The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R Delany

[[deleted user]]

This is our group Classic Novel Discussion for March, 2014:


The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany


Winner of the 1967 Nebula Award for Best Novel.

So, put Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on the turntable and break out Bullfinch's Mythology.

[[deleted user]]

LOL

[Andreas]

I've read this last July and gave it 4 stars, I really liked it. It is short at the edge being a novella. Delany uses advanced literaric prose which is not easy accessible but easier than lots of his other works. It's simply a little bit more complex than your usual bread and butter SF.
Delany was promoted to "Grandmaster" last year, so this could be considered as a kind of introductory novel to his work.

We see clumsy computers, 33' and 45' records, there are Beatles or Bob Dylan references - a reflection of the roaring sixties.
When reading it you could get more fun by consulting wikipedia - Einstein's and Gödel's theorems come handy and it is probably better to have some background with Orpheus and Eurydice.
It is about identity, mythology and pop culture, procreation and the author's personal story.

One of the basic concepts - aliens use post-apocalypse bodies to inhabit earth is taken up a couple of years later by Gene Wolfe's The Fifth Head of Cerberus.

I can see where this novel could be very confusing and I know a couple of readers who threw it away. Well, that is Delany's style.

[Jim]

Andreas wrote: "I've read this last July and gave it 4 stars, I really liked it. It is short at the edge being a novella. Delany uses advanced literaric prose which is not easy accessible but easier than lots of h..."

What is "literaric prose" & why isn't it accessible?

I've always given 5 stars to this book. It's one of my 3 favorite novels of all time, the others being This Immortal & Lord of Light both of which also won Hugo awards bracketing this novel. They're all based on mythology, The Einstein Intersection & This Immortal on Greek mythology, always a favorite while Lord of Light uses Hindu mythology, mostly.

I've read all of them many times over the years & get something different out of them each time depending on my mood & age since there are multiple ways to interpret exactly what is happening & why. While all of them come to a satisfactory ending, they're also snapshots of long, interesting lives & leave me wondering what will happen afterward. They all hint at a lot of interesting things that happened before, too.

[Andreas]

Jim wrote: "What is "literaric prose" & why isn't it accessible?"

That is easy: the term "Literaric prose" is bullshit bingo. I throw it at texts to demarcate them from more trivial works, i.e. more James Joyce than Perry Rhodan.

Easily accessible are texts that I understand instantly without any need for reflection.

[[deleted user]]

Yes, it's a short book (in page count) but not a quick read.

Delany's 1960s was part of the "new-wave" of science fiction which eschewed lucid exposition for surrealistic mood. Not my usual comfort zone; I seem to be wedded to a certain amount of narrative coherence. (view spoiler)[You could be over halfway through this book before figuring out the characters are not actually human descendants but aliens who have moved into an abandoned Earth and assumed the roles of humans, conflating their myths and legends from what relics they could find. (One could easily assume this was some mutated species of human from a post nuclear war Earth, a theme quite popular in the 60's. That was in fact my early supposition the first time I read it.) But of course, it's not really about aliens, either, and the post-nuclear war premise would probably work almost as well.

The book does talk about both Einstein's and Godel's theories through the character Spider, which he interprets as Einstein describing how the observer influences truth (which is really more the province of quantum mechanics) and Godel describing that some truth is unprovable. (Because Delany didn't choose "Einstein Intersection" for his title, but preferred the no more helpful, "A Fabulous, Formless Darkness", I choose not to put too much emphasis on Spider's lessons.) Spider frames this as Einstein's theory placing limits on rational knowledge, and Godel's theory embracing the irrational. (I'm not sure Godel would appreciate that characterization, but no matter.) When the "productions" of Godel's theories exceeded Einstein's, apparently humanity disappeared (either went off to the stars or vanished in a puff of logic.) (hide spoiler)]

[Jim]

I like that definition & reason for using it, Andreas. Yes, this does require reflection & is the better for it. That's what makes it speak in different voices depending on the age, mood, & sobriety of the reader.

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G33z3r, your post is a bit of a spoiler for new readers, isn't it? I agree with your take on it & always thought the title was perfect. I do place a fair amount of emphasis on it, because that's what I've always gotten the most out of.

I always found Delany's personal reflections a bit jarring, although the reason for his title. He didn't seem to be in a great place. I wonder how much of this reflects his own personal trials. He had a tough row to hoe as a double minority (black & gay) during these turbulent times. In any case, there's a lot of subtext & room for reflection with multiple interpretations.

[[deleted user]]

Jim wrote: "G33z3r, your post is a bit of a spoiler for new readers, isn't it?..."

Yeah, thanks, I spoiler-protected it.

[[deleted user]]

Jim wrote: " I wonder how much of this reflects his own personal trials. He had a tough row to hoe as a double minority (black & gay) during these turbulent times...."

I thought the Einstein Intersection might have reflected this in two ways:

First of all, there's a pretty strict caste system in this society.

In his village, "most" of the citizens have earned the La/Le/Lo honorific prefix. (By the way, I assume La/Le was derived from the French language gender pronouns?) There does seem to be a class between the La/Le/Lo prefix-worthy and the "non-functionals" who are placed in kages (cages?) The decision of whether to give someone a La/Le/Lo seems subjective and some sort of communal decision?

When he gets to the big city, Lobey is told that very few are entitled to use the prefix (important people, celebrities, such as La Dove.) He's told not to use his, or would mark him as a stupid hick.

Secondly, several of the characters are described as being "different". Friza (has a calming effect on animals) and Dorik(?), Lobey himself (talent for extracting melodies from peoples thoughts), and later Spider (like Friza, calms animals) and Green-Eyes (?). In the case of Friza & Dorik, the villagers don't seem to care but Kid Death decides to kill them because they're "different".

In the city, Lobey is told (by Spider) not to let anyone know he is "different", because that seems a bad thing. (There's a kids joke about "why are these two twins not alike?", to which the punchline is "because they're different", a joke which perplexes both Lobey and me, but which seems to be a "dirty joke" in some sense.) (view spoiler)[Eventually Green-Eyes is also killed for being "different" (and being known for it.) (hide spoiler)]

Clearly, being "different" is a bad thing.

[Jim]

(Should we just let it be known there will be spoilers in this topic? The last sentence in your next to the last paragraph in #9?)

I think you're spot on with the honorific prefixes. That's the way I read them & the 'different' too, even the first time, before I knew anything about Delany's personal life.

For those who don't know, he was married for over 10 years to a woman who later identified herself as a lesbian, he as gay, & they apparently had a rather open marriage with a lot of separations & experimentation. Not as big a deal today although hardly mainstream, but he wrote this in the early 60's. While things were changing, most people still held the "Father Knows Best" ideals toward marriage & sexuality.

Everyone was 'different', but they all hid & lied about it, thus got along. Coming out as such was a death sentence because they, as a society, are working to become that which preceded them even though it didn't fit well. They're laughably, painfully restricted by the costumes they've put on.

Worse, why have they done so? They're killing themselves, barely surviving on the twisted wreckage they've found & yet holding it up as an ideal to strive for. It makes no more sense than many of the customs we find ourselves bound with & parallels them. There is no examination of why, simply a desire to fit in no matter what.

Success is the city where 9000 are better than 9. Conspicuous consumption, which was coming into its own during this decade, at its worst, too.

Bummer. Lobey sees all this, has it thrust upon him (view spoiler)[ & then decides to go away for a while to sort it all out. (hide spoiler)] That dovetails (no pun intended) nicely with Delany's somewhat gloomy interjections, doesn't it?

[Ben]

I have loved all I have read by the author but read very little so this book has been on my radar for a while but I may well try to read Nova or Babel-17 first so I might be late to the discussions.

[[deleted user]]

Ben wrote: "I have loved all I have read by the author but read very little so this book has been on my radar for a while but I may well try to read Nova or Babel-17 first so I might be late to the discussions."

Babel-17 is my favorite Delany. (I'm a sucker for "language defines thought" themes. Babel-17 Is Newspeak on steroids.)

There's no particular reading order to Delany, though. Each of his books stands alone.

[Andreas]

Ben wrote: "I have loved all I have read by the author but read very little so this book has been on my radar for a while but I may well try to read Nova or Babel-17 first so I might be late to the discussions."

You're always welcome to make up a buddy-read. Babel-17 was great (I've re-read it last December). Nova is on my tbr shelf as well.

[Hillary]

I don't why, for me, Delany seems to pull off things that would just annoy me (breaking the fourth wall, deliberate ambiguity) in most other writers' work. Maybe it's because I enjoy his ideas and themes (the roles of myth and art, the Orpheus motif, underworlds both as counterculture and as imagined afterlife), or maybe he commits to his own style in a way that (pretty much) transcends gimmick.

There's a lot of pleasure in the language at the sentence (the description of the fight with the bull/minotaur stands out) and image (herding dragons!) levels. There's a related emphasis of physicality, often touching on the erotic.

G33z3r brought up that, according to Gaiman, Delany's intended title was "A Fabulous, Formless Darkness" rather than "The Einstein Intersection." I think I would have preferred "A Fabulous, Formless Darkness" since it seems to tie in more explicitly with the underworld theme and I think invites discussion of whether and how "difference" and "darkness" are related. (view spoiler)[ Spider's discussion of Einstein and Goedel relatively late in the book didn't really have that much of an impact on me -- I read it as inspiration/influence for the story, but I didn't see those scientific/theoretical influences as more important than any of the artistic/aesthetic influences alluded to in the epigraphs.

Although the back of my paperback spoiled some of the mystery with its assertion that the "surface story tells of the problems a member of an alien race, Lo Lobey, has assimilating the mythology of earth, where his kind have settled among the leftovers of humanity," my reading of the first parts of the book also tended toward imagining Lobey's society as the post-nuclear-event survivors of humanity. In some ways, I still find that reading more satisfying. (hide spoiler)]

What did others think of the excerpts from Delany's Writer's Journal excerpts? I could see the meta-commentary tying into ideas about how myths are created, but I could have happily lived without them. What did folks make of the other epigraphs?

[Karen]

*deep breath*
That was quite an experience. I loved the writing; it really drew me in. However, by the last 25% I think I was reading just to finish. To borrow the excellent term from Andreas, I think the literary prose overwhelmed me. Or perhaps it was the very many layers of imagery and metaphor. Admittedly, I maybe didn't choose the best day to finish it (in doctors' waiting rooms, finally winding up on crutches and in a knee immobilizer while I wait on MRI results tomorrow), but still I couldn't help thinking at times "I could do without this, it's just too over the top".

In summary, I liked the writing, the society that was built, and the underlying message about difference, which in my mind, was that in some way everybody is different and the only way to succeed in your life's work is to recognize and appreciate how you are different and use it rather than hate or try to hide it. Also, as an engineer, I like the idea of mathematical theorems applied to philosophy. However, something about the scenes at the city just didn't work for me.

This was my first Delany. I am intrigued enough that I might try another book, but probably not right away.

[Jim]

Frightening, it must be 1968-70 when I first read it, as a library book I borrowed when I was at school. The minute I read the 'look inside' and he was playing tunes on his Machete I knew I'd read the book, but the rest has just gone from my memory like the smoke from last winter's fire