THE READING RHEUM: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)

 I'm reasonably sure I never reread Arthur C. Clarke's novelization of the movie he scripted with Stanley Kubrick. I don't even remember noticing the various differences between book and movie, though I imagine that I twigged to the obvious fact that Clarke rendered highly specific explications of all the things that Kubrick left implicit in the cinematic 2001. In fact, I recall that one book reviewer for a SF-magazine back in The Day was so enamored of Clarke's version of the book that he regretted that it hadn't been followed for the movie.                     

I was not so entranced. Frankly, after coming off the high of watching the completed Kubrick film, I was mostly bored out of my skull. Now I say that with the caveat that I've long been a Clarke fan, though I divide his novels into two categories (leaving aside the short stories for separate consideration). One category includes his most ambitious, visionary works, mainly (assuming I haven't forgotten something) CHILDHOOD'S END and THE CITY AND THE STARS. The other group takes in books which are more blandly informational about whatever scientific subject they explore -- the ecology of the sea for THE DEEP RANGE, the lunar surface for A FALL OF MOONDUST. Clarke's ODYSSEY, despite reproducing many of the narrative tropes of the finished movie, proves not visionary in the least. It delivers lots and lots of dry information about the world of ODYSSEY but would have made a very dull movie.                                                                                           

  Divergences between book and movie came about because, even though the book wasn't in circulation until after the finished movie came out, Clarke wrote the novel from a treatment he and Kubrick had completed, as well as from some incomplete rushes from the movie. However, everything I've heard about Kubrick's directorial process indicates that he frequently changed his mind on various elements while still in the process of filming, and there's no way Clarke could have incorporated any of those changes. Yet as a reader I still find Clarke culpable for some of his choices-- for instance, dragging out the cavepeople sequence far beyond its function within the greater whole. The oddest divergence is the ending, after astronaut Dave Bowman has passed through the Stargate and finds himself stuck, for the rest of his life, in a replica of a human hotel room. In one of Kubrick's few commentaries on his enigmatic masterpiece, he admitted that the monolith-making aliens were keeping Bowman in a zoo-like captivity in order to study him. The nature of the replicated room suggests no other feasible purpose, so I tend to reject any idea that some alternate function appeared in the treatment from which Clarke was working. I think it more likely that Clarke simply did not, for whatever reason, like the idea of Bowman passing his whole life in the room until he's transfigured. So in the book, Bowman spends one "evening" in the room, has a meal, goes to bed-- and is immediately transfigured.                                                   

  I hadn't reread the book when I reviewed the movie in January, but I did glance at the book's transfiguration sequence and the subsequent birth of the Star-Child. Clarke doesn't provide any more rationale for the aliens to transform Bowman than the movie did, though in one chapter Clarke asserts that at some point the ETs became fascinated with other life-forms out of an existential loneliness. In that film-review, and in this essay touching on Jack Kirby's comics-adaptation of the story, I raised the question as to whether Kubrick or Kirby reproduced any narrative tropes relating to Nietzsche's concept of "self-mastery," which to him was essential to the formation of the ubermensch. I did find one (possibly accidental) trope in the Kirby work, but I couldn't demonstrate anything definite in Kubrick's movie, and I didn't find (or expect to find) anything of that nature in Clarke. From the smattering of accounts I've read/heard about Kubrick's creative process, I don't think he was all that devoted to Nietzsche's philosophy. I think he intuited some similitudes between that philosophy and the themes of "transhumanism" in certain science-fiction works, though when he first started working with Clarke, it doesn't sound like Kubrick had even read any of the author's works. I don't see the theme of self-mastery in most of the director's other famous movies, so it may be that he only embraced the German thinker for the sake of that one movie, much as Federico Fellini directed a passion for Carl Jung into one film, JULIET OF THE SPIRITS, but did not explore Jungian themes in his later movies.                                                        

EQUAL AND UNEQUAL VECTORS OF AUTHORIAL WILL PT. 2

The visual metaphor of vectors mentioned in the previous essay has led me to invert one of the ideas stated in STATURE REQUIREMENTS PT.5. In that essay, I made a brief comparison between an earlier centricity-term, “stature,” and a newer one, “charisma.” I’ve now decided to reverse my formulations in that essay and to give stature more importance than charisma.

When I consider the base meanings of the words, stature signifies the result of physical growth, while charisma suggests a mysterious inner quality that appears from we-know-not-where. I first spoke of stature with respect to the Fryean mythoi, extrapolating the term from Aristotle’s assertion that the characters of tragedies were weightier than the characters of comedies. Thus my term “stature” connoted the different levels of conviction that readers could find in characters belonging to each of the mythoi. It now occurs to me that the idea of conviction also applies to centricity; the focal presences that occupy center stage are those around whom a given narrative revolves—which in turn means that they inspire maximum conviction in comparison to other presences within said narrative. I used “charisma” to denote this special status. Yet now it occurs to me that it makes more sense to speak of a superior vector of stature. For instance, in KNIGHTS OF COMBAT ANDCENTRICITY PT. 1, I examined Nancy Springer’s opinion that the titular hero of Ivanhoe was not the star simply because he was not as interesting as other characters in the novel. I rejected this idea. Yet I must admit that Ivanhoe does not have much of what one would call “charisma” in the ordinary sense of the word. However, what he does have is “stature.” He is the hero because his moral compass inspires maximum conviction in the reader. One may not believe that Ivanhoe resembles anyone in real life, but as the embodiment of the author's principal idea the knight is the glue that holds this particular novel together. The same principle would apply to those ensembles that I’ve judged to be distributive in nature, such as the Blackhawks and the Avengers.

However, charisma can be used to account for the fact that subsidiary characters in a narrative may hold more sheer appeal than those who enjoy the greatest stature. I would not disagree, for instance, that in IVANHOE the character of the Jewess Rowena proves more interesting than Ivanhoe. But now I would say that this fact merely indicates that Rowena has a charisma-vector superior to that of Ivanhoe, while he still has a stature-vector superior to hers. In terms of centricity, though, stature is always the sole indicator.

Charisma only affects centricity indirectly, and only in the evolution of serial narratives. For instance, in season 2 of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, the creators introduced Spike as a more confrontational enemy for the heroine. One could easily hold the opinion that Spike possessed greater charisma than Buffy, even though, being both a subordinate character and a villain, he could not possess greater stature. Hypothetically, the producers might have chosen, for whatever reason, to make Spike a co-equal partner to the Slayer, and then he might have attained a distributive stature. The showrunners did not go in such a direction, and so, for the length of his tenure on the BUFFY show, Spike always had a stature-vector unequal to that of the non-distributive heroine. Then the character migrated to the show ANGEL—which for some time had been of the distributive model, with Angel sharing stature with other members—and only here, whether they outshone others in charisma or not, Spike finally acquired stature equal to that of the other regular members.

This model also proves useful for describing a work in which a subordinate character seems to steal the center stage from the apparent star. For instance, I’ve written here that even though BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE is dominated by the story of the Joker’s origin, it’s still a “Batman story.” This is because the story does not diverge from the dominant model of the continuing Batman series, wherein Batman always possesses greater stature than any of his villains. However, there’s no question that in KILLING JOKE the Joker possesses a charisma-vector greater than that of Batman, whom, as I remarked in my review of the graphic novel, often seems in the nature of a tired old cop.

The same dynamic also applies to those serials that often or always focus upon “guest stars”who never again appear in the series. Early installments of Will Eisner’s SPIRIT are structured like almost every other adventure-hero feature, in which the Spirit helps good people and vanquishes bad people. However, even in the earliest years Eisner sometimes devoted stories to one-shot characters who seemed to take center stage, in that their triumphs or tragedies received the most attention. However, the Spirit was still the thread holding all of those one-shot characters together, and so he retained the greatest stature, even in stories like THE CURSE, in which the hero barely appears. As discussed in HOSTS, HEAVENLY AND OTHERWISE, the only exception to this centricity formulation appears in certain anthology titles. When a continuing character merely appears as an interlocutor—Jorkens in Arthur C. Clarke’s TALES OF THE WHITE HART, or the many “horror hosts” in comic-book titles—then whatever focal presence inspires the most conviction in each story possesses the greatest stature-vector, though not necessarily the greater charisma-vector.

THE BEAUTY OF GRAVITY

In the last two sections of FOUR AGES OF DYNAMIS, I found myself questioning the conclusions I'd made in the 2012 essay-series GRAVITY'S CROSSBOW. In Part 1, I wrote:

I've noted before that of all the major philosophers to write about sublimity in connection with literature, Edmund Burke is one of the most profligate in providing examples.  However, I note that most of his examples fall into one of two mythoi: the "drama" (PARADISE LOST, HENRY IV) or the "adventure" (THE FAERIE QUEENE).  Schopenhauer, for his part, recognizes only "tragedy" (which I regard as identical with the category "drama") as sublime.
Moving to those readerships concerned with "the sense of wonder," it's my informal impression that when fans of fantasy and SF wax enthusiastic about those works with that quality, they rarely if ever center upon works of the other two mythoi, "comedy" and "irony."  In the domain of prose, works like Clarke's CHILDHOOD'S END or Tolkien's LORD OF THE RINGS are celebrated for their ability to elicit wonder.  But though one can find science-fictional marvels and magical mysteries in such works as Fredric Brown's WHAT MAD UNIVERSE or the deCamp-Pratt COMPLEAT ENCHANTER, I would say such works-- both of which are comedies-- are never celebrated for the "sense of wonder."  Ironic science fiction is often celebrated for its intellectual rigor-- indeed, if one reads Kingsley Amis' NEW MAPS FROM HELL, one gets the impression that no one ever wrote good SF but Fred Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth-- but Amis praises them for satirical visions, not for the "sense of wonder."
So, are comedy and irony in some way inimical to the sense of wonder? 

I then explored Schopenhauer's remarks on how the "serious" forms of literature encouraged emotional investment while the "ludicrous" forms did not, and, glossing this statement by categorizing the forms along Fryean lines, I attempted to show reasons why comedies and ironies did not manifest subimity in the form of "the sense of wonder."

Now, at the time I wrote the CROSSBOW series, my definition of sublimity was still fuzzy, as were some of the philosophical definitions available to me. A year later, I wrote the series TWO SUBLIMITIES HAVE I, in which I distinguished two forms of sublimity, "the dynamic-sublime," more or less identical with Kant's formulation in CRITIQUE OF JUDGMENT, and "the combinatory-sublime," which I considered more applicable to literature than Kant's second form, "the mathematical-sublime." Thus, early in the same month that I wrote the CROSSBOW series, I cited (in the essay SUBLIMELY SUPER) this example of the literary sublime:

This example suggests to me is that at the time I was groping toward a vision of the combinatory-sublime, which in the aforesaid essay I defined as sublime because of its appeal to "unboundedness."

So this was the kind of sublimity I found lacking in various works of SF/fantasy, among them being the above examples of works by Frederic Brown and Pohl-and-Kornbluth.

Now, my current system does not claim that comedies or ironies are unable to conjure with either "the dynamic-sublime" or "the combinatory-sublime." In 2012 I had not aligned my concept of "mythicity" with that of the combinatory mode, and so, in the mythcomics essays I began in 2011, I had no problem in finding examples of high mythicity for both comedies (the URUSEI YATSURA story "A Good Catch") and ironies (the "Ed the Happy Clown" continuity from YUMMY FUR).

However, I do think Schopenhauer's distinction does apply to one SUBCATEGORY of the combinatory-sublime. I think it's more difficult for "ludicrous narratives" to bring forth the specific "sense of wonder" theme of "unbounded beauty," the sort of thing one can also get from the great "mind-meld" in CHILDHOOD'S END or Tolkien's vision of elvish elegance in LORD OF THE RINGS. Beauty is harder to get across in works of the ludicrous, no matter the intensity of the "tonal levity" involved. In comedies the reader learns to expect to see another joke or slapstick pratfall just around the corner, while in ironies the reader certainly doesn't expect to see any form of beauty, unbounded or otherwise, to stand against the relentless ennui of entropy.

And thus what I wrote regarding the nature of "conviction" in the CROSSBOW series similarly applies not to the combinatory-sublime in general, but specifically to the subcategory of unbounded beauty.

Because even the unbounded type of beauty needs some degree of gravity, if only for contrast.

MORE PARADIGM ENVY

I suppose in large part my view that it's rare for SF novels to make good films takes some influence from the old canard that in Hollywood at least, only bad books make good movies. Obviously this is easy to disprove, and yet it does seem that an awful lot of minor works, from TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT to THE GODFATHER, have yielded some above-average film adaptations.

IMO, though, this is partly because those less canonical novels are more amenable to filmwriters and directors playing with them, while the Big Important Novels come, so to speak, with Canons Fully Loaded. And this may relate to why it's hard to adapt some of the canonical classics of SF, while Philip Dick is relatively easy to play with.

Take Clarke's CHILDHOOD'S END, for instance, which I re-read about a year ago. It's a fascinating novel of ideas, sort of like the SF equivalent to Maugham's THE RAZOR'S EDGE-- but it's not a very eventful novel. Any accurate adaptation to film would have to deal first with the bisected temporal structure of the novel-- starting first with how the alien Overlords approach mankind in contemporary times (not necessarily Clarke's 1953 era, but something in tune with the time of a given film-audience) and then moving forward one hundred years, to the time when the Overlords have brought peace to mankind for their own hidden purposes. That also means that no single human identification-figure can plausibly span that gulf of time, though in theory filmmakers could tinker with that detail, maybe granting an extra-long life to some character who will later do all the things Jan Rodricks does in the latter half of the novel. But then, he actually doesn't "do" much of anything but observe the Overlords' evolutionary agenda come to pass. In some ways, END would probably work less well as a full-fledged film than as a very condensed episode of an anthology TV-show like TWILIGHT ZONE.

It's certainly possible that someone could adapt certain SF novels not written by Philip Dick with success, but only with the knowledge that what works well on the page often doesn't translate that well on the screen. Again, part of this inheres in how much SF follows the example of the mimetic novel, and I imagine that anyone who manages a good adaptation of, say, CHILDHOOD'S END will have to use a good deal of visual inventiveness, as Anthony Minghella did in his not-entirely-like-the-book adaptation of THE ENGLISH PATIENT.

SCI-FI, FANTASY AND COMICS: PARADIGM ENVY

This week-- the week Arthur C. Clarke died at 90 years old-- I remarked that it was strange that so little of his work had been adapted to film or television. An acquaintance replied that he would rather see the adaptation of more classic SF and less "comic book crap."

I didn't ask him how he felt about the fact that more fantasy novels are also getting translated compared to SF novels, because I knew from past experience that he'd consider fantasy "crap" as well.

But then, as I thought about it a while, I answered my own question as to why Clarke-- and for that matter, most well-known SF authors-- don't get adapted more. And given that I've read hundreds of SF novels in my life-- probably more than I have fantasy-novels, though not single comics-issues-- I feel I speak with some authority when I say that even the best SF novels are crap-- cinematically speaking, that is.

Fantasy-fiction and comic books heroes aren't any better or worse off than SF when regarded through the Sturgeon "90% of everything is crap/crud" lens. But the fantasies nurtured in these respective genres are, without a doubt, cinematic. That means that at their best they have strong if simple plotlines that can be translated without much loss onto the screen, especially with the advent of CGI technology.

"Classic SF," however, comes out of a mimetic tradition that parallels the growth of the modern realistic novel. The content of your classic SF novel-- and here I'm focusing largely on the tradition that grew out of American magazines of the 1930s-- is no more realistic than that of a fantasy-novel, but in terms of presentation even the most excellent novels are not cinematic. Many of them are full of that peripatetic noodling called "world-building," which is pleasing within the framework of the SF-reader but which results in a lot of wordy passages that refuse to translate well to the cinematic screen.

Such a translation is possible, certainly. But where Tolkein is still Tolkien when a filmwriter leaves out some of fantasy's noodlings, and Spider-Man is arguably still Spider-Man even without Steve Ditko art, Asimov isn't Asimov without all that bookish noodling-- as should be apparent from the way the film I, ROBOT pretty much junks any fidelity to the short stories under which Asimov grouped his robot tales.

More on this later--