The Committed Men M. John Harrison,
Panther Science Fiction 1973, cover by Bob Haberfield.
I have to admit that, after
reading Harrison’s Pastel City, I Googled to see what else he had done
and fell in love with this cover (so much so, I read a library copy rather than
my paperback edition). To supply some background Harrison is identified with
the New Wave and the writers Moorcock and Ballard especially.This book is
dedicated to Mike and Hilary Moorcock and the protagonist keeps a photo of J.G.
Ballard among the detritus he has accumulated in his Nissen hut.
We first meet the protagonist, Dr.
Clement Wendover in the prologue. As he watches the few remaining vehicles
traveling a motorway which has been fenced off, he has been told to, “contain
accident effects and protect the urbanized sections of the motorway from damage,” an accident occurs even as Wendover watches. This a
perfect introduction into the sensibilities of the New Wave. The lone observer,
ruined motorway, and inevitable accident scene are right out of the themes of
J.G. Ballard. We are quickly told that Wendover’s society has broken down
because an unexplained release of radiation has caused an increase in skin
cancer. As is often the case with apocalyptic science fiction, especially the
New Wave the cause of the disaster is unimportant the results are the main
driver of the plot. James Gunn, in his introduction to The Road to Science
Fiction #4, explains how New Wave writers differ from previous science
fiction “ The customary difference is that the cause of the change was often
omitted, because it was unknown or unknowable, and the people to whom the
changes happened seldom inquired into the causes because the changes were so
massive that causes were irrelevant or so mysterious that inquiry was futile,
or because the people were incurious, or were benumbed by events or life
itself, or had lost their faith in rational inquiry. The reasons why causes
were minimized may be various, but the effects were clear: Rationality was
short-circuited (if the causes are unavailable, solutions are so beyond reach
as to make the search unthinkable) and characters became victims.” We quickly
learn that Wendover at least realizes that things are only going to get worse
and this view is clearly demonstrated in the argument he has with his wife
Vanessa before she leaves him. Then, in a bit of authorial sleight of hand that
left me breathless with admiration, (I hate a lot of back story), the first sentence of chapter one begins “some
time, later” and we are off.
My impressions: while definitely New
Wave The Committed Men does not suffer from the heavy handed stylistic
excesses of some New Wave, we are spared badly written stream of consciousness
digressions, there is a straight forward story involving a journey/quest. I initially
characterized The Committed Men as a cozy catastrophe a category characterized
by such works as the Day of the Triffids or The Kraken Wakes
by John Wyndham . The term cozy catastrophe was coined by Brian Aldiss in the Billion
Year Spree, when I reread Aldiss’s description in the now Trillion Year
Spree he characterises it this way “ The essence of cosy catastrophe is
that the hero should have a pretty good time (a girl, free suites at the Savoy,
automobiles for the taking) while everyone else is dying off.” P316 While
others have embraced and perhaps expanded this definition, by Aldiss’s
description The Committed Men is too bleak, the consequences of this
disaster for both the protagonist and society as a whole too severe, to fit
this category.
I also felt there was a connection to other more
conventional science fiction works like Search the Sky by
Fredrick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth in which the main character takes a rather
satirical journey to visit a number of interstellar colonies. As one might
expect from a New Wave novel The Committed Men is a much darker with a
fairly ambiguous ending. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed
it, at under two hundred pages it was a quick read with a compelling plot, lots
of action and twists that kept my interest. It is a perfect introduction to
British apocalyptic science fiction and New Wave themes in particular. One quibble is the rather, to me, inexplicable
meetings between several of the main characters and a rather oddly dressed
young man which seem to serve no real purpose. It was only after I finished the
book and Googled some other reviews that I learned that this was Jerry
Cornelius, a character created by Moorcock and incorporated into their works by
a number of other writers.
Spoilers
When we join Wendover after the
collapse of the British society he is living a fairly aimless existence snaring
rabbits for food and living in a junk filled hut. He avoids prolonged contact
with fellow survivors. This is an existance typical of many New Wave characters,
who often seem to be waiting rather that acting. That changes when Harper a
young man from the nearby community of Tinhouse and a dwarf named Arm, a
survivor from one of the local armies arrive. They enlist Wendover in a house
call to visit a newborn for the local strong man Holloway Pauce. Arriving at
the village Wendover finds the baby is a mutant covered with a dry leathery
skin. We learn that similar mutants have been born, but Pauce has killed them.
It is then Wendover acts
" At that point, Wendover
committed himself. Up until then, he had watched the decline of the world with
passive acceptance; taken refuge in dreams because he could not bear the
present. His memories had not been the stigma of senility but those of retreat.
Because the child represented somebody's future, he became involved with the present.
He shot Pauce without taking the pistol
out of his raincoat pocket. "
It is at this point we meet the
committed men, as Wendover, Harper and Arm, later joined by a young woman Morag
who nurses the child, begin their journey across the ravaged landscape. Along
the way we meet the bureaucrats, characters worthy of Swift or Peake, with
their papier mache heads and endless forms, “ The door opened fully on a
strange miscegenation. The disgusting head was set on narrow, stooped
shoulders. There seemed to be no neck. A thin pot-bellied body twitched beneath
it, dressed in dirt glazed black coat, grey and ragged woolen waistcoat and
grey striped trousers cut off just above the knee. The feet were bare, the vee
of chest revealed by the waistcoat covered with fine white hairs. On the left
lapel of the coat was pinned a small bright rectangle of orange plastic. The
huge head swung slowly to a stop, fixed on the group in CURRENT AFFAIRS.
“Papier mache,” mused Arm. Then, “Bloody hell; it’s a mask!” and the fanatic
followers of the nun Sister Dooley; (who sadly despite the cover illustration
does not actually fly a la Sally Fields but travels by hovercraft.) Through the
flashbacks of the dwarf Arm we are introduced not only to his own personal
demons but the military culture that has sprung up as local strongmen try seize
power. Harrison has presented a
consistent vision of a landscape changed by radiation. The characters do not
move through a landscape rejuvenated by the collapse of mankind, even the
endless rabbits they snare, the wolfhound who initially accompanied Harper and
the unicorn/pony of the mutants are crippled mutated parodies of normal animals
“ A crude bitless bridle decked with small pieces of polished tin and coloured
plastic-the source of the strange music- hung askew on the raw, fiddle-shaped
head. Wall-eyed and bemused, ewe-necked and goose rumped, it moved slowly, skin
alternately taut then sagging over big, ungainly bones. Discoloured areas that
might equally have been filth or skin cancers showing at
stifle and withers. Its knees were bloody. Some congenital deformity of the skull
had favoured it with an incipit horn, a short nub of bone growing from between
it’s eyes.” And the mutants themselves are no higher beings ready to create a
new utopia but primitives trying to adapt to a not so brave new world.
