More Than Human
Written: Jul 06 '03 (Updated Nov 25 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Seminal classic literature. Unique, spectacular writing.
Cons: Faultless work
The Bottom Line: Read this book for a truly one-of-a-kind ride. The author will have you performing mental gymnastics you never thought possible!
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| snpmurray's Full Review: More Than Human Books |
There are a certain pieces of writing in the history of speculative fiction which are truly seminal, and “More Than Human” is one of them. Hailing from 1953, slap-bang in the middle of science fictions golden age, Theodore Sturgeon’s novel of alienation, love and becoming is a masterpiece, regardless of its genre. More than human is particularly notable as being one of the pieces which can point up that not everything listed in the category of science fiction is replete with spaceships, laser guns and three headed aliens from the planet Zog. A novel about humanity, and what it is to be human, it is only the spectacular talents of the protagonists which distinguish this piece as speculative fiction.
Theodore Sturgeon was best known for his short stories, and this novel is formed from three novellas, the middle of which, “Baby Makes Three” had been previously published in Galaxy magazine, and was later acknowledged by the science fiction writing community as being one of the five best SF short stories of all time. The first and last novellas are an equal match; being exceptional, all three, for their distinctive writing style, and depth of insight, and beauty of word.
The story begins with “The Fabulous Idiot”.
In this first part we are introduced to Lone. A mentally retarded homeless orphan, Lone has survived only through his peculiar talent. He has a gift for hypnotism. This is not something that he has any conscious awareness of, his IQ is not beyond the level of true cretinism, but when he becomes hungry he will use it to ensure that someone feeds him, when he is being hurt or persecuted, he will use it to ensure that the wrongdoer leaves him alone. Proceeding thus, living mostly in forest, Lone grows to his teens. Happenstance and proximity cause Lone to stumble across another person with a unique psychic talent, and during a brief mental intercourse he discovers his human nature, and then begins actively to seek for “others”.
He finds others. Lone is informally adopted by a farmer and his wife. Much later the farm couple has a downs baby, the mother dying in childbirth, it seems. Lone takes the child, and the farmer loses his mind. Soon becoming associated with another psychic, Lone learns that the baby, although virtually a newborn, can communicate psychically with the girl, who is herself telekinetic. The baby turns out to be a direct line to infinite knowledge, and knows the way to achieve anything at all, and is able to communicate only with the girl Janie. Janie in turn recruits a pair of twin girls, also outcasts who have been mistreated (as is Janie), and these girls are able to disappear and appear elsewhere at will.
This odd collection of childhood outcast freaks of nature cannot function on their own, but all together they form a gestalt, a group organism whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Baby is the brain, Janie the arms, the twins the legs, and Lone the head, giving direction to the group. Together, in fact, they are an evolution of humanity, homo gestalt and the creation and becoming of this organism is the story of the first part of this book.
So it is that this organism is the fabulous idiot, so fabulous that to help the farmer get his truck out of a ditch, they invent, build and implement anti-gravity, then leave it in a ditch when the truck is no longer needed. They are able to accomplish anything, but with all the social and motivational powers of a sloth.
In “Baby is three” we walk in on the beginning of a psychiatric counseling. It is at first uncertain what connection this has with the first part of the book but we gradually come to learn that Lone has been lost, dying in an accident, and a boy, Gerard, another homeless outcast whom Lone saved, has come to replace him. Gerard has taken himself off to counseling to discover why he has committed a murder. Blocking out many memories of how he came to the Homo Gestalt, and why he committed an horrific act in its name, the middle part of the book introduces us to the concept that a being of this kind can have interchangeable parts…Lone is gone, and Gerry has come instead. Gerry is not Lone, however. The direction that he takes the Gestalt is influenced by the fact that he has been abused his whole life. Without a moral standpoint, he cannot control his own behavior. Because Gerry is now the driving force for the Gestalt, the whole organism suffers as a result. Brilliantly written from the first person viewpoint of Gerry, this section is a fantastic achievement in the writing. Simultaneously the author manages to further his story, provide a fresh and searching viewpoint, climb right inside the head of a troubled youth with startling clarity, and write a thriller of a short story.
Here, as in the first and indeed the last section of the book, the main themes are alienation, self discovery, and the realization of the self through integration into a larger whole, a society of loving. Gerry has inherited Lone's gift of hypnotism from him, but in so troubled a set of hands as Gerry’s, consequences of uncertain morality result. Is a super being of this kind in any way responsible toward the lower species that is Homo sapiens? This becomes a central theme, and is explored more fully in the final part, entitled “morality”.
The third and final section of the book, morality, is as different from the first two in stylization as they were from each other. We take up the story with Janie, clearly alone and apart from the Gestalt, gradually nursing back to mental health an insane soldier called Hip.
Hip, once a science officer in the military, has seen something he is unable to recollect, but which somehow he knows is of world-changing significance. Janie knows what he has seen, and she feels it is her duty to help him recall it.
I find it very difficult, having rewritten this part of my review several times, to give to you the meaning in this chapter without ruining the story for you, and diminishing the pleasure of the reading. Ultimately, it is much more important to me that you read this book and gain something from it. In that spirit, I offer no further details regarding the plot of the last section of this book, and instead, I will relate to you the effect that this part of the story had on me.
The last part of this book feels significantly slower than the other two. Sturgeon was known for the racing pace of his writing, and given that reputation, and the introduction of a rather occluded but significant character at such a late stage in the tale, I was a little bemused at first. As Hips story unfolds, and we see the part that the Gestalt and Janie in particular has played in it, things become a little clearer. It makes for a good story in and of itself. But the main effect of the last section of the book, which concerns itself overwhelmingly with the moral choices that the Gestalt must make, was on the very last page. Sturgeon reveals himself to be not merely a skillful writer, but elevates himself to the rank of master by pulling off the most spectacular magic trick of enlightening illumination by storytelling I have ever seen.
Sturgeon has a lesson to teach us here by analogy. It is a wonderful, heartwarming and spiritually uplifting lesson. Having read this book, it is truly difficult to see things the same way as you did before, and for the better, of course, after the reading. What he wishes to relate to us, were he merely to have written it as an axiom, or a short object lesson, would not have been able to sink very deep into our minds and hearts. When he has had the entire length of a novel in which to involve us in the learning it is a different matter. On the very last pages of this book you will be forced to perform a mental and spiritual back flip, and only then will you discover that throughout the whole book Sturgeon was loosening you up ready for the feat!
So then, that was the effect of the final section of the book. Hope we haven’t lost too much by not revealing too much plot. If we have, you must forgive me, just this once.
Read this book, what more can I say, it is truly excellent.
Some of my other science fiction book reviews:
Rama Revealed
Prelude to Space
Stand on Zanzibar
The Demolished Man
The Stars my Destination
Cat's Cradle
The Gods Themselves
Watchmen
A Canticle for Leibowitz
The Hammer of God
The Left Hand of Darkness
Flowers for Algernon
Lord of Light
Rendevous with Rama
The Tombs of Atuan
The Dispossessed
I am Legend
The Einstein Intersection
Earth Abides
Peace on Earth
The Farthest Shore
Methuselah's Children
A Call to Arms
To your Scattered Bodies Go
The Lion of Comarre / Against the Fall of Night
To Say Nothing of the Dog
The Doomsday Book
Frankenstein Unbound
Batman - The Dark Knight Returns
Imperial Earth
A Case of Conscience
Solaris
The Sands of Mars
The Land of Laughs
Eden
His Masters Voice
Citizen of the Galaxy
King David's Spaceship
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Double Star
The Fabulous Riverboat
Songs of Distant Earth
Way Station
The Fountains of Paradise
The Long Tomorrow
Lincolns Dreams
Alas Babylon
More Than Human
1984
The Forever War
All the Myriad Ways
I Sing the Body Electric
Gateway
Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said
This Immortal
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Recommended:
Yes
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