For a Breath I Tarry

[Giovanna Clairval]

The theme of a sentient artefact trying to become a human being begins with the legend of Pygmalion and ranges from Collodi's Pinocchio, Azimov's robots and the Star Trek android Data,…


Widely acclaimed, the novelette tackles the theme in Zelaznian ways.

What are the differences between man and machine? The latter measures, the first feels… A computer is convinced that humanity can be learned through reading the entire Library of Man. A Faustian deal is struck: the computer will become human or else it will be the eternal slave of another machine.

The story contains allusions to the Book of Job, and the Book of Genesis.






The title comes from a poem by A.E. Housman, b. 1859, d. 1936, from his most famous collection of poetry, A Shropshire Lad, 1896.





XXXII


From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I.

Now — for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart —
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.

Speak now, and I will answer;
How shall I help you, say;
Ere to the wind's twelve quarters
I take my endless way.

 

[Snorri]

Thank you for posting this.

I think this story speaks to a line between brain functions - knowledge and... emotion? It is controversial in modern times to suggest that...

"Man did not feel inches or meters, pounds or gallons. He felt heat, he felt cold; he felt heaviness and lightness. He knew hatred and love, pride and despair. You cannot measure these things. ... There is no formula for a feeling. There is no conversion factor for an emotion."

I think this can call into question current systems that actually proclaim a conversion factor. I think it is worth investigating how far man has attempted to assign knowledge based units to seemingly immeasurable things. Have crimes been committed under this umbrella? Are there any checks to watch out for 'soft sciences gone too far' ?

 

[Strife]

Thank you!

I loved it.

I keep discovering more than Amber...

 

[Snowdog]

This is a wonderful story on a theme that Zelazny returns to often - precisely what is it that a makes a man a man? And what can you take away and the person still be human? In CoLaD, at certain times in his existence, the Steel General is entirely artificial, except for a ring of his original flesh - yet he is still a human being.

For Zelazny it is feeling - emotion, as Snorri says - that makes the difference. In both the stories The Man Who Loved The Faioli and The Engine At Heartspring's Center, we see both conditions in the same individual and the moment of change. Unlike with Frost, though, humanity is lost rather than gained.

In This Moment Of The Storm, Zelazny actually comes up with an explicit (and typically poetic) definition of a man, which I won't repeat because it deserves to be read within the context of the story.

 

[Giovanna Clairval]

Is it mere feeling, emotion, that makes a being... human, or is it--one step higher--the ability to put oneself in the place of the other, in somebody else's shoes, and to be able to feel what the other feels?

In Jack of Shadows, the headquarters of humanity are within the soul, which is seen as the harbour of sentiments, in the tradition of Macrobius (the Latin Christian author who describes the soul in his comment's on a famous dream), and of the Sufi (and also paganism).

The creatures of darkness (and of twilight) believe that they don't have (need) a soul.

***SPOILERS***

Only when Jack accepts his soul, he can feel guilt for having conditioned Elaine.

Jack can finally see how E. has suffered because he can put himself in her shoes. He now indentifies with her, and therefore he feels for her.

That is because it is compassion (cum patire = to feel with) that accounts for the profound difference between the human and the machine.

 

[Snowdog]

The empathy and compassion you describe certainly makes you a better person but is it a pre-requisite for being a human being? Perhaps it exists in all of us but in many people it is so under-developed as to be all but invisible.

 

[Giovanna Clairval]

The empathy and compassion you describe certainly makes you a better person but is it a pre-requisite for being a human being? Perhaps it exists in all of us but in many people it is so under-developed as to be all but invisible.

Like Zelazny, I think that one is not born human; one becomes human.

As a species, we possess very few instincts. Our behaviour is dictated by cultural rules--or by the desire of infringing these rules (which is a reference to rules anyway).

There is nothing more savage than a two-year old child playing in the sandbox. Just go and see by yourself. If the toddler were able to kill to get the other guy's plastic duck, she would.

As we grow up, we realise that the other guy feels emotions that are comparable to our own. We refrain from hurting the other guy because we can imagine what she feels when hurt.

Zelazny calls this realisation of the likeness of the other (the other guy is just like me), and the responsibility that goes with the hurting, guilt. People are humane because of guilt.

One cannot feel guilty for hurting someone if the other guy is too different, hence the various shades of racism and nationalism.

And those who show very little compassion are not human(s). Not entirely.

You are right, Snowdog, compassion can be under-developed. Sometimes the process of becoming human goes awry.

A true human feels for the other. Those who don't are under-developed humans.

 

[K. Riehl]

As an aside, the poem A Shropshire Lad also had an influence on Ursula Le Guin. Most notably the collection of stories called The Winds Twelve Quarters.

In my life I had never been exposed to very much poetry. Through Rogers stories I developed an interest and started to read more . It's made me a better writer and influenced they way I look at the world. I believe that is what makes the difference between good writer and a great one. So one of my favorites..
TO SPIN IS MIRACLE CAT

a line of dust behind me
dust beneath my wheels
having lived at all
is miracle cat
and peace is war by other means
said a wise old man
the clarity of the blue curve
overhead the bowstring of day
veed taut the tinny notes
of this my radio the sad call
from the pages of a book
are all if truth be known
I can hold within my head
deer on the mountain
blackbird in the air
the world is circle
and movement I its center rider
and each is something else
by other means dust
beneath the wheels line
behind the car our
paws need licking when we
pause to sort the way
that cat is the quantity
the maximum quantum
leap of dust to blaze
of day starting with eye
sometimes catching language
often losing words to circle
and movement to utter leaves
like trees to spin
is miracle cat

© Roger Zelazny

 

[Grimward]

Read For a Breath I Tarry for the first time as part of the new Collected Stories, and loved it. Am thinking the Ancient Ore-Crusher has a mythological angle, too, but can't recall which....