THEOLOGUS AUTODIDACTUS - IBN AL-NAFIS & A TRUE HISTORY - LUCIAN trans. FRANCIS HICKES

THEOLOGUS AUTODIDACTUS - IBN AL-NAFIS Part one in a series of 2 short “novels” (both were written before the concept of a “novel” had really been invented) that purport to be the earliest examples of Sci-Fi. There’s, apparently, a Japanese novel called THE TALE OF THE BAMBOO CUTTER that is also often mentioned when discussing early Sci-Fi but I couldn't find a copy so it’ll have to wait. TA was written in Egypt by Ibn al-Nafis sometimes around 1270. He’s mostly famous as a doctor, he apparently described pulmonary circulation before anyone else. The novel itself only really contains sci-fi elements at the beginning and the end. The story concerns Kamil, a man who is spontaneously generated in a cave by the lapping water of the tides. Allah gives him breath and he comes into being as a 11 or 12 year old. Kamil studies the plants and animals and nature around him on the island. You can tell the book was written by a doctor, the first thing Kamil thinks to do is to dissect animals to figure out how they, and by extension, he, works. Eventually, a group shipwrecks on his deserted island and they end up taking him to civilization. The bulk of the book consists of segments where Kamil, using only his logic and reason, elucidates the tenets of Islam. I’ve seen and I’m pretty familiar with the Christian version of this, the sort of Thomas Aquanis, logic-proves-what-I-believe-in school of theology, so it was very interesting to see the Islamic version. As the useful notes point out, the Islamic world was very obsessed, as YT Europe would come to be, with ancient Greece. The emphasis of logic and the idea that you can, from a position as a feral child, reason your way to the truth of Islam (or Christianity, or the Enlightenment), is very Platonic to me. Additionally, there is a fun part where he’s speculating as to what sort of person would be the final and most perfect prophet and reasons that he would have less than average compulsions and desires around food, but a healthy and manly appreciation for “perfumes and women” then we get a long translator's note about how there is indeed a tradition in Islam that credits Muhammad (PBUH) with a healthy love of perfume and sex. The book passes back into a sort of quasi-sci-fi in the final sections where Kamil reasons out how the world will end. Apparently the lateral movement of the sun will cease so the hot parts of the world will get too hot and the reverse for the cold parts. Society breaks down, lesbianism becomes commonplace and the world dissolves into chaos. Not quite sci-fi from where I’m sitting, more in the tradition of something like THE REVELATION OF SAINT JOHN. Though it does involve the sun, so in that sense, it presages Gene Wolfe and his sun-focused sci-fi. Finally, there’s several really fascinating passages about the sorts of people al-Nasif considers barbarians. He often contrasts people living in what we’d now consider sub-Saharan Africa (which he refers to as Sudan which I believe is the Arabic for “land of the blacks” and includes much more than modern Sudan) with the people living to his north, aka Scandinavians and Russians. It’s very interesting to get the Islamic take on it. He basically says it’s too hot in Sudan, the people there are slow and unmotivated. On the other hand, the northerners are scary boat people. Not quite numerous and smart enough to be a true threat, but a group of people to keep an eye on, for sure. 1268 self-generated men.

A TRUE HISTORY - LUCIAN trans. FRANCIS HICKES Another entry into the “early sci-fi” or “proto-sci-fi” mini-genre. I believe there’s also a Japanese book called, THE TALE OF THE BAMBOO CUTTER that is sometimes brought up in this discussion so I’ll have to get my hands on that one two. This novel is from the 2nd century AD and is less a philosophical pamphlet, like TA, it’s much more a crazy story. It’s sort of a bizarro ODYSSEY, in fact it features cameos from Odysseus and company, in the sense that it’s about a voyage blown off course and all the wild shit they run into. There’s fish in a wine river that get you drunk. There are flower-women who you, obviously, want to fuck but shouldn’t. They, the Greek sailors, get involved in war between the forces of the moon and the sun. A conflict in which both sides’ armies are made up of human/animal hybrids and are riding on things like giant fleas. They also get involved with a mini-sided war while living in a whale’s belly Pinocchio-style. And a third between the heroes that live in the Greek version of Heaven (Achilles, Plato, etc.) and the denizens of Greek hell (Ajax, Busyris, etc.). These Greeks seem to get into a lot of multi-sided, raging wars, for whatever reason. We find out in the later case that Plato lives his afterlife under exactly the system he spelled out in THE REPUBLIC, and that Socrates fights bravely in battle and is rewarded with space to build the Necracademia. In the whale episode, they end up escaping by starting a fire in the whale’s belly, which is exactly what happens to Raven in a Tlingit myth immortalized on a totem pole downtown. There’s an island with 2 temples, one to that which is true, and one to that which is false. All good stuff. It’s interesting that both this text and TA take up the question, in both cases quite literally and frankly, of whether or not there will be homosexual sex in heaven. You’ll be shocked to learn that they come up with very different answers. I’m not sure where the line is between fantasy and sci-fi. I would certainly put this more in the “fantasy” camp but it’s quite good. Lots of great Greek names and sexy Greek hi-jinks. 125 Giant Whales.