A. E. Van Vogt - The World of Null-A.pdf - A. E. Van Vogt - borsukomiks

The World of Null-A

By A.E.Van Vogt

Scanned by BW-SciFi

Scan Date: July, 5 th , 2002

To John W. Campbell, Jr.

Published by arrangement with the author's agent

to reproduce this book or portions thereof in

any form whatsoever. For information address

SBN 425-02558-6

BERKLEY MEDALLION BOOKS are published by

Berkley Publishing Corporation

200 Madison Avenue

New York, N.Y. 10016

BERKLEY MEDALLION BOOKS ® TM 757,375

Printed in the United States of America

Berkley Medallion Edition, MARCH, 1974

AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION

Reader, in your hands you hold one of the most con-troversial-and successful-novels in the whole

of science fiction literature.

In these introductory remarks, I am going to tell about some of the successes and I shall also

detail what the prin-cipal critics said about The World of Null-A. Let me hasten to say that what

you shall read is no acrimonious defense. In fact, I have decided to take the criticisms seriously,

and I have accordingly revised this first Berkley edition and have provided the explanations which

for so long I believed to be unnecessary.

Before I tell you of the attacks, I propose swiftly to set down a few of The World of Null-A's

successes:

It was the first hard-cover science fiction novel pub-lished by a major publisher after World War II

(Simon and Schuster, 1948).

It won the Manuscripters Club award.

It was listed by the New York area library association among the hundred best novels of 1948.

Jacques Sadoul, in France, editor of Editions OPTA, has stated that World of Null-A, when first

published, all by itself created the French science fiction market. The first edition sold over 25,000

copies. He has stated that I am still-in 1969-the most popular writer in France in terms of copies

sold.

Its publication stimulated interest in General Semantics. Students flocked to the Institute of

General Semantics, Lakewood, Connecticut, to study under Count Alfred Korzybski-who allowed

himself to be photographed reading The World of Null-A. Today, General Semantics, then a

faltering science, is taught in hundreds of universi-ties.

World has been translated into nine languages.

With that out of the way, we come to the attacks. As you'll see, they're more fun, make authors

madder, and get readers stirred up.

Here is what Sam Moskowitz, in his brief biography of the author, said in his book, Seekers of

Tomorrow, about what was wrong with World of Null-A: ". . . Bewildered Gilbert Gosseyn, mutant

with a double mind, doesn't know who he is and spends the entire novel trying to find out." The

novel was originally printed as a serial in As-tounding Science Fiction, and after the final

installment was published (Mr. Moskowitz continues), "Letters of plaintive puzzlement began to

pour in. Readers didn't un-derstand what the story was all about. Campbell [the editor advised

them to wait a few days; it took that long, he suggested, for the implications to sink in. The days

turned into months, but clarification never came-"

You'll admit that's a tough set of sentences to follow. Plain, blunt-spoken Sam Moskowitz, whose

knowledge of science fiction history and whose collection of science fic-tion probably is topped

only by that of Forrest Ackerman (in the whole universe) ... is nevertheless in error. The number of

readers who wrote "plaintive" letters to the editor can be numbered on the fingers of one and a

half hands.

However, Moskowitz might argue that it isn't the quan-tity of complainers, but the quality. And

there he has a point.

Shortly after The World of Null-A was serialized in 1945, a sci-fi fan, hitherto unknown to me,

wrote in a science fiction fan magazine a long and powerful article at-tacking the novel and my

work in general up to that time. The article concluded, as I recall it (from memory only) with the

sentence: "Van Vogt is actually a pygmy writer working with a giant typewriter."

The imagery throughout this article, meaningless though that particular line is (if you'll think about

it), in-duced me to include in my answering article in a subse-quent issue of the same fan

magazine-which article is lost to posterity-the remark that I foresaw a brilliant writing career for the

young man who had written so poetical an attack.

That young writer eventually developed into the science fictional genius, Damon Knight,

who-among his many accomplishments-a few years ago organized the Science Fiction Writers

of America, which (though it seems im-possible) is still a viable organization.

Of Knight's attack so long ago, Galaxy Magazine critic Algis Budrys wrote in his December, 1967,

book review column: "In this edition [of critical essays] you will find among other goodies from the

earlier version, the famous destruction of A. E. van Vogt that made Damon's reputa-tion."

What other criticisms of The World of Null-A are there? None. It's a fact. Singlehandedly, Knight

took on this novel and my work at age 23-1/2, and, as Algis Bu-drys puts it, brought about my

"destruction."

So what's the problem? Why am I now revising World? Am I doing all this for one critic?

Yep.

But why?-you ask.

Well, on this planet you have to recognize where the power is.

Knight has it?

Knight has it

In a deeper sense, of course, I'm making this defense of the book, and revising it, because

General Semantics is a worthwhile subject, with meaningful implications, not only in 2560 A.D.

where my story takes place, but here and now.

General Semantics, as defined by the late Count Alfred Korzybski in his famous book, Science

and Sanity, is an over-word for non-Aristotelian and non-Newtonian systems. Don't let that

mouthful of words stop you. Non-Aristotelian means not according to the thought solidified by

Aristotle's followers for nearly 2,000 years. Non-Newtonian refers to our essentially Einsteinian

universe, as accepted by today's science. Non-Aristotelian breaks down to Non-A, and then

Null-A.

Thus, the titles World of -and Players of - Null-A.

General Semantics has to do with the Meaning of Meaning. In this sense, it transcends and

encompasses the new science of Linguistics. The essential idea of General

Semantics is that meaning can only be comprehended when one has made allowances for the

nervous and per-ception system-that of a human being-through which it is filtered.

Because of the limitations of his nervous system, Man can only see part of truth, never the whole

of it. In describing the limitation, Korzybski coined the term "lad-der of abstraction." Abstraction, as

he used it, did not have a lofty or symbolical thought connotation. It meant, "to abstract from", that

is, to take from something a part of the whole. His assumption: in observing a process of nature,

one can only abstract-i.e. perceive-a portion of it.

Now, if I were a writer who merely presented another man's ideas, then I doubt if I'd have had

problems with my readers. I think I presented the facts of General Semantics so well, and so

skilfully, in World of Null-A and its sequel that the readers thought that that was all I should be

doing. But the truth is that I, the author, saw a deeper paradox.

Ever since Einstein's theory of relativity, we have had the concept of the observer who-it was

stated-must be taken into account. Whenever I discussed this with people, I observed they were

not capable of appreciating the height of that concept. They seemed to think of the ob-server as,

essentially, an algebraic unit. Who he was didn't matter.

In such sciences as chemistry and physics, so precise were the methods that, apparently, it did

not matter who the observer was. Japanese, Germans, Russians, Cath-olics, Protestants,

Hindus, and Englishmen all arrived at the same impeccable conclusions, apparently bypassing

their personal, racial, and religious prejudices. However, everyone I talked to was aware that, as

soon as members of these various nationalities or religious groups wrote history -ah, now, we had

a different story (and of course a different history) from each individual.

When I say above that "apparently" it didn't matter in the physical sciences, or the "exact

sciences" as they are so often called, the truth is that it does matter there also. Every individual

scientist is limited in his ability to abstract data from Nature by the brainwashing he has received

from his parents and in school. As the General Semanticist would say, each scientific researcher

"trails his history" into every research project. Thus, a physicist with less educational or personal

rigidity can solve a prob-lem that was beyond the ability (to abstract) of another physicist.

In short, the observer always is, and always has to be a "me "... a specific person.

Accordingly, as World of Null-A opens, my hero-Gil-bert Gosseyn-becomes aware that he is not

who he thinks. He has a belief about himself that is false.

Now, consider-analogically, this is true of all of us. Only, we are so far gone into falseness, so

acceptant of our limited role, that we never question it at all.

... To continue with the story of World: Not knowing who he is, nevertheless, my protagonist

gradually becomes familiar with his "identity." Which essentially means that he abstracts

significance from the events that occur and gives them power over him. Presently he begins to

feel that the part of his identity that he has abstracted is the whole.

This is demonstrated in the second novel, The Players of Null-A. In this sequel story, Gilbert

Gosseyn rejects all attempts at being someone else. Since he is not con-sciously abstracting in

this area (of identity), he remains a pawn. For a person who is rigidly bound by identifica-tions with

what might be called the noise of the universe, the world is rich and colorful, not he. His identity

seems to be something because it is recording this enormous number of impacts from the

environment.

The sum total of Gosseyn's abstractions from the en-vironment-this includes his proprioceptive

perceptions of his own body-constitutes his memory.

Thus, I presented the thought in these stories that memory equals identity.

But I didn't say it. I dramatized it.

For example: a third of the way through World, Gos-seyn is violently killed. But there he is again at

the begin-ning of the next chapter, apparently the same person but in another body. Because he

has the previous body's memories, he accepts that he is the same identity.

An inverted example: At the end of Players, the main antagonist, who believes in a specific

religion, kills his god. It is too deadly a reality for him to confront; so he has to forget it. But to

forget something so all-embracing, he must forget everything he ever knew. He forgets who he is.

In short, no-memory equates with no-self.

When you read World and Players, you'll see how con-sistently this idea is adhered to and-now

that it has been called to your attention-how precise is the development.

I cannot at the moment recall a novel written prior to World of Null-A that had a deeper meaning

than that which showed on the surface. Science fiction often seems so complicated all by itself

when written straightforwardly without innuendoes or subtle implications on more than one level,

that it seems downright cruel of a writer to add an extra dimension that is hidden. A recent

example of such a two-level science fiction novel is the first of that genre written by the British

existentialist philosopher, Col-in Wilson, titled The Mind Parasites. The protagonist of Parasites

was one of the New Men-an existentialist, in short.

In World, we have the Null-A (non-Aristotelian) man, who thinks gradational scale, not black and

white -without, however, becoming a rebel or a cynic, or a con-spirator, in any current meaning of

the term. A little bit of this in the Communist hierarchies, Asia and Africa in general, and our own

Wall Street and Deep South, and in other either-or thinking areas . . . and we'd soon have a more

progressive planet.

Science fiction writers have recently been greatly con-cerned with characterization in science

fiction. A few writers in the field have even managed to convey that their science fiction has this

priceless quality.

To set the record straight as to where I stand in this controversy-in the Null-A stories I

characterize identity itself.

Of greater significance than any squabble between a writer and his critics . . . General Semantics

continues to have a meaningful message for the world today.

Did you read in the newspapers at the time about S.I. Hayakawa's handling of" the San Francisco

State College riots of 1968-69? They were among the first, and the most serious-out of control

and dangerous. The president of the college resigned. Hayakawa was appointed interim

president. What did he do? Well, Professor Hayakawa is today's Mr. Null-A himself, the elected

head of the In-ternational Society for General Semantics. He moved into that riot with the sure

awareness that in such situations communication is the key. But you must communicate in

relation to the rules that the other side is operating by.

The honest demands of the people with genuine grievances were instantly over-met on the basis

of better-thought. But the conspirators don't even know today what hit them and why they lost their

forward impetus.

Such also happens in the fable of Gilbert GoSANE in The World of Null-A.

A. E. VAN VOGT

A. E. Van Vogt - The World of Null-A.pdf

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