Scan barcode
A review by beaconatnight
The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall (Dodo Press) by Edgar Allan Poe
3.0
"The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" is an obvious predecessor to modern science fiction. If you've read any of Jules Verne's more scientific novels (as Verne himself dubbed them) you will be familiar with the way that speculation can figure in traditional adventure stories. To these learned men there are few things as exciting as seeing and exploring the world with literate sophistication. In the end, the ideas themselves become the subject of their explorations.
Could there be anything more exciting than discourses within the scientific societies in the thriving intellectual climate of the 18th and 19th century? Seeing how these old-established reading rooms are portrayed in cinematic period pieces (as recently in The Pale Blue Eye), it does make me long for older times when there appears to have been more seriousness and dignity to the scientific endeavor. I'm sure these are the circles that inspired Poe and Verne for their works and they have been their audiences.
For the modern reader the tales can be dull. I appreciate the detail with which the events are given the livery of realism. They suggest they could be accurate and feasible. Yet, much of the things that Hans Pfaall does on his nineteen-days balloon journey to the moon went over my head. In his first-person report he describes the material he uses, the challenges he overcame, the events that made him wonder. To me the import of his words often remained inaccessible.
At times his hypotheses are amusing even to the layman, though. For instance, he conjectures that there is no vacuum, or at least that there is none between the Earth and his extra-terrestrial destination. Rather than some border, it's assumed that the air pressure continuously decreases. So you only had to acclimate to the changing atmosphere – we are not used to it, but he'll be fine!
The exertions he has to endure until then are described quite graphically. It's among the more memorable moments (maybe because there is finally something happening outside the realm of ideas) when he reports his massive headaches and the blood coming from his nose, ears, and even eyes. He has to act, and cuts open a vein to ease the pressure. Finally some action in what has thus far been a rather uneventful journey.
As you might have expected, it doesn't last. There are other instances of problem-solving, though, and since The Martian we know that this can make for the most entertaining form of science fiction. He poses an exercise for the reader: If you have to wake up every hour to work the compressor to produce breathable air, how would you go about? Notice that there hadn't been any alarm clocks, yet. Solution: He uses a jar and made water drip into it. He can then calibrate the process so that it corresponds to an hour, making it a literal chronometer (a measure of time). The water will overrun from the vessel whenever it's time for him to get to work.
He poses other questions to himself. For instance, why is it that even so high the Earth still appears flat? Poe presents the reader with the geometrical explanation of the illusorily perceived concavity. I'm fascinated by the possibility of applying a priori knowledge in this way, but in narrational terms it doesn't really make for a thrilling read. The finale is the best example for anticlimactic storytelling. He did arrive on the moon – or were the events all fabricated in an elaborate hoax (a theme we will return to)? – and he did meet its alien inhabitants. He even sends one of them home to deliver his message. But to learn more about them the astronomers addressed by his letter would have to support him financially and pardon him for the crimes he committed. Pay-walled content, now that's some forward thinking!
This kind of narrative in book-length form gets increasingly dull – I would know because I tried to make it through Verne's From the Earth to the Moon – but in short form it exerted some surprising fascination. Maybe it's a genre that should be revived in modern science fiction and by applying the modern understanding of the world. I wonder whether the genre died out because modern-day science left its adventurous roots too far behind.
Could there be anything more exciting than discourses within the scientific societies in the thriving intellectual climate of the 18th and 19th century? Seeing how these old-established reading rooms are portrayed in cinematic period pieces (as recently in The Pale Blue Eye), it does make me long for older times when there appears to have been more seriousness and dignity to the scientific endeavor. I'm sure these are the circles that inspired Poe and Verne for their works and they have been their audiences.
For the modern reader the tales can be dull. I appreciate the detail with which the events are given the livery of realism. They suggest they could be accurate and feasible. Yet, much of the things that Hans Pfaall does on his nineteen-days balloon journey to the moon went over my head. In his first-person report he describes the material he uses, the challenges he overcame, the events that made him wonder. To me the import of his words often remained inaccessible.
At times his hypotheses are amusing even to the layman, though. For instance, he conjectures that there is no vacuum, or at least that there is none between the Earth and his extra-terrestrial destination. Rather than some border, it's assumed that the air pressure continuously decreases. So you only had to acclimate to the changing atmosphere – we are not used to it, but he'll be fine!
The exertions he has to endure until then are described quite graphically. It's among the more memorable moments (maybe because there is finally something happening outside the realm of ideas) when he reports his massive headaches and the blood coming from his nose, ears, and even eyes. He has to act, and cuts open a vein to ease the pressure. Finally some action in what has thus far been a rather uneventful journey.
As you might have expected, it doesn't last. There are other instances of problem-solving, though, and since The Martian we know that this can make for the most entertaining form of science fiction. He poses an exercise for the reader: If you have to wake up every hour to work the compressor to produce breathable air, how would you go about? Notice that there hadn't been any alarm clocks, yet. Solution: He uses a jar and made water drip into it. He can then calibrate the process so that it corresponds to an hour, making it a literal chronometer (a measure of time). The water will overrun from the vessel whenever it's time for him to get to work.
He poses other questions to himself. For instance, why is it that even so high the Earth still appears flat? Poe presents the reader with the geometrical explanation of the illusorily perceived concavity. I'm fascinated by the possibility of applying a priori knowledge in this way, but in narrational terms it doesn't really make for a thrilling read. The finale is the best example for anticlimactic storytelling. He did arrive on the moon – or were the events all fabricated in an elaborate hoax (a theme we will return to)? – and he did meet its alien inhabitants. He even sends one of them home to deliver his message. But to learn more about them the astronomers addressed by his letter would have to support him financially and pardon him for the crimes he committed. Pay-walled content, now that's some forward thinking!
This kind of narrative in book-length form gets increasingly dull – I would know because I tried to make it through Verne's From the Earth to the Moon – but in short form it exerted some surprising fascination. Maybe it's a genre that should be revived in modern science fiction and by applying the modern understanding of the world. I wonder whether the genre died out because modern-day science left its adventurous roots too far behind.