Book Review:
A & B Strugatski, Far Rainbow and
———The Second Invasion from Mars (McMillian, 1979)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground
by Thomas R.
“Russian novel” is sometimes used as a synonym for massive epic tomes with a large cast of characters. At least that’s what I thought early on. Later in life I learned that many Russian writers were be quite capable of writing short stories or novels. Some even preferred that form; all the works I’ve read of the Brothers Strugatski are short novels. These two of theirs continue that trend.
The two short novels combined in the omnibus I bought from “Used Books,” which is the place’s actual name, seem to have almost nothing in common. In fact a character in Far Rainbow is from a previous work, and its setting is another world with future physics. Far Rainbow is a kind of disaster novel: it is set on another world, where an experiment in “zero physics” leads to the deaths of the entire adult population. The Second Invasion from Mars is basically contemporary to the authors’ writing and is set on Earth. It is a satire of modern life in general and of the Soviets’ in particular.
In a way, though, grouping them together made sense. Both are surprisingly cheerful, even sappy, stories on the surface that are in fact intensely pessimistic by implication. In both of them, the “big” things — science or art or politics — seem to be irrelevant or outright failures. In Far Rainbow, the leading scientist is hopeful the disaster will spread, killing many, for the scientific information it will provide. The protagonist of Second Invasion from Mars chides his son-in-law for caring more about social change than his own wife. The sense is the focus should be on the interpersonal relationships rather than large issues.
Yet there is a strong sense this attitude is ultimately one of disillusionment, not individualism, and that youthful ideals of revolution have curdled into despair. The stories seem to indicate those focused on the larger issues will never truly care for the common people, or, if they do care, pettiness and human nature will ultimately destroy all their dreams. Hence the common man would rather wallow in well-fed idiocy, or a happy death, than hope for improvement which seem always lead to greater misery or even violent death.
Cheery stuff, isn’t it? Well in fact the dire nature of the stories comes mostly through implication. In the case of Far Rainbow, it is the story of a planet of scientific research whose experiments go dangerously awry, killing everyone. It kills them through the unwanted side affect of “the Wave,” a kind of energy storm. Yet until the disaster reaches full proportions, it seemed zany and diverting. You saw a diverse cast of characters bewailing the bureaucracy as is typical in their work and likely in Soviet life. You also had a man wanting to make time with a school teacher, but being constantly interrupted by his bosses and Camill.
Camill is maybe the most interesting character: he is a mysterious man who knows the future; but, like Cassandra in Greek myth, his prophecies seemed doomed to be misunderstood or ignored until it is too late. He also seems to appear without explanation to be recognized only as a genius no one understands. These characters and more die contentedly singing, while walking into the sea, as the Wave kills them. An exception is the children, who are sent on a spaceship to be saved for the future and to start again.
Second Invasion from Mars is different in that on the surface it is even funnier and happier but by implication is far more hopeless. It is the tale of a small town of colorful Russian characters — or caricatures — and their eccentric lives. When the invasion from “Mars” happens — although the story insists Mars is lifeless, it calls them Martians for lack of a better term — it means less to these people than stamps or going to bars. By the end they are even happy for the invasion as the beer is better, hunger is eliminated, and the wars are gone, and there is nothing to be angry about. This is not like Childhood’s End or some story of aliens and rural folk like Clifford D. Simak’s.
Indeed, from the first there is a sense of wrongness about this whole deal, and not just because the translation is a bit more awkward than in the earlier work. It seems plausible by the end that — as in H. G. Wells — humans are displaced at the top, but this time permanently. The future may find humanity as nothing more than the civets or weasels used to make the equivalent of coffee for alien yuppies.
That modern analogy works surprisingly well as the aliens are very concerned with human digestion and what it produces. More unnerving, people are willing, even eager, to be so demeaned if they can be fed and comforted. The lone people in town who protest, the son-in-law and an elderly ultra-nationalist, end as worthless radicals. They are not even in sympathy with each other.
Despite that I think there was a small note of sad sympathy for the kind of people, weary of bread lines and Cold War, who would be desperate enough to embrace this kind of servitude as a happy alternative to their dreary lives. Somewhat like what we may feel for the Chinese who, as I write this on the anniversary of Tiananmen, have decided to concentrate on the current regime’s decreasing poverty while giving little increase in freedom.
I decided to make this a review of Russian literature instead of just the Strugatski’s, so I will briefly mention Notes from Underground. Briefly, as I’m mostly going to discuss how it relates to science fiction. It perhaps should not, as the term “Scientific Romance” did not yet exist, and Verne at this point mostly just wrote adventures about balloon trips. However it is in fact mentioned in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction under Russia.
The opening part is very concerned about utopianism, but specifically a kind of utopianism that relies on progress and science. This makes for a rather hostile, if at times perplexing, assault on scientific determinism and utopianism. It implies that if scientific determinism is true, then man will invent a science where all decisions, even absurd ones, are calculated in advance. Than humanity will be able to predict its own future.
However unlike another Russian author, Isaac Asimov, the underground man views this not with ambivalence but outright horror. He considers an abrogation of free will, and the recipe for a soulless society that humans will never tolerate. He also abhors any kind of utopianism for the same reason, believing that total happiness can only be gained by losing freedom; that if indeed future people all became happy, secular humanists, they would rebel, bringing back the choice for suffering, as in Cordwainer’s Instrumentality, to regain purpose and freedom.
The rest is mostly a human story. The part that struck me as most memorable of it being his relationship with a prostitute named Liza. This part of the story is surprisingly gripping; surprising because mostly the story had been the guy’s increasingly redundant rant before then, but it shows him to be so utterly contemptible that any arguments he makes seem morally suspect.
This part of the story is quite different in having dramatic tension and being revealing about the character. Before this “the underground man,” as he is usually called, is just someone ranting at you for believing in utopian ideas, which you quite likely do not believe in the first place. However this part is more like a real story where he interacts with others and you get a sense of him as a person, rather than as an idea man. Interestingly, what it reveals is that he is repellent, and even loathsome. It does this in tense scenes which are surprisingly compelling and made me question anything a mind such as his would believe.
A note on the translations. All three works seemed to have a problem I have noticed in reading translated literature. There are tendencies to make rural people of other countries sound like Southerners or stereotyped hill folk in SF translations. Second Invasion does not do that exactly, but at times they talk like grizzled old West Virginian coal miners in a way that is a bit distracting. Also, instead of using normal expressions, it translates them in rather odd, awkward ways, e.g. “that the bridges are burned down” instead of “we’ve burned our bridges” Or “the old lady in the buggy” and some uses of “back sides” for butts or just hides seemed kind of odd.
Despite its translation problems I may have enjoyed Second Invasion the most. The story itself is more coherent than Far Rainbow and more fun than Notes from Underground. Yet in a paradoxical way its being better may be why I found its translation problems the most annoying.
