Part 8 in the series, A Literary Search for Meaning by Karen Hughes
Speculative fiction offers a variety of overlapping genres with a wide range of tropes and techniques that the modern writer can draw upon to create new and original works. While the tropes and techniques of mythic fantasy are useful for the reasons discussed in part 7 of this series, my new novel, Gaba Gali, does not easily sit within the fantasy genre and is perhaps better described as science fiction. Despite much critical analysis, there is still no settled definition of science fiction (see Stableford et al.). For the purposes of this discussion, it is useful to note Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn’s distinction between science fiction and fantasy: “[F]antasy is about the construction of the impossible whereas science fiction may be about the unlikely, but is grounded in the scientifically possible” (1). Many of the scientific theories I employed in my novel might not be widely accepted, but they are possible. Further, the first- person vocabulary in my novel is one of action and the pseudo-time of the discourse is firmly in the present, a style more common in science fiction than in fantasy, and the futuristic dystopian and apocalyptic themes would probably lead most publishers and booksellers to label the work as science fiction for commercial purposes.
David Ketterer argues that all science fiction is “an aspect of the apocalyptic imagination and its overlaps with the mimetic and hermetic imaginations, the three imaginations forming a logical gamut” (“Apocalyptic” 398, citing New Worlds). He suggests that the “apocalyptic imagination category” includes a subgenre of “philosophical apocalyptic science fiction” that is “concerned with the creation of other worlds which exist on a literal level, in a credible relationship (whether on the basis of extrapolation and analogy or of religious belief) with the ‘real’ [material] world, thereby causing a destruction of that ‘real’ world in the reader’s head” (New Worlds 13). One example is The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber (2014), which Ketterer describes as “science fiction that intersects with, and is dominated by, the mimetic mode” (“Mimetic” 403). While Faber’s writing technique is “overpoweringly psychological and naturalistic realism”, the plot and setting mark the novel as “generic” science fiction and not mimetic literature (404). Similarly, Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder (2011) is a novel that revolves around an “apocalyptic miraculous dimension of reality” (“Locating Slipstream” 12) evoked by focusing on the microscopic world of the Amazon that is hidden from our everyday experience. Both novels create new worlds in the reader’s mind. The only difference is that Patchett’s novel has been labelled “literary fiction” by publishers and booksellers, perhaps in keeping with the expectations of her established readership, despite its clear science-fiction tropes—the lost world, the eccentric scientist experimenting on herself, the revolutionary finding based on the unique ecosystem she is trying to protect, and the opening of the scientist’s mind that brings a “radical reformulation of the nature of reality” (New Worlds 203).
Ursula K. Le Guin is one writer who is particularly scathing about the commercial use of literary genres, arguing that it is a concept that could have been useful but has now been “degraded into a disguise for mere value-judgement … mere product-labels to make life easy for lazy readers, lazy critics, and the Sales Departments of publishers” (Outer Space vii). She writes that there is a “genuine difference” between fantasy and science fiction for the writer that has nothing to do with the “categorical imperatives of critics”. I have found this to be true in my own work. In fantasy, Le Guin says, you make up everything, including the rules. In science fiction, you “have to follow most of the rules of science, or at least not ignore them” (vii). Le Guin goes on to discuss her story “Semley’s Necklace”, where she mixed Norse mythology into “space-ship-alien-planet business” because “I didn’t know any better yet” (vii). Whether it really is a matter of not knowing any better is perhaps less important now that the boundaries between the genres of speculative fiction, and between literary genres in general, are much less distinct than they were in 1966 when Le Guin began her writing career. Today, writers of speculative fiction seem quite comfortable combining categories to create an eclectic range of new subgenres, such as the new weird, science fantasy, solarpunk and kitchen sink dystopia. I have taken advantage of these blurred lines in Gaba Gali, albeit to a lesser extent than Le Guin does in “Semley’s Necklace”. I incorporated mythic elements into a work that could be classified as “philosophical science fiction” to make use of the literary techniques discussed earlier, drawing on the power of myth to tap into Frye’s mythic imagination and Jung’s collective unconscious and to encourage a sense of wonder in my reader. As the project progressed, however, I found that I was more interested in building on these myths to create new mythologies—as Le Guin does in works such as “The Shobies’ Story”, which I discuss in the next part of this series—than in retelling old stories.
Much of my narrative is set in a futuristic rural landscape, which I have attempted to make as realistic as possible. Many of the finer details, including aspects of rare-earth mining and the potential uses of thorium, are facts that I obtained from various industry journals and technical papers. I did not invent any of the foreign languages that I sprinkled throughout the work to add richness and authenticity, and this includes Saren, a Miyayan light language (see Rada). Even Kayla’s forays into other timelines and the mystical labyrinth could, at least initially, be explained away by science—namely a family history of mental illness and the romantic idealist patterns of her personality. In the first part of the novel, I followed “most of the rules of science”—or at least, the commonly accepted rules of physics. Xīncūn / China Pacific is a synecdoche for modern dystopian culture of corporate surveillance and control, and I reinforced this dystopian setting with reference to realistic futuristic technologies, such as the holomax wristbands, extreme cosmetic surgery, nuclear fission reactors and thorium adjuvants in vaccines. As the narrative progressed, the scientific theories I employed were less mainstream, but I was still following the rules. The later sections were influenced by the works of a variety of scientists: cosmologists who debate Hugh Everett’s many-worlds theory, the multiverse, and braneworld string theory (see Greene, The Hidden Reality); theoretical physicists such as Max Tegmark and Laura Mersini-Houghton who argue that these worlds could be real; and earth scientists such as James Lovelock who claim the earth is a conscious self-regulating organism. Some of these theories might be on the fringe, but they are still science (Friedlander).
James Lovelock, an English chemist, first formulated the Gaia hypothesis in the mid-1960s and, at age 102, continues to develop and promote his theory; the Gaia hypothesis states that “organisms and their material environment evolve as a single coupled system, from which emerges the sustained self-regulation of climate and chemistry at a habitable state for whatever is the current biota” (769). Lovelock sums this up as follows: “Life regulates the Earth’s atmosphere and climate to keep it habitable. It is as simple as that” (McKie). Mary Midgley writes that it was Lovelock’s friend, the novelist William Golding, who suggested the name of the “ancient Greek mother-goddess, Gaia,” as a means of making Lovelock’s theory more accessible to a popular audience, and that this was necessary because:
What personification does is to attack the central, disastrous feature of the mechanistic paradigm … —the conviction that the physical world is inert and lifeless. It reverses the propaganda which had dramatized that idea by using machine-imagery and by fiercely denouncing alternative, more personal images such as Mother Nature. (Earthy Realism 20)
Lovelock uses the language of mythology to replace the mechanistic paradigm with a new paradigm that combines modern science with ancient ideas about the living earth. Midgley does not regard this use of language as unusual, noting: “We know now that science always uses imaginative visions or paradigms which change from time to time, along with the imagery that expresses them” (Earthy Realism 20). I employed mythological imagery and personification in Gaba Gali to illustrate Kayla’s changing paradigm, introducing Danu, the Celtic earth goddess, in one of Kayla’s early shamanic experiences. Kayla is stripped to the bone by the icy fingers of the fog and then reassembled by the mother goddess:
My bones sink into the welcoming earth … and welcome me she does, my eternal mother, appearing to me in the form of a strong, fleshy goddess with glistening black skin and shiny leaf-green hair. She gathers my remains in her arms and holds me, crooning softly, her eyes wet with tears, as my bones meld together and the skin forms fresh and new and I emerge from the darkness, reborn.
This scene was also influenced by Mircea Eliade’s descriptions of the initiation of the “Eskimo” and Siberian shamans in which “reduction to the skeleton indicates a passing beyond the profane human condition” (Shamanism 63). By uniting these shamanic rituals with the imagery of the goddess, I linked Kayla’s shamanic initiation with her spiritual reconnection with the living earth, which is revealed in part 3 of my novel to be a sentient being. Later in the narrative, I examined the earthmother archetype through a discussion between Branok and Kayla:
“She’s not Danu here, she’s not exactly the same, but her essence moves through all earth goddesses and all beings connected with the earth. The goddess of the original people here is called Yhi. There are other goddesses in other places—Gaia, Pachamama, Prithvi, Hòutǔ … They aren’t the same goddess, but they’re all expressions of Mother Earth.”
The name “Gaia” sticks in my mind, and I remember that Jordy once used it to describe a “seventh-dimensional” earth. …
“Danu is only one incarnation of the earth spirit. She is the planet personified. It’s hard to communicate with a planet, so the Tuatha Dé Danann, the fifth-dimensional beings who created Danu, gave the earth spirit a name and a personality.”
The discussion culminates in Branok leading Kayla deep inside the earth to meet her great- grandmother, Mah-druh, who could be seen as an incarnation of both the wise woman and the goddess archetypes (see Jung, Archetypes).
The concept of multiple timelines and parallel worlds is gradually introduced in the second part of my novel and discussed at length in part 3 to explain the earlier experiences of the protagonists and to foreshadow their shift to a new paradigm. I based my narrative on Hugh Everett’s controversial 1956 doctoral thesis, The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (MWI), that Everett’s proponents, including MIT physicist Max Tegmark, claim supports a quantum cosmology, an amalgam of quantum theory and classical relativistic cosmology that seeks to explain the nature of the universe. Tegmark writes that while MWI does not, contrary to popular belief, support the idea that “[a]t certain magic instances, the world undergoes some sort of metaphysical ‘split’ into two branches that subsequently never interact”, it does suggest that reality depends on individual perception and choice, and that there could be “multiple observers with identical memories of what happened before a certain point but differing afterwards” (Tegmark, “Many Worlds in Context”). MWI has its roots in the Copenhagen Interpretation, advanced by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, which states that while large matter follows the laws of standard Western physics, atomic and subatomic particles follow the theories of quantum mechanics, including the theory of wave function collapse. Tegmark argues that Everett’s theory is “simply standard quantum mechanics with the collapse postulate removed” and that it applies to all matter, including the universe itself. Thus, instead of there being only one possible indeterministic reality for the wave to collapse into at any moment, as posited by the Copenhagen Interpretation, Everett’s theory suggests that our alternative choices create a branching of the wave into infinite possible realities. Tegmark explains Everett’s theory in terms of two different perspectives: a frog in the landscape and a bird flying above.
From the bird perspective, the act of making a decision causes a person to split into multiple copies: one who keeps on reading and one who doesn’t. From their frog perspective, however, each of these alter egos is unaware of the others and notices the branching merely as a slight randomness: a certain probability of continuing to read or not. (“Many Worlds in Context”)
While Tegmark claims that Everett’s interpretation is as important as Einstein’s theory of relativity and future experiments will show that “this seems to be the way the world works” (M. Everett; in the Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives documentary, Mark Everettt’s interview starts at 26:45), he accepts that there are many who disagree and notes that the controversy shows no sign of abating (“Many Worlds in Context”). For the purposes of my novel, MWI offers a startling alternative to the current paradigm of standard Western science and is therefore a useful resource for the writer aiming to evoke a sense of wonder that might open their reader’s mind to other possibilities. As Tegmark writes: “Hubris and lack of imagination have repeatedly caused us humans to underestimate the vastness of the physical world, and dismissing things merely because we cannot observe them from our vantage point is reminiscent of the ostrich with its head in the sand” (“Many Worlds in Context”).
By the third part of my novel, I had moved beyond Earth to a multidimensional reality where Earth science was no longer relevant. If I were making up the rules of this reality, the latter part of my work could be described as fantasy fiction, or at least “science fantasy”, a subgenre known for its “scientifically improbable elements” (Clarke). At this point, however, the metaphysical themes of my work were taking precedence over material reality and, as discussed in the previous chapter, I incorporated scientific theories from works allegedly channelled from various extradimensional entities. Here, I was “stretching scientific ideas much further than a scientist would” (Le Guin, Outer Space viii), but this does not mean the work is a science fantasy. Much of the documentation on which I relied has been compiled by scholars (see, for example, Klimo; Elkins et al.; Missler and Eastman), and many are willing to seriously entertain the theories I have explored, even though such ideas lie outside our phenomenal world and the paradigms they suggest can generally be reached only through mystical experiences or with the assistance of psychedelic drugs.
Marge Piercy is another writer who stretches scientific ideas for the purpose of communicating human themes, though perhaps she does not stretch them as far as I have. Piercy takes her readers beyond the limits of consensus reality and into a world of alternative timelines in her 1976 novel Woman on the Edge of Time, a work generally labelled “science fiction” by scholars and publishers. While Piercy’s focus is on the political idealism and social activism of her time and her dystopian setting is firmly anchored in 1970s New York, themes of time travel and alternative futures clearly situate the novel within Ketterer’s philosophical apocalyptic science-fiction subgenre. Piercy’s main character, Consuelo (“Connie”) Ramos, is a “Mexican-American” woman living on welfare, confined to a mental hospital on two separate occasions, first for hitting her daughter who is then adopted out, and later when she is framed by her niece’s pimp. Piercy contrasts the grim environment of the hospital with Mattapoisett, the communitarian village that Connie visits with Luciente, a messenger from the year 2137. In the same way that I employ a realistic depiction of the mining towers of Xīncūn and its drought-stricken surrounds on Earth to provide a contrast with the more utopian rural idyll of fifth-dimensional Terra, Piercy “counterpoints the utopianism of Mattapoisset with the dystopian realism with which Connie’s actual world is represented” (Pykett).
Like many of the mystical experiences described in my novel, Connie’s meetings with Luciente and her dream expeditions to the future could be explained away as a product of her mental illness and drug use. Piercy’s use of the mental hospital as a narrative device creates uncertainty in the reader as to whether Connie’s visions are only imagined, and some scholars have argued that this causes the reader to question “the idealism of utopian thinking” (Hunter 347). In the first part of my creative work, I created the same ambiguity by using Kayla’s epileptic turns and family history of bipolar disorder to potentially explain away her visions. The denial of doctors and the scepticism of other family members renders the narrative more realistic because this is the approach generally favoured by the Western medical profession. As the narrative progresses, however, this worldview is undermined by Kayla’s role as a sympathetic and credible narrator. To further reinforce Kayla’s credibility, I contrasted her experience with the New Age fantasy world of her mother, whose struggle to integrate her multidimensional experience with the “real” world has apparently triggered some form of psychosis. The mother’s deterioration was based on my reading of a wide range of psychiatric cases, including the material and commentary in The Stormy Search for the Self (1992) by Christina Grof and Stanislav Grof, and on the egoistic delusions of spiritual seekers observed by John Welwood in Toward a Psychology of Awakening (2000). The further effect of this comparison is to reassure the reader that Kayla’s experience is very different to magical thinking or the delusions of mental illness, and her alternative worldview can therefore be taken seriously. Kayla’s credibility allows the reader to accept the validity of mystical visions and shifting timelines, and ultimately of another version of reality. I would argue that Piercy uses Connie’s “illness” in the same way. In Piercy’s novel, Connie’s credibility exposes the problems with the Western treatment of mental illness and suggests that an alternative worldview combined with individual idealism and social activism could lead our dystopian society to a better future. In my project, Kayla’s experiences suggest there might be more to the world (and to us) than the mythologies of the past would have us believe.
Nadia Khouri writes: “In Woman on the Edge of Time, every past and present happening prepares the way for the modification of future events” (57). Like Piercy, I am writing about a fluid reality that is altered by the actions (or, in my case, the changing perception) of the protagonist. Piercy “gears the whole utopian energy towards the explosion of established limits” and, with her emphasis on the small domestic details of Connie’s everyday life, reveals that “the utopian potential registered in an SF text is not an epiphenomenal escape of consciousness outside of history, not a mere futuristic projection, but a material force inscribed in the here and now of history, notwithstanding its perplexities and frustrations” (Khouri 59). The alternative timelines in my narrative offer the characters (and through them, the reader) the potential to explode the established limits of their thinking and shift their focus to a more utopian reality.
While the apocalyptic trajectories in Gaba Gali could have many possible outcomes, the most obvious is either the disintegration of society and the eventual physical destruction of the earth, or the dissolution of the characters’ third-dimensional perceptions and their embodied transition to super-imposed fifth-dimensional Terra. The latter, which is more realistic than metaphysical by the end of the narrative, is the inevitable result of the human collective experiencing a shift in consciousness. This is not as apocalyptic as it might at first appear. The glimpses of life on Terra and the interaction between the characters in the Terran soul group reveal that while consciousness on Terra is more collective than it is on Earth, it is still individuated and thus the opportunity remains for conflict, self-realisation and consequent spiritual growth, although perhaps on a lesser scale than might occur in the crucible of a socially and politically polarised third-dimensional setting.
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