The Mailer Review/Volume 13, 2019/When Genres Collide: Difference between revisions

Mailer’s own, often volatile relationship with ''Esquire'' began with the April 1953 publication of “The Language of Men,” a short story about an Army base cook that conforms with the expectations of mainstream fiction and would fit comfortably between the covers of a ''Saturday Evening Post'' or an issue of ''Cosmopolitan'' from that era. But “[[The Last Night]],” written in 1962 and published in the December 1963 issue, is a curious combination of science fiction, politics, and environmental concerns presented as an example of Mailer’s experimental nature and his interest in film. In his prefatory note, Mailer acquaints readers with the notion of a film treatment, a narrative devoid of authorial style and intended to convince studio executives of the marketability of a story idea. He then offers a treatment that is unabashedly science fiction, a remarkable departure from Mailer’s work at that time.

The essential plot elements of spaceship migration from a dying Earth, while not exactly common in science fiction of the era, nevertheless has several notable precursors. ''[[w:When Worlds Collide|When Worlds Collide]]'', a novel by [[w:Edwin Balmer|Edwin Balmer]] and [[w:Phillip Wylie|Phillip Wylie]], was first published serially in six issues of ''Blue Book'' magazine in 1932 and 1933, later appearing in book form and, in 1951, adapted into a movie produced by the prominent science fiction filmmaker George Pal. The novel dramatizes the approach of two rogue planets, Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta, toward Earth and the anticipated destruction caused by the twin bodies’ gravitational pull. Bronson Beta appears inhabitable and likely to avoid damage from the cosmic collision, and Cole Hendron, an American physicist, begins to direct a team of workers building an enormous spaceship that will carry only a few of them to safety. Scottish novelist [[w:J. T. McIntosh|J. T. McIntosh]]’s “One in Three Hundred,” a short story published in the February 1953 issue of ''Fantasy and Science Fiction'', similarly deals with a natural catastrophe, this time from an occurrence of solar flares predicted to boil away the Earth’s oceans. Hundreds of spaceships are constructed to make an escape journey to Mars and, as with Mailer’s story, the emphasis is upon the moral and ethical decisions that government officials must make when selecting passengers from a cohort of citizens who have earned their chance for consideration through a national lottery.

Both of these examples deal with escape to a planet relatively close to Earth, but Mailer’s notion of a generational starship—an interstellar vehicle capable of supporting human life during its centuries-long journey to another solar system—is the central plot of [[w:Robert A. Heinlein|Robert A. Heinlein]]’s ''[[w:Orphans of the Sky|Orphans of the Sky]]'', originally published as two stories in separate numbers of ''Astounding'' in 1941 and collected in book form in the United States in 1962. Heinlein examines the psychological and political ramifications of such an extended, multi-generational journey and explains that an eventual mutiny onboard created such a chaos in leadership that, hundreds of years later, the ship’s residents had forgotten their original mission and had reverted to a superstitious, nearly-medieval culture. The ship, to its residents, had become the universe, with only a surviving cluster of mutants vaguely aware of its original purpose. Arthur C. Clarke’s “Rescue Party,” from the May 1946 issue of ''Astounding'', once again deals with Earth on the threshold of destruction from the exploding sun. The story is cleverly narrated from the point of view of aliens who, aware of the impending disaster, come to Earth in faster-than-light ships to rescue as many humans as possible, only to find that the planet’s population already has built a fleet of chemically-fueled generational starships for their own salvation. J. G. Ballard, one of the first authors to successfully navigate the divide between science fiction and mainstream work, is preoccupied in his early novels with the various ways that Earth may come to an end. ''[[w:The Wind from Nowhere|The Wind from Nowhere]]'' (1961), ''[[w:The Drowned World|The Drowned World]]'' (1962), and ''[[w:The Crystal World|The Crystal World]]'' (1966) all have a characteristic style and narrative sophistication that, later, appeared in notable and often controversial works such as ''[[w:Crash (Ballard novel)|Crash]]'' (1973), ''[[w:High-Rise (novel)|High-Rise]]'' (1975), and ''[[w:Empire of the Sun|Empire of the Sun]]'' (1984). Ballard’s own generational starship story, “Thirteen to Centaurus,” was published in the April 1962 issue of ''Amazing Stories'' and, in an inversion of Heinlein’s narrative, involves a crew of three families who believe they are aboard a generational starship, when in fact they inhabit a sealed dome on Earth as an experiment to test the feasibility of a centuries-long trip to Alpha Centauri. In addition to the psychological effects of multi-generational travel, Ballard also explores the governmental challenges, with one crew member becoming an incipient tyrant while, on Earth, public opinion and budgetary concerns lead to the eventual termination of the project.

[[File:Mr19-finlay.jpg|thumb|600px|Illustration by Virgil Finlay. Artwork Copyright © Lail Finlay.]]

Perhaps the best example of science fiction anticipating Mailer’s narrative, however, is ''[[w:The Stars Are Ours!|The Stars Are Ours!]]'', a novel by [[w:Andre Norton|Andre Norton]] first published in hardcover in 1954 and later reprinted, without the titular exclamation point, as a paperback from Ace Books. Norton describes a politically divided Earth with a subjugated class of scientists resisting political, racial, and religious divisions advocated by predominant nationalists. Following the near-total destruction of the planet when a renegade group captures a space station, turning it into a giant weapon, the surviving population becomes even more fragmented, devolving into a nearly feudal social order dismissive of science and technology. One scientist, Lars Nordis, manages to escape with his family to a small farm and there works with others to build an interstellar ship that, they hope, will take them off-planet and to safety. Instead of intending a generational voyage, as with Heinlein, Clarke, and Ballard, the team develops a system of suspended animation that allows individuals to survive an interstellar voyage. The cover of the first edition, by the iconic science fiction artist [[w:Virgil Finlay|Virgil Finlay]], not only accurately portrays the nick-of-time launch of the scientists’ spaceship in Norton’s book, but also is a remarkable representation of the events in Mailer’s treatment. Finlay’s painting illustrates, in a distinctive and colorful style reflecting his pulp magazine background, the science fiction motifs of Mailer’s story. We observe the launch pad concealed among underground tunnels, a patch of starry sky above looming mountains; the imposing spaceship and the dynamos providing power to the facility, both testaments to the scientists’ technical capability; the boarding passengers, all selected geographically by the President’s agonizing deliberation; the falling stones, red hot, implying the impending destruction of Earth; and the square-jawed scientists themselves, their sensible safety-glasses above distinctively high cheek bones indicative of good judgment and noble intent.

Reading Mailer’s story, whether in that 1953 issue of ''Esquire'', or reprinted in the 1966 collection ''Cannibals and Christians'', or now, in ''The Mailer Review'', the challenges of filming Mailer’s action with the film technology available in the mid-twentieth century seem nearly insurmountable. ''When Worlds Collide'' and ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'', both released to theatres in 1951, did admirably well representing one spaceship and one robot, each, with the special effects technology of the time. ''This Island Earth'' (1955) ranged a bit wider, with credible aliens, a flying saucer, and action transpiring on two different planets, but the lower budget and pulpy action eventually intrudes, leaving the impression of a film intended for a Saturday afternoon matinee rather that an example of mature cinematic science fiction. Even the early 1960s television dramas ''The Twilight Zone'' and ''The Outer Limits'', while frequently offering stories with significant themes and philosophical implications, suffered at times from unconvincing visual effects. Mailer’s tunnels, ten miles deep into the earth, his cannon-fired missiles and his massive starships, certainly would have required a budget beyond what even his impressive literary stature could have commanded at the time. The only apparent option would be to present the drama as more of a stage play, restricted to the characters’ interaction as they describe fantastic events occurring off-screen. This approach, however, would inevitably eliminate the sense of grandeur, the perception that we are witnessing events of a cosmically-significant and mythical nature. Mailer was working outside genre, incredibly so, and ''The Deer Park'', written just a few years later and adapted by Mailer into a play produced at the Lucille Lotrel Theatre in early 1967, is more consistent with his body of work. So, why did Mailer choose a science fiction context for his treatment at all?

The answer, I suspect, is that Mailer is looking for a context of myth and fable, a method of accentuating his notion of the human defects, small and large, that every day contribute to the destruction of our planet. Mailer mythologizes the ultimate rebellion against a mother-world that seeks to nurture us but is rejected as we try to find independence and, somehow, maturity. Just as today’s prominent films attempt to find relevance in the quasi-mythical format of superheroes and uncanny villains, archetypes of ancient figures adapted from mythology and extended to reflect the concerns of a technological century, Mailer is trying to integrate his prophetic warnings into a new context, an environment of myth appropriate to a new era of technological advancement. Mailer is seeking to understand and employ the “new forces” notion of Campbell’s editorial commitment. The world must be at eminent, physical risk for Mailer to effectively make his point, a wide stage for archetypal heroes and their antagonists to struggle with a threat of cosmic proportions.

Campbell’s emphasis upon change as an important aspect of science fiction, a principle ignored by mainstream authors relying upon the inviolate truths of the world, eventually affected the literary genre he helped to define. “Science fiction might have evolved into a viable art form with or without Campbell,” Nevala-Lee writes, “but his presence meant that it happened at a crucial time, and his true legacy lies in the specific shape that it took under his watch.”{{sfn|Nevala-Lee|2018|p=8}} Stories identified as science fiction in an earlier time are now more commonly considered “speculative fiction,” a general term that includes fantasy, horror, alternate history, and any other fiction predicated upon characters and events outside our natural experience. John W. Campbell may have been perplexed at this development, and perhaps annoyed that, now, mainstream authors incorporate the elements of science fiction in their works without acknowledging an indebtedness to the genre. Campbell, too, has become ''persona non grata'' due to his apparent views on race and gender, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, recognizing the foremost science fiction writers and their works since 1973, has now been renamed to celebrate the magazine he edited rather than the man himself. In fact, Campbell’s decline began with his acceptance of dianetics, L. Ron Hubbard’s conception of a new science of the mind, and his support of an improbable reactionless space drive invented by a mortgage appraisal executive, Norman L. Dean, both quasi-scientific conceptions that many ''Analog'' readers viewed with suspicion. The 1960 publication of a new magazine, ''Galaxy Science Fiction'', further contributed to Campbell’s decline, becoming popular with a new generation of science fiction readers as its editor, H. L. Gold, emphasized social issues and humor in the stories he selected, bringing the genre closer to the mainstream and to maturity.

===Works Cited===

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* {{cite magazine |last=Campbell |first=John W. |date=February 1959 |title=Non-Escape Literature |url= |magazine=Astounding Science Fiction |volume=62 |number=6 |pages=5–7, 161–162 |ref=harv }}

* {{cite book |last=Nevala-Lee |first=Alec |date=2018 |title=Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction |url= |location= |publisher=HarperCollins |ref=harv }}

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