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Sturgeon, Theodore. More Than Human. New York: Ballantine, 1953. |
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Fiction that transcends any genre is what I've sought out for this study, and no one transcends expectations better than Theodore Sturgeon. Though his work is informed by the sciences, it is not bound within the realms of simple speculation or escapism. Science is a staging ground for his literature, rather than a prison to confine it.
Most of Sturgeon's work is in short story form, and his novels generally suffer from being expansions of these stories, but More Than Human is an exception. Though it began as a short story titled "Baby is Three," its expansion works due to its point of view jumping from one character to another as the story quite literally evolves. Sturgeon then is not bound by one structure throughout and the story's pace rarely flags. The novel is the story of a group of freakish outcasts with incredible talents, who manage to stumble across one another and haphazardly begin to form something greater than the sum of their parts, a kind of collective being, or Gestalt. There are two twins who can teleport themselves anywhere, a girl who can move things via telekinesis, a "mongoloid" genius baby who is mute but can hear all their thoughts and talk telepathically to some, and a kind of feral, telepathic man who manages to bind them all together. The characters' evolution individually and as a group being allows for Sturgeon to tell the story (in third-person omniscient, except for the "Baby is Three" portion) from whomever's perspective lends itself best for that portion of the story. This change of perspective actually does not take place frequently, and in the end makes sense as all the characters essentially become one, sharing their experiences and knowledge.
Much of the discourse on this book focuses on its use of Gestalt psychology, and while its presence is felt in the story, no foreknowledge of it is necessary, nor does the book's ultimate importance hinge on the theory. Unlike many other science fiction "classics," this one is not important simply because it was first to mention an idea, or happened to be popular amongst a particular group of people. More Than Human, like the best of Sturgeon's short stories, is a sort of humanist literature, aiming for our hearts before our imagination, and ultimately resolving through its characters' ability to reason their way out of conflict or trouble, often after a series of epiphanies.
While this may not sound radically different than other fiction, the difference comes in his style. For example, the novel's first line: |
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The idiot lived in a black and gray world, punctuated by the white lightning of hunger and the flickering of fear. His clothes were old and many-windowed. Here peeped a shinbone, sharp as a cold chisel, and there in the torn coat were ribs like the fingers of a fist. He was tall and flat. His eyes were calm and his face was dead (1). |
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Sturgeon's sentences are often poetic, particularly in his short stories, and that's quality number one that I enjoy. When I talk of his style, however, I speak as much of his depiction of his characters, the details he chooses to show us, the details he endows his creations with in the first place. As in many of my other readings, the characters could be considered grotesques. That is, distorted, caricatured, a human characteristic taken to an extreme. The openness of science fiction allows its best writers to come up with (perhaps) unbelievable circumstances for its characters, all the better for highlighting the conflicts from which the stories arise. Fiction becomes infinitely more interesting and memorable when portrayed in a fantastic light. Lone, as the feral man in the novel's introduction is called, may share a need for growth with every other human being, but because of the extremity of his situation and the light in which it's shown, it's much more effective than, say, Miss Elsie the librarian who's afraid of dying an old maid. Even when someone tells a story of Miss Elsie, though she may not look grotesque or have telepathy or live in the woods, you'll probably find her problems and experiences told in an epic manner. No one wants to read a novel of drudgery.
Sturgeon touches on this throughout the novel, the questions of what is reality, how do we perceive it. In "Baby is Three," Gerry narrates a tale of his seeing a "head-shrinker," Dr. Stern, and confessing to a murder. Gerry can force his will on others (his irises seem to spin when doing so) and is the amoral, survival instinct of the group being. Perhaps on his own, or perhaps at the urging of the group, he is seeking to answer some of the questions plaguing them, chief among them, whether they should be affected by normal human rules of morality. Gerry goes under hypnosis for much of the story, and when troubled by it, Dr. Stern has this to say: |
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"Look," he told me. "This head-shrinking business, as you called it a while back, isn't what most people think. When I go with you into the world of your mind--or when you go yourself, for that matter-what we find isn't so very different from the so-called real world. It seems so at first, because the patient comes out with all sorts of fantasies and irrationalities and weird experiences. But everyone lives in that kind of world. When one of the ancients coined the phrase 'truth is stranger than fiction,' he was talking about that" (80). |
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| Whether he meant to or not, Sturgeon voices one of my attitudes going into this study--what the hell is reality and why would I want to portray it anyway? When I write fiction, I'm not seeking to build a rocket. Truth equals "water freezes below 32 degrees Fahrenheit." Truth does not equal "the world is persecuting me." Persecution may be an individual's perception of the world, but it's hardly based on any fact that the universe will depend upon. Our perceptions, our feelings, our communication is not meaningless, but it's futile to think of it in terms of reality. There is a an undercurrent of logic in everything we do; the key is to find common ground with each other, and to my mind that is what storytelling is all about. Gerry, in relating his story to Dr. Stern, hopes to find some reason behind it all, and when frustrated at the difficulty, Dr. Stern offers this: |
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It was his turn to think a while. Finally he said, "The mind makes us do funny things. Some of them seem completely reasonless, wrong, insane. But the cornerstone of the work we're doing is this: there's a chain of solid, unassailable logic in the things we do. Dig deep enough and you find cause and effect as clearly in this field as you do in any other. I said logic, mind; I didn't say 'correctness' or 'rightness' or 'justice' or anything of the sort. Logic and truth are two very different things, but they often look the same to the mind that's performing the logic" (99). |
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| Most of my readings have featured characters who, above all, seek to resolve a loneliness from which they suffer. The Gestalt in Sturgeon's novel provides an unusually intriguing solution, allowing its characters to share a kind of intimacy and communion like no other. Not only are the characters outcasts banding together, but through their various means they are able to function together, to smooth over each other's faults and maladjustments, allowing themselves to grow when previously they had been stymied by society's conventions. Much has been made of the ideas of a "superman" in this work, but I don't believe it has as much to do with being superhuman as it does with being human, with finding a nurturing community and being allowed to live and grow as a human should. Isn't this everyone's desire, and the much sought-after ending to every story? |
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All contents, except where otherwise noted, are copyright Andrew Lee Hunn. |
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