Atlantis: Model 1924

Hello Gentle Reader

Atlantis, is a legendary and a mythological island or continent, that has blurred the lines between fantasy and reality; pseudoscience and archaeology – it is the island that in some way or another one wishes or hoped that existed – this concept of what has come across a perfect utopia, a paradise of sorts for others; while others search for it, as a way of trying to understand the world years ago – both in geographical content and culture content of human beings. However the origin of Atlantis did not first appear until the year three hundred and sixty before common era (360 B.C.E) in Plato’s two dialogues “Timaeus,” and “Critias.” It is here that Plato describes Atlantis as a naval power which sat between “The Pillars of Hercules,” (which are actually promontories [a promontory is a mass of land that looks over lower land or sea] that overlook the Strait of Gibraltar) that at its time had conquered much of Western Europe and Northern Africa, until its failed attempt to take over Athens, and it is then in a day and night, that Atlantis (as famously stated before hand) had sunk into the sea, as if being swallowed by the sea itself. In the Renaissance the allegorical aspect of Atlantis become something of that utopian thinkers and humanist philosophers. One writer Francis Bacon wrote “New Atlantis.” However in today’s fiction and other area’s that the entire thought of Atlantis has inspired once again has become to a degree (depending how much of an influence is shown and how much the influence and content had been done and redone before) can be seen as cliché. However the legend of Atlantis, has developed and been shaped through the years. In today’s world Atlantis is a symbol of lost prehistoric civilizations advanced beyond its means. Yet for some, surely Atlantis evokes a sense of trepidation and awe. Just picturing the classical Greek columns and temples, all lying abandoned at the bottom of the sea or ocean somewhere. The shifting, rippling light, dancing across the weathering and collapsing. Where once people roamed through the halls – which have depleted and fallen into disrepair and ruin; fish and other creatures swim through. Where once people paid homage to, the earth-shaker and god of the sea whose bipolar temper could make a feed a family or cause great grief and ruin to an entire country or city, now lies on the seabed, faceless, and forgotten. His trident however stays standing above the sand dunes of the underwater world. Its three forked fingers point toward the above, yet do nothing more, then to be a marker of the great feared god. Not far from the trident, though lower then where it sits staked in the sand or perched there in free will or a last stance of free will against time; there lies a conch. Large twisted and magnificent in both size and its delicate structure, it is a wonder of the sea. Where lips of a man with the tail of a serpent – or what appeared more serpent then fish like or like that of some marine mammal. Then even farther fallen into the ruins and forgotten and slowly drift along the ocean floor lies the dutiful and forgiving wife, mother and goddess of the sea. It is a forgotten world; hidden in the delicate shroud of liquid and fluidity. Deep beneath the surface. At one moment calm and still as glass, as if vibrating – the next a raging world of vicious dark waves. Crashing into boats. Tearing them apart. Washing over them, tipping the boats over. The sea’s fury a force unable to be reckoned with or stopped; all one could do is hopefully make it out a live, while those below did their best to get through the turbulence. While others waited for the storm to pass and pick the ripe gifts, given to them. This all becomes the world of Atlantis. A world of a capricious and uncertain future.

“Atlantis: Model 1924,” by Samuel R Delany is an interesting stylised novella with some postmodern fireworks. Throughout the novella itself there are is the main story line – then there is another story shown, but is on the same page, written in little blocks or sometimes half the page would be one story and the other half the other story line. This is both an interesting technique but also an annoyance at times. Though maybe the most annoying part about the two parallel story lines running alongside each other is the second one never really clearly shows its intentions; though one can certainly take interpretations and theories of it, and work with them. That of course is the best part about reading a novel, novella, story or poem, is allow to interpret it in accordance to the individual reader.

Here are some interesting notes and details though about, the author and aspects of this novella itself. Samuel R Delany is born in nineteen-forty two. He has been writing since nineteen-sixty two, and writes primarily in the science fiction genre, specifically the “new wave,” of science fiction that also housed authors such as: Ursula K Le Guin, J. G. Ballard, Michael Moorcock, and Harlan Ellison. However Samuel R Delany is also noted for his postmodern techniques and styles in his writing, as well as his literary criticism and non-fiction work.

Samuel R Delany is also included in the “Paris Review,” in the summer of 2011 No. 197. It is here that Samuel R Delany discusses a little bit about “Atlantis: Model 1924,” and also reveals that Sam in this novella is not Samuel R Delany himself but his father, Samuel Ray Delany, Senior.

(From the “Paris Review,”)

“When I was seventeen or eighteen, before I’d gotten married, my dad had told me that the main reason he had come to New York from Raleigh was to see the skyscrapers. He hadn’t turned eighteen yet. It was just after Thanksgiving 1923. His older brother Hubert met him at Grand Central Terminal. They didn’t even come out of the station. They went immediately into the subway and got out at 125th and Eighth Avenue. My father looked around, but there were only two-story buildings. He was very disappointed, because he’d expected New York to be all skyscrapers. He said to Uncle Hubert, “Shoot, this ain’t no different from Raleigh. And there, at least, we got a building six stories high what got an elevator.”

“And Uncle Hubert, who was a twenty-three-year-old law student at NYU at the time, turned to him and said, “You are a real country nigger, ain’t you?”

When my father told me this, it was just a funny story. But he was so disappointed at not seeing the skyscrapers right away, I decided, thirty-five years after his death, to include the anecdote in “Atlantis: Model 1924.”’

( http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6088/the-art-of-fiction-no-210-samuel-r-delany )

This same anecdote has also (as you just read) had appeared in “Atlantis: Model 1924.” The entire novella is an interesting piece of work. An ode and an elegy at times – the novella takes different twists and turns, into the thoughts and concepts of memory. This is the primary focus of the novella, memory and its lucid, shifting, fluid landscape. It is in this novella that Samuel R Delany, is able to make a reference to the legendary sunken city of Atlantis. Most of the chapters of the novella all open with quotes from poems. W.H Auden, and Robert Duncan’s poems (both titled “Atlantis,”) are the first poems featured before any of the chapters. But the most interesting part of the story is near the end. There, the young Sam meets another writer or poet of some sorts on the bridge. He is gay. A bit pretentious and a bit eccentric really. His monologues are long winded, and full of literary allusions. Each one discussing in some way or another Atlantis; a magical place; a paradise of sorts; a utopian world – much like the world that humanist philosophers and romantics had done their best to envision. Hart Crane, was a poet. He wrote primarily in the Modernist tradition. Though he was a lot different than T.S. Eliot, whose epic poem “The Waste Land,” was full of such ironic despair; Hart Crane’s work was more interested in the optimistic sincere tradition – somewhat romantic if one were to put it kindly. However Hart Crane was a modernist at heart and in style with an obscure text of words. Hart Crane’s most famous work is “The Bridge,” an epic poem about the Brooklyn Bridge – one (or the last section) of this epic poem was titled “The Bridge: Atlantis,” Where one (if I recall correctly) to find the man on the bridge that the young Sam, meets quoting lines from this particular part of the poem. Even mention some by the name of Hart and a book titled – and the man that Sam meets on the bridge’s name is Harry Hart. An interesting piece of work. An ode to New York is what Samuel R Delany had written, but also in some ways or another a eulogy to his father. A study of memory. But also an appreciative piece of work about Hart Crane. It’s an interesting little novella that once one starts thinking about the different details holds more weight then it previously did before.

It is here that I am given my first introduction to Samuel R Delany and I was not disappointed, but more along the lines of pleasantly surprised. Maybe in the distant or near future I shall read more of his works, for the enjoyment and pleasure that Samuel R Delany had given me.

Any How Gentle Reader:

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M. Mary