Ralph Blum
The
Simultaneous Man
Science fiction novel
1970
βιβλιοκριτική Time
magazine, July 1970
ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ ΣΚΕΨΗ
THE
SIMULTANEOUS MAN
by
Ralph Blum.
238
pages.
Atlantic-Little,
Brown. $5.95.
What would
serious writers do without their dualities, their paradoxes of mind and body,
the I and Thou all so neatly parsed in the head yet so hopelessly entwined in
the heart? What would reviewers do without such items to explain?
In the case
of Ralph Blum’s The Simultaneous Man, most of the items in question fit snugly
enough into a compelling plot designed to dissuade the itchy finger of
exegesis. The book is at once a superior science-fiction story, a polished exercise
in literary styles and a deeply personal moral statement.
Identity Transplant.
For Blum, the
dark powers are impenetrable bureaucracies, military cabals and value-neutral
scientists on both sides of the ideological curtain, He sees them as threatening
to rob men’s souls by corrupting their memories and feelings.
Although
Blum’s indictment is sweeping, his vision is specific. Workers at a Government
arsenal experimenting in mind alterations surgically erase one man’s memories
in order for him to receive those of another. The input source is Andrew
(“Bear”) Horne, a hulking psychopharmacologist and a survivor of a Chinese
brain laundry in North Korea. Significantly, Bear is also the son of a
Russian-born mother. The man scheduled to receive Horne’s memories is a black
enlisted man, sentenced to life in prison for killing an officer.
The identity
transplant involves taping and filming scenes from Horne’s life and then
electronically piping them into the head of 233/4, as the receptacle is
officially known. Around the shop he is called Black Bear.
Before the
procedure is completed, however, cautious management decides to cut all of
Horne’s post Korean memories from the input. Instead of a research scientist
stuffed with secrets, Black Bear is to be made into a minor scholar of Slavic
literature, which is Horne’s avocation.
Although
Horne is in no danger of losing his own memories, he nevertheless takes the
directive to revise the experiment as an assault on his identity. He ignores
instructions, and is banished from Government service. Shortly thereafter,
Black Bear escapes and defects to Russia. Horne is drawn magnetically toward
him and, after some uneasiness and a few pleasures, finally confronts Black
Bear. What he discovers is the key to the book.
New Mythology.
It is a key that the reader should turn for himself.
Although interpretations may vary, it seems clear that Blum’s puzzling tale has
some roots in the basic myths of the twin culture heroes who father new tribes,
cities and even heavenly bodies. Romulus and Remus, or Castor and Pollux come
first to mind. But in the case of Bear and Black Bear, Blum’s biblical
symbolism suggests Esau and Jacob. To this are added a dash of psychedelics and
some excellent literary effects.
In the early
pages, the prose has a deadly metallic precision. When Horne goes to Russia,
Blum changes his style to a controlled lyricism that quietly points toward a
meaning: man can surmount such obscenities as technological soul snatching by
confronting his beginnings and forging a new mythology. In Horne’s case the
transcendence occurs during a return to whats literally his motherland.
R.Z.
Sheppard
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In a top secret US gorverment laboratory
known as West Wing the ultimate refinement in brainwashing is taking place.
The memory of prison volunteer 233 is being
systematically destroyed by a neurosurgeon to be replaced by that of another
man – Dr Andrew Horne, the director of Beta project.
Mind alteration has been superseded by the
far more terrifying science of mind substitution; two men with a single mind
haunt the pages of this horrifying and uncanny story as it moves from America
to a counterpart laboratory in Leningrand and its explosive yet seemingly
inevitable climax.
Terrifyingly topical, beautifully
controlled, The Simultaneous Man is
the ultimate in novels of suspense.
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Ralph
Blum
The
Simultaneous Man
Science fiction novel 1970
Time magazine,
July
1970
βιβλιοκριτική
ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ ΣΚΕΨΗ ]
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