Re: (Tears) Report on Probability A by Brian W. Aldiss

On 6/9/24 9:19 AM, Don wrote:

James Nicoll wrote:

<snip - discussion of Robertson Davies's "Fifth Business">

Here's an excerpt from Davies' speculative stream-of-consciousness story
simulacrum - whose pointless plotlessness makes it merely a wannabe
story despite all of its fine wordmanship. Its anti-Christian narrative
hits me square between the eyes with the stupid hammer.
      He shot the beam of his flashlight into the scrub, and in
     that bleak, flat light we saw a tramp and a woman in the
     act of copulation. The tramp rolled over and gaped at us
     in terror; the woman was Mrs Dempster.
      It was Hainey who gave a shout, and in no time all the men
     were with us, and Jim Warren was pointing a pistol at the
     tramp, ordering him to put his hands up. He repeated the
     words two or three times, and then Mrs Dempster spoke.
      "You'll have to speak very loudly to him, Mr Warren," she
     said, "he's hard of hearing."
      I don't think any of us knew where to look when she spoke,
     pulling her skirts down but remaining on the ground. It was
     at that moment that the Reverend Amasa Dempster joined us;
     I had not noticed him when the hunt began, though he must
     have been there. He behaved with great dignity, leaning
     forward to help his wife rise with the same sort of
     protective love I had seen in him the night Paul was born.
     But he was not able to keep back his question.
      "Mary, what made you do it?"
      She looked him honestly in the face and gave the answer that
     became famous in Deptford: "He was very civil, 'Masa. And he
     wanted it so badly."

"speculative stream-of-consciousness story simulacrum - whose pointless plotlessness makes it merely a wannabe story"
The Deptford Trilogy, from which "Fifth Business" comes, is the only (three) thing(s) by Davies that I've ever read.  But I find this characterization very surprising.
Davies's writing seems to me to be quite conventional old-fashioned storytelling.  Not experimental at all.  First-person narrative is not stream-of-consciousness.  I feel the novels have plots: beginning/middle/end, setup/conflict/resolution, mystery/revelation, whatever.
"Conventional" and the rest of what I have said above is intended as neither praise nor condemnation; simply a statement of how it appears to me.
Likewise, this comment is not intended as a conemnation of your characterization or opinion.  The only thing I'm willing to say with absolute conviction is that "different people read things differently". But its great difference from my reading did surprise me.
"Its anti-Christian narrative hits me square between the eyes with the stupid hammer."
Could be.  C.S. Lewis's pro-Christian anti-science Space Trilogy certainly hit me between the eyes with ... well, I'll tone it down a little and simply say that, as a non-Christian, I found the militancy to be very offensive.
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Dudley Brooks, Artistic Director
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