We Win the War

I finished The War of the Worlds last night, and I can't stress enough how big of an experience it was to read.  It would be a fair statement that it is probably the quintessencial science-fiction novel.  Though hundreds of novels, with all their Martians and aliens and extra-terrestrials, lived long before and after this book, it seems to me that H. G. Wells told the Martian story that everyone wanted to hear.  It seems to me that no one has managed to tell a story like this better than him, and so no one has managed to contest him for his place as quintessencial sci-fi story-teller.  Its straight, grim, factual fashion of narrative makes it thrilling and cold to read.  Although it requires a certain mindset to be enjoyed or even properly appreciated, when you read it in the right mindset, it is absorbing and chilling.  It unleashed concepts that are more individual and a wider scale. 

I watched the more recent film adaption, War of the Worlds, this morning, and it was startlingly accurate and intense.  It neglected the whole idea of the Martians' appearance, which was disappointing, because I thought those concept were very neat, but on the whole it really was the most brilliant accompaniment for such a book.  It was very well acted, oh, and, one thing I thought was cool was that it merged the characters of the curate and the artilleryman as one.  The one character in the movie displayed the personality of both of the book characters at the same time, and all the circumstances surrounding them surrounded him.  It was very clever.  Overall, I really enjoyed it.  I think that they are both super-worth-while experiences. 

A Parody of People

I'm feeling a lot at the moment that I'm too blank to talk.  I've been a buzzing live wire, a vibrant and kicking person today, but settling back into the environment of home has somehow managed to drain every drop of vivacity from my veins.  I can hardly feel my legs, but that might be more about how I'm sitting on  them. 

Anyway, because anything I am likely to say in my current state will be highly unentertaining and possibly sarcastic, I thought it would be better to time travel back to the 7th of July this year, when I read a single sentence that I found very interesting. 

...that distant shape, higher than the trees or chuch towers inland, and advancing with a leisurely parody of a human stride.

Part 1, Chapter 17, The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, published 1898. 

This does, I'm sure you deduced, refer to one of the Martian machines.  What made this line stand out like a pop-up illustration was how big the idea of 'parody' was.  For me, saying that the stride of the Martian machine was a "parody of a human stride" paints it in a ghastly and even grotesque light for me.  As though they are so superior and patronising of our entire sepcies that their every movement is a mockery of something ingrained in us like breathing or walking.  One sentence, but that one sentence made the chapter for me. 

I am waiting, waiting waiting on my glasses, and complacently contemplating reading or writing or web-surfing as my method of whiling away the evening, but it's just occured to me that the only thing I feel like doing is being with people.  My personality type, I think you could safely say, is composed of two opposites.  I am an extremely sanguine person by nature, who is also majorly melancholy.  This means that I am someone who delights in the company of people and can be very bright and social, but can also be satisfied with, and even desperate for, solitude - a person who enjoys their quality time with themselves.  Everyone has these qualities to an extent, even if its only a little layer.  Right now, the end of the week has forced me tuck-and-rolling into solitude when I feel a lot more like being surrounded by conversation.  The people who are home, I can think of nothing to say to.  Besides, they are watching reality TV shows.  It looks like a long and uneventful weekend. 

To My Heart's Content

There was this one little scene in The War of the Worlds that I read last night that got me going like nothing has got me going in quite a long time!  I was sitting in bed with my electric blanket on setting three, and two pillows behind my head.  I was reading the scene in which one of the Martians is alerted to the fugitives' prescence in the ruined house, and the main character (who as yet, strangely enough, I don't know the name of), is hiding and listening to its tentacle coming closer and closer, tapping along the walls.  Oh!  It was the moment when I suddenly and electrically became connected to what I was reading.  It was quite incredible how my heart rate just took off at a gallop, and it took a long time afterwards for it is settle down to a calm trot.  It was great, though, to enjoy a little thrilling experience like that.  I think reading Frankenstein, which I failed to become egrossed in, has left me with a tender craving for intrigue and suspense.  I've wanted to really get into it and be egged on hour after hour by the sheer exhilaration of promise and dread.  It's always wonderful when a book can offer such a thing. 

The Hnau in the Now

Since I talked about Wells’ interpretation of Martians yesterday, I thought that it would be lovely to share with you some Martians, or rather, extra-terrestrial beings, that I met and enjoyed the company of a while ago. These extra-terrestrial beings I speak of are C. S. Lewis’ creations. I made their acquaintance mid last year. They are the hrossa, the séroni, and the pfifltriggi, the inhabitants of Mars of Malacandra, from the first book in the Cosmic Trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, published 1962.

My favourite of them were the hrossa, singularly hross. They are like great, tall, thin, otters – taller and thinner than humans. They live in the low river valleys or handramit as it is known in the speech of the eldila. They are farmers and fishers, but relish in the performing arts, especially dancing, and are gifted poets, though they don’t write their compositions down. Their only coverings are pocketed loincloths, and the boats that they build resemble human canoes. Their special manner of speech is characterised by the initial ‘h’ sound that is attached to the beginning of their words. I don’t remember all the details of them myself, (I had to do a touch of research to give you this basic information), but the one lasting impression of the hrossa that I carried since reading the book was the very dog-like and parental affection displayed by the main hross, Hyoi, towards Dr Ransom. He was so very endearing and the hrossa in general came across as a very authentic, compassionate and, I suppose, just ‘in touch’ race. In touch with the land, like the American Indians or the Aboriginals, and in touch with nature, each other and other creatures.

The séroni, or singularly, sorn, are thin, fifteen-foot-high humanoid creatures, which , when first introduced, appear terrifying and menacing. They have coats of light feathers and seven fingers on each hand. Their homes are in the mountain caves of the high country or harandra, in the speech of the eldila, but they often descend into the handramit where they keep their livestock, (giraffe-like creatures). They are scholars and great thinkers, and delve into science and abstract learning. They design machinary, which is then built by the pfifltriggi. They can write, but choose not to write works of fiction or history as they consider the hrossa to be superior at this task.

The pfifltriggi, singularly pfifltrigg, are frog-like in shape, with heads like a tapir’s which bulge at the rear with the shape of their brain. When they rest, they lean on the ground on their elbows. They move quite quickly and insect-like in manner. They are miners, builders and technicians, who build houses, machinery and various gadgets designed by the séroni. They mind minerals especially gold, which they know as “sun’s blood”. They are said to wear a form of clothing, and are depicted as wearing protective goggles for their eyes.

What I thought was very cool about these hnau, (a word used in reference to sentient or reasoning beings, humans included), is that they are “unfallen”. They are completely free of the propensity to sin that lies in human beings. The connection between these three races is somewhere between that of equals and that of a human to an animal, “mirrored in the way that humans tend to anthropomorphise pets”. They just acknowledge each other as equal and necessary.

While I was researching, I also stumbled across a little bit of random but thoroughly fascinating fact that describes the appearances C. S. Lewis’ extra-terrestrial beings in other literary works. I never knew they had appeared in other literary works, so at least I learnt something today.

Apparently, all three of them are mentioned as included in the races living on Mars in Rainbow Mars, Larry Niven’s 1999 novel. In this, they are referred to as the “Pious Ones” by the Barsoomian races.  Ha ha!  Fancy that! 

At the beginning of the second volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the séroni are mentioned as being one of the Martian races allied against the Martians from The War of the Worlds, referred to as the “mollusc invaders”. I am sensing strong presence of inter-textual referencing here!

In Scarlet Traces: The Great Game, hieroglyphics appear to describe the hrossa, séroni and pfifltriggi as the orginal races of Mars. It also says that they were made extinct when the War of the Worlds Martians arrived. Once again, major inter-textual reference.

It’s kind of amazing how I’ve mentioned H. G. Wells’ and C. S. Lewis’ Martians in relation to each other, ignorant entirely of how close they had become in other science fictions. I find that really incredible. But I think that it’s good, too, even though it’s very strange. Both alien races are spectacularly depicted and spectacularly designed. They both deserve to be well-remembered. And of course, I vouch especially for the hrossa.

Wells' Extra-Terrestrial Idea

I think since I am reading The War of the Worlds, it's about time that I gave you a taste of Wells' interpretation of the alien.  There must be hundreds upon thousands of depictions of the martian or alien or extra terrestrial immigrant etcetera etcetera, but they are all unique in flavour, with subtle similarities.  I believe, however, that Wells' Martian is one of the most individual that I've met.  Chapter Two: What We Saw From the Ruined House of Part Two: The Earth Under the Martians, gives the clearest, most detailed and uninterrupted account of the Martians so far, and from pages of fascinating and disturbing description of these grotesque creations, I harvested three excerpts that give a basic idea of Wells' Martian as well as offering a sense of repulsive and yet alluring intrigue.  Chapter Two of Part Two is definitely worth reading, just for the experience alone, if for nothing more 

"It's motion was so swift,complex, and perfect that at first I did not see it as a machine, in spite of its metallic glitter.  The fighting machines were coordinated and animated to an extraordinary pitch, but nothing to compare with this.  People who have never seen these structures, and have only the ill-imagined efforts of artists of the imperfect descriptions of such eyewitnesses as myself to go upon, scarcely  realize the living quality." 

"They were, I now saw, the most unearthly creatures it is possible to conceive.  They were huge round bodies - or, rather, heads - about four feet in diameter, each body having in front of it a face.  This face had no nostrils - indeed, the Martians so not seem to have had any sense of smell, but it had a pair of very large dark-coloured eyes, and just beneath this a kind of fleshy beak. ...  In a group round the mouth were sixteen slender, almost whiplike tentacles, arranged in two bunches of eight each.  These bunches have since been named rather aptly, by that distinguished anatomist, Professor Howes, the hands." 

"They have become practically mere brains, wearing different bodies according to their needs just as men wear suits of clothes and take a bicycle in a hurry or an umbrella in the wet." 

Chapter Two, Part Two, The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, published 1898. 

What do you think?  The idea of the Martian acting only as a brain within its vehicles is very vividly disturbing, isn't it?  Because mankind is not inconceivably far from achieving this same end.  Chapter Two of Part Two goes into this idea, and plays on how concepts like this have been presented numerous times in satire and parody etcetera, when reality is not dissimilar from what we take as a ridiculous joke.  It also handles the concepts of the Martians' reproduction, feeding and inventions, or more accurately, the race's failure to invent the wheel.  It's very fascinating and thought-provoking.  Read it. 

Welles and Wells' Martian Misunderstanding

For the 1938 Halloween show of the American radio drama anthology series, ‘Mercury Theatre on the Air’, actor and filmmaker, Orson Welles, decided cheekily yet cleverly to adapt H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds. He rewrote the novel as a 60 minute radio transcript, shortening the story and rendering it much more personal and relevant by changing the location and time to present day New England. The show aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network on the 30th of October.

At the time, ‘Mercury Theatre on the Air’ was competing with the ‘Chase and Sanborn Hour’, a show playing at the same time on a different channel. A common propensity of a ‘Chase and Sanborn Hour’ radio listener was to turn the dial every Sunday, at around 8:12, in a bid to avoid the musical section… and then turn back once they thought the music was likely to be over, as you might do any day with television ads. But what happened on the 30th of October, 1938, was that when all those ‘Chase and Sanborn Hour’ radio listeners turned their dials, they tuned in to what they thought were news alerts warning of ‘Martian invasion’.



Orson Welles performing 'The War of the Worlds'



The first two thirds of the broadcast were depicted as a series of simulated news bulletins. Having missed the introduction to the play, and hearing only these very realistically enacted commentaries and interviews, was enough to convince thousands that it was true. In fact, Richard J. Hand (this is a neat little fact to pull out of one’s hat), cites “studies by unnamed historians who ‘calculate[d] that some six million heard the CBS broadcast; 1.7 million believed it to be true, and 1.2 million were ‘genuinely frightened’,’”. It has been argued by a few sources that the atmosphere of apprehension and tension prior to WWII rendered many susceptible to such a scare.

The New York Times Newspaper Clipping

In the months following the broadcast, some 12, 500 newspaper articles had been published. Hitler himself is rumoured to have stated that the panic resulting from the broadcast was “evidence of the decadence and corrupt condition of democracy”, but whether or not that is true or just gossip is beyond me. I think, however, that it proves quite a big point about the immensity of the impact. Apparently among the effects were thousands of calls to police, several miscarriages and early births, distribution of gas masks, public rallying etcetera etcetera. Yes, so quite a big deal.

Newspaper Clipping

Everyone sued, but it all ended up being cleared away quite simply, with ‘Mercury Theatre on the Air’ having to promise not to use the phrase ‘we interrupt this program’ for dramatic effect. Simple enough. Really, the fact that it was only announced once during the broadcast that it was an adaptation of a novel, and the public’s readiness to believe what they heard on the radio, made it less about the cleverness of the adaptation itself and more about how and when and where it was done, but still, I think that besides all the controversy, besides the negative view, wasn’t it just the most incredible and impacting, gosh impacting, way of conveying a story? Imagine it! To have been a part of that would have been pretty unimaginable. Not terribly well-advised or well-thought-out, but unforgettable.  Would you like to hear it?

An Alien Concept

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

Book One: The Coming of the Martians, Chapter One: The Eve of War from The War of the Worlds  by H. G. Wells, first published 1898. 

Yes, well that was certainly a big, fat chunk of words to feed you.  Have you managed to swallow it?  That is the opening to The War of the Worlds, and I thought it be the perfect introduction to the subject. 

This opening prompts an idea so, excuse me, alien, and yet, increasingly familiar as it is an idea that surfaces often enough is movies, comics and books etcetera.  However, the thought that one might hear such a thing, as an introduction to a true story - a real, live event - gives me quick thrills of something akin to horror.  The idea of people listening to Orson Welles perform it over the radio and thinking it all to be true, is awful, really, but incredible.  What a thing to do!  And how well he pulled it off!  It would be incredible to sit and listen to it, wouldn't it, even knowing that it is fiction.  What an experience!  Tomorrow, I will have to explain the whole situation to you!  What fun!