. A funny mixture.

Way Station tells the story of Enoch Wallace, a veteran from the American Civil War. Problem is he is now living in 1962 (the time Simak writes) which means that the civil war was a hundred years ago, which means that the guy should be something like 120 o 130. But he doesn´t look any older than, say, 30. During all these years and decades, he has been regarded as a distant figure by his fellow country mates, who have of course noted that there is something really weird with the youngish centenarian. But as Simak suggests, in deep rural America, people do not give a second thought on stuff wich is not of their bussiness.

So here we have this Wallace who never ages, who has memories from the 1860s, who has inhabited the same old family farm for all those years. He walks out every morning carring a rifle he never uses. He small talks with a a couple or three people here and there, including the postman who delivers to him letters, commercial leaflets, and subscription scientific magazines. And that is it. 

We soon learn of his secret. His old midwest rural farm is not at all what it seems. It is a country house only from the outside, as it is actually a way station, no less: one galactic station which serves as a kind of changing post for interstellar travelers, of alien races from all corners of the galaxy. Wallace is the station guard and his duty is to greet the travelers and take care of their needs, like a cosmic hotel host. Through those alien peoples, he will interact with many cultures and visions of the universe, political and social systems, traditions, literature and science.

Of course, Way Station is a product of  the time it was written, the 1960s, which means that one of the main concerns of Wallace (along with the rest of the Galaxy) is the possibility of the self destruction of the human race as a result of nuclear war. Some math-based alien sociology that Wallace learnt from some star visitors he once hosted, has proved him (through complex developments never glimpsed by humans) that devastation is coming.

Underneath his appearance of a country guy, Enoch has in his hands all the Galaxy's richness, sources of artistic culture as well as scientific knowledge that no one on Earth can imagine. Closer to the poetic tone of a Bradbury than to the hard scientific touch of a Stephen Baxter, Way Station evokes the immensity of the universe in a pleasant scene of lakes and trees and mountains. It is also a reminder of what rich complex lifes could be led by ordinary, apparently grey, lonely people. 

Way Station, 1963. Clifford D Simak

Thomas Mann: Death in Venice

Death in Venice was first published in 1912. A short novelette of less than hundred pages is one of Thomas Mann´s best narrations, still under 40 when he wrote it. This is perhaps worth noting, as some claim that his best novel was Buddenbrooks, published at 25 and one of the key works responsible for his 1929 Nobel Prize. 

Death in Venice is a very introspective novel, filled with subtle and complex ideas. The clever references from classical culture will be esential in the protagonist´s intellectual path and the evolution of his increasingly disrupted inner world.

 It is also an enigmatic story, which has been the object of many interpretations since its first appearance a century ago. Also there is a celebrated 1972 movie version by Luchino Visconti, with Dirk Bogarde as Gustav Von Aschenbach. The movie´s elegant images, the talented interpretations and the suitable soundtrack of Mahler´s 5th Simphony have strongly contributed to the picture we still have today of Death in Venice.

The story is known. Van Aschenbach, a respected writer and critic from Munich is going through the usual creative block. One day, he goes out onto the city streets to try to grasp some ideas for his writing. At some point, he encounters one stranger whose vision will give rise in him some sort of fascination and an irresistible wish to leave Munich, set out to travel and see the world.

As a first stage of this proposed new set of experiences, he will choose Venice. Once there, he will first enjoy some pleasant iddle days, keeping himself entertained with walks and seeing monuments, his sensibility in full swing, his mind constantly generating ideas and outlines for future works.

One day, while having lunch at the hotel restaurant, Aschenbach spots a Polish family. One of the members is a preadolescent boy of some 14 years of age, named (he finds out) Tadzio. In the next days and weeks, Aschenbach will gradually become obssesed by the kid´s classical beauty. This the artist seems to consider some sort of incarnation of all greek and classical aesthetics, and he goes through, or attempts to, a process of intellectual sublimation. It has been said that Death in Venice is about repressed homosexuality or even pederasty. Some have even claimed that Mann´s novel made pederasty acceptable for the upper-middle classes.

This is a narrow vision and the novel goes further beyond that. It talks about the intangibility of life, a risk of some artists or intelectuals, with an excesively "platonian" view of life and culture. Theirs is a magnificent mental existence, of forms and ideas, a purely working of the mind. This full spirituality may be fascinating and beautiful. But its inevitable coldness gets in the way sooner or later. The "study of the flame", its contemplation, its chemical mechanism, could be a first aesthetic and philosophical experience, but the knowledge we may get is uncomplete if we dont also dare to put our hand on it, get a little bit "burnt". Science and theoretical knowledge, or pure aesthetics, must be at some point complemented by first hand experience, the adition of a a bit of sensuality. Life is a body-and-mind matter, and must have some tangible dimension. The issue is then building up, at one´s risk, a moral system which is neither excesively narrow nor self-referential, that makes it all compatible.

The mind has infinite possibilities and culture, as the product of the human mind, is as powerful as to compete with the richness of material reality. We have a mind potentially capable of the creation of huge worlds, but we also have a body. And this was not programmed by evolution to be ignored at no cost in the only benefit of the huge brain that this same evolutinary process gave us.

Aschenbach´s error was the radical choice he made at a young age, a choice he thinks was free: that of denying the physical and imposing himself an exile in an all-mental world of forms and colours, visual impressions, verbal constructions. But the "senses", widely speaking, should not be absent, and we are not necessarily talking of leading a torrid erotic life. Only that sensuality should be within the lot, otherwise we may run the risk of getting it bursting at the wrong stimuli later in life. Which is what happens to Aschenbach and it is expressed by Mann in a Jamesian, encapsulated way.

The book is an enjoyable read that leaves you intellectually "exhausted" with its many ideas, arguments and beautiful images.

Death in Venice, 1912. Thomas Mann.

Henry James: The Turn of the Screw

One of the most perfect ghost stories ever written, it has gathered lots of interpretations since it first appeared in 1898. Universally acclaimed as a masterpiece, its ambivalence and its mistery on what is the authentic reality it narrates, still perplex us today.

We don't even know, beyond the first impression, what kind of person is telling the tale. Who the narrator really is. She talks about scary riddles, insinuating (or plainly claiming) the presence of the supernatural. But nothing in this story has to be necessarily what it seems.

The story starts off as follows. A rather unexperienced 20-year old governess is called by a wealthy London gentleman. A job is offered to her. She has to take care of Miles and Flora, his nephew and niece, who stay in a splendid mansion in the countryside at Bly, with a housekeeper and a full bunch of servants. She will settle there and be in charge of the children's education. One condition for a nice job: she must not bother her employer with any problem relating to the children, which she should solve herself by her own means.  She will be paid accordingly of course, no worries. She accepts. At some point in her narration, the young governess will discreetly insinuate that she may fancy her employer. Even if this is not entirely clear to herself. Henry James as always, is a master of psychological subtlety.

Miles and Flora seem to be the nicest and best behaved-children you can think of. There is, however, in the governess's eyes, as days and weeks go by, something increasingly weird about the children, like a shadow of corruption. The insinuation of something fatally wrong, as if evil were thinly in the air. And it is unknown who or what is abducting this. As the governess carries on with her teaching duties, a slight but pure horror seems to materialize, or so she will claim in her narration. Two undesirable guests turn up in the house. Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. The first was an ancient servant at Bly, while the second is no other than the previous governess. Problem is they are supposed to be dead.

This disturbing description of the facts (some of them supernatural) is made by a woman whom we only know through her own words, and a short introduction by a secondary character in the prologue of the book. What kind of beings are those two, Quint and Jessel, apparently come from among the dead? And what kind of being is the governess herself from whom we learn it all? Where is evil here, or corruption, on what side of the mirror? Which shore of the lake?

Insanity, sexual repression, moral corruption, child abusing, truly supernatural events. Everything we might find in here. This is a superb tale written by a master of ambiguity. Ironically, Henry James was someone horrified by the possibility of misunderstanding in his everyday life, but he had this strong talent to recreate it in literature. And he himself had a few secrets. It is hard to know what is really going on in The Turn of the Screw, what is the game here, what the characters are like, or even which ones exist. But one thing is certain: this story is not only an aesthetic feast, it is also a psychoanalitic one. An achievement of complexity and concision.