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Master thesis Comparative Literature
Supervisor: Dr Noa Roei
Second reader: Dr Joost de Bloois
Jonathan Coffeng (10353380)
University of Amsterdam
June 23, 2014
Constructing DNA as friend or foe:
Science and fiction in Greg Bear’s
Darwin’s series
Science fiction is a niche genre that arguably sprang out of gothic in the nineteenth
century with the arrival of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus
(Aldiss 39). Since its inception, the genre has not been considered scientific, but its
fiction is nevertheless much intertwined with the non-novelistic world. The relation
between science fiction and scientific literature is problematic; because both have a
different method, yet they arguably operate in the same field. Scientific literature
imagines the world according to established or not-yet-proven laws, leaving little or
no room for the metaphysical or sociological. But even if these subjects are largely
left outside scientific papers, they cannot be denied to have formed part of the
research process. Bruno Latour argues in his seminal Laboratory Life (1979) to this
point, which I am going to use as a key text for untangling the divide between science
and fiction. In turn, science fictional works like Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Radio (1999)
and Darwin’s Children (2003) try to accommodate the different voices that make up
scientific discourse, even though in an entirely fictional – and non-objective – way.
This case study will focus on both Darwin’s Radio and the sequel Darwin’s
Children to analyse the relation between fiction and fact, which are hallmarks of
science fiction and scientific literature respectively. The novels belong to the tradition
of science fiction that is home to such diverse authors as Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip
K. Dick. The Darwin’s series revolve around the fabric of life, or human DNA
(deoxyribonucleic acid). The fictional part is that the series imagines human DNA to
be highly malleable within one generation, enabling “rapid evolution” to occur. Rapid
evolution is an act of intense genetic modification and allows a new race of humans to
be born. The first novel, Darwin’s Radio, uncovers the event leading up to the first
birth of an enhanced yet frightening specimen of a human being, Stella Nova. The
second novel details the consequences when more altered children infest the world.
While this plot event sounds fantastical, the novels survey themes such as scientific
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discovery and the creation of fear in news and narrative. Both topics involve the
separation between fact and fiction, because a scientific fact (evolution) is magnified
towards a fiction (specie-level change within one generation). Discovery requires a
hypothesis (a form of fiction), while fear is also magnified by fictional means.
When considering the history of science, the separation between fiction and
fact becomes a bit clouded. Rebecca Stott argues in Darwin’s Ghosts (2012) that
many feats of science were inspired by philosophical quandaries. Most notably, she
mentions Benoît de Maillet (110), who almost wrote a fictional account on the origins
of humans and the earth. His seminal publication, the Telliamed (1748), details in
seven days the genesis of earth and its animals. Maillet views that the earth used to be
submerged in water and that the first forms of life were fish. Whilst strictly not true,
this Biblical approach (taken from the Arc of Noah) enabled him to give a reasonable
estimate of the age of the earth (116), which is billions of years old and not a couple
of thousands (119). His publication may be structured like fiction, but it does contain
an essential claim that still rings true today.
In the current age, science is bent on empirical grounds, and not on
sociological and metaphysical reflection (Latour 21). Someone like Maillet, while
displaying innovative thinking, would not be taken seriously in contemporary science.
There is however an emerging field (the posthumanities) that argues for a science that
considers the social. This spirit has been found most poignantly in biologist Lynn
Margulis, who published a critique on Charles Darwin’s concept of natural selection
in Acquiring Genomes (2002). Margulis stumbled over the element of competition in
his theory, arguing that “the following terms are absent from The Origin of Species:
association, affiliation, cooperate, cooperation, collaborate, collaboration, community,
intervention, symbiosis” (32). Indeed, these missing words leave a considerable void
in his theory; if cooperation was not worthwhile, how can it be explained that
different cells have fused together in the past to create new forms of life? This
creation from cooperation or “symbiogenesis”1 (13) is her main argument. Her idea
may sound idealist, but looking at existing facts from a social (discourse) perspective
and then re-assessing these in an empirical way, creates new theories.
1
An example of symbiogenesis is the green slug (e.g. Elysia viridis) that has “eaten but not
digested certain green algae” (Margulis 13). Under influence of chlorophyll, green algae can
absorb solar rays and convert them into chemical energy (photosynthesis). The green slug has
taken over this ability and is able to gain energy from the sun and not food.
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The affinity Greg Bear’s novels hold with Lynn Margulis (Idema 74) is more
than skin-deep2. The cameo appearance of Margulis in Darwin’s Radio (Bear 88, 90)
is emblematic for how the novels not only take elements from her theory, but also
adopt the spirit. Instead of a competition between scientific literature and social
factors, the novels propose that there is cooperation (symbiosis) between the different
factual and fictional aspects of scientific discourse. Bear’s Darwin’s Radio (1999) and
Darwin’s Children (2003) reflect on how science is performed and in what way myth
creates fear. The central debate in these novels is on the subject of genetic engineering
and in what way this novel development poses risks or rewards to society. In other
words, can DNA be seen as friend or foe in the twenty-first century, when the secret
of life is gradually being uncovered? In the past, it would have seemed a fiction to
view physical and behavioural characteristics as stemming from genes (a term not
established yet), which consist of an instructional code called DNA. Today, it is
possible to modify genes, which sounds unnerving and liberating. The divide between
science and fiction is therefore not always clear-cut, even though the modern practice
has largely banned non-empirical views.
This thesis will analyse how science and fiction are related from different
perspectives in three chapters. In chapter one, genetic metaphors from the novel will
be explained, as it is one way in which science separates itself from fiction.
Metaphors are instrumental in helping develop theories surrounding scientific fields,
e.g. genetics and DNA. A different way in which fiction distinguishes itself is the
construction of narrative facts as opposed to scientific facts. Chapter two will argue
on the construction of the first instalment Darwin’s Radio. This novel revolves around
a sudden evolutionary change in the human race. Literary critic Lisa Lynch argues
that the novel diverges from the traditions of science fiction. I am going to claim that
nevertheless a consistent whole is created that is not used as a way to attack the genre,
but to reflect on how science is performed socially, according to Bruno Latour’s
Laboratory Life (1979). Lastly, the third chapter considers the imaginative powers of
fiction, science and the news, demonstrating their cross-pollination. This case study
employs the novel Darwin’s Children, to which thus far even less has been published
in literary criticism. The separate threads of these three parts culminate in a discussion
2
Tom Idema’s dissertation Transmutations : Bio-sf, Nomad Science, and the Future of
Humanity (2013) features a chapter (‘Infected genomes’) connecting Margulis to Bear and
how Darwin’s Radio fictionalizes concepts of her theory of symbiogenesis.
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and conclusion regarding the issues of metaphor, scientific discovery and the
polyphony of discursive voices.
I. Metaphors as a way to understand genetics
I’m a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.
Money's new-minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.
“Metaphors”, Sylvia Plath, 1960 (Kennedy 115)
Any discourse, be it scientific or fictional, employs metaphors. Metaphors are literary
devices that compare two matters and find a common ground between them. The
Sylvia Plath poem indicates3 that they are elusive yet elegant, triggering fields of
meaning. Since a comparison is always an approximation between two items that are
incommensurable (Friedman 754), they are sometimes thought to be confusing.
George Orwell argues to this point in his Politics of the English Language (1946):
“Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing
in print” (Greenblatt 2392). Despite their confusing quality, they are essential to
scientific progress, elucidating critical concepts and helping in discovery. In science
fiction, the relation between a literary and scientific metaphor becomes more opaque.
Greg Bear’s Darwin’s series borrows from the reservoir of genetic metaphors, but
does so in a way not to structure thought, but to obfuscate or at the very least
problematize thinking on DNA. How do metaphors influence thought processes both
in fictional and scientific texts?
In Bear’s fiction, the most prominent metaphor is the
SHEVA
virus.
SHEVA
brings to mind the Hindu God Shiva, “the eight-armed god of creation who destroys
and transforms life at will” (Idema 169).
The god’s description is immediately
applicable to the novel, as the virus works to destroy existing human life forms in
order to create it anew. In the Darwin’s series, both the destructive as well as the
creative power of Shiva is conveyed in the working of the virus. Also within the
3
Without interpreting the poem too much, the speaker (possibly an autobiographical firstperson, i.e. Sylvia Plath) is pregnant. She refers to her belly growing very big and also to the
duration of pregnancy (nine months).
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world of scientific discourse, viruses are primarily seen as carrying a negative,
destructive essence, as “subcellular, infectious agents that are obligate intracellular
parasites” (Strauss 5). Subcellar means that they are not composed of all the material
inherent to cells, containing only a protein coat/envelope and sometimes “as few as
three genes” (Alberts 221). They are therefore dependent on a host cell that they need
to infect in order to survive. Their very existence, if there is an organic existence
attributable to them, is parasitical. Viruses only serve to “commandeer the host cell’s
machinery to reproduce” (221). In other words, the biological nature of a virus makes
it a very powerful metaphor, implying a negative reading.
Yet, the virus, both in recent scientific literature and in the metaphorical way
in which it is developed within Bear’s work, is also a creator, changing existing
human cells and enabling a new species to emerge. This runs counter to the view of
viruses as parasitical pathogens; the novels play with this aspect to a great degree.
Unlike traditional viruses,
SHEVA
requires cooperation in order to function. It is
“[s]hed only by males in committed relationships, the activated retrovirus served as a
genetic messenger, ferrying complicated instructions for a new kind of birth” (Bear
Darwin’s Children 8). The virus works therefore very selectively and only appoints
individuals that are normally least affected by pathogens; those in a stable
relationship. Monogamy minimizes the risk of contracting a venereal disease.
Secondly, the virus does not create predictable behaviour in the affected population.
While the children who have changed due to the virus are a burden to society, being
difficult to treat medically, they exhibit cooperative behaviour. This is in contrast to
the thinking of viral elements as being parasites, disrobing their victims of life. It also
links back to Lynn Margulis’ idea of collaboration triumphing competition in biology.
She cites a virus that infects plants not to cause disease, but to “cause stripes or
beautiful bright yellow and cream patches” (85). In chapter three, the issue of
collaboration with respect to the “virus children” will be further considered.
It seems that one metaphor, the virus, already implies a wealth of information.
The virus and its naming
SHEVA
cannot be taken to unambiguously mean a
destructive, infectious agent. It is inscribed in a net of metaphorical relations that
imply an excessive meaning. The metaphors might be primarily negatively oriented,
but there are fissures that contradict pre-conceived notions of the virus. The
contradictory and added value of metaphor is argued by Thomas McLaughlin as
follows:
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My construction of the poem’s meaning is in excess of the “proper” meaning
of the words and the speaker’s intentions. Any reader who engages in the
figurative process will produce this excess. The full meaning of the figure
cannot be kept within safe limits: it proliferates as a function of its implied
invitation to the reader. (82-3)
Through metaphor, which manifests itself in different forms, additional meaning is
created that is not textually given. This is a factor to be kept in mind specifically for
fictional texts, which heavily rely on this feature.
McLaughlin indicates how metaphors make semiotic grids. The novel actively
constructs such a grid and makes connections that are not obvious. Put differently,
Bear’s novels might rely on the fact that a reader will make conscious links. But
metaphors also work on a more oblivious level. Lakoff & Johnson argue in
Metaphors We Live By (1980) that a metaphor primes a particular interpretation, not
solely in literature, but especially in conversation. Many daily expressions can be
framed on the basis of one single metaphorical domain. One of their illustrations
shows how a concept such as
TIME
is constructed as being a
RESOURCE
(Lakoff 66).
Time can be used up, serves a purpose, and can be quantified (66). These sayings may
not directly be seen as a prototypical metaphor, but “both are structural metaphors
that are basic to Western industrial societies” (66). Nevertheless, seeing these sayings
as belonging to a singular perspective is a breakthrough, because it implies that
metaphors may be mapped in a greater cognitive domain.
Mapping metaphors to one domain is particularly important for the
understanding of DNA. Metaphors ignite understanding and help develop a new field
of research; how these discoveries are performed will be the subject of chapter two.
When Watson & Crick discovered DNA in 1953 (Zylinska 129), a slew of metaphors
entered the biological language. Inspired by advances in heuristics, or the deciphering
of war codes (128), genetics was seen as a breakable code. The base pairs of a doublestranded string of DNA formed a code that can be transcribed in order to form mRNA
(messenger RNA; a single-stranded, more portable form of DNA). The mRNA code
is successively read by the ribosomes, which translate the base pairs into proteins. The
way of looking at genes as a code, which can be broken and understood, enabled
scientists to view all of the genes from a singular complexity. Claus Emmeche views
these metaphors as springing from “information theory” (2), primarily a field in
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applied mathematics that concerns itself with logic, probability, heuristics, coding,
and storing information.
While information theory is a versatile discipline, the metaphor that was
pulled from it – life-as-a-code – proved to be less than flexible. Seeing DNA as a code
implies that it is read from A to Z and that a linear transaction is made. It also implies
that one gene is responsible for one building block in the cell4. The novel inverts this
view, because DNA is seen as a highly changeable entity in the first novel, Darwin’s
Radio. In a hyperbolic move, or a comparison taken too far, a virus changes the entire
make-up of reproductive cells, changing the species of possible next generations.
Nevertheless, the author Greg Bear grounds his narrative in contemporary science, in
his manifest “The New Biology” (2002):
The central dogma-that one gene produces only one protein-died in the last
decade with the discovery of alternate splicing. (Genes also produce other,
non-protein products, such as ribosomal RNAs.) The sidebar to this dogma,
which claims that DNA is read-only-implying that the genetic material
changes only through random mutations, not through insertion or
rearrangement of genetic material-collapsed some time ago with the discovery
of mobile genetic elements such as transposons and retroviruses. Nevertheless,
the Central Dogma is still mentioned, nostalgically, sometimes almost
reverently, in new textbooks.
This explanation seems reasonable as it refers to scientific facts. He puts forward the
process of “alternate splicing”, which claims that DNA transcription does not occur in
a linear manner. When DNA strings are read by the ribosomes, some parts can move.
Biologist Barbara McClintock explains these parts as “jumping genes”. These
jumping genes mix and match DNA during the transcription process, making new
combinations5. The verb jumping personifies a gene, which does not actually jump.
This metaphor is productive for scientific purposes, because it immediately enlightens
the process to a researcher. In Bear’s fiction, the quality of jumping is greatly
exaggerated. The children who have been affected by the virus are not changed in a
way that is plausible, indicating that their genes have not jumped, but made a leap.
While science may employ metaphor as a reference, fiction takes it as a narrative fact.
4
In the vast majority of cases, genes code for proteins. They can code for non-protein
products, but this will not be considered here.
5
Jumping genes can explain how humans, who have fewer genes than was expected (30,000
instead of the moderate guess of 100,000 ; Rose 45-6), have managed to be of immense
complexity.
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The existence of these jumping genes does not deny the larger metaphorical
framework of DNA code. A code implies a specific kind of language that needs to be
deciphered in order to be understood. In a similar vein, human languages such as
English or Dutch can be seen as a code as well. They need to be processed in the brain
by the language faculty, which relies on the hidden or deep structures of language in
order to make sense out of any string of words. The analogy works from this
perspective, but it does not when language is considered as a never-ending stream of
messages. When engaged in a conversation, individuals have the unique ability to add
language. This sounds futile, but cells do not have the ability to add genes at will.
Nevertheless, it does seem like the development of e.g. an egg to a bird involves the
creation of more information:
[A]pplied to developmental biology, information theory implies that the egg
should be seen as a communication channel between parent and offspring
adult organism. This, however, raises the apparent paradox of increasing
‘information’ during development. (Emmeche 17)
The argument behind this statement is that language in the form of conversation can
always be added to in order for change to occur. Language is fluid and flexible,
having the ability to adapt to any kind of situation. Genetic information, on the other
hand, is always a fixed entity that can in some circumstances undergo random
mutations. It is therefore a bit difficult to explain how a one-time, one-way
conversation in the form of a DNA string can lead to enormous changes and variety in
development. The answer lies in the cellular machinery itself, which responds to the
accolade of changes brought by the transcription of genes (17). The responses of the
cell work like a chain reaction. One small change brought by a gene makes for a
greater change further in the transcription process.
DNA and its model life-as-a-code are essential to understand evolution, which
works with DNA on a larger scale. Some genes may provide a benefit to the
environment and perpetuate in the human genome, but also may pose a liability to
those bereft of the change. Over time, the changes in DNA accumulate and lead to a
significant species-level change. This process is termed evolution and Darwin’s Radio
and Darwin’s Children both address its positive as well as negative aspects. In
science fiction, evolution is a key topic. Helen Parker explains that “nineteenth
century social utopias” were optimistic and saw that “the natural world is constantly
improving, moving toward perfection through evolution” (11). This ideal has been
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transferred from Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) and focuses more on the global
structure of a society and not on individual humans that are altered. At the time of
Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA in the 1950s, “only a few early writers, chief
among them Eric Temple Bell writing as John Taine [in 1924-54 AD], dealt with
human mutation, the accidental alteration of our own species, and such alterations
rarely had favourable results” (13). The Darwin series belong to a different phase of
science fiction, being written long after the discovery of DNA, and do address the
positive aspects to mutation. Mutation can involve a beneficial adaptation to the
environment. Despite the struggle that it takes, “the end product of successful
adaptation is a stronger species and a more unified society” (41). Both strength and
community-spirit are emphasized in the new breed of human beings described in the
Darwin’s series.
In this thesis, the metaphors of the virus and DNA are crucial to understand
the biological underpinnings of the novels. In their analogical or structural form,
metaphors can relate an abstract field to a more concrete field, which is very useful in
scientific discovery. The next chapter of this thesis “Darwin’s Radio – the thrill of
making scientific discoveries” will discuss how, once analogies are drawn,
discoveries are made and scientific feats are constructed. The third chapter “Darwin’s
Children – the consequences of genetic modification” devotes the bulk of its attention
to structural metaphors encountered in fictional news reports and how these sway the
characters’ opinion on DNA and genetic modification. Structural metaphors involve a
comparison, but the term does not qualify how the comparison is made. Usually,
structural metaphors (or analogies) arise out of concretization or corporealization in
the form of ontological metaphors (Lakoff 152). Ontological metaphors pertain for
example personification, most notably by turning an entity into a Devil. The focus of
this investigation is therefore both on image-making (the metaphors encountered), but
also on how discoveries unfold with regards to DNA research.
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II. Darwin’s Radio – the thrill of making discoveries
My father’s in my fingers, but my mother’s in my palms.
I lift them up and look at them with pleasure –
I know my parents made me by my hands.
They may have been repelled to separate lands,
to separate hemispheres, may sleep with other lovers,
but in me they touch where fingers link to palms.
With nothing left of their togetherness but friends
who quarry for their image by a river,
at least I know their marriage by my hands.
I shape a chapel where a steeple stands.
And when I turn it over,
my father’s by my fingers, my mother’s by my palms
demure before a priest reciting psalms.
My body is their marriage register.
I re-enact their wedding with my hands.
So take me with you, take up the skin’s demands
for mirroring in bodies of the future.
I’ll bequeath my fingers, if you bequeath your palms.
We know our parents make us by our hands.
Sinéad Morrissey, 2005 (13)
Charles Darwin is often credited as having single-handedly discovered evolution.
Indeed, a lot of the concepts that are used today in biology and genetics are derived
from his quintessential publication On the Origin of Species (1859). As with many
advances in sciences, ideas rarely emerge overnight or in the mind of one person. The
printing press is usually thought to originate from Gutenberg, but this foregoes the
less prospering nations of the world that also had variations of the press in use much
earlier (Gunaratne 460). Likewise, Darwin may be the father of genetics, but thought
on the miracle of life had existed much earlier. To this end, Stott argues in Darwin’s
Ghosts (2012) that many forerunners were already toying with ideas how behavioural
and physical traits were inherited.
Darwin’s Radio presents a fictional scientific theory on sexual reproduction
that parallels how the science of evolution was described in history6. In the narrative,
6
Historical theories on genetics are more open to divergent ideas and do not always base
themselves on science that can be proven in the lab (or by mathematics). Brian Wilson Aldiss
argues: “[In the Eighteenth Century,] the division between the arts and sciences had not then
grown wide” (36).
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which is part of a series of two instalments (thus far), the environment is caught in the
grips of a mysterious virus. A virus is an infectious agent that passes from one body to
the next. While it is a disease metaphor, the way a virus is transmitted may mimic
how ideas are transferred from one scientist to the other. A virus is a very tenacious
vector of disease and it can be held that certain scientific ideas are of a similar calibre.
When ideas are initially proposed, there are usually not many that buy into them. But
like a good infectious agent, a convincing idea will soon gain ground. Further, once
ideas are systematically established in a paradigm7, it is very difficult to get rid of
them, similar to an established viral hazard.
Radio attacks the reigning paradigm on genetics in its fiction, commenting
that inheritance should not be taken for granted. The poem of Sinéad Morrissey may
raise awareness of family ties. It refers to how the speaker feels connected to her
parents, even though they have separated. The most repeated metaphor in the poem is
the “hands”, a metonymy. The hands are both physical actors, but they also represent
part of what can be inherited. Not only are the hands similar to her parents, but her
whole appearance. Darwin’s Radio problematizes this notion of inheritance. By
introducing the powerful vector of the virus, massive mutations or change can occur
that will distantiate the children from their parents genetically. Nevertheless, motherly
instincts prevail and the main character Dr Kaye Lang fights for making discovery.
By making use of fictional qualities like temporality, genre and discourse, the novel
fictionalizes science but also comments and reflects upon it. More general, how does
the fiction of viruses, mutation and genetic modification in the novel relate to the
fiction science makes of discoveries? Are there parallels in the ways the story is
presented (narrative) and the way discoveries in DNA are shown to the world?
In the first instalment, a world is detailed on the eve of a discovery that is
going to change the face of mankind. Darwin’s Radio (1999) opens with a seemingly
unrelated story about an expedition in the Alps, where palaeontologist Mitch Rafelson
discovers Neanderthal mummies. Using a frame narrative, the setting shifts to Tbilisi,
where virologist Kaye Lang uncovers the secrets of bacteriophages, disease-eating
bacteria. Her employer, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta (Georgia, U.S.),
asks for her return to help in a pandemic that is spreading like an inkblot over
7
A system of established ideas is considered to be a paradigm. Thomas Kuhn argues in The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) that paradigms have a tendency to become in vogue
and move out of fashion.
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America. The pandemic affects pregnant women, who are contracting Herod’s Flu, a
disastrous fever that could leave the foetus in the womb severely malformed. With
help of virologist Christopher Dicken, she finds out that a recently discovered human
endogenous retrovirus8 termed SHEVA is the culprit. The exact workings of this vector
of disease only become clear as the first frame narrative intrudes with the main
narrative. Mitch Rafelson encounters Kaye and his tissue of the Neanderthal
mummies is found not to be old enough to qualify as belonging to that period. Instead,
the mummies are recently deceased individuals that have contracted a variant of the
retrovirus. The disease is seemingly a way for evolution to rapidly occur. Regardless
of the consequences, Mitch and Kaye, who has lost her first husband due to suicide,
fall in love and she becomes pregnant, becoming infected by the virus. Their baby
Stella Nova is miraculously born without any complications, but she is a changed
human being and has extraordinary intelligence.
II.i Time
The first component that may help in answering the question how science is
fictionalized in Darwin’s Radio is assessing how it employs time. Time is a metaphor
in science fiction; it enables creative liberties. But how is the process of creating
science fiction different from historicizing about the past? Historians use primary and
secondary sources to portray an event of the past with knowledge from the present.
The same can hold for the science fiction writer, who paints the future with
knowledge from the past, but particularly from the possibilities that the present holds.
Bruno Latour explains the work of historians in Laboratory Life (1979), –
In one sense, historical accounts are necessarily literary fictions (De Certeau,
1973; Greimas, 1976; Foucault, 1966). Historians, as portrayed in historical
texts, can move freely in the past, possess knowledge of the future, have the
ability to survey settings in which they are not (and never will be) involved,
have access to actor’s motives, and (rather like [G]od) are all-knowing and allseeing, able to judge what is good and bad. (107)
8
A “retrovirus” is a pathogen that infects cells in the body using a reverse transcription
process (from RNA to DNA ; Alberts 221). While the threat of retroviruses comes from
outside the body (exogenous), as in the case of HIV, there are traces in human DNA of viral
elements. It is theorized that some of these elements once made up an ancient (extinct)
retrovirus (Cloyd, ch. 62).
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Latour gives here an almost cynical account of historicizing the past. He claims that
much relies on the interpretation of facts by the historian, which gives a particular
slant on history. Usually, a major perspective on history is given by or about the
ruling class9. In biology, it is presumed that the most important discoveries will be
foregrounded. Radio foregrounds however a minor view on the issue of genetic
engineering, which makes it very contrastive to the process historians are involved in.
Darwin’s Radio has a problematic relation to the past. It is not possible to
theorize about the future, as science fiction does, without grasping back to the past
and present. Historians, even though they have extant documentation and perhaps
survivors at their disposal, reconstruct what is most likely to have happened. Greg
Bear, by using a controversial scientific theory, is theorizing about what is likely to
happen. While Radio may be distanced from contemporary time, the story indirectly
relates to past events. According to Lynch, the novel is “reflecting the way
HIV/AIDS
has been configured in the media as a threat to American family life, Bear describes
SHEVA
[the human endogenous retrovirus] as a disease that tears apart families” (81).
But this analogy is not completely sound, because SHEVA is not exclusively inscribed
in social issues that have been encountered and experienced before. On top of this, the
novel also uses its fluid construction of time as a means to freely oscillate between
past events and scientific theories. Crucial for the novel is not epidemiology, but
particularly (a warping of) the scientific theory of Charles Darwin.
Darwin is one of the most enigmatic and renowned scientists of all time. He
published his work on a process called ‘evolution’ or gradual change within and
across species, which detailed how humans descend from apes or primates. This
insight was an astounding feat, notwithstanding that he had remarkable forerunners
like Benoît de Maillet. Maillet drafted a highly sensational and controversial book
called the Telliamed (Stott 110). Because it was written more like a fantasy and not
fact (Stott 114), the ideas within it did not have as much impact as Darwin. Darwin’s
seminal work met with a lot of criticism from the Church, because it directly
discredits The Book of Genesis. This is not only about his radical belief – at the time –
that God did not create the earth, but that it was formed in a gradual process. His idea
about how nature worked proved to be decidedly modern and secular, because he
believed in nature as a democratic system and not one ordained by God. Natural
9
This view is derived from David D. Roberts’s famous adage “History is always written by
the victors” (6).
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selection, or the way in which nature decides who survives or perishes, is essentially
democratic. It is a benevolent system, because “natural processes breed always for the
good of the individuals of the race concerned” (Beer 33). More importantly, though,
his publication has hints of the structure that is encountered in Darwin’s Radio.
Darwin, just like Bear on his hypothetical rapid evolution, was essentially
grasping in the dark. Not much was known about his particular theory, but he based
himself on philosophies and ideas that existed much earlier (Stott 10), but were not
presented in a convincing form. Beer argues that “it took a hundred years for
Darwin’s projections, his ‘fictions’ or theories, to be thoroughly authenticated
empirically” (51). Science fiction can be said to never be empirically sound in the era
in which it is written, but some ideas have proven to be remarkably close to what is
possible today10. In Darwin’s era, the ideas were strange, but they are widely accepted
now. Darwin can only be seen as a template for how science is related to a general
public, though, because Greg Bear’s work is definitely not in the same league as the
Origin of Species (1859). Rather, it is more like a minor satellite that contains ideas of
the father of genetics and presents them in an unsettling manner.
Usually, temporality is further expressed in the setting, which is expected to
be remote and in outer space (i.e. removed many light years from current time). While
Radio does not begin its narrative in outer space, it presents the reader with an
assortment of locales that mimic otherworldliness11. One of the settings is Tbilisi,
Georgia, which – to most Western readers12 – is quite a foreign destination. The
choice of this particular setting for the discovery to take place is not without reason.
Science fiction presents other worlds as a way of reflection (Atwood In other worlds
23-4). By mentioning the place explicitly, the novel raises historical awareness.
10
Take Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), which details a drug-addicted world, in
which “everybody is happy” (65). The same politics is propagated these days, because
happiness is not seen as a gift, but a necessity and personal responsibility. It is a state of mind
that can be influenced by medicine.
11
Science fiction is a stigmatized genre that defies the literary norm (Boogaerdt 2). It usually
introduces outlandish vocabulary, which is often shared between novels from the same and
different authors. While this may be alienating, it frequently employs this category to discuss
matters of gender, race, sexuality or socio-political issues (health, economy, and government).
For background literature, please consult Nick Hubble’s The Science Fiction Handbook,
Edward Jones’ The Cambridge Companion to Science-Fiction, and David Seed’s Science
Fiction: A Very Short Introduction.
12
The notion of the West implies a vast topic that will not be considered here. It is a ripple in
the text that only the effects of a biological hazard are considered from a Western point of
view. The Republic of Georgia is taken to be a site of discovery, but it is not described as a
site where infection occurred as well.
Coffeng 15
Outside literature, the Republic of Georgia has been a tumultuous site of history. The
novel uses these extra-novelistic facts to construe its story, – “Despite of its beauty,
Georgia had many blemishes: civil war, assassinations, and now, mass graves” (Bear
15). This quote is an example of how a setting provokes a certain expectation, one of
conflict.
By virtue of its remote location, the place Tbilisi features as an alternative
world in the novel. In Tbilisi, bacteriophages, “viruses that attack only bacteria”
(Bear 13) are used in a fight against bacterial diseases. In the West, such a method is
controversial, because administering viruses is seen as an act of genetic modification.
In Georgia, such objections do not hold and the scientific community blossoms as a
result, –
Georgia was planning to turn itself into a nation of resorts. Her economy was
growing in double digits each year; her currency, the lari, was strengthening as
well, and had long since replaced rubles; soon it would replace Western
dollars. They were opening oil pipelines from the Caspian to the Black Sea;
and in the land where wine got its name, it was becoming a major export.
In the next few years, Georgia would export a new and very different wine:
solutions of phages to heal a world losing the war against bacterial diseases.
(15)
The stakes for genetic engineering are therefore high. It is not only used for curing
disease, but also a means to boost the economy. In a similar vein, Bruno Latour
proposes that science cannot be separated from the social or economy. Science has
health implications, but it can also safeguard employment and make a nation credible
in an international setting. In Laboratory Life (1979), Bruno Latour and Steve
Woolgar discuss the following:
[Research] papers were an expensive commodity! This expenditure appears
needlessly extravagant if papers have no impact, and extravagantly cheap if
papers have fundamental implications for either basic or applied research. It
may therefore be appropriate to interpret this expenditure in relation to the
reception of papers. (73)
Latour discusses how producing papers in a laboratory setting requires a significant
investment. There are ways to compensate for the expenditure and make research
valuable (“valorisation”). He argues that both basic and applied research can
contribute to greater knowledge or in solving a particular problem. Either way,
Coffeng 16
scientists are under considerable pressure to make their findings useful. In the past,
much research has met severe criticism, significantly lowering the rewards. There
have been cases when published research was discredited as worthless, but when
criteria changed in light of other research, a worthless paper turned out to be valuable
(Latour 121).
In the novel, the laws of science are inverted and the status of good research is
questioned. That is why the narrative brings in the setting of the Republic of Georgia,
which forms a rhetorical commentary on a non-novelistic surrounding. In reality, this
country has explored unorthodox ways of performing research. They have devoted
much attention to phage research, which is traditionally not accepted in medical
treatment and usually forbidden in many Western countries. The reason for this is that
Western researchers sent out the wrong message when performing phage research in
the 1940s (Inal 238). By fiddling with results, they lost credibility for what is an
excellent alternative to antibiotics. Scientists in Georgia persevere in this research and
hope, especially in light of new developments, that they can reap the benefits of
investigating a field that was left unscathed in the Western world.
II.ii Fiction
Next to the setting being a plausible site for discovery, the narrative is ridden with
drama and intrigue. This is a bit of genre-defying move, because the work is classified
as “hard science fiction”, based on “physics, astronomy, chemistry, engineering and
biology” (Hubble 129). Indeed, the biological aspect of the novel is touted as highly
researched, and the author has published many times in Nature about his vision on
genes and especially junk DNA (e.g., “Fertility 2079” 13 ). But it should not be
forgotten that the work is a dramatic story and has elements of the thriller or suspense,
for example –
Rumors were spreading already about the discovery of the first infectious
human endogenous retrovirus, or HERV. As well, there were a few scattered
news stories about a virus that caused miscarriages. So far, no one outside the
CDC had yet put the two together. On the plane from London, Dicken had
13
“Fertility 2079” is an article written in Nature, structured like an infomercial placed on a
website, discussing the possibilities that “controlled” reproduction can bring. The infomercial
describes how prospective parents can order designer children with a pre-determined future.
In a sense, it is an anti-thesis to the novel, in which reproduction is not predictable and is
driven by a virus.
Coffeng 17
spent an expensive half hour on the Internet, finding nowhere a detailed
description of the discovery, but everywhere a slam-dunk predictable
curiosity. No wonder. Someone could end up getting a Nobel–and Dicken was
ready to lay odds that that someone would be Kaye Lang. (Bear 59)
The thriller narrative, which is present in all frames, is fed by lack of knowledge.
Although certainty is given by the use of scientific terminology and the description of
biological processes, the infection hazard is a plot device to keep the momentum
going. Granted, not all sub-plots begin with the same kind of tension, but gradually
they are overtaken by the news of the virus, which works in a Michael Crichton-like
way (Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain14). Saricks (415) explains that some
thrillers base themselves on a natural threat and exploit this feature to propel the story
forward. These thrillers are based on scientific facts, but are not speculating or
theorizing about a possible future. Bear’s science fiction does not fit this category,
because it employs the tropes of the thriller in unforeseen ways. It does not use the
thriller element for a clear build-up of tension and successive denouement. There is
no positive outcome in Radio (Lynch 72); the situation is not resolved and the victims
(the children) are not compensated.
The central discovery in the novel is the virus, and the story is structured to
capitalize on this issue. Using a triptych approach, the story shows the events of three
different seasons in three separate sections. The first part is winter, which is
traditionally seen as the period when everyone is more susceptible to disease. The
second part is spring, which instead of offering new chances, problematizes the
growing pains of the virus. The third part is devoted to summer, which indeed brings
new life in the form of the birth of Stella Nova, who has suffered from the infection
her mother carried. When viruses are taken as a metaphor, they can be seen as a
menacing threat. The novel taps from the reservoir of fear that is built up in real-life
by recent epidemics like bird flu, dengue and mad cow disease. These diseases, while
all potentially dangerous, have proved not to decimate humankind, but have resulted
in quite drastic repercussions nevertheless (Van den Bulck 370). In the novel, the
Center for Disease Control in Atlanta describes the virus as a “mild pathogen” (Bear
72). For a short while, the official authorities in Darwin’s Radio initially downplay
the risk. Meanwhile, the scientists do not immediately oversee all the consequences
14
Michael Crichton harnesses the scare-factor of genetics to provoke fear: cloned dinosaurs
can come alive and disrupt the world in Jurassic Park and an extraterrestrial virus that is in
such a way lethal that it is quarantined like a person (The Andromeda Strain).
Coffeng 18
and while they realize that they need to act, there is also a sense of enthusiasm
involved in making progress.
A further argument that sets science fiction apart from actual science is the
sensational nature of some of the utterances thus described. It has now been
established that the virus works like a thriller, but the way the narrative is structured
also takes some cues from soap opera (also discussed in Broderick 94, 97). Soap
opera is a specific genre that is serialized and delivered in manageable chunks for
increased comprehension. Brown (3) explains that it resists narrative closure by
offering a cast brimming with characters, whose development is often interrupted and
stalled. Further, there is a creative usage of temporality, because there is always the
assumption that the soap continues whether it is broadcasted or not. Lastly, there is a
preference for dialogue, solving of problems and quasi-psychological chatting.
A soap opera may not have any literary stature, but the application of some of
its techniques is essential for the novel’s pace. The novel is open-ended and its three
parts are structured like a series. There are ninety-two chapters and these are set in
diverse locales, providing the reader with abrupt scene changes. Temporally, the
novel usually depicts action (or rather dialogue) that happens ‘at the moment’, but
sometimes the narrative skips a considerable amount of time. This is especially
apparent in section three, in which the chapters signal different months in which the
action occurs, –
AUGUST 12
(…)
Her daughter. Kaye had been nurturing and carrying and protecting this for
ninety days.
For a moment, she felt distinctly uneasy. (Bear 427)
It seems that the skipping of time has the function to centralize the pregnancy of the
lead character. For fiction, it is understandable to focus on one character, but for
research purposes, it is inadvisable to single out one case when there are many.
Science strives to be objective, while this fiction, both in structure as in contents, does
not adhere to scientific norms. In section three, most ancillary characters, that have
proven essential for Dr Kaye Lang’s success with understanding the virus, are not
given the chance to speak. Maybe this is the effect of hierarchy, but it can also be that
the fiction of Darwin’s Radio tries to get the reader emotionally involved. Especially
Coffeng 19
because the novel’s ending is quite successful for the doctor: the baby does not carry
any major defects, –
Galbreath closed her eyes, caught her breath. “There’s nothing wrong with
your baby,” she said. “I don’t see anything wrong with it. I don’t understand
anything. Why aren’t you rejecting her as foreign tissue–she’s completely
different from you! You might as well be carrying a gorilla. But you tolerate
her, nurture her. All the mothers do. Why doesn’t the Taskforce study that?”
(Bear 447)
The delivery is a success and the baby enters the world as being “six months” (501)
already in terms of development. The focus of these last chapters is a bit difficult to
define, because the mother Kaye is exhausted. Usually, her fiancé acts as a mediator
between the baby and how it is perceived, – “Mitch met his daughter’s stare with
fascination” (496). Nevertheless, Kaye can still be held to be a central figure and the
other characters – by means of their dialogue or focalized narrator commentary – act
as lenses to build her story. The hospital scene detailed here focuses on maternal
aspects and not on any worries Mitch may have on fatherhood or his work as a
scientist. Similarly, a scientific report may also be geared towards one particular
aspect, detailing other scientists’ voices, but never decentralizing from the main
argument.
The intermingling of genres is used in a way to tackle the different aspects of
scientific literature. Roger Luckhurst analyses Darwin’s Radio, among a range of
other novels by Greg Bear, to be difficult to place within science fiction. While
Luckhurst analyses all novels by Bear (until 2007) to find a common technique, he
has a specific claim for one novel:
More recently, Bear has written hybrid fictions out of the precise collision
between hard scientific speculation and its complex soft social and political
implications – as in Darwin’s Radio (1999) and Darwin’s Children (2003).
(Luckhurst 218)
It seems that the science fiction of Darwin’s Radio is hybrid in order to handle these
different hard (scientific) and soft (social) topics, which can be explained in a
Latourian sense (Luckhurst 217 ; Idema 74). This analysis has attempted to develop
this argument further and show which exact genre techniques are employed; the
Coffeng 20
thriller and soap opera. The thriller is fuelled by the scientific speculation, while the
soap opera highlights the social issues that are at stake.
II.iii Discourse
Discourse refers to the strategy or political aims a particular text may bring to the
table in order to be convincing. Fiction is usually filled with techniques to whet the
reader’s appetite, to keep him or her engaged. Darwin’s Radio revels in discursive
strategies of drama and intrigue, even though these are not always successfully
implemented. Scientific reports, but also philosophical tracts on science, usually tend
to avoid dramatic biases and needless misunderstandings. Bear’s work, instead, takes
advantage of the unknown and uses it as a narrative ploy to propel the story forward.
Latour and Woolgar, jointly writing about scientific discoveries, use discursive
strategies that are opposite of the fiction present in Radio:
The book [Laboratory Life] is free of the kind of gossip, innuendo, and
embarrassing stories, and of the psychologizing often seen in other studies or
commentaries. In this book the authors demonstrate what they call the “social
construction” of science by the use of honest and valid examples of laboratory
science. This in itself is an achievement for they are, in a sense, laymen to
laboratory science and are not expected to grasp its fundamentals …. (12)
It seems unfit to compare a philosophical account to Bear’s science fiction, but there
certainly are parallels to be found in both methods. The most important parallel is that
both works reflect on science, offering insight in both the construction of science and
difficulties in reporting it. Their discursive technique is similar in the sense that both
are non-scientific. The difference presents itself when viewing the philosophical
grounds that Latour builds his arguments on (Verloren van Themaat 166), which is
devoid of needless colouring or dramatization in order to stage a debate. Bear’s novel
revels in contrast in creating a suspenseful and dramatic narrative environment, –
Scattered Human Endogenous RetroVirus Activation, SHERVA. They dropped
the R in retro for dramatic effect. That makes it SHEVA. Good name for a
virus, don’t you think?
“It’s a retrovirus, a true monster, eighty-two kilobases, thirty genes. Its gag
and pol components are on chromosome 14, and its env is on chromosome 17.
The CDC says it may be a mild pathogen and humans show little or no
resistance, so its [sic] been buried for a very long time.”
Coffeng 21
He placed his hand over hers and squeezed it gently. “You predicted it, Kaye.
You described the genes. Your prime candidate, a broken HERV-DL3, is the
one they’re targeting, and they are using your name. They’ve cited your
papers.”
“Wow,” Kaye said, her face going pale. She leaned over her plate, the blood
pounding in her head. (Bear 72)
On the one hand, credibility is heightened by the biological details. On the other, the
social aspect of making a discovery is stressed. It is Kaye Lang’s doing and her
efforts in the Republic of Georgia that have led to consolidating her position as a
scientist. In a report, however, such events are never described, because it distracts the
public from the main point. The media surrounding the report, like interviews on
television or newspaper articles, frequently exploit science to create a more credible
or dangerous story. In the following instance, the story is more interested in mixing
the different media and creating a historic account, –
A human provirus, lurking like a stowaway in our DNA for millions of years,
has been associated with a new strain of flu that strikes only women,” the
announcer began. “Molecular biologist Dr Kaye Lang of Long Island, New
York, has been credited with predicting this incredible invader from
humanity’s past. Michael Hertz is on Long Island now. (75)
The above quote is taken from an interview with Dr Lang. The interview is one of the
voices present in the book besides scientific reports. The voice works as a way to
reflect upon recent history, but it also plays down certain aspects of that history. By
this point in the narrative, it is already clear that the disease is not just a new type of
flu, but also more life threatening. The interview as a means to reflect on scientific
discovery is a sensational means to raise interest without performing research. In a
different way, Latour is centralizing science, while actually being one step removed
from the actual scientific practice. He describes the process of research and tracks
how the process of discovering the Thyrotropin Releasing Factor (a hormone that
affects the metabolism ; 108).
Darwin’s Radio is removed from contemporary scientific practice. It is based
upon the legacy of Charles Darwin and has a discourse that is ambivalent towards
science and religion. Just like Darwin attacked the reigning ideas of the time (that
were borne from the Church), Bear not only attacks the Church, but also how science
is performed, –
Coffeng 22
“Tune in the Christian Broadcasting Network. They’re splitting constituencies
all across America. Pat Robertson is telling his audience these monsters are
God’s final test before the arrival of the new Kingdom of Heaven. He says our
DNA is trying to purge itself of all our accumulated sins, to … what was his
phrase, Ted?”
The aide said, “Clean up our records before God calls Judgment Day.”
“That was it.”
“We still don’t control the airwaves, Frank,” Augustine said. “I can’t be held
responsible–“
“Half a dozen other televangelists say these unborn children are the devil’s
spawn,” Shawbeck continued, building up steam. “Born with the mark of
Satan, one-eyes and hare-lipped. Some are even saying they have cloven
hooves.”
Augustine shook his head sadly. (433)
In this radio interview, the facts are perhaps amended too much towards creationist
philosophies. It confirms the idea that a Creator is responsible for mankind’s wellbeing and that any deviance is an act of the Enemy or Devil. While there are only
small overt hints towards a biblical interpretation of the work, the genetics of
mutation warrants a theological explanation. The system is too intricate to discredit
the idea that an intelligent Creator is not responsible for it. This theory is known as
Intelligent Design (Ruse 268) and it is crucial for the understanding of the first
instalment. Crediting a God for creating the cellular apparatus (ribosomes, DNA,
RNA) is an act that may set the novel apart from actual science, because the natural
sciences try to explain the world out of natural processes and not on biblical or
philosophical grounds.
The biblical aspect also ties in with the omniscient mode of narration. Like a
work of science, the narrator tries to be impartial, but he is not really successful at
doing so. In one reading, the narrative is not very friendly towards women. It is very
harsh that a virus only attacks women carrying children and this metaphorically
relates the role women play to Eve. In the creation myth, Eve was the one who ate the
apple and had committed sin (Foster 129):
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the
fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did
eat. (King James Bible, Genesis 3.6)
In the narrative, women are also seen as sinful creators, particularly if they are
carrying the “devil’s spawn” (Bear 433). In another reading, the women, even if only
Coffeng 23
in the role of Kaye Lang, have the power to change the world. She is crucial for the
understanding of the virus and can save humankind from its demise. Eve also was
instrumental towards mankind’s success. Eve was the ‘helpmate’ of Adam and the
two perfectly compensated each other’s strengths and weaknesses. This duality
between the treacherous woman and the nurturing mother is perhaps the key towards
understanding the novel’s tendency to either divulge in thriller or to show a more
human, social face.
Both the thriller and social aspect of the novel are related through the science
fiction text as narrative medium. The genre excels at incorporating different styles and
subject matter, even a multiplicity of voices within one text. Darwin’s Radio is about
evolution and perhaps it can be thought of fighting, just as Darwin did, Victorian
ideals. Victorian literature was all about realism, but its close descendent naturalism
cannot be entirely separated from Bear’s modus operandi. A naturalistic novel is
expected to be “[an] opposition of a personal will-power to social structure or
heredity” (Bal 204). Seen abstractly, this description connects to the main theme of
Radio, heredity. Both the employment of the naturalistic genre and science fiction
result in works of a very different calibre, but there are salient parallels between these
two methods.
An oft-given example of a naturalistic novel (e.g. Knutson 140) is Thérèse
Raquin (1867), in which – in brief – three characters of different humours and
personality are in a relationship with each other, one of them ending up dead. The
murder is not described as one committed out of rage or jealousy, but as a “logical”
result of the bestial nature of one of the lovers. It is therefore not a crime passionnel,
but a crime whose motivations are not emotional, but scientific “facts” (according to
Émile Zola’s writing). It seems unrelated to compare Darwin’s Radio to this work of
high literature, but both can be said to employ the same strategy. Zola bases his
“explanation of a murder” on the science that was current in his day, which was
highly speculative and quite unproven. Similarly, Bear uses speculative science as
well in his explanation of the “killer virus” and its consequences. This relation could
be metaphorical for how Bear relates towards Darwin’s era stylistically.
The strictness of both the naturalistic novel and Bear’s science fiction presents
itself on the level of the fabula or plot and indeed the structure of Radio is quite rigid.
Bal argues that a fabula has a subject and an object (or goal; 203). There can be
multiple subjects, but “each subject has the will to execute his or her program; if not
Coffeng 24
we do not have a fabula” (204). The fabula of Darwin’s Radio seems simple, because
the subjects are all aiming at resolving the issue at hand, finding a remedy for the
killer virus. While this distinction is clear and makes for a predictable ordering, the
subjects are not autonomous and are interrelated. There is also one subject prioritized,
while the others have supporting roles. These roles are hierarchical and can be said to
resemble a scientific institution in a fictional way. In a scientific setting, everyone
has a particular relation towards each other, creating a rigid hierarchy. Latour explains
for the laboratory that this group “formed an almost perfect administrative pyramid”
(216-7). Each role occupied in the laboratory has a “sociological function” (217). He
describes that “major leaguers” make much renown, but that “minor leaguers” are
often essential for research and sometimes also have a glimmering of the credit the
chiefs attract (218-9). The same analogy can be said to hold for the narrative structure
of Darwin’s Radio. Dr Lang is established as lead character, but there is a secondary
female scientist that has actually done much research that helped the main discovery.
This scientist is Marge Cross, who – by virtue of her stern demeanour and witch-like
appearance – is relegated to the sidelines.
While Latour, in describing science in action, attempts to describe all layers of
production, many characters in Bear’s work are not given the chance to speak much
(if at all). This is where the fiction comes in and presents the reader with a different
reality. Focusing on the fabula or cause-and-effect structure of the story, the subject
and object are constantly realigned at the expense of other narratives. Marge Cross,
who implicitly has done much research in benefit of the Center for Disease Control, is
characterized in a sensational manner, –
“Marge is a master at human psychology. I know. I went to medical school
with her in the seventies. She took an MBA at the same time. Lots of energy,
ugly as sin, no man trouble, extra time you and I might have wasted on dating
… She jumped off the gurney in 1987, and now look at her.” (Bear 157)
The actor of this utterance is Judith Kushner, who “had been Kaye’s doctoral advisor
at Stanford” (89). Regardless of the perspective taken, it exposes a fundamental flaw
that is particular to this novel in the science fiction genre. In a different genre, for
instance the psychological novel, “a character trait of the subject itself is often the
power which either facilitates or blocks the achievement of the aim” (Bal 199). A
struggle occurs from the viewpoint of the character, highlighting his or her
Coffeng 25
characteristics in relation to the aim or object. Here, the struggle moves away from
the actor(s), to the object. The object, the plague, consumes the story and leaves most
characters stale. This is most successfully portrayed by the third and final act of the
novel, which only solidifies the role attributed to the central heroine. By not
discussing what happened to her fellow researchers, the novel confirms a certain
hierarchy.
Conclusion: Darwin’s Radio – the thrill of making discoveries
In this investigation, the relation between science and the science fiction in Darwin’s
Radio is expressed in the way it moves through time, creates fiction and uses its
narrative in strategic, discursive ways. Temporally, the novel may be set in the future
(2079 AD), but it refers more to the past by means of its setting. The viral hazard has
its origins in Tbilisi (Georgia) and this locale imbues historical awareness, because it
conjures up images of war and conflict from the non-novelistic world. Constantly,
Bear’s fiction intertwines a hypothetical version of scientific reality. Radio discusses
the latest development in the debate on genetic modification. Rather than focusing on
biological details in a dry manner, they are reported with drama and intrigue. In
Bear’s work, the biology is used as a vehicle to create suspense. As a result, the story
usually comes across as a thriller, even though there is no evil scientist behind the
plague.
Discursively, the work takes cues from both Charles Darwin and the Bible
(Genesis), structuring the narrative in a formulaic mould. Charles Darwin is seen as
the instigator of evolutionary genetics, while forerunners like Benoît de Maillet have
written down similar claims. The way Maillet presented his story was however
different, in a more fictional and fantastical way. In the novel, Dr Kaye Lang is the
researcher that is in the limelight, confirming on the one hand hierarchies that also
exist in real-life scientific settings (Latour 216-7). This mould or the fabula (‘plot’)
adds foundation to the story. In general, the narrative does not shy away from
romanticizing aspects of science and making a quite gruesome plague a means to
emotionally involve the reader.
Relating back to the topic of metaphor, one central theme recurs in Darwin’s
Radio. The novel views human beings as constructs, which can undergo facial,
sensorial, and cognitive changes within one generation. This malleability of the
human is a grand metaphor for how the novel intends to portray scientific literature as
Coffeng 26
being constructed as well. Scientific literature may be coarse and bereaved of any
emotion, but the processes that occur behind the scenes have coloured the creation of
a research paper. In turn, fiction itself is a construct as well. Darwin’s Radio does not
follow one structural path and sticks to it, but rather pieces together distinct building
blocks (the thriller and the soap opera) to facilitate the broad view it intends to give
on genetic engineering.
III. Darwin’s Children – the consequences of genetic
manipulation
Only one form of contagion travels faster than a virus, Sinskey thought. And
that’s fear. (Brown 428)
Even highly contagious viruses like the one described in Dan Brown’s Inferno (2013)
are relatively slow in affecting everyone. This novel describes the heinous – and very
successful – attempt of Bertrand Zobrist to sterilize one-third of the human populace
by means of a virus. But what is even more successful is the panic that ensues, which
spreads quicker than the virus ever did15. A similar analysis is relevant for Darwin’s
Children (2003), Greg Bear’s second instalment on his version of evolution. While it
took hundreds of years before ancient retroviruses buried within human DNA became
“active”, the news about the virus spread like hay fire. In the narrative, recurring news
reports provide insight into how DNA and mutation are constructed as an enemy.
Apart from news reports, the story hinges upon the information that is transmitted and
how the infected population is treated. In this chapter, I will explain how genetic
engineering – as a novel and unpredictable scientific development – is clouded by an
atmosphere of fear. First, I will explain how news implies a different form of
imagination and in what way it influences scientific discovery. Secondly, I will show
how the mutated Darwin’s Children embody fear and are influenced by the different
narrative voices. Lastly, the protagonist of the novel, the mutated child Stella, will be
15
Academic criticism on Dan Brown in relation to Inferno is scant. There is one Dutch
(popular) book that gives a good overview of Dan Brown and his imagining of Florence and
Dante Alighieri: Saskia Balmaeker’s De geheimen van inferno (2013). Brown’s first novel in
the Robert Langdon series, The Da Vinci Code, has seen quite some research, both on
reception theory and the separation of fact and fiction. Bart D. Ehrman’s Truth and Fiction in
The Da Vinci Code (2004) is for instance an extensive body of research.
Coffeng 27
seen as a poster child for and against genetic engineering. The discussion of these
issues aims to shed light on how science does not emerge in a controlled space, but
indirectly collaborates with different fields.
The second instalment of the genetic engineering narrative is called Darwin’s
Children and presents the consequences of altered genes. The way genes are altered is
unorthodox: by means of a virus (SHEVA) that affects the reproductive cells. It starts
out with an unusual victim, Carla Rhine, who is “a plump female in her forties” that
received “a pig kidney transplant” (Bear 11). She suffered from the virus and had a
miscarriage. Unexpectedly, though, she also became incurably ill, which is not a usual
symptom. Like the opening narrative of Darwin’s Radio, in which Neanderthal
mummies were found, her chimeric appearance might indicate how the series
develops. In the first novel, the Neanderthal mummies were a symbol for discovery.
In the second novel, Darwin’s Children, Mrs. Rhine is a living being that is able to
consciously inform the researchers about how she experiences SHEVA. The focus has
therefore shifted from an intangible object (a discovery of an infective agent) to
human beings, specifically children.
Similar to predecessor Radio, the narrative voice is omniscient, but instead of
focalizing Dr Kaye Lang, the focus shifts towards her daughter Stella. Stella is the
result of a complicated but ultimately successful pregnancy. Due to the fact that she
was created from altered reproductive cells, her entire physique and mind is different.
She has a heightened sensory apparatus and augmented intelligence. While this may
answer some of today’s desires for a designer child, the novel exposes the stigma that
“being special” can bring. Her parents are constantly on the run from the authorities,
but to no avail. Stella is eventually imprisoned in a detention camp, partly because her
cunning wit could be a danger to society.
The mutated daughter can be seen as a poster child in the news surrounding
genetic engineering. Indirectly, the novel is a reflection on engineering at the time it
was published (2003). In this period, mutation was viewed with arguably even more
scepticism, because the cloned sheep Dolly16 died in the beginning of 2003 (Hellsten
213). Even though Dolly is all but forgotten, the subject is still clouded in mystery.
16
As Dolly is a cloned sheep grown from a mature (differentiated) cell in a disastrous
experiment of 1997, it is not directly comparable to the conception of the “virus children” of
the Darwin series. The virus children are no clones and have been conceived in the uterus and
not in a laboratory. Still, the overarching methods of scaring a fearing public by presenting a
“monstrosity” (in the form of a deformed sheep or a child) are remarkably similar.
Coffeng 28
Verica Rupar claims that “[b]oth opponents and proponents of GE [genetic
engineering] believed that the twenty-first century would be defined by the splicing of
a gene, in a same way the twentieth century was defined by the splitting of an atom”
(597). Indeed, in 2014, much progress has been made on the subject, but it remains
largely unknown what the potential effects are when genes have been altered. The
enigma that surrounds genetics is therefore far from solved.
To understand how genetics is viewed in the novel and its news reports, the
attitudes can be gauged in the metaphorical language. While there are many
comparisons made, the most crucial for Darwin’s Children is the inventiveness of
humans versus the creative/supernatural powers of nature. Theorist Vasilia Christidou
stresses the homo faber aspect of science, because doing science requires “skilful or
even artistic handlings” (352). That is why many reports may turn science into an
activity that reinforces human genius or as a supernatural process. Both views can be
construed as either involving a promise or scare. The promise arises when a research
method can prove a certain “fact”, which links it to its historical meaning of “feat” /
accomplishment (Beer 81). A feat is an act of human genius and affirms the positive
of genetic engineering. The scare arises when a genetic process cannot be explained
by traditional research methods, and hence is “supernatural”. The “supernatural” is
not limited to the mythical and religion, but also implies “beyond our understanding
of nature”.
III.i Construction of news and how it relates to imagination
Darwin’s Children relies on imagination in order to illuminate a specific situation to
the reader. It can be held that scientific texts, the news and novels (amongst others) all
need imagination in order to function. Imagination derives from the Latin imaginari,
which is “to form a picture in your mind” (Peutrill Folens Dictionary 184). But the
difference occurs in how this picture is created. Feynman claims for scientists the
following: “Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine
things which are not really there, but just to comprehend things which are there”
(127-8). While theoretical physicist Feynman is not discussing how the Darwin’s
series came about, the difference between fiction and scientific reality does hold.
Making up a story, even though based on “biological laws” in Bear’s case, is not the
same as conducting a scientific investigation. But how may the news be conceived in
light of imagination? It cannot be said that the news imagines subject matter that is
Coffeng 29
not really there (as in fiction), but does this make it more similar to scientific
imagination? No, because the news does not test a particular hypothesis or contribute
to greater understanding of natural processes. Below, the news will be seen as an
alternative form of imagination, which has an influence on how the metaphors
contained within it are received. Metaphors in science may aid in understanding a
phenomenon, but metaphors in news usually direct the readers’ attitudes.
While Darwin’s Children may employ imagination in a fictional way, the text
constantly implies a different view on imagination. There are multiple voices, one of
them being fictionalized news reports, which indicate a different relation within the
fiction towards the non-novelistic reality. Fictionalized news cannot be equated to
news given in reality. It does mimic the style of news reports and can therefore be
seen as commentary. The novel, which tracks the life of the mutated child Stella Nova
in three separate sections, provides a case study for understanding the relation
between news and fiction. Each part is prefaced by a series of news reports. These
only give a glimmer of how the subject of genetic engineering is approached, but the
fictional voice of the news resonates in the rest of the text. First, there are online
postings given in the preface of part one, which takes place when Stella is twelve
years old:
America’s a cruel country. There’s a whole lot of people would just as soon
stomp you like an ant. Listen to talk radio. Plenty of dummies, damned few
ventriloquists.
There’s a wolf snarl behind the picnics and Boy Scout badges.
They want to kill our kids. Lord help us all.
—Anonymous Postings, ALT.NEWCHILD.FAM (Bear 2)
These views are given by anonymous citizens and reflect on the method of creating
news. The key metaphor here is ventriloquist, which is opposed to dummy. These
terms originate from journalism, where both are a style of reporting. When the
dummy model is used, “the media speaks for a public that (for whatever reasons) sits
by silently like a passive dummy” (Feldstein 502). In other words, the general public
is not actively involved in the creation of news; they are not consulted as a credible
source. A more fruitful style is the ventriloquist, in which “the source’s role can be
compared to that of a ventriloquist whose lips may not be obviously moving but who
Coffeng 30
nonetheless supplies the voice for the reporter” (503). Put more simply, reports that
are aimed at dummies frequently tell lies, because they circumvent public opinion and
enforce views. Applied to the novel, the news works in the background as a
politicizing factor, incriminating the mutated children and spreading fear. The director
for the Center of Disease Control, Mark Augustine, holds a similar sentiment –
Augustine could no longer bear to watch TV or listen to the radio. So many
loud voices shouting lies for their own advantage. America and much of the
rest of the world had entered a peculiar state of pathology, outwardly normal,
inwardly prone to extraordinary fear and anger: a kind of powderkeg madness.
(Bear 77-8)
News reporters that only keep their own or the network’s political interests in check
treat the public like Mark Augustine as a dummy. Dummy style reporting can be
compared to how Bruno Latour describes the construction of news in We Have Never
Been Modern (1991):
Yet no one seems to find this troubling. Headings like Economy, Politics,
Science, Books, Culture, Religion and Local Events remain in place as if there
were nothing odd going on. The smallest AIDS virus takes you from sex to the
unconscious, then to Africa, tissue cultures, DNA and San Francisco, but the
analysts, thinkers, journalists and decision-makers will slice the delicate
network traced by the virus for you into tidy compartments where you will
find only science, only economy, only social phenomena, only local news,
only sentiment, only sex. (Latour 2)
Dummy style reporting is largely dependent on this compartmentalization of news. A
singular point of view promotes a narrower focus in which the audience can be
disregarded. Similarly, the reports in the novel are implied to treat the
SHEVA
virus
from a single perspective. In this way, a univocal view is created on the subject that is
orderly and manageable. This is one aspect how the imagination of news differs from
the fictional voice. Fiction, through its characters and its denouement of a central
issue, offers a broad perspective on a particular subject. The voice of the news has by
contrast a narrow focus, as the following broadcast intends to show:
“Conditions in Asia and the United States have quickly deteriorated to what
can only be described as panic. The prospect of the so-called virus children
producing an unknown pathogen capable of causing a pandemic has haunted
world governments for a decade, certainly since the strange and disturbing
case of Mrs. Rhine seven years ago. And yet the children have remained
healthy, in their schools and camps and with their beleaguered families. Now,
Coffeng 31
this new and so-far unexplained illness—given no official diagnosis—is
causing widespread disruption in North America, Japan, and Hong Kong.
International and even some local airports are blocking flights from affected
areas. In the past forty-eight hours, public and private hospitals in the United
States have closed their doors to this new illness for fear of becoming part of a
proposed general quarantine. Other hospitals in the UK, France, and Italy,
announced that should the disease spread to these shores, which some regard
as inevitable, they will accept SHEVA children and their relatives only in
isolated wards.” (Bear 125-6)
The above is quite a long monologue about how the
SHEVA
virus is spreading. It is
discussing how governments are reacting towards the viral hazard, but it does not
intermingle these views with concrete, epidemic figures or an indication whether the
hazard is worsening or improving. In a way, it strictly separates nature (science) and
culture (social), only discussing potential measures to be taken in the social domain
and not why the virus is spreading quicker than anticipated. It fails to mention why
the virus – which is not airborne and does not spread through haptic means – can
infiltrate the world in such a quick pace.
III.ii Conception of science in relation to news
The conception of science is influenced by developments happening at the moment of
investigation. At the time the novel was written (2000-2003), the image that
surrounded genetic engineering was pessimistic. For example, a real-life scientific
experiment conducted by John Losey and others in 1999 (214) was supposed to
impartially substantiate claims already present in the media that objected to genetic
engineering. The objection posed was that modified maize is resistant to insects,
which can deregulate the ecosystem (Wisniewski 1100). Since the view on
modification was already bad from the start, the experiment turned facts to their
liking. This is comparable to what happens in Darwin’s Children. The diseased
offspring is constructed as an enemy of the state, while perhaps less extreme measures
can be taken to guard the non-infected population from becoming ill. This situation is
most accurately described when a FoxMedia producer pitches and idea, –
We’re in year eighteen of what some have called the Virus Century. The
whole world is still running scared, though there are faint and tremulous hints
of a political solution.
Yet the majority of people polled today haven’t the faintest idea what a
virus is. For most of us, ‘They’re small and they make us sick’ just about says
Coffeng 32
it all.
Most scientists insist that viruses are genetic pirates, hijacking and
killing cells to reproduce: ‘Selfish genes with switchblades,’ ‘Terrorist DNA.’
Others say we’ve got it mostly wrong, that many viruses are genetic
messengers, carrying signals between cells in the body and even between you
and me: ‘Genetic FedEx.’
The truth probably combines both views. It’s a weird old biological
ballgame, and most scientists agree we’re not even in the second inning.
—FoxMedia producer pitching a Floodnet Real Life, Real News special;
rejected (Bear 422)
Even though this news pitch is rejected, it does show how science and news mutually
influence each other. The general public is exposed to confusing and thereby
frightening reports of the outbreak. In turn, most scientists take this negative image in
their own construction of the virus. They translate the images into negatively oriented
metaphors, focusing on the aggressive and combative properties of a virus. Viruses
are seen as taking over cells and infiltrating bodies at a frightening pace. Vasilia
Christidou categorizes these metaphors as “a battle/struggle/war” (354). While these
metaphors may aid them in understanding the virus (chapter one), they have not
emerged purely in the scientific domain, but due to the news.
This interaction between the news and science is not logical, because science
is supposed to work independently and objectively from the cultural world. The
empirical method is not bent on proving existing fears and concerns. On the contrary,
science is presumed to be critical and to find ways to discredit reigning ideas. To this
end, Karl Popper famously theorized that every scientific experiment intends to
falsify a given hypothesis (Latour Laboratory 280). But as the John Losey experiment
conducted in real-life shows, it is difficult to strictly separate the social from the
scientific. It may be that the social will guide an experiment in a particular direction
and aim for confirmation. Bruno Latour explains that falsification is not at the base of
scientific experiments, –
Of course, the concepts of cost, reification, and credit have to be understood in
the light of our earlier argument: everything which has been accepted, no
matter for what reason, will be reified so as to increase the cost of raising
objections. (Latour Laboratory 243)
Verification and solidifying an argument is more attractive to substantiate a particular
viewpoint. For scientists, it may be easier to confirm negative hypotheses on genetic
engineering, because of the dubious image that the field held and arguably still holds.
Coffeng 33
There is also a practical reason to this, because disproving genetic engineering is
easier than seeing its potential advantages. While altering genes is undeniably risky,
there are many potential benefits. One such a benefit is modified rice in India, –
“Golden Rice (GR), which has been genetically engineered to produce β-carotene, a
precursor of VA [Vitamin A], has been proposed as another intervention to control
VAD [Vitamin A deficiency]” (Stein 144). This enhancement of crops is a rewarding
area for genetic research, because it could potentially save or ameliorate millions of
lives17.
There is a second reason why subjectivities spread by the media affect the
conception of science. Researchers are perhaps not so much swayed by public
opinion, as the opinion they have on each other’s aptitude. Bruno Latour explains this
process as follows: “a method commonly used by scientists to fault or cast doubt on
the claims of others is to draw attention to the social circumstances of the production
of the claim” (Laboratory Life 21). Once the social factors impinge too much on the
creation of scientific facts, the credibility of a scientist deteriorates.
While Darwin’s Radio featured Dr Kaye Lang as principle investigator,
political developments have temporarily disfavoured her as a research asset. Mark
Augustine and his associate Browning intend to hunt her down, not to involve her in
science, but to advance their own careers, –
“Kaye Lang Rafelson is not someone you just lure and bust,” Augustine said.
“Her daughter is not just another notch on the handle of our butterfly net. We
have to be very careful with all of them.”
Browning rolled her eyes. “She’s not off limits according to any directive I’ve
received. I certainly do not regard her as a sacred cow. It’s been seven years
since she was on Oprah.” (Bear 15)
The tone of this passage is negative. Augustine has teamed up with Rachel Browning,
an agent from the “Special Reconnaissance Office” (14-5). Browning has special
privileges and can incriminate Kaye Lang, even though her actions have aimed at
resolving the
SHEVA
virus. Giving birth to a
SHEVA
child, Stella Nova, has made her
too much involved. Dr Lang is very much prone to having her argument twisted on
17
This example of a modified crop has been deliberately given, because “major international
concern is not gene therapy, reproductive cloning, or stem cells, but food and the
environment” (LeVine 83). While the application of modification on crops may be easier to
warrant ethically, it is very difficult to explain why modification on humans should be
permitted. Michael J. Sandel argues against enhancement in his seminal The case against
perfection (2003).
Coffeng 34
social grounds. That is why leading figures want to get rid of her: “Robert Jackson, PI
for the larger group and in some respects her boss, was working very hard to get Kaye
out of his labs, out of the building, out of the way” (253). Kaye Lang’s inscription
into the social is however not completely disadvantageous. Being personally involved
in the research process has spearheaded her career in the first novel, Darwin’s Radio.
III.iii Growing of fear in the news and narrative
Imagination can both support scientific endeavours and the creation of news, but it
can also turn awry. News broadcasts are frequently employed to entice a fearing
public. Sociologist David L. Altheide explains that fear has become a metaphor: it is
used as entertainment and also to portray stories that are not fearful by definition, –
Fear is increasingly substituted for words with much different connotations,
such as concern, relevance, trouble, query, issue, item, and many others. It is
as though the size of the symbolic pot containing fear has expanded
exponentially compared to conventional language use; it is more familiar,
convenient, and perhaps more forceful in making points. Regardless, it has
made its mark on news space. (82)
Altheide explains here that fear taints the connotation of words frequently employed
in news. Concepts such as concern are easily associated with fear, but relevance,
query and item are not. For the novel, fear also extends to other words, tainting their
meaning. Words such as virus, mutation and danger can invoke fear, because they are
negatively oriented. The following news quote from Darwin’s Children illustrates this
negative orientation on the issue of disease:
They set off bombs. They torch themselves and block traffic. Their children
carry diseases we can’t begin to imagine. Hell, the parents themselves can
make us sick and even kill us. If it’s a choice between their civil liberties and
keeping my own beautiful, normal children disease free, then to hell with
liberty. I say screw ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union]. Always have,
always will.
—Representative Harold Barren, R-North Carolina, speaking for the House
Floor Liberty Minute (Bear 196)
As can be glossed from this quote, taken directly from a speech by a state
representative of North Carolina, the situation has become very severe. Torches and
fire may bring to mind purgatory, which makes the tone alarming. But fear is not only
Coffeng 35
associated with the impersonal entity of the virus. Rather, fear is personified by the
children.
One scene in which fear is implicitly expressed is when the affected child
Stella receives a visit from her father Mitch, the palaeontologist. While he does
sympathize with his daughter, he fears her at the same time. Earlier, he assaulted a
police officer in their hideout in Virginia. This has put him in a difficult position, –
Stella’s expression became one of a simple lack of comprehension, and for a
moment Mitch saw his daughter as she had been even ten years ago, and loved
her fiercely. “Your mother and I talk every few weeks. She’s busy now,
working in Baltimore. Doing science.”
“Trying to turn us back into humans?”
“You are human,” Mitch said, his face going red.
“No,” Stella said. “We aren’t.”
Mitch decided this wasn’t the time or the place. “She’s trying to learn how we
make new children,” he said. “It’s not as simple as we thought.”
“Virus children,” Stella said.
“Yes, well, if I understand correctly, viruses play all sorts of roles. We just
discovered that fact when we looked at SHEVA. Now … it’s pretty confused.”
Stella seemed, if anything offended by this. “We’re not new?”
“Of course you’re new,” Mitch said. “I really don’t understand it very well.
When we all get together again, your mother will now enough to explain it to
us. She’s learning as fast as she can.”
“We’re not taught biology here,” Stella said.
Mitch clamped his teeth together. Keep them down. Keep them under lock and
key. Otherwise, you might prime their fuse. (Bear 273-4)
This visit between Mitch and his daughter is crucial to the story, because it gives a
more personal view on why mutation is undesirable. A virus cannot speak through
words, but only through taking over a body. Through Stella, the virus can talk back
and this conversation exposes how she feels distinct and also sequestered from
humans. By contrast, the general public fears Stella and her brethren, because they are
the unknowns. While this is expected, it gets slightly more complicated when her
father fears for what is essentially his own flesh and blood. There is a bipolar attitude
in this passage towards Stella, from fierce love to menacing fear. Similarly, news is
constructed along bipolar lines as well. It needs to be objective, but it cannot entirely
abstain from subjective colourings like fear. The news is dependent on fear to a great
extent in order to entice a fearing public (Altheide 26).
Coffeng 36
III.iv Stella Nova as poster child for genetic engineering
Stella Nova is one of Darwin’s Children and the story around her is imbued with
religious symbols. The main metaphorical symbol is the virus, which can both be
explained along the lines of other science fictional works and the Bible. In the 1960s,
William S. Burroughs compared the language humans speak to a virus in the Nova
trilogy. Each language has certain properties (akin to viral particles) that guide a
particular way of thinking18. For example, speakers of Russian have two lexical units
for “blue”, which makes them more aware of the differences between hues of blue
(Winawer 7780). Taken broader, human beings are viruses in a corporeal sense. This
is an idea expressed by the film The Matrix, in which agent Smith likens the spread of
humans that pollute areas to a highly infectious disease. A similar idea of humans
infecting land can be found in the Bible (Bookless 41-2)19:
4:1 Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a
controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor
mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.
4:2 By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery,
they break out, and blood toucheth blood.
4:3 Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall
languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the
fishes of the sea also shall be taken away. (King James Bible, Hosea 4.1-3)
The prophet Hosea in this passage is vindictive and places the blame of the Fall of
Eden on mankind’s malignant nature. Human behaviour can be likened to the way a
virus acts, which performs similar actions in a different way. Viruses kill tissue, steal
cellular material from bodies, and commit adultery by constantly taking other cells
hostage. Darwin’s Children connects to this by providing a commentary to Genesis
and the Creation Myth as well, because it introduces a new way of creating existence.
The new way of existence expresses itself in the children. Apart from facial,
sensorial and cognitive changes, there is one particularity about the children that ties
the story to religion. The mutated child Stella, as is described by the omniscient
narrator early on, has a tendency of “speaking on both sides of her tongue, to make
18
The theory that language influences thought is called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (please
see Koerner for a detailed history). It is quite controversial, but some related ideas (such as
the influence of metaphors on cognition) have proven fruitful.
19
This idea has been posted afterwards on Dave Bookless’ personal website on <
http://blog.arocha.org/post/are-humans-the-virus-species/> (March 31, 2012).
Coffeng 37
them hear and feel what she meant, but they would not understand; the words,
doubled so, would jumble in their heads and only make them angrier” (Bear 24).
“Speaking with double tongues” is an English expression that finds its root in the
Bible, – “Likewise must the deacons be grave, not doubletongued, not given to much
wine, not greedy of filthy lucre” (King James Bible, Timothy 3.8). Unexpectedly, the
duality of her voice is used to signal empathy, from the view of mutation.
Nevertheless, it does undermine the credibility of the children, because important
messages may be lost for the non-affected general public. This is a pity, because in
contrast to what the messages sound like (a warbled mess), they are very idealistic.
Stella seems like a pacifist, when she speaks two sentences simultaneously, as
indicated by the slash in the middle of each line:
“We need to be together/We’re healthier together.”
“Everyone cares for the others/Everyone is happy with the others.”
“The sadness comes from not knowing/The sadness comes from being apart.”
(Bear 270-1)
Speaking in double-tongues implies that this cooperative, peaceful attitude is a lie.
The answer to this question appears negative, because speaking two utterances at once
requires coordination and is thereby peaceful. Coordination is an individual act, but in
the group of mutated children, behaviour is also coordinated. The children work
together, in groups they call demes (Greek: burg/subdivision of Athens), and are
programmed to have a better ability to adapt to the world, rather than let the world
adapt to them. In biology, Lynn Margulis has controversialized how adaptation should
be seen, in her theory “symbiogenesis” (13). Animals do not consciously adapt to the
environment; rather, they actively find ways to make the best of the environment that
is available.
Alternatively, the double-tongue metaphor should not be explained solely on
these cooperative grounds. The virus is part of the children and a virus is never
peaceful. Similarly, the children may portray cooperative behaviour, there is still
competition raging, –
The girls were uncharacteristically quiet. Stella felt the tension. A year ago,
going through the fence to socialize with the boys had been no big deal. Now,
every girl who imagined herself a deme maker was plotting with her partners
as to which boys would be best in their group. Stella did not know what to
think about this. She watched the demes form and disintegrate and reform in
Coffeng 38
the girl’s dorms, and her own plans changed in her head from day to day; it
was all so confusing. (Bear 292)
The demes may invoke a democracy, but the election of group members happens by
selection. This corresponds to the virus selecting the best circumstances and getting
the most out of a given situation.
There is a second metaphor that reinforces the frightening atmosphere. Next to
the devilish comparison of the children to be double-tongued, Stella’s escape attempts
(and eventual success) mirror a journey through purgatory. Like Dante in The Divine
Comedy (p. 1555), she has to work her way through a version of the seven terraces of
hell to reach the eventual paradise. Dante’s main motivation for persevering in hell is
his fiancé Beatrice, while Stella has a fellow called Will to guide her through the
misery. These comparisons are similar to the way the news constructs a genetic story,
because modification is intervening in the cycle of life (i.e. an act against God).
Genetic manipulation can be listed as one of the modern sins (Gibbs 78), a
contemporary version of the parade of the seven sins in Inferno. Her escape is
described in penitential terms. This brings to mind Dante’s perilous journey, in which
he has to face his sins –
The wire-reinforced plastic windows were locked shut from the outside; this
was the kind of bus she had seen as a child carrying prisoners to pick up trash
or cut down brush along the highways. She stared out the window and
shivered. (Bear 361-2)
The atmosphere here is hellish. The children are held captive and are compared to
delinquents that are sent to do community service. This compares to doing penance
and might connect to a metaphor that recurs in the novel; the children “as martyrs, as
Christ” (91). Elsewhere in the narrative, there is an indication how “martyrs” needs to
be interpreted. When Stella’s mother Kaye Lang is officially fired from her job, she is
asked the following: “Did you ever hear what happened to [Saint] Thomas Aquinas?”
(390). Saint Aquinas is a theologian from the Late Middle Ages, who used reason to
explain the Bible. In his work Summa Theologica (1471), he fastidiously examines
critical passages and concepts. One such a concept is the martyr, which may indicate
virtue, but Saint Aquinas entirely dismissed these claims, –
Objection 1: It seems that martyrdom is not an act of virtue. For all acts of
virtue are voluntary. But martyrdom is sometimes not voluntary, as in the case
of the Innocents who were slain for Christ’s sake, and of whom Hillary says
Coffeng 39
(Super Matth. i) that “they attained the ripe age of eternity through the glory of
martyrdom.” Therefore martyrdom is not an act of virtue. (Aquinas 3121)
Martyrs are not messengers in the narrow sense, but they are like “a witness”20. A
witness does not right any wrong, but merely reports or sees what is happening. In the
novel, the children do not actively undermine adult authority, but are witness to
sudden suspicious behaviour:
Stella squatted beside Celia and lightly bounced her palm off the ball, held in
the nest of her legs. Nobody knew why the counselors took so much blood,
but visits to the hospital usually followed upsets or unusual behavior; that
much Stella had deduced. (Bear 209)
Stella is here a witness to possible wrongdoings in the hospital within the compound’s
walls. Her captivity has not made her insensitive to what is happening around her, but
she does not commit any real acts of defiance. Instead, she is a sufferer, mediating a
message in a fatal way. This extremity links to how Stella paints a gruesome picture
of modification, which can only be endured and not controlled either. Once modified,
it is difficult to turn back to an earlier form.
Furthermore, martyrdom is not a self-chosen affair for Stella. She has been
thrown in a life with mutations, but at the same time, she is also the chosen one to
make an escape:
Suddenly, someone was pulling on her arm, tugging her out from between the
seats and into the space between the top of the seats and the roof of the bus,
now a kind of hallway with windows on the floor. It was Will. He crouched
and peered at her like a frazzle-haired monkey, his face smeared with blood.
“We can go now,” he said.
“Where?” Stella asked.
“It’s people coming for us. Humans. They want to rescue us. But we can
leave.” (Bear 373)
This escape relates to her chance survival, because she miraculously endured all the
mutations during her development. The success of her and Will fleeing the scene
directly reflects on the probability of genes having success. The genetic lottery allots
certain advantages or disadvantages to individuals by conception, but it is dependent
on fate and circumstance whether these traits will become expressed. Similarly, Stella
20
A witness is, according to Saint Aquinas, “borne to the faith of Christ, according to Acts
1:8, ‘You shall be witnesses unto Me,’ etc. and Maximus says in a sermon: ‘The mother of
martyrs is the Catholic faith which those glorious warriors have sealed with their blood’”
(3123).
Coffeng 40
is genetically chosen, but also depends on fate for her survival. The fate aspect may
relate to religion, as in the symbol of the martyr, but it also relates to science fiction.
Science fiction, being all about escaping the current world and engaging in the
supernatural (Freedman 21), uses fate as an excuse to propel a plot forward. This
scene is a trope for the grander escapism present in the genre as a whole.
Conclusion: Darwin’s Children and consequences of genetic manipulation
This chapter on Darwin’s Children has considered in what way genetic engineering is
negatively constructed. The novel employs a multiplicity of voices, most notably the
news and a strongly diegetic narrative style. Fiction, news reports and scientific texts
require imagination, but the way subjects are imagined is entirely different. News and
fiction have a problematic relation, because while news attempts to reproduce a
situation faithfully, it is always an approximation of reality. Secondly, the news has a
bearing on how science is performed, influencing investigational angles and preempting results. The most illustrative example is the John Losey experiment, which
confirmed the negative image genetic engineering held in the media at the time. In a
similar way, Darwin’s Children features a sidelined scientist Dr Kaye Lang. She is
essential for research, but social factors have led to a temporary exclusion.
Even though the narrative voices may be differently constructed, they are all
aiming to sketch a fearful picture of genetic engineering. In the reports, a narrow
perspective is given that usually does not accurately mix the social and scientific. This
adds to the fear discourse, which grows on incognizance. The main fear is however
expressed in the character of Stella Nova, who can both be pacifying as well as
unpredictable. The mutated Stella may show signs of cooperation, but her creation
from a virus and her demeanour inscribes her in a negative religious light. The virus is
likened towards human behaviour in general, while her countenance is a bit devilish.
She speaks in double-tongues and is considered a martyr. All in all, the novel does not
particularly end on a hopeful note. Mainly, the martyr metaphor negatively assesses
Stella’s and – to a lesser extent – Kaye Lang’s relation towards mutation. Martyrs
may be honourable; they do foreshadow unbearable suffering and untimely deaths.
Coffeng 41
Conclusion on science and fiction in Bear’s Darwin’s series
This thesis has focused on Greg Bear’s Darwin’s series in relation to how fiction
comments on scientific discovery and its perils. Science, while propagated to have
empirical rigour and objectivity, is nevertheless much influenced by non-scientific
(i.e. social) factors. While these factors are not discussed in the novel form, the
fictional format indirectly reflects on how research is performed. Bear’s fiction is
quite explicit when showing the links between the process of discovery and the social
world. This is due to the fictional form, in which characters and plot are regarded as
equally important as factualized events. The narrative combines different discourse
practices, like metaphorical language, and constructed news or scientific reports.
Unlike the conception of natural science as an activity in a hypoallergenic laboratory,
Bear’s fiction may indicate that discovering more about nature cannot be separated
from culture.
The first way in which fiction and science share common ground is in the area
of metaphor. Metaphors are a complex phenomenon: they compare two matters and
find a common ground between them. This is the short story, but in reality metaphors
such as these, termed structural or analogical, can be divided into three interpretative
layers. Metaphors can be taken to be literary devices that complicate the relation
between two matters (Friedman 754; McLaughlin 80-3). For instance, the metaphors
surrounding the virus in Greg Bear may implicate parasitical, non-altruistic,
deteriorating life forms (Alberts 221). Instead, the
SHEVA
virus is more ambivalent,
capable of change that may not either be seen as strictly benevolent or malevolent
(Idema 169). Secondly, metaphors are not considered to be riddles in daily
conversation. They do not require a deliberate interpretative act, but work on a
subconscious level. For instance, an argument is likened towards war, because it can
be defended and attacked (Lakoff 4-6). This directs attitudes towards a particular
subject. Thirdly, metaphors aim to structure scientific exploration. The metaphors
surrounding DNA, which is taken as a decipherable code (Zylinska 128-9), have
greatly aided understanding and the drive for discovery.
The second way in which there is a relation between fiction and science is
how fiction can form a reflective mirror. Fiction can never be equated to science, but
it does offer reflection on its method. The first instalment, Darwin’s Radio, details the
discovery of a strange, dormant virus that has come alive. The story is told in a
potpourri of narrative styles, most notably thriller (Saricks 415) and soap opera
Coffeng 42
(Brown 3 ; Broderick 94, 97). This strategy is not purely ornamental, because each
style reflects upon an aspect of scientific discovery, when interpreted according to
Bruno Latour’s Laboratory Life (1979). First, the soap opera reinforces hierarchical
relations and reflect on the process of delegation in discovery. Second, the thriller
narrative does not only reinforce the enthusiasm involved in making a discovery, but
also exposes the myth making and the fantastical of a breakthrough. In the past, it
may have been more usual to mystify the unknown (Aldiss 36), but because scientists
have become reliant on numeric or otherwise falsifiable proof, subjectivity has
arguably been banned from the stage. Fiction is by contrast very subjective. Like
discoveries performed in the past, Radio includes the metaphysical. Further, the novel
confirms hierarchical relations existing in scientific research and reflects upon the
value of data.
The third way in which Bear’s fiction enmeshes itself in science is in the
different voices. Science seems to be composed of a singular, trustworthy voice. On
the surface level, scientific reports are indeed stern and exacting. But what is
disregarded is that behind the scenes, science operates in the same world and cannot
be held separate in a sterile container. Events that are happening in the world, such as
bad news surrounding a new genetic development (Losey 214-5), may lead to a
different investigational angle. Also, the method of science and fiction can both be
said to derive from imagination, according to Feynman (127-8). Science imagines that
what can be seen and tries to explain them, while fiction imagines that which cannot
be seen in order to paint an imagined reality. The imaginings intrude however on the
scientific domain when discourses like the news (Altheide 26, 82) and symbolization
are considered. Darwin’s Children features the results of drastic genetic engineering
and mainly paints the virus as a frightening, unreliable entity. One of the children,
Stella, exhibits both “viral”/“parasitical” behaviour, but she can also be likened to a
new, more cooperative and peaceful form of humanity (Margulis 22). Her description
seems to lean on the negative, because she is clouded in negative Biblical symbolism
and ambivalent behaviour. She might be altruistic amongst her kind, but within the
group, there is disquietude.
Summing up, it can be stated from this investigation into Greg Bear’s
Darwin’s series that the relation between science fiction and science is an intricate
one. Bear’s fiction cannot escape from genetic metaphors, but frequently uses them in
a hyperbolic manner. Even though dramatization is a key feature that separates fiction
Coffeng 43
from science, the narrative is not deprived of reflections on science itself. Also, the
second instalment Darwin’s Children, does not only reflect on science as a construct,
but also considers factors outside science impinging on the field. Future research on
how fiction comments on science can focus on authors as Amitav Ghosh, who wrote
The Calcutta Chromosome (1995). According to Seo-Young Chu (112), this novel is
in line with the themes of Bear, but Ghosh complicates the story further by loosely
basing narrative facts on a Nobel-prize winner, Sir Ronald Ross.
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