A Real Sense of Otherness: "Exit West" by Mohsin Hamid

I wonder if I might share some personal thoughts and experiences about SF in order to shed light on the way I read "Exit West"?

I must have been about 6 or 7 when I was in big trouble at school for refusing to read the books we were given, and disrupting lessons as a diversion. Janet and John's escapades were incredibly dull, I thought. My grandmother, and my mother must have got talking, because I shall never forget that first Wednesday evening when The Eagle landed on the mat at the front door. There was Dan Dare blasting off in the Anastasia to who knows where, with Digby and co, and I just had to know what they were saying in those speech bubbles. So I taught myself to read through SF, and interest in the genre, to varying degrees, stayed with me all my life. (As a matter of interest, I went from bottom of the class to top in reading, in less than a year!).

I read my first SF novel, Wells' "War of The Worlds", hiding in my bedroom in Lisbon, aged 14. Much of the SF I grew up on was about adventures in outer space, alien invasion, fear of the unknown, coming mainly through radio, TV, and comics. In the 80's, we had “Journey into Space” on the radio, and “Twilight Zone” on TV. The movies gave us “Them,” “The Day The Earth Stood Still”, ”Earth vs The Flying Saucers”, “Things To Come”, all about thrills and excitement. During the 90's and 2000's, more novels and short story collections began to appear, together with a number of blockbuster movies. But for most people in Portugal, SF meant “Space 1999”, and “Star Trek”.

When I once again started attending The British Council, in the 1980's, many of the pupils were interested in SF, mainly because of the huge success of Hitchhiker's. You see, all through the twentieth century, the general message that ordinary folk got was that SF was light entertainment. Some of the bright "cool dudes" started talking enthusiastically about Asimov, Fred Pohl, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, and the amusingly named Philip K. Dick. The lunchtime chats soon indicated to me I was way out of my depth, and so I realised if I was going to be of any use to them, I needed to get into some serious reading, and get beyond Hitchhiker's and Red Dwarf! Within a couple of years I had read the key authors, and was able to bring Robert Sheckley, Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Joe Haldeman, and Christopher Priest to the table. Naturally there was a strong tie-in with some of my main subjects, and so we also got to see SF illustration work by the likes of Michael Whelan, H. R. Giger, Chris Foss, Jim Burns, Frank Frazetta, Rodney Matthews, Tim White, Patrick Woodroffe, and many more, and some of us also learned how to use the air brush.

It was like being into computers back in the day you were a geek or nerd. Now everyone is into it because you can shop and date. Everyone's into SF now because it's become mainstream Hollywood culture. But really most are not into it. It's sane to think about the universe and question it and wonder about it. Those who don't are dull. I think Arthur C. Clarke said those people haven't any soul. That's why I keep looking up at the stars. Is it possible to feel a real sense of otherness by books that tell of lies we have not told, fights we would not have, monsters we won’t face, murders we would not commit and accidents we probably won’t have? To admire universes that exist solely in our minds? Dangerous novels give us that frightening feeling of being so close to the Other; in SF like this it's not so ease to attach labels. That's the best kind of SF there is. “Exit West” makes me believe there's still hope for SF.

NB: Some people will never be able to enjoy SF on the same level as, say, D. H. Lawrence, because they are unable to suspend belief and enter a fantasy world. Strangely, I can take that genre on trust, but not so sword and sorcery. I love the artwork, but not the literature (with some exceptions).

SF = Speculative Fiction.

RIP Brian Aldiss, 1925 - 1917: "The Brightfount Diaries" by Brian Aldiss

It has been a while since I read his “Trillion Year Spree”, but I would respectfully submit that Aldiss may very well have made his case for the essential nature of science fiction in making and moving on the modern world.

It is difficult to think of another genre so relevant, and at the same time (in its various forms) so popular and influential. I think he did much to point out the debt we owe the revolutionary authors like Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and the hot-housing role of science-fiction short stories in incubating new (or reheated) ideas.

Brian Aldiss championed SF to the world outside, and occasionally gave those of us who were a little bit . . . insular . . . the ticking-off we deserved. He was part of the community in a good way, attending sf conventions, always approachable, and being the life and soul of the party but always producing books and criticism which challenged us. You could never quite predict what the next Aldiss novel would be, but you always knew there would be something to think about. He was a remarkable man. Even though he received an OBE and an honorary doctorate for "services to literature", I suspect he would have been much more successful in "critical" terms if he had jettisoned science fiction, and he would have been more successful in the sf world if he had buckled down to churn out identikit trilogies. "His work is still [in a sense] to be discovered." Yes, that's correct. It was wide, various, and deep. But those of us who discovered even a part of it are grateful to have done so. 

Thank you, Brian.

Between Brian's own stories and his edited anthologies, (among others, e.g. Harlan Ellison, Phil Dick, Alfred Bester) new ways of processing the world were welcomed by me when I first discovered him back in the early '70s. The ground was also prepared for more left-field SF such as Iain M. Banks. Not that there are any second hand bookshops left around here anymore, (when they used to be a reliable way to browse and discover on a wet afternoon almost anywhere. Charity shops with a half-hearted shelf of TV related titles seem to have supplanted them), but I was able to get a Kindle copy of “The Brightfount Diaries”. I imagine that back when I first read it, such a thing might have seemed like science fiction. Having said that an ability to suspend critical judgement is key to the enjoyment of reading, I will also say that the books that remain with you are the ones that have greater psychological reality.

Ray Bradbury has faded, but James Blish grows stronger; Harlan Ellison was a flash-bang, and all we smell is stale cordite; The work of Phil Dick lingers like a bad dream; Philip Jose Farmer ages like H. G. Wells, but Asimov is unreadable now; David Brin is a low profile Arthur C. Clarke; Larry Niven wears bell bottoms, but may come into fashion again; Iain M. Banks big thinking feels as if it wasn't thought through, a half vision undone by plotting, half glimpsed.

And so it goes...

RIP Brian, your works made your mark on me and many others, and will continue to do so. Always an engaging writer. I notice I only seem to have “Last Orders” and “The Brightfount Diaries” on my shelf now. I think I must have liberated the other dozen or so. And good for them, they're meant to be read, not collect dust and tobacco film.

SF = Speculative Fiction.

The Society of Cousins: “The Moon and the Other” by John Kessel

“[…]’The One and the Other’. But who is the One, and who is the Other, eh? Male or female?”

In “The Moon and the Other” by John Kessel

I feel that there is a big dividing line between good authors and great authors in science fiction and fantasy; I always find that there are loads of books where I enjoyed the characterisation and romped along in the story and had a good time, but very few where you feel that you need two days after finishing it, just to complete appreciating it. Recently, John Kessel is one writer who has reached those moments for me, the same with Dexter Palmer and, in his lovelier works K. J. Parker. Having said that, I would reserve judgment on whether being literary in style means you are actually good. I think there are plenty of writers of what most would consider 'pulp' style genre fiction, who are infinitely more engaging and thought provoking than those involved in intricate lyrical stylings and homages. It's not exclusively one way or the other though; I've enjoyed Murakami just as much as I've enjoyed Stephenson. I grew up with SF, but read less and less of it now. Perhaps ironically, my feelings for the genre are fairly well summed up by Master Ultan's words to the apprentice Severian:

"I began, as most young people do, by reading the books I enjoyed. But I found that narrowed my pleasure, in time, until I spent most of my hours searching for such books".

I gradually stopped reading much SF in my mid-20s, after spending too many hours scouring the SF sections of Bertrand Bookstore and finding far too many re-hashings of the same few ideas, themes and characters.

Well, quite.

I'm sure there are still great SF books being written. But it can be infuriatingly difficult to find them among the mountain of juvenilia. I imagine this is because publishers see a lucrative market in escapist SF for teenagers and young adults; a market that re-cycles itself every five years or so, making it less sensitive to repetition.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, but surely there's also a market for intelligent speculative fiction written by and for people who are interested in ideas but who also value good writing and strong characterisation?

What does Kessel bring to SF that others can’t? Well, for starters, he brought me “Corrupting Dr. Nice” one of the finest works of SF ever put on paper. I must write something about it soon. But now, it’s time for “The Moon and the Other”, also one hell of a SF specimen. Some friends of mine who also read SF as a way of living, have been giving the book stick. I’m not sure why. The way some people rant, rave, whine and drool, you'd think "political correctness" meant "execution of the first-born male child in every household" rather than "giving all sections of society a fair crack of the whip". In any case, I fail to see what's so dreadfully "politically correct" about letting an author use reversed character roles with a higher voice and some slightly different genitalia, and playing in a completely fictional Moon-Space-Being... can anyone explain? Listen mate. If you think that a fictional character, from a fictional moon race who has been shown to switch sex when they regenerate should not be a woman (and the inverse would also apply), then you are part of the problem and you have no business reading SF for grown-ups. Men and women? “Two vines, intertwining, never meeting. Men and women, men and men, women and women. The one and the other, the living and the dead, irrevocably woven together, never touching.” Enough said.

Kessel built characters that do not seem at all contrived which is a very tall order when it comes to SF. I can't help feel the following argument permeating so much of today’s SF: "he's a timelord, he can regenerate into any sex" is a bit redundant in era where gender reassignment is increasingly common place. It’s arguably easier for a human to change sex now than it is a timelord; they don't have to nearly die then become a completely different person to do so. With that in mind, what exactly would be wrong with James Bond having a sex change in one of the films? Or a new Sherlock as a woman? Or bring back “Only Fools and Horses” and have Del identifying as female. I don't think any of this should be off the table. Should a writer fret about "How will a female character fight the baddies if she has to keep worrying about her period?" Etc., etc. All I can say is I've watched every episode of 24 and Jack Bauer didn't once get his cock out to clean under his foreskin so have some faith in SF writers to get around issues such as bodily hygiene. It doesn’t matter what each character does as long as it’s credible. That’s the only thing that interests me. As Kessel so rightly puts it:

“I am the one.

You are the other.

I am the other.

You are the one”

And yes, I don't think women are 'naturally' any nicer or kinder than men - which seems to surprise some people! I have always taught my children that an arsehole is an aresehole - they come in all genders, religions, colours, etc. Every individual is responsible for their own behaviour. There's definitely hints of gender swapping and questioning related to broader themes of humanity's relationship to the divine and to nature in the novel. At its heart are themes of “orphan-hood”. see a lot of bad things in modern society – I recently saw a TV piece on vietnamese slaves being used to cultivate vegetable farms in Alentejo. Slaves in 21st century Portugal! There's the occasional piece about FGM. There's pieces on austerity hurting the disabled, etc., etc., etc. To think that any one piece of history is better than another is stupid and fatuous. We tend towards a slow progression (no warlords running the country today, but we do have localised gangsters and organised criminals). What we didn't have back then was identity politics that looks at a couple of issues and uses them as the only bell-weather of progress. "Oh, look, you can be openly gay today" they say (not realising you could be back them too), or "oh look, women can go to work all day like men do" and ignore everything else. I doubt we've really progressed much when some women are locked away all day, and only allowed out dressed in a tent, with a male to make sure she doesn't do anything. Where our kids will never afford a house or career or kids of their own - unless they're on benefits. Where the economic system is so skewed towards the rich in a way they never were before. Yeah, we've made progress... and taken too many steps backwards in the name of looking away from uncomfortable truths. I think the 80s, and the 70s were a lot more honest and fairer than today. By a long way.

How does Kessel’s attempt compare with “The Handmaid’s Tale”? The former is infinitely superior to the latter. I seem to remember reading “A Handmaid's Tale” and thinking “Oh Dear this is what a mainstream author thinks is science fiction.” We'd just been through a complete literary revolution in the early '70s in science fiction writing, led by Harlan Ellison and others, producing ideas and stories against which Atwood's Tale seemed very tame. Unfortunately, the transference of SF from books to video, while increasing its popularity, has led to a regression almost back to the days of Asimov and Pohl among writers seeking the next Star Wars. The real SF is still in books, unfortunately not in “The Handmaid's Tale.”

Kudos to Kessel for writing such frigging good SF in this day and age. One of my best 2017 reads so far, be it SF or other stuff.

SF = Speculative Fiction