First, a little music:
(If you’re not familiar with Gentle Giant, the group was part of a Seventies surge into experimental forms within popular music. The title of their second album, Acquiring the Taste, says a lot about what it takes to enjoy their oeuvre. Yet several of their recordings, especially Octopus and The Power and the Glory, have joined my list of favorites. Give them a try.)
And now for something completely different…
In pursuit of a project I’m following with brilliant video composer Hazel Williams, I spent a couple of hours yesterday seining through the five novels of the Realm of Essences series. Hazel, who’s composing a “trailer” for Chosen One, needed a concise biography of the character I’m most abused for killing: Louis Redmond. My intention was to assemble the most relevant bits of the novels that follow Chosen One for her edification. I think I succeeded at that, but alongside the intended outcome came another.
Reviewing those books brought me to tears.
It was a remarkable experience. I hadn’t read those books for many years. You might find that natural. After all, they’re my creations; why would I reread them when they came from my imagination? We read for the novelty of experiencing other writers’ creations, don’t we?
Well, yes. But when revisited after a long time away, one’s own creations can seem like the products of another mind. I wrote the last of the Realm books, Statesman, ten years ago. Coming back to them after such a long interval was unexpectedly affecting.
It put me in mind of why I set out to write fiction in the first place.
The writer and the reader usually have some compatible aims. The reader is there to be entertained and moved; the writer knows it and is there to see to it. Good fiction must entertain at the very minimum. If the writer can give the reader a memorable emotional journey as well, he’s achieved on two counts.
But I set out on the Realm series for other reasons, as well. I wanted to do something that a great many writers appear to have abandoned: the depiction and exposition of true heroism. I wanted to create characters that exemplify my conception of a hero: one who puts himself at risk for someone or something else that he values more than his own interests.
It’s for the reader to decide whether I met that goal… but in going back through the Realm novels for the first time in more than a decade, I was “the reader.” I was thrilled by Louis’s adventures. I derived a huge refreshing dollop of the inspiration I felt in those early years, when nothing seemed quite as important as telling a heroic tale to the best of my ability.
That has always been my aspiration: that my readers should feel exactly that sense of uplift, and to experience the renewal of purpose that’s the central animating filament of a memorable, heroic character.
The question we all face – “Why am I here?” – is one that every hero must answer. Good fiction helps us to face it. Not to answer it; merely to confront it open-eyed.
Sometimes, a hero must be “soft-pedaled:” depicted in a fashion that downplays the essence of his heroism. Superman gets to wear a gaudy costume, but that’s a job requirement for a comic-book superhero. Real-life heroes sometimes wear uniforms, but they’re seldom that gaudy.
One of the writers from whose example I learned the most was the late Roger Zelazny. Here is his most striking depiction of heroic essence: unprepossessing, unglamorous, but resolute and definite:
"Oh man of many bodies," said Taraka, "why do you begrudge me a few days within this one? It is not the body you were born into, and you, too, do but borrow it for a time. Why then, do you feel my touch to be a thing of defilement? One day you may wear another body, untouched by me. So why do you consider my presence a pollution, a disease? Is it because there is that within you which is like unto myself? Is it because you, too, know delight in the ways of the Rakasha, tasting the pain you cause like a pleasure, working your will as you choose upon whatsoever you choose? Is it because of this? Because you, too, know and desire these things, but also bear that human curse called guilt? If it is, I mock you in your weakness, Binder. And I shall prevail against you."
"It is because I am what I am, demon," said Siddhartha, hurling his energies back at him. "It is because I am a man who occasionally aspires to things beyond the belly and the phallus. I am not the saint the Buddhists think me to be, and I am not the hero out of legend. I am a man who knows much fear, and who occasionally feels guilt. Mainly, though, I am a man who has set out to do a thing, and you are now blocking my way."[From Lord of Light]
“I am a man who has set out to do a thing.” Could there be a more compact description of what animates a hero? For Sam / “Siddhartha” has embraced a costly purpose: the liberation of a whole planetful of people. He knows it to be a purpose that will try him sorely. He accepts it anyway.
Have another snippet, this one from Steven Brust’s novel Phoenix:
“Just out of curiosity, how long has it been since blood has been spilled here, in the Jhereg Wing?”
“Not since the Interregnum, Lord Taltos.”
“It would be bad for the Organization interests to have any sort of violence take place here, wouldn’t it?”
“Very bad. I hope you aren’t suggesting any.”
I leaned on his shoulder, very slightly. “I? No, no, not at all. I wouldn’t think of such a thing. I was just making conversation.”
“I see. What was it you wanted to know?”
“Who arranged to have those Easterners arrested?”
There was the faintest hint of a tightening of muscles, but no more. “Why, the Empress, Baronet Taltos.”
“At your request, Count Soffta. And I’m very anxious to learn which of my colleagues asked you to make the request.”
“I believe you have been misinformed, Baronet Taltos.”
“Have you heard of me, Count Soffta?”
My hand didn’t leave his shoulder, but neither did it tighten, nor did I make any other movement. He said nothing for two or three heartbeats, then he said, “It may take me some time to find out, and I’m expecting a rather large number of visitors very soon.”
“Yes, I imagine you are. But under the circumstances, I’m willing to let it take as much time as necessary. I’m sure your visitors will understand.”
“It could be very expensive.”
“I’m prepared to pay. It is my wife, you know.”
“Yes . . . .”
“So the cost is irrelevant.”
“I guess it is.”
“Perhaps it would be best if you could gather the information?”
I could almost feel him weighing the odds, attempting to select the best thing to say, the best thing to do. “There may be repercussions—”
“I have absolutely no doubt that there will be. I accept them.”
“All of them?”
“Whatever may happen.”
“I accept them.” Vladimir Taltos – witch, assassin, and crime lord – accepts that he’ll most likely lose his life to save the life of his estranged wife. There’s a hero for you.
The two heroes above had conscious purposes for which they were prepared to give everything.
We don’t usually think of heroes in terms of their aspirations. That word feels too close to achievements. Yet there is a difference.
Many young men aspire to be heroes without fully grasping what heroism entails. Few of us become genuine heroes. But all of us are asked to give something of ourselves – time, labor, money, love, other values – no matter what it is we set out to achieve. Often, the young man gives without recompense: he never achieves what or as he’d hoped. But what he gave is not returned to him.
Ultimately, it’s the aspiration that matters. The more clearly the young man sees the probable costs, the more laudable is his quest. If the fulfillment of that quest would be to others’ benefit rather than his own, we may legitimately call him heroic, even if by far the greater part of his life is as common as dirt.
We never see superheroes doing utterly mundane, body-and-life maintenance things. Those moments don’t make it onto the big screen. Note that at no instant of 24, throughout eight long seasons, do we ever see Jack Bauer take a “pee break.” We see his risks and his derring-do. And we see what he’s prepared to give to fulfill his purpose.
I’m not exhorting anyone to be a hero. I won’t encourage others to do what I know I never could. But to aspire:
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
That is incumbent upon us all.
Thank you for suffering through all that. Have a nice day.
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