SAN DIEGO — At 87, Robert Silverberg has won every science fiction award there is on offer, not to mention a tremendously large fan base. You might think he has done it all, but now comes a new paperback version of his 1991 book, The Face of the Waters, in which the Jewish writer offers us an odyssey on a faraway water planet with creatures as fantastical as any that Homer ever conceptualized.
The protagonist in this novel is Val Lawler, descendant of a first-settler convict who was dropped from a spacecraft onto the aquaplanet. Like his father and grandfather before him, Lawler has learned something of the medical arts. He does not have a formal medical education; in fact, his knowledge is quite rudimentary, but as the only healer on the island, he is a man of great status in the human community, yet nothing more than a minor irritant among the dwellers. Lawler is aware of his limitations; humility is one of his more endearing qualities.
The ancestors of the human colony arrived on the planet five generations before, cast-offs from a myriad of other planets settled by Earthlings after their planet was destroyed. The almost humanoid, but more reptilian-appearing occupants of Hydros, called “dwellers” by those who respect them, “Gillies” by those who don’t, want little to do with the tiny colony of humans, consigning them to the far-ends of their artificial island made from algae and other sea vegetation. On Sorve, the island on which this story opens, the dwellers become angered by some humans’ apparent disregard for other sentient life forms. They give the little group 30 days to leave the island, the only home that most of the occupants have ever known.
And so begins the odyssey, across oceans to a mystical, legendary place known as the “Face of the Waters,” said to be a land similar to Earth, with dirt, flowering plants, mountains, valleys – all so different from the flat sameness of Sorve and the other islands of Hydros. To get there, the small ships of the colony must pass through the Empty Sea. Because the place is so mysterious, and therefore scary, the captain of the fleet attempts unsuccessfully to keep their final destination secret.
Although they are not elucidated, there are some historic subthemes that may resonate with Jewish readers in particular. There is the expulsion, similar in some ways to that suffered by Spanish and Portuguese Jews in 1492, although the dwellers did not give the humans any option of converting. While one might take on another religion; one cannot transform oneself into another species.
Six small ships leave Sorve, each with a few more than a dozen persons aboard. Lawler is taken aboard the flag ship of the fleet and en route to who knows where, he debates a self-doubting priest whether God exists. The priest is a religious seeker; the longer he is out on the water, the more his concepts of God change. One version is reminiscent of the kabbalistic idea of a series of spheres, or emanations, separating God from humanity.
On Sorve, Lawler holds himself in reserve from other people. He prefers his own company, although he had a short marriage and occasionally has brief relationships with other women. When not treating patients, he often reflects upon the fragments of knowledge that have been passed down to him about what life and culture were like on Earth. He does not want to become assimilated into any other society. You might compare Lawler to a Jew in a friendly Christian world. He participates, serves, but he stops short of fully integrating.
By necessity, he becomes more involved in the tiny society of the ship. A woman who once was his patient is now a shipmate with whom nearly forgotten feelings of love develop. And ahead may be the legendary, possibly Earth-like Face of the Waters. If his group is to start over on a new continent, can he maintain his individuality? Should he?
*
Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
This article was first published by https://www.sdjewishworld.com.