Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand
Encyclopedia
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984) is a science fiction
novel by Samuel R. Delany
. It was part of a planned diptych
whose second half, The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities, remains unfinished; in September 1996 the Review of Contemporary Fiction printed an excerpt.
travel. In an attempt to find a stable defense against the planet destroying phenomenon known as "cultural fugue" (a state of terminal runaway of cultural and technological complexity that destroys all life on a world), many human worlds are aligned with one of two broad factions, one generally permissive (the Sygn) and one generally conservative (the Family) by today's standards.
The story opens on the planet Rhyonon. Korga, a tall, misfit youth, undergoes the "RAT" (Radical Anxiety Termination) procedure, a form of psychosurgery which makes him a passive slave, after which he is known as Rat Korga. After he has lived under a number of masters, Rat's world is destroyed by a conflagration. This is later explained to be the result of cultural fugue, though the explanation is far from conclusive, especially since Xlv spacecraft were present in the Rhyonon system when the disaster occurred. Because he is deep inside a mine shaft at the time, Rat Korga survives (though badly injured), the only known being to ever survive cultural fugue.
The action then moves to Velm, a Sygn-aligned world that humanity shares with its native three-sexed intelligent species, the evelm, and where sexual relationships take many forms—monogamous, promiscuous, anonymous, and interspecies. Resident Marq Dyeth, an "industrial diplomat" who helps manage the transfer of technology between different societies, is informed that Rat Korga is his perfect sexual match by a former connection in the powerful and mysterious WEB. Equipping him with a prosthesis (the rings of Vondramach Okk) that restores the initiative he lost due to the RAT procedure, the WEB sends Rat Korga to Velm under the pretext that he is a student, and he and Marq begin a romantic affair. They go on an unusual hunting expedition and return to a dinner party which becomes chaotic due to the presence of the Thants and planetwide interest in the survivor. The Thants are humans of another world who were friends of the Dyeths until deciding to align themselves with the Family, which has promised them the position of "focus unit" on another world, Nepiy, making them effectively rulers of that planet. Soon after, Rat Korga must leave Velm and be permanently separated from Marq (their pairing having been an alien cultural experiment) because their interaction was creating a threat of cultural fugue.
, the novel explores conflicting ideas about personal freedom and desire (Korga has voluntarily opted for a form of psychosurgery
making him incapable of anxiety or independent thought), and definitions of gender
(the novel invents an alternate use of grammatical gender
, in which the pronouns he and she reveal the speaker's sexual interest in the subject rather than the subject's biological sex or social gender). Like several of Delany's other works, it portrays a relationship between an intellectual and a disadvantaged person. It also includes extended digressions by Dyeth as the narrator, speaking to the reader about history, art, sex, politics and civilization.
The two galactic factions, the Sygn and the Family, are representations of opposing modes of thinking as conceived in poststructuralist philosophy. Societies aligned with the Family take the human nuclear family
as the basic template for all human relations, of which all variants are considered imperfect copies; the nuclear family plays the role of the transcendental signified, a universal concept from which all other concepts are derived. Societies aligned with the Sygn reject any transcendental signified and instead focus on the idea that all ordering principles are contextual instead of universal; the Sygn emblem, the cyhnk, symbolizes this through the fact that cyhnks from different Sygn groups share a similar underlying structure but always differ in detail, with no one version of the cyhnk considered the ideal form. Reflecting these philosophical orientations, Family societies tend toward hierarchical organization, while Sygn societies tend toward networks of exchange among equals. (The two metaphorically come into conflict in the novel's dinner party sequence; the Velmian dinner party is based on guests exchanging food in a pattern of constant circulation, which the Thants disrupt by assuming themselves to be superior to the other guests and refusing to accept food from them.)
. Most notable is the presence in both novels of the General Information service, although it is more sophisticated in Stars (one need merely think a question for GI to place the knowledge in one's mind, as opposed to Trouble on Triton's GI which takes questions on machines similar to modern computers). Both novels also feature aboveground and institutionalized versions of gay male cruising
spaces, although open to all genders and sexual preferences; in Trouble on Triton the protagonist visits such a space in the form of an indoor club, while in Stars the protagonists visit one of their city's many parklike runs set aside for that purpose. Finally, the Family/Sygn conflict in Stars is similar to the conflict between the social systems of Earth and the Outer Satellites in Trouble on Triton; a "Sygn" is present in Trouble on Triton, but is a minor religious cult mentioned very briefly.
Delany's short story "Omegahelm" (found in Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories
) is set in the same universe as Stars; it concerns Vondramach Okk, conqueror of ten planets and employer of an ancestor of Marq Dyeth.
was becoming an epidemic in the gay culture Delany was immersed in, and he found it difficult to continue to write about a setting which mirrored the sexual scene that gave rise to an epidemic that caused the deaths of many people close to him.
In fact, Stars was the last of Delany's major science fiction projects. As seen in 1984: Selected Letters, at the time Stars was published his relationship with his publisher, Bantam, underwent a major rupture, with Bantam declining to print the final volume of the Return to Nevèrÿon
series, Return to Nevèrÿon
(eventually published by Arbor House as The Bridge of Lost Desire). Delany's works largely went out of print in the immediately following years, and he turned to academia for his living, taking up the first of his professorial posts in 1988, at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel by Samuel R. Delany
Samuel R. Delany
Samuel Ray Delany, Jr., also known as "Chip" is an American author, professor and literary critic. His work includes a number of novels, many in the science fiction genre, as well as memoir, criticism, and essays on sexuality and society.His science fiction novels include Babel-17, The Einstein...
. It was part of a planned diptych
Diptych
A diptych di "two" + ptychē "fold") is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge. Devices of this form were quite popular in the ancient world, wax tablets being coated with wax on inner faces, for recording notes and for measuring time and direction.In Late Antiquity, ivory diptychs with...
whose second half, The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities, remains unfinished; in September 1996 the Review of Contemporary Fiction printed an excerpt.
Plot summary
The novel takes place in a far future in which human societies have developed divergently on some 6000 planets. Many of these worlds are shared with intelligent nonhumans, although only one alien species (the mysterious Xlv) also possesses faster-than-lightFaster-than-light
Faster-than-light communications and travel refer to the propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light....
travel. In an attempt to find a stable defense against the planet destroying phenomenon known as "cultural fugue" (a state of terminal runaway of cultural and technological complexity that destroys all life on a world), many human worlds are aligned with one of two broad factions, one generally permissive (the Sygn) and one generally conservative (the Family) by today's standards.
The story opens on the planet Rhyonon. Korga, a tall, misfit youth, undergoes the "RAT" (Radical Anxiety Termination) procedure, a form of psychosurgery which makes him a passive slave, after which he is known as Rat Korga. After he has lived under a number of masters, Rat's world is destroyed by a conflagration. This is later explained to be the result of cultural fugue, though the explanation is far from conclusive, especially since Xlv spacecraft were present in the Rhyonon system when the disaster occurred. Because he is deep inside a mine shaft at the time, Rat Korga survives (though badly injured), the only known being to ever survive cultural fugue.
The action then moves to Velm, a Sygn-aligned world that humanity shares with its native three-sexed intelligent species, the evelm, and where sexual relationships take many forms—monogamous, promiscuous, anonymous, and interspecies. Resident Marq Dyeth, an "industrial diplomat" who helps manage the transfer of technology between different societies, is informed that Rat Korga is his perfect sexual match by a former connection in the powerful and mysterious WEB. Equipping him with a prosthesis (the rings of Vondramach Okk) that restores the initiative he lost due to the RAT procedure, the WEB sends Rat Korga to Velm under the pretext that he is a student, and he and Marq begin a romantic affair. They go on an unusual hunting expedition and return to a dinner party which becomes chaotic due to the presence of the Thants and planetwide interest in the survivor. The Thants are humans of another world who were friends of the Dyeths until deciding to align themselves with the Family, which has promised them the position of "focus unit" on another world, Nepiy, making them effectively rulers of that planet. Soon after, Rat Korga must leave Velm and be permanently separated from Marq (their pairing having been an alien cultural experiment) because their interaction was creating a threat of cultural fugue.
Major themes
As in Trouble on TritonTriton (novel)
Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia is a science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany. It was nominated for the 1976 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and was shortlisted for a retrospective James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 1995...
, the novel explores conflicting ideas about personal freedom and desire (Korga has voluntarily opted for a form of psychosurgery
Psychosurgery
Psychosurgery, also called neurosurgery for mental disorder , is the neurosurgical treatment of mental disorder. Psychosurgery has always been a controversial medical field. The modern history of psychosurgery begins in the 1880s under the Swiss psychiatrist Gottlieb Burckhardt...
making him incapable of anxiety or independent thought), and definitions of gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
(the novel invents an alternate use of grammatical gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
, in which the pronouns he and she reveal the speaker's sexual interest in the subject rather than the subject's biological sex or social gender). Like several of Delany's other works, it portrays a relationship between an intellectual and a disadvantaged person. It also includes extended digressions by Dyeth as the narrator, speaking to the reader about history, art, sex, politics and civilization.
The two galactic factions, the Sygn and the Family, are representations of opposing modes of thinking as conceived in poststructuralist philosophy. Societies aligned with the Family take the human nuclear family
Nuclear family
Nuclear family is a term used to define a family group consisting of a father and mother and their children. This is in contrast to the smaller single-parent family, and to the larger extended family. Nuclear families typically center on a married couple, but not always; the nuclear family may have...
as the basic template for all human relations, of which all variants are considered imperfect copies; the nuclear family plays the role of the transcendental signified, a universal concept from which all other concepts are derived. Societies aligned with the Sygn reject any transcendental signified and instead focus on the idea that all ordering principles are contextual instead of universal; the Sygn emblem, the cyhnk, symbolizes this through the fact that cyhnks from different Sygn groups share a similar underlying structure but always differ in detail, with no one version of the cyhnk considered the ideal form. Reflecting these philosophical orientations, Family societies tend toward hierarchical organization, while Sygn societies tend toward networks of exchange among equals. (The two metaphorically come into conflict in the novel's dinner party sequence; the Velmian dinner party is based on guests exchanging food in a pattern of constant circulation, which the Thants disrupt by assuming themselves to be superior to the other guests and refusing to accept food from them.)
Style
Stars employs many stylistic tropes that reinforce the differences between contemporary thinking and the thinking of the novel's far-future setting.- As mentioned above, the Velm sections of the novel assign an alternate meaning to the pronouns "he" and "she" not related to physical sex. All characters, whether they are human males or females or evelm males, females, or neuters, are referred to as "she" in most contexts, and "woman" and "womankind" are used as generic terms for humans.
- Words relating to work and occupations are subscripted (for example, job1, job2, job3) to indicate whether the work involved is one's central "life's work", a different work that one still habitually performs, or an occupation taken up temporarily. Marq Dyeth is consistently called an "industrial diplomat1," as that is his "job1," but at home he "works2" as a "docent2" for visitors to his famous residence. This usage derives from Alfred Korzybski'sAlfred KorzybskiAlfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski was a Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He is remembered for developing the theory of general semantics...
general semanticsGeneral SemanticsGeneral semantics is a program begun in the 1920's that seeks to regulate the evaluative operations performed in the human brain. After partial program launches under the trial names "human engineering" and "humanology," Polish-American originator Alfred Korzybski fully launched the program as...
. - Unusual terms are used for what seem to be familiar concepts; for example, "geosector" is used consistently instead of "nation" or "country", and "nurture stream" in the Velm sections instead of "family" (when referring to the Velmian version of a family; the "Family," the galactic faction, is referred to by that term). Also, familiar terms, such as "room", "hunt," and "dinner party," refer to things very much unlike what they refer to in our world.
- Residents of Velm use five cardinal directions instead of four: north, east, south, oest, and west.
- The central sense of the evelm is taste, rather than sight, and both evelm and Velmian humans (including Marq) use many phrases and metaphors relating to taste and the tongue where English speakers would use a visual metaphor (saying something "tastes good" instead of "looks good," for example). In fact, the evelm have multiple tongues and can use them to speak multiple things simultaneously, something that is shown typographically in the novel.
Connections to Delany's other work
Stars has a number of plot elements that are similar to certain elements in Trouble on TritonTriton (novel)
Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia is a science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany. It was nominated for the 1976 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and was shortlisted for a retrospective James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 1995...
. Most notable is the presence in both novels of the General Information service, although it is more sophisticated in Stars (one need merely think a question for GI to place the knowledge in one's mind, as opposed to Trouble on Triton's GI which takes questions on machines similar to modern computers). Both novels also feature aboveground and institutionalized versions of gay male cruising
Cruising for sex
Cruising for sex, or cruising is the act of walking or driving about a locality in search of a sex partner, usually of the anonymous, casual, one-time variety...
spaces, although open to all genders and sexual preferences; in Trouble on Triton the protagonist visits such a space in the form of an indoor club, while in Stars the protagonists visit one of their city's many parklike runs set aside for that purpose. Finally, the Family/Sygn conflict in Stars is similar to the conflict between the social systems of Earth and the Outer Satellites in Trouble on Triton; a "Sygn" is present in Trouble on Triton, but is a minor religious cult mentioned very briefly.
Delany's short story "Omegahelm" (found in Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories
Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories
Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories, by Samuel R. Delany is a thematically arranged collection, in the style of James Joyce’s Dubliners , Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio , and Willa Cather’s Youth and the Bright Medusa . Also, for all practical purposes, it is Delany’s collected science...
) is set in the same universe as Stars; it concerns Vondramach Okk, conqueror of ten planets and employer of an ancestor of Marq Dyeth.
The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities
All editions of Stars contain an author's note stating that it is the first half of a diptych, the second half of which is the novel The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities. This latter novel is unfinished, and is unlikely to ever be finished. Delany has stated two reasons for this in various writings and public appearances. First, much of the creative impetus for Stars came from his relationship with his then-partner, Frank Romeo (to whom the novel is dedicated); this relationship ended soon after the novel was published, removing much of Delany's creative energy related to the project. Second, the novel was published just as AIDSAIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
was becoming an epidemic in the gay culture Delany was immersed in, and he found it difficult to continue to write about a setting which mirrored the sexual scene that gave rise to an epidemic that caused the deaths of many people close to him.
In fact, Stars was the last of Delany's major science fiction projects. As seen in 1984: Selected Letters, at the time Stars was published his relationship with his publisher, Bantam, underwent a major rupture, with Bantam declining to print the final volume of the Return to Nevèrÿon
Return to Nevèrÿon (series)
Return to Nevèrÿon is a series of eleven “sword and sorcery” stories by Samuel R. Delany, originally published in four volumes during the years 1979-1987...
series, Return to Nevèrÿon
Return to Nevèrÿon
Return to Nevèrÿon collects three sword and sorcery stories by Samuel R. Delany, along with an appendix: "The Game of Time and Pain," "The Tale of Rumor and Desire," and "The Tale of Gorgik," and "Appendix: Closures and Openings." It is the last of the four-volume Return to Nevèrÿon series...
(eventually published by Arbor House as The Bridge of Lost Desire). Delany's works largely went out of print in the immediately following years, and he turned to academia for his living, taking up the first of his professorial posts in 1988, at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Popular culture
- The British musical group Opus IIIOpus IIIOpus III were a techno and house music group from England who had success on the UK Singles Chart and on the U.S. Dance charts. The group consisted of vocalist Kirsty Hawkshaw and producers/musicians Kevin 'The Fly' Dodds, Ian Munro and Nigel 'Spider' Walton...
's first album, Mind FruitMind FruitMind Fruit is a 1992 album by Opus III."It's a Fine Day" is a cover of a 1983 single by Jane & Barton, and "I Talk to the Wind" is a cover of a King Crimson song from their 1969 debut album In the Court of the Crimson King.-Track listing:...
, included the song Stars in my Pocket with lyrics referencing the novel.
Editions
- Bantam, 1984, 368 pp, hardcover. ISBN 0-553-05053-2
- Bantam Spectra, 1985, 368 pp, paperback. ISBN 0-553-25149-X
- QPB/Bantam, 1985, 368 pp, paperback. no ISBN
- Grafton/Panther, 1986, 464 pp, paperback, ISBN 0-586-06749-3
- Bantam Spectra, 1990, 385 pp, paperback, ISBN 0-553-25149-X, adds a 10 page afterword on postmodernism
- Wesleyan University Press, 2004, 356 pp, paperback. ISBN 0-8195-6714-0, adds a foreword by Carl Freedman
Reviews
- Negative Review: http://www.goldkeys.com/ScienceFiction/reviews/999976472X.html
- Positive Review: http://www.sfreviews.com/docs/Samuel%20R.%20Delaney_1984_Stars%20In%20My%20Pocket%20Like%20Grains%20Of%20Sand.htm