|
BLACK EASTER -- AFTERWORD |
|
During his long and influential career as a writer and critic of science fiction and fantasy, James Blish remained an ambiguous figure. A prodigious intellectual, he embodied the science fictional ideal of the writer thoroughly knowledgeable in literature (not merely widely read, he was a well-known scholar of the works of James Joyce) and in science (his original intention was a career in limnology). Yet throughout his career his idea of himself as a commercial writer and his need for a large and responsive audience led him to write a large number of stories and novels, including the famous adaptations of the Star Trek television series, during the same periods of his career when he was writing his most complex and ambitious works of fiction, such as the "Cities in Flight" series and the "After Such Knowledge" trilogy, of which this present book is the second volume. Much of his minor fiction has already, since his death in the mid-1970s, passed quietly into the backfiles of contemporary SF literary history. His most successful works remain among the most impressive in the science fiction field, especially the seminal (and Hugo Award-winning) A Case Of Conscience (1958) -- but there has yet appeared no substantial body of discussion and evaluation of the major portion of his works since Damon Knight's early and partial chapter in In Search of Wonder (1967), written in the mid-1950s. In Blish's short autobiographical article in Foundation (#2, June 1972), he identifies the novels in the "After Such Knowledge" trilogy as "my metier" but specifies that "I'll continue to write SF novels which are only games because I like to and I still seem to be good at it" (p. 23). How we are to interpret such a writer is best left for a broader consideration than the space of this essay permits, yet the fact remains that at his best and most serious, as in Black Easter and The Day After Judgment, Blish was one of the finest conscious literary craftsmen that the science fiction field has yet produced. The "After Such Knowledge" trilogy consists of Doctor Mirabilis (1965, revised 1971), a historical novel concerning the life of the medieval scientist/theologian; Black Easter and The Day After Judgment (originally a novel, 1968, and its sequel, 1971), a fantasy work set in contemporary times about the end of the world brought about through black magic; A Case of Conscience (1958), a science fiction novel concerning the discovery of an alien race without original sin. Blish states that it was only after the completion of Black Easter that he became conscious of the works as a trilogy: I realized that I had now written three novels, widely separated in times of composition and even more in ostensible subject-matter, each one of which was a dramatization in its own terms of one of the oldest problems of philosophy: Is the desire for secular knowledge, let alone the acquisition and use of it, a misuse of the mind, and perhaps even actively evil? I would not suggest for an instant that any of the three novels proposes an answer to this ancient question, let alone that I have one now or indeed ever expect to find one. I report only that it struck me that in each of the three books the question had been raised, from different angles and without my being aware of it while I was writing them. I therefore noted, in the third one to be written, that in their peculiar way they constituted a trilogy, to which I gave the over-all title After Such Knowledge .... Thereafter, and this time in full awareness of what my theme was, I wrote a fourth novel for the group, but since this was a direct sequel to Black Easter, I still regard it as a trilogy. He goes on to analyze the nature of the impact of the trilogy upon his audience, an analysis that reveals a great deal about his stance as a writer: I have never seen a Utopia or any other kind of fictional future, including any of my own, that on inspection did not turn into something I would hate to live in, or want anybody I cared for to have to live in; and much more pragmatically, I've observed that every example of what is now being called relevant SF (in the social political sense) that I have ever read has been turned into unreadable nonsense by subsequent history unless it has also contained and indeed depended upon some essentially timeless riddle of the human condition, one still capable of evoking wonder, joy or sorrow as no amount of technological ingenuity or future shock can ever do. And this, I flatter myself, is what explains why A Case of Conscience and its three successors had so extraordinary and unexpected an impact on the SF audience and widely beyond it, despite the fact that they belong to different genres and are all packed with esoteric details about subjects -- Thirteenth Century politics and theological disputes, modern black magic, and far future technology -- which seem to have nothing in common and should have split the readers into utterly disparate groups which might like one of the books but have no use at all for the others. But that's not what happened, and I now think I know why: the problem of the misuse of secular knowledge, and the intense distrust of it, runs through all four novels ... and without any such intention on my part, it turned out to be relevant as well as timeless. (pp. 22-23) Blish wrote these words at the height of the popularity of his trilogy. While A Case of Conscience has remained popular and is a secure luminary in the constellation of SF classics, Doctor Mirabilis never found its way into paperback in the U.S. and was remaindered in hardcover. Following a commercial failure in its first paperback incarnation, Black Easter has been hard to find in any edition and its sequel immediately retreated into the limbo of the out of print. Black Easter, immediately upon its appearance in 1968, was a notable critical success both in and outside the SF field. No book by Blish ever received more favorable and widespread review attention. What went wrong yields some interesting information about the science fiction field and its authors: the book was published by a major paperback house as "a novel about black magic," "for the public that loved Rosemary's Baby" (a smash hit film and bestseller) -- it was, in publishing parlance, "broken out of category," which means not marked by the publisher to be placed in the booksellers' sections reserved for the publishing category of fantasy and science fiction. Therefore it was never distributed to the SF audience in paperback in its first edition. Since it is not written according to the romantic conventions of the bestseller, it was about as popular as an atheist applying to teach grade school (has something to offend everyone). After that, no one chose to publish the sequel to a failure -- which, ironically, had a good chance of success if it had been published within the SF category. Recently there has been a resurgence of interest in fantasy of all types and in the works of James Blish. A massive Survey of Science Fiction Literature (Salem Press, 1979, 5 vols.) includes extensive coverage of the whole trilogy, including individual discussions of each work (particularly significant since almost without exception previous general reference works on the field have not mentioned works in the trilogy other than A Case of Conscience). Perhaps Black Easter and The Day After Judgment will soon be restored to the proper position of eminence in the SF field which they seemed about to occupy permanently when first published. Of the reviews which heralded the publication of Black Easter in the SF field in 1968, the most thorough and perceptive was by Joanna Russ (in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Dec., 1968). Russ, one of the most witty and acerbic critics in the field for the last two decades, wrote one of her infrequent rave reviews: "The book is about nothing less than the problem of Evil and it is brilliant." Her commentary on the book is so pointed and concise as to bear inclusion here: If God is omnipotent and benevolent, why does Evil exist? And if God is not omnipotent, if Evil has any kind of positive existence, what may not happen? To go any further would give away part of the book that a reader ought to have to himself; plot, in this book, is the very embodiment of the theme and not merely a diversionary tactic. It is as beautifully worked, as thorough and complete a cul-de-sac as I have seen in a long time. (p. 16) She goes on to praise Blish's "gift for portraying people who are passionately fond of logic, knowledge and technical detail" and to comment on the appropriate equation of black magic with science. She then engages in a discussion of the thematic involvements of the novel: This horrifying novel may sound too special, as I have described it, but the nerve it hits is in all of us. Westerners are all unconscious Manicheans; perhaps most people everywhere are .... most of us believe -- somewhere, somehow -- that Evil and Good both have a substantive being apart from the historically accidental, particular acts that people do. Good and Evil are conceived as nouns, not adjectives. What one might call the orthodox Problem of Evil (how can an omnipotent God permit it?) is a special case of a more general Problem of Evil that exists in a widespread secular form, particularly in this country. It is a conception of Good and Evil that severely handicaps Good, and is perfectly exemplified by the commonplace, "Good guys finish last." Good is here conceived as restraint, inaction, adhering to the rules by not allowing oneself to do X, Y, or Z. Evil is the freedom to break the rules and do as one pleases. [Theron Ware,] the "black" magician of this book is free (within the limits of his craft) to commit whatever atrocities he wishes; the "white" magician [Father Domenico] is constrained not to meddle, not even to pray for the failure of the other's schemes. A man not hampered by Good would have shot the "black" magician in the back, and a good thing, too. Good confronting an Evil which does not limit itself would be altogether horrible without the intervention of a benevolent Deity -- and that is where Black Easter turns on the reader and bites him in the jugular, so to speak. (p. 17) For Blish remains irrevocably within his Manichean framework: there can be no benevolent intervention. The orthodox problem of Evil has no solution. Russ continues her analysis with a provocative meditation on the changes in Western culture which are taking place now, resulting in the possibility of getting outside the terms of the problem. From G. B. Shaw through Sartre's Saint Genet, she sees expressions of a radical change, a radical redefinition of terms. This is the context of Black Easter: "It is not only about an Armageddon; it is part of one" (p. 18). The Day After Judgment brings Ware, Father Domenico, Baines, and Ginsburg, the four central characters of Black Easter, back on stage in order to recap and reinforce the thematic conflict of the initial book. Hell is now literally on Earth and the four are brought before the judgment seat of Satan triumphant. Satan declares to them in the poetic form of Milton's Paradise Lost that in his moment of victory he is lost. Good is no longer fettered and is as free as Evil and, ironically, Evil has, albeit unwillingly, by its victory unfettered Good, at least in potentiality. On the day after Judgment Day, there is a new world. Of the three segments of Blish's trilogy, Black Easter and The Day After Judgment is the last completed and deals with the thematic problem which energizes the trilogy in the clearest and most radical fashion. This volume may well comprise Blish's greatest masterpiece. [1] David G. Hartwell Pleasantville, New York _______________ Notes:
1. This short overview of Blish and his novels, Black Easter and The Day
After Judgment, has been adapted from the Introduction to the combined
edition in hardcover published in 1980 by Gregg Press. |