Brian
Aldiss has a long, successful career, with many of his novels lauded
by both mainstream and more sophisticated genre readers. Non-Stop
and Hothouse
perhaps his most popular works, novels like Report
on Probability A,
Frankenstein
Unbound,
The
Malacia Tapestry,
Super-State,
and others represent Aldiss’ deeper understanding of art,
existence, and all subject matter between. What Aldiss is perhaps
least known for is his short fiction. And yet, his short work is
often equal to the best of his novels and series. Publishing several
collections in his career, 1970’s The
Moment of the Eclipse,
while not the best of them, contains enough examples how Aldiss could
make a smaller frame as powerful as a larger one.
The
title story tells of a licentious Danish filmmaker, fresh off his
second divorce, who finds his next target in a Danish poetess.
Billowing confidence, he heads to Africa to make his next film, and
coincidentaly where the poetess will be with her husband. Rooted in
a Thomas Hardy poem on the moon, things do not turn out as planned
for the filmmaker. A short piece, “That Uncomfortable Pause
Between Life and Art...” tells of a writer’s encounter with an
elderly lady at an art exhibit. Clever, Aldiss delicately treads the
line between pretension and portention. A hilarious bit of satire,
“Working in the Spaceship Yards” tells of a man’s life as a
manual laborer building space ships, and the androids he works with.
An exercise in decadence, “The Day We Embarked for Cythera...”
tells of a bohemiam intellectual and his friends as they enjoy a day
in the fields philosophizing, while about them satyrs and gnomes
play—a surreal, wonderfully written piece that doesn’t give a
damn how you taxonomize it.
A
handful of the stories in The
Moment of Eclipse
are set in India. Using the setting to highlight post-colonial
concerns, first to appear is “Orgy of the Living and the Dying.”
About an expat Brit living gung-ho on the sub-continent, his capers
oscillate between empathetic and despicable. Tugging the heart
strings harder, “The Village Swindler” further touches upon
social concerns, particularly caste, as a doctor has a heart attack
on a train and receives unexpected assistance in the countryside.
Two halves of a complementary pair, “The Circulation of the Blood
...” and “. . . And the Stagnation of the Heart” tell of a
British researcher living on a remote Indian island, the domestic
troubles he experiences there, as well as the history-changing
research he uncovers. The latter story putting matters in proper
human perspective, Aldiss’ debt to H.G. Wells comes through
strongly.
The
Moment of Eclipse
remains an extremely varied collection despite the four stories set
in India, “Super Toys Last All Summer Long” tells a haunting
story about an android boy, his teddy bear, and a future wherein AI
is a near-reality. The basis for Spielberg’s film A.I., Aldiss
thankfully forewent the feel-good alien ending, and instead kept to
human implications. Wildly different is the story closing the
collection. “Swastika!” finds Hitler alive and well in small-town
Britain, and in conversation with a writer named Brian. About the
presence of Hitler’s ideology alive in the world, particularly the
US in the 60s, Aldiss does WWII no disrespect. Not a story and
instead an exercise in imagination, “Confluence” is an alien
dictionary. Aldiss witty and intelligent, the dictionary is, of
course, more a commentary on the possibilities and meaning of
language than fiction. “Heresies of the Huge God,” while never
openly stating itself as such, is the holy word of a futuristic
religion that puts an amusing yet bittersweet spin on human endeavor
no matter the era.
In
the end, The
Moment of the Eclipse
is a solid collection of Aldiss’ shorts that will have the reader
thoroughly engaged at times, laughing out loud at others, thinking
back upon sub-layers with some, and shaking their head at the depth
of Aldiss’ imagination with nearly always. Varied across
near-future to fantastical worlds, fictional dictionaries to
futuristic sacred texts, Aldiss showcases a wide breadth of ideas.
But all remains centered on the human condition—and therein lies
Aldiss’ greatest strength and talent as a writer.
The
following are the fourteen stories collected in The
Moment of the Eclipse:
The
Moment of Eclipse
The
Day We Embarked for Cythera...
Orgy
of the Living and the Dying
Super-Toys
Last All Summer Long
The
Village Swindler
Down
the Up Escalation
That
Uncomfortable Pause Between Life and Art...
Confluence
Heresies
of the Huge God
The
Circulation of the Blood ...
.
. . And the Stagnation of the Heart
The
Worm that Flies
Working
in the Spaceship Yards
Swastika!
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