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Every now and then, I reread some reviews I wrote on this crazy asylum and laugh. I laugh because even though only a handful of years have passed, my tastes have radically changed: just this week I was listening to a CD by Ultravox and one by the Talking Heads. Records that would have been indigestible to me in 2008 when, at twenty-five, I didn’t consider bands worth attention unless they could rattle off tendonitis-inducing tapping, double pedaling, and a castrato voice capable of holding the same note for at least thirty seconds. My favorite author at the time was one among Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, or Dan Brown. You choose. I went to the movies almost exclusively to watch shoot-'em-ups or romantic comedies (good times!), while now I also enjoy serious works and I peruse old films that no longer air on television. Some youthful cursing is needed here; otherwise, I feel depressed, damn it! I've gotten old and no one even told me. Half of what I (de)scribed no longer represents me, but this—if I mull it over a bit—is something that makes me feel good because I find it quite dismal not to change one’s opinion. Having taste enslaved in concrete isn’t for me. Just yesterday, I rewatched “Matrix” in town; the guy who, since the release of the film of the same name, lost his baptismal name and transformed into "Neo." He walks around with the same black trench coat and sunglasses that were fashionable at the end of the '90s. The fact is, he now has the age of Jesus Christ on Mount Golgotha and doesn’t make me laugh much anymore!
I’d like to have tastes far from today's even in ten years; so last week, I tried reading a book I had always refused to open despite various invitations from my older brother. Look at that, now I'm even writing a review, though calling it that might be an overstatement, given my ignorance on the subject.
I think much of the blame lies with Star Trek and Star Wars. I've always hated pajamas to the point of deeming them unconstitutional for bipeds over the age of twelve: the era's special effects combined with those cheerful carnival uniforms made me irreversibly allergic to Captain Kirk’s nonsense. A bit like that drunken beach night made it impossible for me, after that night, to ingest rum without feeling a gag reflex sprinting toward the exit. As for George Lucas's trilogy, watched and re-watched with pleasure, I never managed to get passionate about works that base everything on the stark white versus pitch black dichotomy. The characters were caricatures, all too exaggerated once the adolescent phase passed. As an ignorant child, I believed sci-fi was all there, with a splash of robots, rainy gloomy pessimism (“Blade Runner”), and a bit of mental chaos from the same Philip K. Dick. Speaking of which: that bastard, in the good sense of the word, with his mental tangles needing a straitjacket (“Ubik”) had clogged my brain for a considerable number of days after reading. He certainly didn’t bring me closer to the genre. I even flicked through some despicable books by unknown authors from the '50s/'60s, with plots featuring a mad scientist building a time machine with a blender and two beer cans (MacGyver didn’t invent anything, deal with it).
THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY
You don't need to be an expert in mathematics or physics to appreciate a work that, in my opinion, is fascinating and very close to sociology. There are no ridiculous aliens with imaginative faces; it's dear old simple humanity, with a sparse sprinkle of mutants, populating and governing the galaxy. A colossal empire is in disarray (the reference to the fall of the Roman Empire is obvious), the capital being a city that has engulfed a whole planet for forty billion individuals. The galaxy comprises millions of worlds and only the peripheral states enjoy freedom and independence. A brilliant psychohistorian (Hari Seldon, his name), through his studies, discovers that the Empire will collapse in five hundred years. The figure is inevitable, and the only thing possible, to avoid thirty thousand years of oblivion, is to create two foundations, cradles of mathematical and psychological knowledge, that must overcome various crises to birth a new empire minimizing the interregnum to a "mere" thousand years. The foundations will not be guided by their creator’s predictions since knowledge of the plan in its entirety would preclude its success.
Without wanting to reveal anything, the trilogy, full of twists and written in a flowing prose (although the stitching made to unify the different stories is evident), is an original and intelligent piece capable of dissecting human nature: it's meanest aspects together with the most commendable ones. It’s an infinite chess game where actions are meticulously weighed considering the counterpart from a long-term perspective. Maybe the world’s political class should take notes. While the plot unfolds through space, Asimov analyzes our world from a political, religious, commercial, and military viewpoint with a fresco of rare complexity and depth. The author does not create particularly pleasant or ingratiating characters to ensure a bestseller (the fact that it became one is another matter). Suffice it to say that the countless battles are not described in the slightest, deliberately avoiding any spectacle. The plot is written in an encyclopedic manner: only one protagonist, the Mule, prevails for a limited time over others. The main actors are an endless sequence of names spanning generations over the four hundred years of story described. I believe this is why Hollywood has not yet managed to translate all of this immense painting by Asimov into images.
I’m astonished and happy to have made the acquaintance of a work far from my favorite genres, not the easiest to read but very stimulating and relevant even seventy years after its publication. The fact that it might be partially indigestible to fans of spaceships, space pajamas, swords and laser beams, aliens of the most curious shapes, and whatnot—all of this, I was saying, makes me appreciate the "Foundation Trilogy" even more, which is not pure entertainment but science fiction at its highest level.
Who knows, maybe I'll even read something by Clarke, Anderson, and Heinlein. Who would have thought so just two years ago when I mocked my brother for his collection of Urania.
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