Reading The Einstein Intersection (1967): The Summer of Samuel Delany No. 2
The Einstein Intersection is strange; I’ll say that right away. Each chapter is introduced with numerous epigraphs quoting works across literature from Finnegan’s Wake to Bob Dylan. There are several sections of the text where Delany inserts excerpts from his own writer’s journal kept during the writing of the novel. It’s fitting that the novel be experimental and strange when so much of its content is concerned with strangeness and difference.
The novel follows Lo Lobey, a member of a new species that have come to a vacant Earth (humanity is nowhere in sight) and begun living here. The only interaction between these new creatures and humanity seems to be the myths and scattered cultural artifacts left behind by humanity, and a source of radiation that is impacting this species. The mythology inherited by these new creatures is an undistinguished shmear of Greek Gods and 20th-century popular culture. Orpheus and Ringo Starr are mentioned in the same sentence, with the same hallowed language. Lo Lobey begins a quest to bring his love back from the dead. To do so, he must find and face off against the menacing figure of Kid Death, an albino with frightening powers. Lo Lobey must leave his village and travel across the world meeting new people, adventuring through perilous landscapes, and embarking on all sorts of pulpy escapades. All the while, he carries a machete that has, evidentially, been refitted into an instrument that Lobey blows through to produce sound.
Like Nova, the story is filled with plenty of Delany “staples.” The main character plays an instrument, must leave his hometown and enter a world with novel, though interconnected rules and expectations, and the main character himself is irreconcilably “different” in some way from the norm.
The novel’s investigation of differences was the most interesting part to me. The text is intentional circuitous about what, exactly, makes Lobey different. As the story unfurls we get more hints. Lobey, as well as many newborns it turns out, are damaged by the radiation that fills the post-human earthen landscape. As a result they are born with ill-defined and varied mutations and are considered “different.” Children who are born “different” are raised separately from the rest of society, locked in “kages,” where they either prove themselves useful or are left so as to never enter the gene pool.
Despite the culture’s fear and mistreatment of those who manifest difference, Lo Lobey’s difference manifests as a kind of superpower intricately tied to his machete music. when he produces music on the machete, the song becomes a psychic reading of other people’s emotional states and recreates their feelings or thoughts in melody. Many differences turn manifest as power. Friza, the woman Lobey is striving to resurrect, was “different” and had telekinetic powers. Even Kid Death, the villian, is labelled as “different,” and his power (being able to reshape reality more or less at his whim) comes from this difference, too. Having Lobey and others’ differences manifest as superpowers is a fascinating choice. To me, it suggests that we can be so afraid of difference that we fail to see its benefits (power) even as it becomes absolutely necessary or things we imagine we “value.”
Lobey’s society’s aversion to difference manifests in many cultural norms beyond the kages. Many villages use a set of formal titles, Lo, La, and Le, to distinguish social usefulness (either you were born “normal” and are given one of the titles automatically, or you prove yourself functional in the kage and are given one then, or you never receive one and remain in the kage) and gender (Lo=man, La=women, and Le=androgynous). They affix these titles to the front of names (hence, Lo Lobey, who despite his difference has proven himself functional). This suggests just how important social usefulness is to this society. It’s more important than your name. Not every alien city or town uses these labels, however, which perplexes Lobey early in his journey. My understanding is that they all use kages.
Early on, we discover that people are so concerned about “difference” in part because it appears that every year more and more individuals are being born different. Villages and towns are filling up their kages with increasing numbers of babies. This increase in the number of those who are “different” increases people's aversion to them. I can’t help but draw parallels to our current moment, as the more visible people who differ from an imagined norm become, the more angry and incensed reactionary forces grow.
While the alien societies try to maintain their social order through the kages and naming conventions, they also use their cobbled-together mythology as a social determinate. Myth is held up as a sacred trajectory, both unalterable and just. The myths that have come before are used as directions, orders, and principles. “The stories give you a law to follow. . . they set you a goal,” Lobey says, describing the role of myth.
Early in the novel, Lo Lobey is given guidance by his village leader through myths. Here, his mission to resurrect Friza, is compared explicitly to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The novel is overflowing with mythic imagery and references (minotaurs, Billy the Kid, and dragons, oh my). The social forces of Lobey’s society treat these myths as north stars and guiding principles. They believe these hodgepodged myths are the best way to understand how to successfully live on Earth, left by those who used to live there (remember, they came to earth after humanity had lived and gone).
The mythographer Robert Calasso, in his work Cadmus and Harmony, defines myth “as the precedent behind every action, its invisible, ever-present lining.” The aliens of Lo Lobey’s society use the scattered myths of Earth’s past to build normative precedents, guidance from those who lived here before. Robert Calasso’s conception of myth is different, however. Myth precedes human action not as prescriptions, but as descriptions. That’s why the Gods are as often noble and kind as they are depraved and petty. The tapestry of myth describes the wide and manifold possibilities of action, rather than defining what actions we ought to take.
Lo Lobey’s culture seems to wield myth in a purely prescriptive fashion, using it to support a social structure that fears and isolates difference unless it proves to be useful enough to be reintroduced into society. As Lobey journeys he begins to view his difference, well, differently and, not coincidentally, he begins to question everything else, too, even the value of the myths themselves.
Towards the end of the novel, shortly before Lobey’s final confrontation with Kid Death, a character named Spider has a long conversation with Lobey. Spider challenges Lobey to reflect on myth, and asks him what he think about its impact on his journey. At first, Lobey despairs, Orpheus’s story ended in failure, so Lobey thinks his will, too, “‘It’s all fixed!’ I said ‘I’ll fail. . . you’re trying to tell me that those stories tell us just what is going to happen. You’ve been telling me we’re so much older than we think we are this is all schematic for a reality I can’t change! You’re telling me right now that I’ve failed as soon as I start,” Lobey says. Spider rejects this answer. “Lobey, everything changes. The labyrinth today does not follow the same path it did at Knossos fifty thousand years ago. . . The world is not the same. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. It’s different,” he responds.
The myths may have described the actions of the people who came on earth before this new species, but the world is different now, and that difference has changed the range of possible actions. If the range of possible actions expands (through, say, the emergence of difference), then new myths are needed. Myths aren’t supposed to be shackles. That’s not how they’ve functioned historically, and it can’t be how they function for Lobey.
In the penultimate scene, before his showdown with Death, yet another character asks Lobey a question I think summarizes one of the central themes of the story. “Do you want to see what’s in front of you? Or do you only want to see what’s come before?”
Lobey’s culture is obsessed with what’s come before. They obsess over the Beatles and Greek mythology. They fear everyone born differently because they do not look or function like those that have come before. So they hide from difference, or, more accurately, they hide difference. They keep them in kages until they prove themselves to be able to conform.
Robert Calasso, in the final parts of his book, describes Harmony leaving her childhood home to marry Cadmus, and follows her thoughts as she realizes that “[s]he need not fear the uncertain life opening up before her. Whichever way her wandering husband went, the encircling sash of myth would wrap around the young Harmony. For every step, the footprint was already there."
The Einstein Intersection asks what we should do when we start stepping and realize there aren’t any footprints there, waiting for our soles. What we should do when we look at what’s in front of us and don’t feel the sash of myth around our waist.
For Lobey, he must reject the prescriptions that label his difference wrong (he is different, but he is not wrong or evil), and create a new mythology, a new order. This is literalized in his final showdown with Kid Death. He must use his difference to defeat Kid Death, and his musical machete functions as an instrument and weapon simultaneously (which we saw in Nova as well). Lobey’s music is described as synonymous with order. It is this order that paralyzes Kid Death, and prevents him from using his own power. In order to complete his mission, Lobey must literally create a new order sourced from his difference.
What do we do when we find no footsteps gilding our path? We lean into our differences and make new ones. Or Kid Death triumphs over us all.
