{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6596", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 6596, "subject": "Short Story 80: The Adopted Father", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2014-08-03T16:34:29+00:00", "last": "2014-08-03T16:34:29+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-03T16:34:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 80: The Adopted Father", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "“The Adopted Father” first appeared in *Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction\nMagazine* in 1980.\n\nSUMMARY:\n\nIn a system where human beings have been replaced with a highly mechanized\nand automated work force and the preferred method of contemporary\nconstruction implies the cheapest possible materials, John Parker is\ncertain there is something amiss and that his three children are not really\nhis. He complains at the hospital to an automated screen nurse when she\nsays that no other records of his children, Robert, Marian, and Tina exist\nbeyond the ones he already has. According to his recollections, he paid\nfor their deliveries, but the nurse assures him the births of the children\nwere financed by the North American Division of World Assurance. There\nare no humans working at the hospital.\n\nHe returns to his untidy building, which is entirely modern in its cheap\nmediocrity. He recalls that the elevator had randomly stopped on the 67th\nfloor a few days before and he had gone to an apartment that he mistook for\nhis own save for the graffiti on the door. Today he returns to his own\nfloor, “liberally besprinkled with short words, though most of the boys in\nthis part of the building were supposed to be afraid of Robert.” He sits\ndown to draw another park after thinking of how fair, tall and blond haired\nRobert and Tina are, and how little they resemble his wife Roseanne and\nhimself. The other child, Marian, is small and dark, and what concerns\nParker most is that “none of them thought the way he did, they all thought\nhe was eccentric or worse, and that mattered a great deal.”\n\nHis son Robert boasts and then fails to find a way through a maze his\nfather designed in his plans and gives up, even though Parker gave him the\nnecessary clue.\n\nJohn then goes to an adoption agency and asks rather oddly to be adopted by\na group of children in need. He says, “So much can be done with our minds\nnow — Implanted learning and so on. It should be possible to erase whole\nareas of experience. After it was over, the man could forget it wasn’t his\nown family” didn’t they think of that long ago? The attendant pushes a\nbutton and he leaves, but no one tries to stop him.\n\nHe returns to the 67th floor and, after knocking, decides to kick it down. He\nsees signs of someone living in the living room, though it is very cold, and\ndetermines from examining the food remaining that a child must be living\nthere — after all, only ham and lima beans, liver and onions, and smoked\ntongue are left in the cabinets. He finds a dead woman in the bedroom. He\ndoes see an empty pill bottle and he hides it, probably to conceal the\nsuicide.\n\nHe finds a boy named Mitch as small and dark as his daughter Marian who\nreveals he didn’t want to leave after his mother died in the hopes of\nfinding his father. He tells the boy that his mother died of a heart attack\nand comforts him with “whatever it was that hurt her can’t hurt her anymore.\nDid you ever play some game when you knew the other kid was going to beat\nyou” — Then remember how when he does beat you, the game is over and you\ncan go away.\n\nHere Parker says that what really makes a father-child relationship\ninvolves them being “more or less like you”. He sees a final notice of\nunpaid rent and modifies one of his own checks by altering it and putting\nhis son’s name on it to delay the automated services. He complains of\nhumanity’s lack of imagination in repeating the same methods of antiquity,\nand says that he and Mitch need to stop looking seriously for their kids\nand dad, respectively, and that they must simply have fun.\n\nWhen they are leaving together, he is accosted by a small gang of three\nyoung men, and John pretends to have a gamma ray pistol in his pocket,\nquite absurdly. They let him go and John asserts that maybe crazy people\nwin in the end, and he uses his match box as a faux Star Trek communicator\nto say, “We’re in trouble down here — but don’t beam us up quite yet”\nbefore hailing a cab.\n\nDISCUSSION:\n\nMany of Wolfe’s dystopian futures with a slightly critical slant are of\nnecessity easier to analyze than his meditations on identity. The solution\nfor living in a world so abysmally ordered for Parker is “the principle of\nplay” — he criticizes the coal fuels used simple because they has always\nbeen used as the tried and true energy source, when people “could have\nconquered the solar system and harnessed the sun.” Without an imagination\nto seek fantastic and unlikely solutions, the world is doomed to this bleak\nmediocrity.\n\n In a way, the story is a metaphor for many of the things that science\nfiction in general and Wolfe in particular seek to do — escape rigid and\nmundane reality to find a higher, better existence. It even shows how\nfantasy can protect us from reality — he hides evidence that the mother of\nMitch might have killed herself, saying it was a heart attack, and later\nuses crazy science fictional behavior to avoid a beating.\n\nWhile John Parker has been looking for someone who resembles him more than\nhis disparate children, he comes to the final conclusion that little\nbarriers like reality and actual kinship don’t matter. The arrogant but\nuncreative implied bullying of Robert is no doubt one of his biggest\nindications that his children are nothing like him. While he is excited\nabout certain things, others treat them as every day repetitions: “This is\nthe big day. This is the day I’m going to do the park”. His wife’s\nresponse is, “Another park?”\n\nAs an escape from the maze of the modern world, Parker eventually realizes,\n“looking seriously only finds little things — we need to have fun — Be\ncrazy. Nobody bothers crazy people.”\n\nParker’s interactions with the automated nurse culminate in the fear of\nmany dystopian visions:\n\n“Is there some way I can talk to a human being?”\n\n?Not in my hospital, Mr. Parker. Not in any modern hospital.\n\nWith a hundred million on unemployment, most human tasks are left undone,\nand only highly centralized groups like the police still operate. How can\na human being enjoy life in that kind of reality, when even his home life\nis probably an artificial sham?\n\nThe dualistic beliefs of Wolfe once again inform the ending and the\nsolution — the game is over for Mitch’s mother; it was time for her to walk\naway from a game everyone loses, and Parker’s refusal to accept reality as\nit is given to him, even using fantasy to get himself out of a potentially\ndisastrous situation, involves a belief in something behind the curtain of\nreality — his final *Star Trek* inspired plea also echoes the humorous plea\nof St. Augustus: “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.” While\nhe knows that the world is in trouble, he begs not to leave it just yet, as\nhe is now ready to laugh at reality and enjoy playing the game, even\nknowing that he will lose. Finding the boy who needs him gives his life\nmore meaning.\n\nTERRAFORMING:\n\nParker’s comments on terraforming are interesting to consider in light of\nsome of Wolfe’s other science fiction, such as “Tracking Song”: “It would\nbe perfectly possible to make Mars a world much like Earth. A cloud of\nfinely powdered aluminum behind it would reflect back enough heat to raise\nthe night temperature. Bringing down Deimos and Phobos and a little of the\nasteroid belt would increase the planet’s mass enough to let it hold an\natmosphere, which you can make by breaking down the stony matter in the\nasteroids and moons. Pretty soon you’d turn the red planet green.”\n\nNAMES:\n\nThe names of the couple, John and Roseanne (it is probable her maiden name\nis Roberts), seem but a few phonemes away from Gene and Rosemary, but we\nwill simply assume this is a coincidence, even though John is something of\na planner, which is perhaps not too distant from engineering, and escapes\nby creating a fun fantasy world for his new ward, something which is\nprobably not too philosophically removed from writing fantastic stories\nthat belie the mundane in the world.\n\nJohn implies God is gracious, and Parker, of course, implies keeper of the\npark. John designs parks that should serve to amuse and entertain children,\nbut they are never going to become “real” parks. He finds someone who can\nenjoy the mental amusement park and the escape from reality he creates. The\npark is within his mind.\n\nRoseanne implies grace and favor, Roberts renown or fame. (Note that she\nfeels her husband must be important, so sends his plans to the mayor and\nprompts him to do so as well).\n\nMitch can mean “gift from God” or “Who is like God?”\n\nMarian implies “bitter” or “from the sea”.\n\nAMBIGUITIES:\n\nWhile some may think that Parker checking the deceased mother’s body for\nblood and marks on the neck might at least hint at vampirism, the\ncompletely science fictional exploration here probably negates that\npossibility — he is looking for signs of beatings, and strangulation, as\nthe gangs who frequent the lobbies employ chains, tire irons, and other\nprimitive weapons, perhaps more reminiscent of the gangs depicted in the\nfilm version of *A Clockwork Orange*, for example, than a modern inner city\ngang. He concludes she probably died of a heart attack — or at least,\npretends to. The empty pill bottle probably indicates a suicide,\nintentional or otherwise, and the heart attack a white lie he tells the\nboy, a fantasy to protect him from reality.\n\nJohn Parker’s willingness to use his “son” Robert’s name on the fraudulent\ncheck is fascinating, though certainly it probably won’t result in much\ntrouble for Robert.\n\nUltimately it doesn’t matter if the children are genetically his, even\nthough they probably aren’t. He is looking for someone who will appreciate\nhis fantasies, so that these children can adopt him as their father —\nperhaps in much the same way a writer of fiction preoccupied with the\nloneliness of children understands that fantastic tales and stories\nexperienced in youth can create a surrogate kind of fabulous paternity as\nwell.\n\nCONNECTION TO OTHER WORKS:\n\nThe highly automated future harks back to the work of the early 70s —\n“Going to the Beach”, “Slaves of Silver”, and perhaps thematically with\n“Mathoms from the Time Closet”, though the tone of “The Adopted Father” is\ndistinct. *Home Fires*, with its implanted personalities, memories, and\npersonality manipulation, is a direct but more tragic outgrowth of this\nstory." } ] } ] }