Ill Chapter Five OUTER SPACE FANTASY I: SHIKASTA and THE

Ill Chapter Five OUTER SPACE FANTASY I: SHIKASTA AND THE MARRIAGES BETWEEN ZONES THREE, FOUR AND FIVE Despite the direction the earlier novels like Briefing and Memoirs had taken, Lessing's Canopus in Arqos series was a surprise to readers and critics who had fond memories of Lessing the realist novelist. Initially, Lessing thought that Shikasta would be "a single self-contained book" (Shikasta. 1979:IX). But as she wrote, she was "invaded with other ideas, for other books" (Shikasta. 1979: IX) because it was a form that allowed her to be as experimental or as traditional as she liked. Shikasta certainly is experimental. It deals with the history of the human race—from its origins to its possible end—from a galactic empire's perspective. Marriages is less ambitious and more traditional because it is about the struggles between men and women, and the dimensions of sex and love "put through a space transformer" (Rowe, 1982:192) . This chapter attempts a study of these two novels, keeping in mind the hypothesis of fantasy formulated earlier. SHIKASTA Shikasta (1979) fictionalizes a galactic history and an epochal overview of earth's history. Much of it focuses on the 112 wretched present and near future. It documents our slide into pollution, starvation, and near extinction. But Shikasta is also about the past. In the beginning, Rohanda (earth) is colonized by the two galactic empires—Canopus and Sirius. Canopus helps form humanity by stepping up the process of evolution through introducing a new species from another planet. This species(the giants) adapts very well to Rohanda and the giants' mental powers improve with their stay at Rohanda. The natives too evolve rapidly and soon conditions on Rohanda are right for the "Lock" to take place. When the Lock took place the powers, vibrations (whatever word you like, since all are inaccurate and approximate), of Rohanda were fused with Canopus, and through Canopus with its subsidiaries, planets, and stars. Canopean strengths were beamed continually back into Rohanda. Rohanda's new, always deepening strengths were beamed continually back at Canopus. But these interchanges of substance were infinitely varied and variable (1979:51) . Thus the relationship was useful to both Canopus and Shikasta. The maintenance of the Lock, however, depended on continuous care. Mathematical cities were built which were in harmony with the vibrations of Canopus and there were stones that had to be continually realigned. What the natives were being taught was the science of maintaining contact at 113 all times with Canopus: of keeping contact with their Mother, their Maintainer, their Friend and what they called God, the divine, (1979:40). For nearly ten thousand years Rohanda enjoyed success and development. However, a shift in stellar alignments changes all this. The Lock weakens and Shammat (another rival galactic empire) takes advantage of this by tapping the emanations from Rohanda. Things slowly but surely deteriorate at Rohanda (now renamed Shikasta), so much so that some of the giants refuse to obey the advice of Canopus. The giants are to be transported to other planets but some refuse to leave; Canopus does not force them to leave. The natives forget most of the things they have learnt and do not live in harmony with each other any longer. They plunder, loot, and kill at random. However, unlike Sirius, Canopus does not abandon Rohanda. Throughout history, Canopean agents are sent to help Shikastans but they find helping the Shikastana in an increasingly difficult task. In fact, service to Shikasta later becomes voluntary. Lessing's main narrator is Johor, a Canopean expert in Shikastan affairs. But since the book is a "compilation of documents selected to offer a very general picture of Shikasta for the use of first year students of Canopean colonial Rule" (1979:12), we also have (besides the reports of Johor and the other 114 agents) summaries of the periods of earth's history from a Canpean perspective. Additional explanatory information is provided by the archivists themselves, on various subjects like the generation gap and the religions of Shikasta by letters of various individuals; by reports on individuals whom the Canopeans helped; and by a journal kept by Rachel Sherban (Johor's sister in his surfacing during Shikasta's last days) about their family and the various things that Johor (George) does which she cannot understand. This journal also gives us an accurate and vivid picture of the world's condition just before the nuclear holocaust. Thus, Lessing uses different perspective, different voices, different angles and different texture to explore her ideas. Though Lessing is writing about a very familiar topic, she has transformed it by using another vantage point—that of the Canopean archivists. But she does not always maintain the archivist's cool when it comes to certain issues. She settles old scores—with the tyranny of ideology, colonial oppression, the responsibility of the Whites for the present condition of the world, especially the Third World, power politics, and the threat of nuclear war. Nor does her use of the Canopean perspective (with its overview that stretches into aeons) negate history. She is still as socially aware as she was before and gives us penetrating analyses of the present condition of the world. For instance, Lessing points out that our system of economic production depends 115 on the economic imperative "thou shalt consume" (1979:176) every conceivable kind of goods. Everywhere we turn, we see advertisements urging us to by more, consume more. To sell their products, manufacturers effectively exploit man's tendency to keep up with the Joneses. Implicit in every advertisement is the message that if you buy this product you will be in style and in comfort, lovable and desirable. The contrast between the advertiser's interpretation of the world and the world's actual condition is stark. This is evident in TV programmes, magazines, and newspapers where all events are equally important, whether it is a war, a game, a fashion show, or a famine or the weather. John Berger in his book Wavs of Seeing (1972:153) also discusses this. He points out that through publicity, events are made "eventless". Publicity is so effective that we learn to forget the atrocities of "War. Civil War. Murder. Torture. Exploitation. Oppression and Suppression" (1979:12) and continue to believe that on the "; whole all is well. Scathing in her rebuke both of the Left and the Capitalist way of life, Lessing points out how each is similar to the other. Both have become so enormous, cumbersome and ridden with bureaucracy that nothing can be accomplished except through "the continually forming and reforming pressure groups: It is government by pressure group, administration by pressure group" (1979:162). A fact that many of us can testify to, today. Both systems spread 116 ideologies based on the suppression and oppression of differing sects, opinions, and religions: both use torture on a mass scale. Yet they see each other as enemies, a totally different, while they behave in exactly the same manner. Regardless of the ideological label attached to each they believe "that technology (is) the key to all good, and that good (is) material increase, gain, comfort, pleasure" (1979:118). Lessing points out the impossibility and futility for twentieth century man to have any faith in politics. There have been so many betrayals, disappointments, lies, shifting of loyalties, so much murdering, torture and insanity, that even fanatics know times of disbelief Science, the most recent of the religions, is also becoming increasingly loathed and distrusted. As a result of science, the earth is slowly despoiled. Minerals are ripped out, fuels wasted, soils depleted by an improvident and short-sighted agriculture. The animals and plants are slaughtered and destroyed, the seas are. filled with filth and poison and the atmosphere is polluted. But always, the propaganda machines continue to thump out their theme- -consume more, .discard more. As the twentieth century progresses we see the beliefs and ideas that supported man for centuries begin to fray and dissolve. As a result of this, man turns to all kinds of things to soften and avoid reality—drugs, alcohol, sports, pleasures of all sorts and even work. Lessing also visualizes some of the dangerous consequences of 117 neglecting and abusing children. Like a prophet of a doom she points out the possibility of children turning to crime out of sheer boredom and as a bid to get some attention. Recent statistics confirm this tendency, especially among affluent children of the West. Lessing gives us new insights into colonialism, a dominant theme in her oeuvre. Her first novel. The Grass is Singing (1950), clearly articulates colonial brutality. The Children of Violence series explores this theme further, but it is in Shikasta that we find Lessing's most scathing indictment of colonialism. During "The Trial" that takes place towards the end of the book, the white races are accused of destroying and corrupting the world (1979:388). But Lessing does not condemn only the white races. Ursula Le Guin assumes that Lessing condemns only the white races when she writes that Shikasta "is full of self hatred, hatred of the white identity" (New Republic, vol. 181, No. 32. Oct. 13, 1979:32). Lessing shows that the other races are equally guilty of inhumanity to their fellowmen. This is because they have also "chosen to copy the materialism, the greed, the rapacity, of the white man's technological society" (1979:412). Lessing also looks at colonialism from the viewpoint of the colonized. She shows us the terrible consequences the colonizers will have to face if the colonized people ever get a chance to take their revenge.

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