Book Review: The Whole Man by John Brunner

 

The Whole Man by John Brunner

188 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published August, 1964 by Ballantine

John Brunner got very offended when anyone called The Whole Man (AKA in Brunner’s England as The Telepathist) a fix-up novel, and yet everything I see written about starts with calling it that. If you don’t know that phrase it is when Science Fiction authors would collect short stories they wrote one at a time into novels later. The most famous novel that started this way is probably Foundation by ol’grabby Asimov. I think one of the best examples is City by Clifford Simak. And wait stop yourself before you say what about Dune? Yes, Dune was published in chunks, but Herbert didn’t intend for that. He wrote as one novel, I think in his mind the first three books were one greater Dune.

In the late ’50s, John Bunner wrote a whole novel (I know terrible pun) and published it in three parts because no one wanted the entire novel. The first appearance of the Molem was in 1958. The same year Philip K. Dick released Time Out of Joint and NASA became a thing. A long time ago, telepathy stories were pretty common in the genre. Now it wasn’t called Molem "City of the Tiger" in Science Fantasy, December 1958, the second part was called "The Whole Man," and the third “Curative Telepath" in a different magazine Fantastic Universe, exactly a year later December 1959. 

According to statements at the time, Brunner seemed to imply the completed novel is different. Joe DeBolt in his introduction to the Happening Worlds of  John Brunner (an academic study of Brunner published in the 70s  “In the novel only about 4,000 words of the original 20,000 words of “City of the Tiger” were retained, and out of the 25,000 world “The Whole Man” just some 17,000 survive relatively unchanged. Brunner added an additional 45,000 words most of which were wholly original.”

No wonder the Fixup talk annoyed him. If you want to read the issue where City of the Tiger was first published and compare…

Read the City of the tiger in the OG magazine

The issue also has stories from Robert Silverberg and E.C. Tubb. Interesting.

Comparing the opening pages they are nothing alike with totally different set-ups. In a way, I feel like these stories are like an early draft that just happened to get published. I can see why Brunner considered them totally different works. The Whole Man is the story of Gerald Howson, who was born deformed physically but gifted with intense psychic powers. Before we get into the details of the novel it appears the gee-whiz motivation for this novel was two things. Brunner appeared to want to explore the notion of telepathy being used to cure mental illness and the idea of this powerful telepath living an internal life that resembled sword and sorcery fantasies.

While not as powerful as one of Brunner's masterpieces like Stand on Zanzibar or Shockwave Rider this novel edges close at times to the power of those novels. It has moments of great invention but the story doesn't have the kind of power of those classics.  As Brunnet (get like a Dickhead) completionist, I had to read but the reason now is simple. This novel was nominated for a Hugo the same year the notorious second-worst Hugo Fritz Lieber's The Wanderer won the award despite being a shitshow. I recently The Planet Buyer by Cordwainer Smith and thought it a worthy winner of Liber's novel. Children of Dune is more worthy as well. So I started to wonder if I was Hugo voter at the time which would I pick. So I pulled The Whole Man off the shelf.

At this point, we need to judge the Brunner novel by itself.

"The "Crisis" had gestating as long as the child.  It culminated a week or two ahead of him."

The first act of the novel is set in a dystopia that might be Britain, but the nature of the political situation is like a light switch across a dark room. Something you are blindly reaching for.  I love this aspect of the opening act of the novel. Eventually, it appears that the characters are in some British colony that operates like South Africa of the time. In the second act, we get the name Ulan Bator, a fictional capital to the made-up county. Economies and the environment are in crisis and shortly after our main character is born the authorities knock down the door looking for a child who they know will have great powers. Brunner puts details off-camera and it is a fascinating choice. We get the sense there is a telepathy arms race. We get a sense of many things but little is confirmed. Gerald Pond the biological father died before the son was born deformed but telepathically strong just like dad. and that is why the soldiers knock on the door and take the boy. This was a pretty well-written scene when the cops came to get them. The moment Sarah Howson realizes they are here to take her son.

One aspect of the story is that Gerald Howson is disabled but has adventures in his mind and it can be confusing.  When he describes being in a movie theater, is he really there? Or is he lying in bed remote projecting himself? He can make others believe he is there, and that makes him the kind of spy that Christopher Nolan would envision in Inception. He can enter the delusions of the mentally ill and cure them, but he can also find their secrets.


The novel hints at  "The Crisis" but what we know of it might be colored by Gerald's own fantasies or projections. Consider this scene when Gerald is thinking about the movies he sees when he projects from his hospital bed to the theaters.  "So now the movie theaters were full when there was a picture like this one playing -  and there were lots like this one, and Howson had seen several. Absurd, spectacular, violent melodramatic, they always centered on terrorism or war prevention in some colorful corner of the world, and their heroes were the mysterious, half-understood agents of the UN who read minds- the honorable spies, the telepathists."  

Some part of Gerald saw himself this way but instead, as a hero but what does he really do with the power at first? he influences a gangster named The Snake. As he grows stronger mentally the city falls apart around him. He knows aircraft are flying over and things are happening beyond the walls. I got the impression from a quick look at the short story that more details of the crisis were on screen in the story before.

In the second and third act, his powers grow and he learns to do better things with it. As his powers grow the thin walls of reality come down. This all makes for an unreliable narrator as stretches of the novel take place in these fantasies. This might seem revolutionary Sci-fi wise but keep in mind Brunner is playing with concepts Philip K. Dick used only a few years before in Eye in the Sky. Gerald has the experience of being Ho Sen a Chinese general in the perception of a mentally ill telepath in China in the third act. That transition comes out of nowhere and the dramatic shift pays off, but it almost lost me. This part of the book almost became Wuxia fantasy, and it is clear Brunner thought it was neat to drop in a sword-wielding fantasy during this story.  Gerald first manipulated the fantasies now he uses them to heal.

"His only hope was to try and maintain the fiction that his guise was merely the effect of the creation of a schizoid secondary personality in the general run of the fantasy. He spat in the dust, rubbed his hands together, and twenty over to the dragon to draw its sword from its belly."

Yeah, swords, dragons, imperial ancient Chinese armies. Strangely, these things show up here, but that is the idea. Telepathy doesn't just read your thoughts but also your dreams and fantasies. For those who can't escape their fantasies, Howson becomes a healer by becoming part of the delusions.

This is good science fiction, but it is not top their Brunner. That said it is a thousand times better than the Fritz Lieber novel that beat it for the Hugo. I might put Cordwainer Smith's Planet Buyer ahead of it but I am sorry to say the big franchise sequel Children of Dune might be the best in the category.

More importantly, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch the masterpiece by Philip K. Dick was released that year and not even nominated. I just re-read that (my fourth time) with the benefit of hindsight It was the best Science Fiction book but Phil was way ahead of the game at the time.

The Whole Man is a flawed work but it was quite good for the time. The biggest flaw is it doesn't reach the genius of the same author's other work.