The Foundation Trilogy, Day 2: The Burden of Intellectualism

Today I finished Foundation, the first book in the trilogy. In a shocking change of pace, the second half of the book contained not only many many more political dialogues, but also some very exciting trade discussions and a courtroom scene. As I rapidly approached the conclusion, I felt certain that some sort of thrilling climax must be near, some great burst of action or unexpected reveal that the whole book had been building up to.


I proved to be incorrect. It was really just more talking and then something that doesn't even quite deserve to be called an abrupt ending. And then it was over.


Also, today's reading featured a character who I briefly felt might be this story's equivalent of Han Solo (because, having first noticed similarities to Star Wars, I fully intend to keep looking for them). But then he just turned out to be the exact same conniving, scheming, unsympathetic, too-smart-for-his-own-good politician that the first half of the book was about. And I really mean that; if you asked me to make a list of all the noticeable, extreme differences in character, personality, or methods of action between the two men who are the closest things to protagonists this book has, I doubt I'd be able to come up with anything.


Because, you see, this book isn't really much of a book.


Yes, yes, I know it's a book. When I say book, though, I mean the written-out, nicely bound version of a fictional or retold story.


Most of the books you're likely to find in the fiction section of your library will be about a person or group of persons in some kind of interesting situation. The book, or series of books, will then follow the person or group of persons through the twists and turns and pitfalls of the interesting situation to that situation's resolution. Maybe new characters will be introduced along the way. Maybe the action will unfold over the course of several years. Maybe the situation will become increasingly complicated and multi-layered, until the situation that is ultimately resolved at the story's end is completely different from the original situation. There are mystery series that take readers through multiple different stories in the life of one central character. There are multi-generational epics that tell the converging and complementary and evolving life stories of characters and their children and grandchildren. Whatever it is, there is almost always some common thread of character or plot to tie everything together and keep the reader interested. The ending of a book is rarely the ending of all its characters' stories; rather, it is the ending of that particular epoch, or situation, or incident, or whatever you want to call it in their lives that the author wished to chronicle. Books are things of finite ambition that describe contained incidents.


And it could be argued that Foundation contains some of these elements. It describes characters and their movements through contained incidents. But every contained incident is part of a larger narrative.


Essentially, there is a presumed conclusion to some of humanity's current (that is, current in the far-distant future) struggles that will come about several centuries (further) in the future. The only way to get to this desirable conclusion is through a series of crises. So... the book is a series of crises. There's a problem, a man emerges who somehow knows exactly what needs to be done to fix the problem, he rises to ultimate power with stunning ease, he does what needs doing, the crisis is averted. Skip forward several decades to the next crisis and the cycle is repeated.


So to get back to my earlier point, this book isn't a book, it's a freaking essay.


That's why the characters are cardboard cutouts which are practically indistinguishable from each other. They don't need to be any more than that, because this isn't about them. This isn't a story of people, or individual triumphs, or isolated occurrences with beginnings and endings. This first book doesn't so much end as stop; pause, more like. Because, again, it's not a book. It's Asimov's commentary on politics and ideologies, on the inevitable trends of humanity, on reoccurring cycles of power and control, on the endlessly fickle masses and the ever-changing but unstoppably repetitive tides of popularity and fate that they mindlessly ride. It subtly paints a picture of hopeless, depressing, exhausting, headache-inducing infinity. You know that even if humanity reaches this objective that every major decision in the story is being made in pursuit of, it'll be no more an ending or a reprieve than any other pause in the story has been. The tides will keep coming in and before too long the solution will have unraveled and the human race will have to go through the whole mess again. Asimov studied, and pondered, and philosophized, and finally wrote his thesis, converting it into dialogue and half-hiding it behind thin characters and something vaguely resembling an overarching plot in order to get it to the masses, to the people whom he felt most needed to read it.


(My sense of pacing demands that there be some sort of pause following a paragraph like that, so imagine me sighing heavily, leaning back in my chair, rubbing my temples, knocking back the dregs of a glass of iced tea, and taking a deep breath before resuming.)


I don't know if I'm actually doing a good job of expressing myself at the moment, being by no means a good or impartial judge of my own writing. As it often does, my frustration has made me feel addled and incoherent. Whether I actually am addled and incoherent is beside the point; I feel like I am, which naturally does nothing to lessen the feelings of frustration.


And the source of that frustration (aside from the boringness, and the repetitiveness, and the weird sameness of the characters, and the apparent futility of everything everybody's doing)?


I feel like I should love this. And that is a feeling that I'm tired of having.


I've spent a fair portion of my life being that one really smart kid. You know, the one who knows all the answers and does all the assignments and gets straight A's. The teacher's pet, if you will. This was inadvertent at first, but I confess that it wasn't long before I started taking pains to make sure I retained my status. I have been (and at times still am) a showoff, a braggart, and an egotist. When, in high school, I started encountering people unquestionably more intelligent and capable than I was, it dealt a blow to my self-esteem and my feelings of self-worth that I've scarcely begun to recover from.


This position of "gifted-child-totally-bursting-with-potential" brings with it a lot of expectations and assumptions. Oh, you'll do well on this assignment. You'll understand what the teacher's saying. You'll know the answer to this question. You'll like this book/movie/project. You're smart. You're intellectual. You're into this kind of thing.


At this point, I hardly know if these voices ever truly existed or if I imagined them. I'm reasonably sure that there must've been some, but probably nowhere near as many as I've been prone to think. Whatever the case, I've brought them into my own head now, and I hear them constantly, when I watch movies, or have conversations, or read books.


Why in the world are you still blathering on about how cute your favorite actors are? You're supposed to be smart. You're supposed to be above that shallow nonsense. Why can't you talk about something that matters for once?


Quit whining about how bad you think this movie is. It's a classic. Smart people like it, so complaining about it makes you sound stupid. And you're not supposed to be stupid. Everyone thinks you're smart. I guess they must be wrong.


Oh, come on, this is brilliant intellectual writing! He's studied history and is applying those studies to his writings about the future. Intelligent people love it for the commentary and criticism it provides. It comes recommended by people whose opinions matter to you, people whom you want to think well of you. You pass yourself off as some towering intellectual, and yet you don't like this masterwork about precedent and human nature because the characters aren't developed enough? How disgustingly shallow and pathetic. You should feel ashamed of yourself for accepting all those compliments of your intelligence over the years, because if you were really the person that the people giving them thought you were, you would love this.


As I think I've said before, my favorite books are all children's books, or fantasies, or nineteenth-century dramas. I like books with humor and adventure, with characters I feel like I've known personally for years, maybe even with just a touch of romance. But I find I'm often reluctant to admit to that. I get annoyed with myself for going on about how much I love Jane Austen, or for recommending the Charlie Bone series to people and telling them it's my favorite book series.


Those are the kinds of books normal girls like. You're meant to be so much more than that.


By failing to properly appreciate the intellectual, symbolic, and cautionary significance of this book, I feel like I'm letting down the people who think highly of me. I feel like I'm failing to live up to my full potential by preferring Austen to Asimov.


All this, when deep down I know that if I actually asked any of the people whose disappointment and disapproval I'm so consistently afraid of, they would tell me that my failure to get into Science Fiction doesn't matter to them at all. They don't care. These are demons I've created for myself.


And more than the boredom, more than my inability to connect with the characters, more than the repetitiveness, more than the abiding sense of absolute futility, that is why I got so frustrated with this book. Because it made me feel frustrated with myself, and then frustrated with myself because I'm so continually frustrated with myself.


So here is my new resolve for the summer (reached sometime during the rather lengthy process of getting this post written): not only to better familiarize myself with Science Fiction and develop a taste for it if I can (and there's still time to do that; I've got four books left), but also to work on being more aware of how silly and damaging this fear of not living up to others' expectations of me is. And to work on getting the heck over it.


***


And with that massively cathartic and personal vent over and done with, I think I'm ready to face the rest of the Foundation Trilogy, not as a frustrated intellectual wanting desperately to like a book series in order to maintain peoples' confidence in her, but as a booklover reading books (or, y'know, essays disguised as books) and openly and honestly saying what she thinks of them.


After sleep. First - first there needs to be sleep.


Until tomorrow (er... later today) (or possibly tomorrow; we'll see).


~Pearl Clayton