Understanding Bryan Appleyard
(1994)

In “Books Received” in iz80, in the entry for Bryan Appleyard’s The First Church of the New Millennium, that author’s earlier book, Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man, was glibly described as “a sort of anti-science diatribe”. This struck me as very wrong: Andy Robertson’s review in iz65 seems to be of a very different opinion, and one with which I’d concur.

Nevertheless, this off-hand remark did prompt me to reconsider my opinion. It also occurred to me to ask the question: Why has Appleyeard chosen sf for his debut novel? Together, these led me to a surprising insight (although I’m not sure whether it’s profound or naïve).

I do not believe that Bryan Appleyard has much awareness of or feeling for genre sf.

It may be that FCNM would confirm this view, that it would show Appleyard to be one of the number of mainstream writers of sf “who rather cumbersomely re-invent the wheel” ( The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, edited by John Clute and Peter Nicholls). However, as John Clute remarkably failed to review it in iz80, and as, as a result of this, I'm inclined not to read the book myself, this is mere speculation. (In a national newspaper review, it was described as one of that kind of novel best exemplified by Sir Angus Wilson’s The Old Men at the Zoo – this seems to put it firmly in the mainstream.)

In any case, my belief is supported by UPSSMM. In this book, Appleyard devotes a few pages to a discussion of sf – or sci-fi as he abbreviates it, quite predictably for a mainstream journalist. But his examples – Verne, Wells, Batman, Superman, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET, Aliens, Star Trek, Weird Science, War Games and 2001: A Space Odyssey – shy away from modern, written, genre sf.

Appleyard’s thesis is that science has for the past 400 years provided an unprecedentedly effective way of explaining the Universe which has critically undermined established philosophy and religion, but which does not confront any of the spiritual issues of purpose, meaning, morality and so on which philosophy and religion had addressed; that science has been cast as a panacea, even though it is limited to revealing only substantive truths and, at a fundamental level, cannot provide an explanation of the human condition. (Hence, the book argues against the view that science is an answer for everything, rather than against science per se.) Appleyard devotes the bulk of the book to the development of this theme, culminating in science’s ostensible failure to understand the self.

In the final chapter, “The humbling of science”, Appleyard oulines a number of responses to this crisis – environmentalism, a return to orthodox religion, a new spirituality of science, or a new spirituality arising from within science – each of which he ultimately rejects in favour of the primacy of subjective human self over objective scientific determinism. Although I remain unconvinced by his conclusions, the discussion of these various responses is intriguing.

I am surprised that Appleyard, primarily an arts journalist, does not discuss any artistic responses. But given my comments above, this omission is perhaps understandable, for isn’t it science fiction which is just such a response?

In fact (and this is where the insight may prove to be simply naïve), the nature of this response has already been recognised: “Science fiction is the search for a definition of man[kind] and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science) ...” (Billion Year Spree by Brian Aldiss [or Trillion Year Spree by Aldiss and David Wingrove]).

Which isn’t to suggest that the purpose of science fiction itself is to spiritually complement science – sf is after all primarily an entertainment – but that it is this philosophical crisis which motivates and informs much of the genre, that much sf explores within fictive worlds a broad spectrum of responses to this crisis (which easily encompasses all those that Appleyard cites).

One or both of two things are true: (i) UPSSMM provides a social and historical rationale for Aldiss’s view of sf from without the sf community; (ii) sf has implicitly pre-empted Appleyard. Perhaps Aldiss and Appleyard should collaborate on «Understanding the Future: Science Fiction and the Soul of Modern Man» ...

It becomes apparent, then, that now Appleyard has chosen to explore his concerns within a novel, he can do very little else but write an sf novel (albeit mainstream rather than genre).

This idea seems very fruitful. It reveals where the appeal of sf lies for writers and readers alike: beyond the simple fascination with the alien, exotic and bizarre mise en scêne, there’s a strong urge (if maybe only unconsciously) to seek a positive response to this crisis.

Further, it may explain why there is a difference, and the nature of this difference, between British and US sf; i.e., why British sf is more downbeat than US sf.

It may also explain why a certain kind of fantasy has a wider appeal than sf. Such fantasies allow, and in fact often demand, a supernatural or spiritual purpose to mankind (or, at least, to the protagonists); these fantasies are characterised by “elves and dragons, dark lords and heroes, a quest for a magical object which will defeat the powers of evil” (“The Heirs of Tolkien”, HarperCollins promotional pamphlet). Hence, there is no need of a response to the philosophical crisis; it just doesn't arise, and so the mood is ultimately free to be exulting and inspiring; tritely, this kind of fantasy has a feelgood factor which modern sf generally lacks.

Nevertheless, more sophisticated fantasies can and do explore other philosophical – and psychological – crises; e.g., Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood series, M. John Harrison’s Viriconium stories, Mary Gentle’s White Crow sequence.

And, strikingly these authors all write genre sf as well as fantasy…