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

On 6/10/24 7:47 AM, Don wrote:

Titus G wrote:

  Don wrote:

William Hyde wrote:

Don wrote:

James Nicoll wrote:

Report on Probability A by Brian W. Aldiss
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A New Wave tale of observational recursion,
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https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/a-straight-a-student

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Thank you for the embedded link to _The Hireling Shepherd_. It's another
example where an artistic image's blatant symbolism clobbers me in the
head with the force of the stupid hammer.
      _The Hireling Shepherd_ brings to mind a similar sexual situation in
_Fifth Business_ (Davies). The author, apparently an aficionado of
Shakespeare, kindly defines Fifth Business in his preface. Perhaps you,
in your role of theater staff member, also recognize the phrase, James.
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      Fifth Business … Definition
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      Those roles which, being neither those of
      Hero nor Heroine, Confidante nor Villain,
      but which were none the less essential to
      bring about the Recognition or the dénouement
      were called the Fifth Business in drama
      and opera companies organized according
      to the old style; the player who acted these
      parts was often referred to as Fifth Business.
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      —Tho. Overskou, Den Danske Skueplads

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Davies invented the term, and this quotation.
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It's a very fine novel nonetheless.  I like it more each time I read it.

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It was thrown against the wall by me after its Stupidity Hammer hit
readers with hobo homosexual rape fantasies.

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The hobo did not commit rape but was a victim of a saint's beneficence.
There was perhaps rape of the youth by the fair worker though it was not
clear whether consent was granted. Minor details.
You have denied yourself a great read. If you haven't done so, I would
recommend you read one of his other trilogies which have nothing in
common with the Deptford IIRC.

 Allow me to belated thank William for clarifying the origin of the
"Fifth Business." Lesson learned - epigraphs are every bit as
fictional as the rest of the story.
     Davies is gifted. He masterfully expresses himself. He excels
at symbolic imagery. Davies even magnanimously hints at how readers
can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps to become polymaths.
(Yeah, right?)
 Does it surprise anyone at this point for Davies to now become anti-
grist for my Love-Hate mill?
 Davies' Gnostic attitude about all denominations being more-or-less the
same ?snake oil? in different bottles rubs me the wrong way. Then
there's the tacit approval of a false face presented in public, passed
off as virtue.
     Here's his hobo homosexual fantasy:
      Funny how fierce it gets when the body is ill fed and
     ill used. Tramps are sodomites mostly. I was a young
     fellow, and it's the young ones and the real old ones
     that get used, because they can't fight as well. It's
     not kid-glove stuff, like that Englishman went to
     prison for; it's enough to kill you, you'd think,
     when a gang of tramps set on a young fellow. But it
     doesn't, you know. That's how I lost my hearing, most
     of it; I resisted a gang, and they beat me over the
     ears with my own boots till I couldn't resist any
     more. Do you know what they say? "Lots o' booze and
     buggery". they say.
 For a moment, put yourself into my shoes. According to more than one
reader on the Inet, _Fifth Business_ allegedly contains a Roger Bacon
character.
     "Where's Roger Bacon?" my mind ponders when the above passage
gobsmacks me. It's been patiently waiting for Bacon a long time by
this point in the story. And all its patience is rewarded with the above
passage?!?
     It finally dawns on me how the Bacon character's a subverted
expectation. An illusory allusion or something.
     In the end, there's more than enough evil encountered by me in
real life. There's no need whatsoever for me to fantasize about it.

Then I blame the Inet for misinforming you.
The only Roger Bacon reference, as far as I remember after so long, is a fake Brazen Head used as a theatrical prop in a stage performance by a professional magician.  Why someone on the internet described that (or even the magician who uses it) as "a Roger Bacon character" mystifies me.
It's one of the few things that *did* bother me in the novel, actually -- because I don't think any real professional magician would assume that his audience was sufficiently knowledgeable about the history of philosophy to get the obscure reference.
I haven't read it in so long that I don't remember -- perhaps the magician gave a quick verbal intro about it?  I've certainly seen many shows, from magicians to rock bands and everything else, where a spoken introduction fills the audience in on the bare minimum they need to know.
And perhaps the first-person narrator / letter write *muses* about Roger Bacon?  He is a history professor, after all.  But if so, I don't remember that either.  I completely agree with you that there is no Roger Bacon character -- but, unlike you, I had no misinformed reason to expect there to be, so I was not disappointed.
--
Dudley Brooks, Artistic Director
Run For Your Life! ... it's a dance company!
San Francisco