The Foundation Trilogy, Days 9 & 10: And Thus, He Gets to the Point

Well, I've now read Second Foundation, the third Foundation book. I probably won't read the four additional books he wrote decades after the trilogy. My apologies to Mr. Asimov, but I'm just not all that interested in seeing where the story goes from here.


First of all, I'd like to say that it's very confusing to have the third book in the series be called Second Foundation. I can't help but feel like it would have made more sense to have Second Foundation be the second book in the series. In fact, considering how short these books are, I think it would've been quite manageable. Asimov would've just had to split Foundation and Empire down the middle, combining the first half with Foundation and the latter half with Second Foundation, and he'd have ended up with two longer, more reasonably named books. It would've made more sense from a storytelling standpoint, too, because the overarching plot of Second Foundation has its origins about halfway through Foundation and Empire.


Oh, I know I'm just pointlessly nitpicking. I wonder if this is something all aspiring and/or successful writers do; constantly think about what we would've done differently had we written the book that we're reading.


But on to the book itself.


This book was weird.


It was weird in a number of different ways, not least of which in the fact that there's a fairly substantial difference in tone and feel between this book and the other two. It's almost entirely free of political discussions (hooray!) and instead introduces the rather bothersome concept of mind control. For the entire book, the reader can never be sure whether someone is behaving or speaking in a certain way because they're under mind control or because they're mentally controlling someone else, but it's safe to assume that's it's one of the two. Thus, there's a new surprise revelation every few chapters. It turns out this person you thought was stupid is really in charge of the entire situation! (Jarring chord) And it turns out this person who you thought was working against this organization was actually working for them and using mind control to keep people from figuring it out! (Jarring chord) But in fact, he and the organization wanted him to get caught and used mind control to make sure he would, because it was all part of the plan! (Jarring chord) And by the way, this character who you thought was the most independent character in the book and the only one who'd escaped being controlled has been under mind control for the past fifteen years! (JARRING CHORD)


There are so many "shocking" twists in this book that they cease to be shocking. By the time I got to the last two, which were probably supposed to be the most shocking of all, I was far past the point of being surprised.


The effect is even more damaged by the fact that the reveal of the second-to-last shocking twist was brought about through one character delivering a lengthy monologue to another character... full of information the second character already knew. Asimov attempted to explain this little issue away by saying that the first character wasn't really speaking to the second character and was more expositing to himself. Which, if you ask me, makes even less sense. "I'm just going to stand here staring out a window, outlining at great length and in great detail the brilliant plan which I have just personally carried out with rousing success. I'm so awesome."


I wonder if Asimov ever stood staring out a window describing the plot of the Foundation trilogy in great detail to no one in particular when he'd finished it.


***


I got the distinct feeling reading this book that this was what Asimov was leading up to, that the only reason for the first two books' existence is to set up the action of Second Foundation. This was what he was heading for all along. This is where he gets to the point. This is where he makes his big profound statement about humanity and existence.


And I have no idea what it is.


Truly. I think he's trying to tell me something, and I can't figure out what it is.


See, throughout most of the book the organization with all the mind control is set up as the bad guys. They're fought against and hated and feared. Because of course, you don't want your mind and your thoughts and actions controlled by an outside force. That's human nature. And as the book progressed, it felt more and more like a strong, embittered anti-deist statement (not actually sure if anti-deist is the exact phrase I'm looking for, but... y'know... anti-God).


But in the end (spoilers), the organization with the mind control wins. Because of course the mere mortals aren't going to succeed against the all-powerful organization capable of mind control; that wouldn't make any sense. And there are a couple of indications, in the last chapter and a place or two earlier in the book, that it's good that they win. That without them, humanity would destroy itself, and that because of their success, humanity can now proceed into its bright future, into a golden age unlike any experienced before in its history.


So... what am I supposed to be feeling? Is this meant to be a crushing ending, inspiring despair with the thought that no matter what actions humans take or how much they fight it, they'll (we'll) always be forced along an unchangeable path by some manipulative higher power? Or is it meant to be hopeful, communicating the idea that no matter how presumptuous or foolish or unaware of what's good for us we get, there's always someone greater looking out for us, guiding us to the place where we belong and where we'll be happiest and most prosperous?


I don't know too much about Asimov, but I'm guessing that for him it was probably the former. But like I said, I can only guess. His message isn't clear.


His message, whatever it is, is also really hard to get to.


There were a lot of things that bothered me about this series. Some of them I've attempted to articulate in these posts, others I've had difficulty pinpointing. Characters are thrown about carelessly, often underdeveloped and randomly abandoned midway through their stories. Whole subplots and events take place and are practically forgotten, barely effecting the bigger story. A lot of things are under-explained. A lot more things are exhaustingly over-explained. There are explanations that make very little sense. Second Foundation is the best and easiest to read of the trilogy (as you may have gathered from the fact that I read it in two days after taking a week to get through Foundation and Empire), but it still has some of these drawbacks, and it also has all the crazy mind control, which was frustrating in its own way, since I was having to go through the whole book knowing that nothing was as it seemed and nobody was trustworthy.


The point that I'm attempting to get to is that if I had merely been experimenting with this series, reading it on my own time rather than blogging about it, I probably wouldn't have read past the first book. And in light of that, I question Asimov's decision to put his big, grandiose conclusion (whatever that happened to be) after over three hundred pages of dry, repetitive inaction and another hundred and fifty pages of headache-inducing mind games. Didn't he ever worry about losing readers before he got the chance to tell them... whatever he was trying to tell them?


***


I feel like I'm not really saying anything of much importance here (maybe my readers will disagree; that would be nice). It goes back to that burden of intellectualism post I wrote after finishing the first book in this trilogy. Science Fiction is an intellectual genre. It's known for allegory and for probing human nature and making sweeping political commentaries and sociological statements. People write papers about Sci-Fi books, people discuss them at length. And so, I feel like this last Foundation post ought to be describing some huge epiphany I had about Science Fiction or humankind or something along those lines.


But it's not. Because I didn't have any grand epiphanies or discoveries. This series didn't change my life or my way of looking at the world. It didn't make me fall in love with Science Fiction. Honestly, there were times while I was reading it when I'd stare blankly at the page number, stunned that I'd read so much and been so little impacted by it. These books washed over me, when I was able to make progress through them. I think I'll be lucky to remember anything of significance about them by this time next year.


I still feel bad that that's the case. I feel bad that this whole genre and I have yet to get along. But there's not much of anything I can do about it. I don't have the ability to make myself appreciate things that some people possess. Oh, well.


There're still two more books on my roster, books that appear to have few similarities to the Foundation trilogy. So I still have some hope of eventually writing a less whiny, critical post. Stay tuned.


~Pearl Clayton