John Eberhart  

The Value of Space and Exploration Literature

     The study of space and exploration literature offers the student an opportunity to learn how a very diverse group of authors use different styles and literary forms to explore different worlds and human issues.  That’s quite a bit to cover, but the diversity of the genre enables us to sample these variables quickly.

     Explorers come in many different types, and they write in different ways.  Part of that difference is caused by who they are.  Apsley Cherry-Garrard brought a classical education to his writing, while other military men exploring the frontier may have a more direct and reportorial style.  Women can sometimes bring their own style to the adventure narrative and allow us to experience their journey through the lens of gender. 

     Other differences are the various motives for exploring.  Seekers of personal fame write in one way, while scientists and scholars report their findings in another.  Those on a personal quest for introspection and challenge will write about the interiority of their experiences.  The swing between subjective and objective can have a wide scope.

     Writers of exploration are typically concerned with conveying the truth of their experience to the reader.  While authors who study or observe explorers and then try to write about them often exaggerate the truth for dramatic effect, the true explorer will more likely understate the danger or misery that was actually endured. 

     The literary forms used to represent the deeds of explorers enable different degrees of verisimilitude.  The well-crafted narrative allows complete character development and inclusion of useful details about the mental states of people and the places involved.  The memoir allows a full psychological examination of men and women under the stresses of extremes; they are reflective and allow us to see the changes in perception and the glimpses of character that emerge under pressure.  More spontaneous in its simplicity is the journal, which most strikingly delivers the bare truths about the most basic sensations and conditions.  The wind, cold, hunger, thirst, death, and primal behavioral responses, all are told best in the journal.  Interviews come close to the spontaneity and candor of the journal, and here there is the tendency for the eyewitness to understate the drama of the events.  At times in exploration literature, two or more of these forms will be mixed, and the contrast usually lends realism to the storytelling.  Another technique to enhance realism is to include details or reference data that add a sense of truth to the scene.  Of course, Poe did this to excess in Pym, but he also added detail effectively in various episodes to keep the reader guessing as to whether he was in the realm of fact or fancy. 

     Having sampled a variety of forms for the telling of the tale, the student may also be surprised at how many social issues surface in what appears at first glance to be a straightforward tale of adventure.  As explorers explore, they inevitably meet up with the Other, whether that is a new environment, another group of strange people, or maybe the explorer’s own subconsciousness.  The exploration is a two-way proposition, and soon the explorer is under the gaze of the Other, who sees the explorer as something more like an invader.  Sensitivity to that new environment or those native inhabitants is almost always an issue in this genre as explorers quickly face their presuppositions and prejudices. 

     Gender issues are frequently at play in this genre, and may be overt, as in Davidson’s reflections on the townsfolk of Alice Springs, or more philosophical as in Le Guin’s theme of androgyny.  The woman in the field is not the same as a man in many ways, and the act of travel or exploration affords an opportunity to examine those role expectations and possibly adjust them.

     In science fiction, a different type of exploration is examined, and this is the exploration of the imagination.  Starting from a certain fixed point in human existence and achievement, the SF writer projects a scenario of where humanity might be going.  Typically the world of exploration is in the future, where man has used technological progress or scientific discovery as a means to a different type of existence.  The play of the SF writer is in relating what could happen back to what we are today, and it includes what we think of as the important social and personal issues.  As Le Guin says, she is a describer, not an extrapolator or projector.  The exploration of space is a field for the play of the imagination; it is there for exploring what could happen, not what has already happened.

     For the SF writer, verisimilitude is also critical.  The imagined world must be believable, and all the usual techniques are employed, e.g., detailed descriptions, scientific reference data, invented dates and times to imply reality and a sense of objectivity, recognizable human interactions and responses, etc.  If that reality is not maintained, the fiction loses its purpose and meaning.

     Running throughout both genres is the question of motive, and that is an important item to pin down.  Motives for exploring vary, and can include a desire for national prestige, personal fame, institutional fame, gender equality, economic gain, cultural analysis and critique, environmentalism, religious propagation, scientific progress, establishment of new living spaces (earth and outer space), romantic frenzy (Pym), etc.  In all these motives, what must be discovered is the author’s rhetorical strategy, as discussed in Bruce Greenfield’s article: is the writer serving some purpose other than straight reporting?  Does his benefactor define what facts are reported and how (assuming we believe in facts)?  Or is the rhetoric a function of the writer’s personal biases and self-serving agenda?  It’s good to get those biases and strategies spotted in order to bracket them off from what may be the true value of reading the text.  In Tracks, several layers can be isolated in Robyn Davidson’s narrative.  It is first of all about a person who seeks a personal challenge and growth; then we find the author has deep social sensitivities about race; then feminist issues arise; then there are cultural complaints about commercialism and tourism and the vanishing spiritual world, etc.  All these layers need to be recognized and organized, and studying different texts (with a guide) and looking for those common touch points makes a more critical reading possible.

     So we have learned that what at first may seem to be a very objective genre is in fact very subjective.  Writers are human and the people they are writing for are human.  The act of exploration, whether at the Pole or on Mars, provides another enhanced opportunity for readers and writers to be reminded of important values and issues that concern them both.