James R. Hood

10 May, 2004

Literature of Space Exploration: The Best of Both Worlds?

            Having focused on the literature of space exploration these past several weeks, we have found, much to the dismay of some students—and much to the delight of others, I might add—that carrying the moniker of literature of space exploration does not necessarily imply that the writing focuses exclusively on the nonfiction aspects of the genre. In fact, there seems to be a dearth of writing on the subject in general, and particularly so from a perspective of those who participate in those missions—both crew members and the support teams whose work goes largely unnoticed—whose style of writing would no doubt add to the small canon of nonfiction works of space literature from which we must choose if we are to study this subject.

While this scarcity of nonfiction literature on the subject of space exploration might sadden the hardcore, slide-rule carrying science aficionado intent on reading only about the technical aspects of the subject, there is quite a bit of space exploration literature that incorporates elements of both fiction and nonfiction, which seems to satisfy a majority of readers. Three texts that we have studied this semester—Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars, Norman Mailer’s Of a Fire on the Moon, and Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow—each differ in their “recipe” of fiction versus nonfiction elements, and, as we will see, may offer something that is palatable to most readers, giving even the science purists technical fodder to digest.

            The first of these three works, A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, might conceivably offer the least in the category of nonfiction markers, but it does contain some references that might be considered plausible (if not entirely probable) elements of verisimilitude, particularly within the realm of science. While John Carter, the main character in the novel, cannot explain how he managed to travel to Mars, he does describe other phenomena that seem possible. His own “advent,” as he terms it, on Mars comes after taking refuge in what he believed to have been an abandoned cave following his friend’s death at the hands of “Indian savages” in the hills of Arizona following the Civil War. Carter awakens to discover that he has somehow traveled to another world, with no explanation for how he came to arrive there.

While this inexplicable event follows the format that Objective 2b attributes to fiction literature of the “fantasy, soft science fiction, romance, and epic genres” by offering details that are “blurred or symbolic,” other portions of the text fall into other categories. For example, Carter attributes his ability to leap far higher than the native species of this planet (there are the obligatory “green men” on this planet, but they are far from little, it seems) to the fact that his muscles are accustomed to the much stronger gravity of Earth. Since scientific data points to Mars having a weaker force of gravity than Earth, Carter’s narrative shifts ever-so-slightly to a “mixture of ‘human drama’ with interludes of data or of natural / technological explanation,” as the work takes on markers of the “middle ground” genres that include the “memoir, narrative, or ‘account.’” Carter’s “account” of his experience gains a measure of verisimilitude, therefore, when he complains that “My muscles, perfectly attuned and accustomed to the force of gravity on Earth, played the mischief with me in attempting for the first time to cope with the lesser gravitation and lower air pressure on Mars” (Burroughs 11).

Burroughs subtly introduces this information concerning the “lower air pressure on Mars” in this passage, because this “fact” will be referred to at a later point in the work when the sabotage of the machines responsible for maintaining that breathable atmosphere imperils the entire planet’s ecosystem and life forms. He describes those machines—again blurring details—that explain how it is “possible” that Mars might support life forms, including Earthlings. While this shifts the category back to fantasy or soft science fiction, it seems, it carries with it as well a measure of plausibility, since we are aware that machines that “create” breathable air do exist—the “scrubbers” that are part of the life support system on spacecrafts are capable of removing excess carbon dioxide from the cabins, and thus provide the crew with fresh air, for example. By extension, we can imagine machines (on a much larger scale, of course) that are capable of performing the same function for an entire planet, and therefore find the novel moving back towards the “middle ground,” somewhere between fiction and nonfiction. The same applies to Carter’s “account” of the Martian “incubators”—although he gives, at best, blurred details regarding their operation, we are aware that incubators do exist, and that they very well could operate with solar power, which would “explain” them, shifting the fiction-nonfiction markers back to the “middle ground” once again.

Norman Mailer’s Of a Fire on the Moon, however, begins at the other end of the spectrum—nonfiction—since it chronicles actual events concerning the Apollo 11 mission. When Mailer does venture into the middle ground area, it is for the opposite reason, it seems, than Burroughs—the latter author does so to gain a measure of scientific credibility, while the former does so to add the element of “human drama” to what might otherwise be considered “field notes” or strictly objective, detached observations of those events. Since those events were part of what those individuals considered “the greatest week” of human accomplishment ever witnessed, it is apparent that elements of both human drama and science will share the spotlight in this text.

The nonfiction markers in this work include Mailer’s observations on the facilities at the various locations—from the huge buildings housing the rockets to his motel room—which makes much of the work seem like field notes. However, the fact that he writes about locations and events—the motel room, the astronauts’ homes, a banquet—other than those directly related to the mission, shifts the text, as Burroughs does, into the middle ground territory of the “memoir, narrative, or ‘account.’” Mailer also makes use of hard data in this novel, for example, with his incorporation of actual transcripts from the communications between mission control and the astronauts, yet he mixes those elements in with a narrative that describes the emotions of the individuals who have roles in that “human drama.”

Visible in much of the novel are Mailer’s observations and reflections on the astronauts themselves, his narrative maintaining that atmosphere of human drama that is a marker of that middle ground between fiction and nonfiction. While much of his narrative may speculate on the psychology of astronauts—there is, after all, an entire chapter on that topic—he includes anecdotal observations that lend support to his analysis. Mailer therefore mixes the “field note” aspect of pure nonfiction with a narrative on the human drama element of the middle ground, again illustrating that texts can seldom be classified as belonging to a single genre.

Like A Princess of Mars and Of a Fire on the Moon, Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow contains markers of fiction and nonfiction. The format of the novel is non-linear with respect to the temporal and geographic settings, and the headings for each chapter create the impression of a nonfiction journal that chronicles actual events, although the content of the “entries” lies somewhere between the realms of the fiction genres of fantasy, soft science fiction, and romance with their blurred details, much like A Princess of Mars, and the nonfiction genre of an “account,” with its “mixture of human drama with interludes of data or of natural / technological explanations,” as seen in Of a Fire on the Moon.

Russell offers plenty of nonfiction markers, drawing on the history of the Jesuits as explorers to provide the reader with reason to believe that the Jesuit hierarchy in the novel would have the same impetus to mount a mission to “another world,” having already done so in the case of the “new world” of America at the cusp of its “discovery” by the explorers from the “old world.” We know that the Jesuits strongly believed in acquiring knowledge of other cultures during the past, and that makes a Jesuit mission to another planet believable, even if the technology proposed for getting them there—“driving” an asteroid at near the speed of light—might well have come straight out of Wile E. Coyote’s file of ACME products that even he would be unwilling to believe capable of working, thus shifting the work into the realm of pure fiction with its blurred [muffled snickering as I write] details.

Other fiction markers in The Sparrow include the emphasis on the human characters and cultural symbols. Russell creates D.W. Yarbrough almost as a caricature—an ex-military, Texas Jesuit with one good eye, who admits, shall we say, to have spent a good portion of his life looking for “a few good men.” We see the emphasis on cultural symbols as well with the religious references and the description of the social structure of Rakhat, although it might be argued that discussing the relationships of individual characters to these types of fiction markers shifts the work towards the middle ground of a narrative or “account.” The other genre in this middle ground, “hard” science fiction, borders on nonfiction, since the “science” aspect of the genre is often “true.”

Other “true,” or nonfiction, markers in The Sparrow include the information about linguistics that Emilio describes as an educator, as well as medical techniques and terms that Anne employs. Since Sandoz’s character is a polyglot who possesses an exceptional faculty for acquiring new languages quickly and Anne’s character is an emergency-room doctor, the author—herself schooled in linguistics, anthropology, and anatomy—incorporates terminology appropriate to the theories employed in those occupations into the work. These markers play a minimal role in the larger narrative, however, sometimes shifting the work to the realm of the middle ground by mixing those elements with those of the human drama that are associated with the genre, once again, of an “account.”

It appears, therefore, that all three of these texts—A Princess of Mars, Of a Fire on the Moon, and The Sparrow have “multiple personalities.” Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars shifts between the “pure” fiction genres—fantasy, soft science fiction, and romance, for example—and the middle ground of fiction-nonfiction genres typified by narratives or “accounts.” Mailer’s Of a Fire on the Moon begins at the other end of the fiction-nonfiction spectrum with its incorporation of highly technical data, yet migrates towards the middle ground of the narrative and “account” as well. Russell’s The Sparrow offers an entire range of fiction-nonfiction markers, from the technical references to linguistics and medicine, to the purely fictional concept of using asteroids for space travel, near the speed of light. While science purists will bemoan the dearth of literature of space and exploration that deals strictly with the technical aspects of the subject, there are texts, as we have discovered this semester, that cross genre “borders” by incorporating both fiction and nonfiction markers, thus giving readers exposure to “the best of both worlds.”

Work Cited

Burroughs, Edgar Rice. A Princess of Mars. New York: Ballantine, 1963.

Works Referenced

Mailer, Norman. Of a Fire on the Moon. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1969.

Russell, Mary Doria. The Sparrow. New York: Ballantine, 1996.