Читать книгу The Magic (October 1961–October 1967) - Roger Zelazny - Страница 16

Theodore Sturgeon enthused that “‘A Rose for Ecclesiastes’ is one of the most important stories I have ever read—perhaps I should say it is one of the most memorable experiences I have ever had . . . as objective as I can be, which isn’t very, I still feel safe in stating that it is one of the most beautifully written, skillfully composed and passionately expressed works of art to appear anywhere, ever.”⁵

Fittingly, this story was included as one of the classic stories of “Martian literature” in the Visions of Mars: First Library on Mars silica glass mini- DVD that traveled to the Martian surface on May 25, 2008, aboard the lander Phoenix.

“A Rose for Ecclesiastes” appeared in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, ranked sixth among the 26 best stories from 1929–1964 (prior to the institution of the Nebula Awards), elected by the writers themselves.

The cover painting for this story was one of the very last works of Hannes Bok, and Zelazny later purchased the original painting.

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The many references and allusions that enrich the text may benefit from identification or explanation. A madrigal is a musical form of secular text composed for two voices, often in Italian. Macabre implies a grim or ghastly atmosphere with an emphasis on death. “Let not ambition mock thy useful toil” is a line from the poem “The Cotter’s Saturday Night” by Robert Burns. Hamlet and his stepfather, King Claudius, despised and mistrusted each other. Antoine de Saint-Exupery was a writer and aviator who published several prominent novels pertaining to flight and is best known for the novel The Little Prince. Malebolge is the eighth circle of hell in Dante’s The Divine Comedy, within which Dante discovers Ulysses standing in flames, doomed for three sins, but still capable of making a speech about his adventures. Terza-rima is a rhyming in triplets, specifically the style used in The Divine Comedy. The Mahābhārata is a lengthy Sanskrit epic of ancient India.

Samson was the Israelite whose immense strength lay in his uncut hair; his lover Delilah cut it off, the Philistines blinded him and imprisoned him in Gaza—but his hair grew again, and he pulled down the pillars of the temple, destroying himself and many Philistines. Heinrich Schliemann was a German treasure hunter who discovered and excavated Troy and fought with archaeologist Frank Calvert over it. In ancient India, Prakrit was the ordinary or vernacular speech while Sanskrit was the liturgical or high speech. Vaulted and corbeled means that the high ceiling is supported by projections from the walls. Benzedrine is a brand of amphetamine.

The Iliad by Homer describes the Trojan War and how Achilles killed Hector. Added tails to the cat repeatedly laid on my back suggests a cat-o’- nine-tails, a rope whip with nine knotted cords, formerly used to flog offenders (Gallinger must be speaking figuratively, not literally, because he later states that his father did not resort to physical punishment). A catafalque is a raised platform on which a dead body is carried or lies in state. Greenwich Village played an important role in the development of folk music in the 1960s (Dylan; Simon and Garfunkle; Peter, Paul and Mary; etc.) and was where Zelazny met his first fiancée, folk musician Hedy West. W. H. Auden was one of Zelazny’s favorite poets. Iambics are meters in poetry consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable.

I, a stranger, unafraid alludes to A. E. Housman’s Last Poems, and the line “I, a stranger and afraid || in a world I never made”—except that Gallinger reverses it into a boast. This is the land likely refers to Emily Dickinson’s poem “This is the land the sunset washes.” Recherches is French for researches. Edgar Allan Poe wrote poetry and horror stories such as “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Vanity of vanities . . . is a quote from the Book of Ecclesiastes in the King James version of the Bible. Jean-Paul Sartre was an existentialist who dealt with the nature of human life and the structures of consciousness; the Other deals with the philosophical concept of how one consciousness deals with the existence of other minds. Periphrasis is the use of indirect and circumlocutory speech or writing.

Henry Havelock Ellis was a British doctor and sexual psychologist whose book The Dance of Life described that dancing and architecture are the two primary and essential arts. According to Ellis, dancing is the source of all arts that express themselves inside the person, and it came first; architecture is the beginning of all the arts that lie outside the person.

A sari is a garment worn by Hindu women, consisting of a long piece of cotton or silk wrapped around the body. An Etruscan frieze is a horizontal band of sculpted or painted decoration on a wall near the ceiling. The Etruscan civilization flourished circa 500 BC. The samisen is a Japanese three-stringed musical instrument played with a plectrum called a bachi. A glissando is a rapid slide through a series of scales on a musical instrument. Saint-John Perse was the pseudonym of a French poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1960. Devadasis or “servants of God” were girls “married” to a deity or temple in a Hindu practice and who learned a sacred dance termed the Bharatanatyam. Ramadjany were sacred dancers.

Rama refers to any one of the three avatars of Vishnu, those being Balarama, Parashurama, or Ramachandra; Vishnu or “the Preserver” is the second member of the Trimurti, along with Brahma the Creator and Shiva the Destroyer. Sarasvati is the Hindu goddess of learning and the arts. The sitar is a large, long-necked Indian lute with movable frets, played with a wire pick. Afflatus is a divine creative impulse or inspiration.

Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas De Quincy, Oscar Wilde, Stephane Mallarme and Aleister Crowley were respected authors and poets. Job argued with God because conventional wisdom said that his suffering must be the just punishment for his sins, but he knew himself to be innocent of any crimes, and he wanted to meet God face to face rather than accept platitudes which he knew were untrue. A charley horse is localized pain or muscle stiffness following contusion or bruising of a muscle, or localized electrolyte imbalance.

William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Hart Crane, and Wallace Stevens were real poets whose work Zelazny admired, and Michael Gallinger is the protagonist and poet of this story. Jonathan Swift was an Irish poet and satirist best known for Gulliver’s Travels, a satire on human society in the form of a fantastic tale of travels in imaginary lands. George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright whose plays (including Pygmalion, Man and Superman) combined comedy and an examination of conventional morals and thought. Petronius Arbiter was the author of The Satyricon, a work in prose and verse satirizing the excesses of Roman society. In The Satyricon, Trimalchio was a character known for throwing lavish dinner parties.

Blake’s rose refers to “The Sick Rose,” a poem by William Blake that begins “Oh Rose, thou art sick!” Isaias [variant of Isaiah] was a major prophet of Judah in the 8th century BC; the book of the Bible entitled Isaiah contains his prophecies. Mycetae are fungi. Mores are customs, practices, or ways of life in a culture. Methuselah was the grandfather of Noah and was said to have lived almost 1,000 years; the term also means a longlived or immortal man.

Giovanni Shiaparelli was an Italian astronomer who famously described the markings on Mars as canali (channels)—but this was mistranslated as “canals” and taken to mean evidence of a civilization on Mars. John Milton wrote Paradise Lost after he had gone blind. Dionysiac means sensual, spontaneous, and emotional. Spanish Dancer was a poem by German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Shelley’s leaves refers to Percy Shelley’s poem “Ode to the West Wind.” Dactylic refers to a metrical foot in poetry that consists of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables; hexameter means that each line contains six metrical feet.

Castle Duino sits on the rocky Carso high above the Gulf of Trieste and was frequented by Rilke; the quote ending “nor interpret roses” [not to give a meaning of human futurity to roses] is from the “First Elegy” within the Rilke’s “Duino Elegies.” Anathema maranatha is a curse for anyone who does not want to be saved because the Lord is coming. Aspic is an archaic word for asp, the Egyptian cobra; the usage may indicate that ship and crew were a snake in a Martian Eden.

Claudius! If only this were the fifth act! refers to the denouement of the play Hamlet in which Claudius and Hamlet are both killed. Sayonara is Japanese for goodbye. Limned means suffused or highlighted with a bright color. After receiving no aid from the fictional Martian god Malann, Gallinger calls on deities from various religions and mythologies—Hinduism (Vishnu), Christianity and Judaism (Jehovah), Greek (Adonis), Egyptian (Osiris), Sumerian (Thammuz), Algonquian (Manitou), and Haitian Vodou (Legba). Niccolo Paganini was an Italian violinist, violist and composer.

Kodokan (“A place for study and promotion of the way”) is the headquarters of Japanese style judo. The judogi is the traditional uniform used for judo practice and competition. Ik-kyu is senior brown belt in judo. Jiu- Jitsu is a Japanese martial art. Atemi-waza are striking techniques rarely used at full force in judo because of the harm that they can inflict. Tsuki no kokoro (“A Mind Like the Moon”) refers to the need to be constantly aware of the totality of the opponent and his or her movements, just as moonlight shines equally on everything in its range. Hajime means threshold or beginning. Neko-ashi-dachi (“Cat Stance”) is a classic initial pose in judo and is often depicted in motion pictures. Shiai is a judo competition for a prize. Hybris is an alternate spelling for hubris, pride and arrogance.

¹ Amber Dreams, 1983.

² No-Eyed Monster Summer 1968 #14, p 21–22.

³ Algol 13(2):9–14. Summer 1976.

⁴ Roger Zelazny, Theodore Krulik, 1986.

⁵ Four for Tomorrow, 1967.