MAN’S WORLD (INTRO)
By:
July 1, 2024
HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize Charlotte Haldane’s 1926 proto-sf novel Man’s World for HILOBROW’s readers. Written by an author married to one of the world’s most prominent eugenics advocates, this ambivalent adventure anticipates both Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale. When a young woman rebels against her conditioning, can she break free? Reissued in 2024 (with a new introduction by Philippa Levine) by the MIT Press’s RADIUM AGE series.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: INTRO | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25.
Do thou teach me not only to foresee, but to enjoy, nay, even to feed on future praise. Comfort me by a solemn assurance that, when the little parlour, in which I sit at this instant, shall be reduced to a worse-furnished box, I shall be read, with honour, by those who never knew nor saw me, and whom I shall neither know nor see.
FIELDING — ‘TOM JONES’
The intelligence that had once been known as Ernest Renan and that of his disciple Anatole France sat glimmering away somewhere in vastness.
‘So one does remember something both backwards and forwards,’ said sacerdotally he who had once been corpulent and sentimental.
‘Only occasionally, dear Master.’ The tone of the late owner of relics and a thin white beard was apologetic.
RENAN. ‘The productions of the female body are human beings; those of the female mind… gargoyles.’
FRANCE. ‘Yes.’ The reminiscence of a white chin wisp wagged with faint malice. ‘To be beautiful and good, if I recollect correctly, was, according to you, their mission for ever.’
RENAN. ‘Well, you, if it comes to that, are alleged to have declared that you would like to dramatize my Dialogues philosophiques… a novel, to quote the secretary — or was it the cook? — in which the characters would be merely animated diagrams.’
FRANCE. ‘You, dear Master, forestalled me; for you dramatized a wish.’
RENAN. ‘Yet observe, this funny little female defies us both with this uncouth flattery.’
FRANCE. ‘It is all very earthy. But perhaps we overlooked one point after all?’
RENAN. ‘How so?’
FRANCE. ‘”In the ideal State you can appeal only to God!”‘
RENAN. ‘The Revolt of the Angels, surely?’
FRANCE. ‘Not quite. That was merely Jahveh.’
RENAN. ‘You deign to compare?’
FRANCE.’But certainly. I note with some amusement that they will be hard put to it to attitudinize before this… gargoyle. I mean, dear Master is all very well — but, dear Mistress!’
RENAN. ‘H’m. We will not pursue the point. Henriette would perhaps… But there will be no question of that. This pretentious little volume will not be read.’
FRANCE. ‘So I gather. Still, even they might, in memory of us who so clearly inspired it, glance at this scheme of an imaginary, undaunted, though misshapen world.’
RENAN. ‘Even we, though classics, can scarcely expect such homage. That our creations should occasionally be thumbed with reverence — it may be, but you cannot expect them to notice a humble imitator even of such as we.’
FRANCE. ‘Yet no emanation of the female is entirely unworthy of notice. I approve the scheme of sex relationships ——’
RENAN. ‘Penguin Island, of course.’
FRANCE. ‘Certainly. And “collaboration with God” — your dialogues; and “individual versus community”…’
RENAN. ‘All of us, my dear friend, all of us. I vaguely remember having seen it before.’
FRANCE. Observe the strained avoidance of such definitions as “good” and “evil.” The thing has no style, and moreover an air of insincerity.’
RENAN. ‘You speak truly. It lacks, don’t you see, the fundamental insincerity, the Gallic lightness, which is the point of departure for style.’
FRANCE. ‘All we have here is “scientific state” — your idea — “communal interference” — my idea — “systematic breeding” — your idea — ‘the courtisane-artist.” —’
RENAN. ‘Entirely your idea; entirely.’
FRANCE. ‘Pardon; that was a mere symbol.’
RENAN. ‘So that there is really not a single gleam of originality in the whole effusion.’
FRANCE. ‘Except perhaps the insistence on the experimental method?’
RENAN. ‘My poor friend, Plato will tell you, or, better still, Moses…’
FRANCE. ‘No, thanks. I was sure at bottom I had heard it all too often before.’
RENAN. ‘And you will again. On earth at this moment, for instance…’
FRANCE. ‘Still hankering, dear Master, still hankering? Let us repose ourselves, surely. Let us look, if look we must, towards some less familiar planet. Perhaps there — though I confess I doubt it — we may find novelty.’
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: James Parker’s Cocky the Fox | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Matthew Battles’s “Imago” | & many more original and reissued novels and stories.