Canopus and its colonized planet Rohanda/Shikasta. Lessing’s insightful portraiture of colonial oppression in The Grass Is Singing and her subtle delineation of the fractured psychology of the subject Anna in The Golden Notebook are replaced in Shikasta, allegedly, by the disjointed rendering of an alien cosmic colonial culture and an alien galactic messenger. As well, say many critics, the effective kaleidoscopic narrative structure in many of Lessing’s earlier works now gives way to a confusing fragmented narrative. What they fail to see is what Lessing achieves with her drastic shift in vision—away from “psychological reality” and fierce anti-colonialism toward a sort of cosmic eclecticism that surpasses any political dichotomy. In Shikasta, Lessing portrays a new Deleuzian world where cosmic evolution, enacted by a cosmic colonial system, with
“virtual” possibilities for the cosmic force, surpasses the “normal” world of political domination. What changes drastically in Lessing is not so much her style as her comprehensive vision, a virtual utopian chaosmic vision.
Subjectivity, time, and space—these issues haunt Lessing throughout her life, driving her vision of the world. The theme of subjugation, both colonial and
psychological, helps determine the cartography of her earlier novels. Her masterpiece,
The Golden Notebook, explores the fragmentation of subjectivity, the unreliability of
memory, and the dilemma of colonialism as well as the relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm—between the individual and the milieu. Exploration of these themes in other of her earlier novels, such as The Four-Gated City, Briefing for aDescent into Hell, and The Memoirs of a Survivor, also results in crystallization of spatial
images as the framework for portraying psychological, political, and historical dilemmas.What plagues her is dichotomy—between the individual and the outside world, between
184
the subject and the society, between the colonized and the colonizer. In her later novels, her space fiction, beginning with Shikasta, she overcomes such dichotomies by dissolving them, through the forces of Deleuzian imperceptibility (indiscernibility) and symbiotic evolution in a virtual chaomos. In this fictional cosmos, various beings and other elements of the whole cosmos interact, not as discrete identities or separate elements vying for domination, but as indiscernible forces in symbiosis generating chaosmic evolution and universal wellbeing.
Lessing’s dual vision in Shikasta paradoxically incorporates both the close, partial view of Earth, embedded in the contemporary socio-political milieu of individualism, and the long view of Earth, producing a reconceived cosmos “where the petty fates of planets, let alone individuals, are only aspects of cosmic evolution” (Shikasta 2). Like the
paradoxical rebirth of the Phoenix in the ashes of its own death by fire, Lessing’s utopian chaosmic process, in defiance of conventional time and space, surpasses discrete
identities, boundaries, and dichotomies. How? Not by selecting one over the other, but by depicting the organic interplay of dichotomous elements and forces such as the individual and his and her society or the colonized and the colonizer. Ironically and profoundly, in
Shikasta the colonizing planet Canopus, working mainly through its galactic messenger
Johor, enforces its cosmic Master Plan on its colonized planet and, as well, does not prevent Johor from empathizing with Shikastans and diverging from his intended role. He strays further than merely retrieving Shikastans’ personal memories of catastrophe.Johor’s multiple identities complicate the entwined colonial relationship between Canopus and Shikasta by enabling him to intervene into the cosmic memory, revise it, and revise the cosmic Master Plan. He further revises the pre-established plan by guiding the Survivors in reconceiving and rebuilding the cities intuitively, achieving
connectedness of all beings and forces with the cosmic forces Substance-of We-Feeling
185
and Lock, so that all become “We” as mutual participants in the symbiotic chaosmos of cosmic evolution. Indeed, Lessing’s vision embraces dichotomous roadblocks by conjoining both outdated transcendental, ideal, utopian cosmology and the more immanent, dynamic, symbiotic, cosmic evolution, in which the cosmos is “subject to sudden reversals, upheavals, changes, cataclysms, with joy never anything but the song of substance under pressure forced into new forms and shapes” (Shikasta 4).
Lessing’s allegory of Earth is an ugly, hopeful, beautiful, fragmented tapestry of oxymoronic imperceptibility and complexity. Dichotomous beings and forces pass into each other in an unceasing process of becoming. The symbiotic whole is never complete, for completeness would indicate assumption of a discrete identity, a Deleuzian
impossibility. Deleuze’s theory of the virtual, including his concepts of individuation, becoming, percept, affect, chaosmos, and impersonal memory, is essential in decoding
Shikasta. An example is Johor’s multi-oscillations: between his actualization, his
incarnation, on Shikasta as George Sherban and his virtualization as Johor the Canopean galactic messenger; between the ancient, geometric cities, which follow the
pre-established colonial cosmic Master Plan, and the post-catastrophic expanding cities, which co-evolve with the mutating, divergent Survivors; and between Johor’s actual present memory and the virtual cosmic memory.
Johor’s travels between utopian Canopus and dystopian Shikasta enable his dual vision. Not only does he adhere to and precede and revise the cosmic plan for the functioning of the Canopean Empire. He also perceives the dynamic movement of the virtual chaosmos. In Lessing’s juxtaposition of the ancient geometric cities and the post-catastrophic evolving cities on Shikasta, the old cities are actualized in their precise fulfilling of the cosmic colonial Master Plan whereas the post-catastrophic cities are virtualizing themselves via their indiscernible relationship with the Survivors and the
186
cosmic force Substance-of-We-Feeling. With such juxtapositions and resultant
interactions, space, time, and boundaries dissolve, a new assemblage, “We,” is born, a virtual chaosmos emerges, and utopian cosmic evolution intensifies. Likewise, Lessing’s creation and conjoining of two contradictory narratives regarding memory—detailed, psychological memory and impersonal, macroscopic memory—lead to Johor’s exploration and transformation of impersonal memory, thus symbiotically revising cosmic evolution.
In this Deleuzian cosmos of multiplicity and imperceptibility, nothing remains separate or static. Everything becomes connected and dynamic. Canopus’ galactic messengers, archival cosmic memory, and access to the cosmic force, plus Shikasta’s Survivors and cities in need of rebuilding—they pass into one another in a virtual cosmic dance, and their virtual symbiosis, each becoming the other, all together
becoming-evolution, generates the virtual chaosmos of cosmic evolution.
In Chapter One, I explain how Johor simultaneously follows the Canopean cosmic Master Plan, diverges from it, revises it as a partner in cosmic evolution, and thus both follows and precedes the species. Oscillation occurs between virtual cosmic evolution and the actual Master Plan as well as among Johor’s multiple identities, which enable the paradoxical relationship between the individual and the empire. Deleuze’s theory of individuation informs my explanation of Johor’s contribution to the chaosmos of cosmic evolution. In Chapter Two, I explore Lessing’s juxtaposition of the ancient cities and the future post-catastrophic cities, of old static colonial design and of new intuitive
evolutionary design. Her dual vision makes possible virtual symbiosis of the two forces, not in spite of, but because the link to the cosmic force is always interrupted by
conditioning of colonial, geopolitical “realities.” The two forces form an indiscernible relationship, just as, in post-catastrophic Shikasta, the Survivors form an indiscernible
187
relationship with the cities, thereby establishing connectedness with SOWF, dissolving boundaries, and forming a new virtual “We.” Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of percept, affect, and chaosmos help explain the imperceptible relationships formed. In Chapter Three I examine Lessing’s creation and conjoining of two contradictory narratives regarding memory: personal, psychological memory and impersonal, macroscopic memory. Johor, aided by the ape, the Giants, and Lock, explores both domains of memory and revises the impersonal cosmic memory, thus symbiotically revising cosmic evolution. Deleuze’s appropriation of the Bergsonian concept of memory aids in
decoding Johor’s complex interaction with and employment of both domains in forwarding his cosmic purpose.
In Lessing’s earlier novels, revolution takes place only on the microscopic level of the individual, in the development of a character’s psyche, while in her later novels, evolution occurs on the macroscopic level of the whole cosmos. Lessing creates a “new world” envisioning a virtual chaosmos of utopian cosmic evolution that embodies, at once, both actual states of dichotomy—such as the colonizer and the colonized, the individual and the milieu, personal memory and impersonal memory—and,
simultaneously, the virtual coexistence of “opposing” elements in mutually beneficial symbiosis. By recognizing and embracing the virtual, we incorporate and transform the actual. Boundaries are illusions. Deleuze/Bergson says, “If things are said to endure, it is less in themselves or absolutely than in relation to the whole of the universe in which they participate insofar as their distinctions are artificial (Bergsonism 77).
Deleuze’s philosophy—especially the idea of the virtual—reveals that dichotomies between the individual and the species, between the individual and the milieu, between personal memory and cosmic memory, are mere artifices, coexisting virtually, as they do, in the cosmos. Different beings coexisting virtually—they manifest differences in kind
188
that are related to duration. As Deleuze/Bergson posits in Bergsonism, “The thing differs in kind from all others and from itself (alteration)” (31). When a thing is manifested in space, it “differs in degree from other things and from itself (augmentation, diminution)”
(31).
Bergson employs the relationship between a lump of sugar and water to illustrate how the dissolving of sugar helps us “recognize the existence of other durations, above or below us” (33). Bergson calls this kind of virtual coexistence of different beings
“duration.” If we approach the sugar from its “spatial configuration” (31), then we cannot help but fall into the trap of differences in degree “between that sugar and any other being”
(31). But, when we approach the sugar in terms of duration, we see from its dissolving process its alteration and the significance of Bergson's famous formulation: “I must wait until the sugar dissolves (32). The whole duration of the sugar’s dissolving in water includes different durations of different beings, such as my duration, the spoon’s, and the temperature’s. According to Deleuze/Bergson, “It signifies that my own duration, such as I live it in the impatience of waiting, for example, serves to reveal other durations that beat to other rhythms, that differ in kind from mine” (32).
Recognizing the distinction between differences in degree and differences in kind is the first point of departure. The second is the leap into the cosmic memory to see the virtual coexistence of different degrees of contraction and relaxation. With awareness of the virtual coexistence of different beings and duration, reinterpretation of Shikasta gains deeper meaning. The dichotomies—between the individual and species, the colonizer and the colonized, the individual and the milieu, actual, personal memory and impersonal memory—are actualized poles, differences in degree, that differ from other beings in degree. Since they are confined and revealed by their spatial configuration, they can be measured and gauged with only quantitative, homogenous tools. Such is why different