FOUNDATION TRILOGY – Isaac Asimov (1951-’53)

For about a decade I didn’t read any fiction. About 14 years ago a friend recommended me Anathem by Neil Stephenson, and I’ve been back at reading fiction since. Some Culture novels by Banks followed, and I became enamored with science fiction as genre. So I dove into its canon, and the Foundation series became the first thing I read after I gobbled up Iain M. Banks. It became one of my favorite series, even liking book 4 and 5 from 1982 and ’86 most – back then because of their scientific-mystical all-is-one slant.

I read some more of Isaac Asimov too: I, Robot (1950), Caves of Steel (1954), The End of Eternity (1955), The Gods Themselves (1972), and the godawful Foundation prequels – Prelude to Foundation (1988) and Forward the Foundation (1993).

And now, after my rereads of the entire Dune series, and Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun, the time felt right to reread and review Foundation, Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation. At first I wanted to do one book at a time, but when I finished Foundation, it was obvious that these books are better reviewed as a whole, as they are a sole collection of short stories and novellas first published in Astounding Science-Fiction, from 1942 to 1950, under the auspices of editor John W. Campbell. Only the very first chapter, “The Psychohistorians”, was written for the publication of the first book itself.

I read the splendid Everyman’s Library edition – a hardback with an excellent 15-page introduction by Michael Dirda that’s isn’t expensive nonetheless. That introduction guided my reading a bit, and I’ll get back to it a few times.

First, a warning: I’ll have to let down recurring readers expecting a long analysis like those of the Dune books or The Book of the New Sun. This post won’t be 5,000 or 10,000 words – only 2,300. I simply don’t have that much to add to all that has been written on this seminal work, considered a “watershed” in literary history by many. Dirda quotes SF editor Donald Wollheim: “Stories published before Foundation belong to the old line, the stories published published after belong to ‘modern’ science fiction.”

Before my actual reread, I thought this post might turn into a big examination about how Asimov deals with free will in the books, not dissimilar to my post on LOTR. It turns out that there just isn’t that much to discuss, but I’ll spend a few paragraphs on it nonetheless, as it is the crux of the series.

Did I think this trilogy has become way outdated, and did I enjoy my reread? To answer that and more, let’s get back to Dirda – three times.

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For starters, that remark about Foundation being a watershed. I’m simply in no position to validate that claim. I haven’t read that much SF from the 1940s or before. But it seems plausible that Asimov really was the first to tell a story about a galactic empire, nearly 50,000 years into the future. Stapledon’s Last and First Men from 1930 obviously spans much more time, but that’s more a philosophical work, not something packed with plot & intrigue. If I consider most stuff I read from the 1950s, there’s indeed a certain scope missing compared to Asimov’s story – a story that’s give or take a decade older.

It’s kind of ironic that Asimov took The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire written by Edward Gibbon in the late 18th century as a blueprint for his political structure. A clever move, as the effect is a certain recognizable realism, even if planet Earth isn’t remembered anymore in this future history.

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The second thing I’d like to highlight from Michael Dirda’s introduction has to do with free will and determinism.

In particular, the series explores the place of individual initiative: How free are we in our actions? Does one person make a difference? If so, how much and in what way? Like any good writer, Asimov never gives simple answer. Even the noble Seldon Plan itself is made problematic, for there are hints that the envisioned Second Empire might turn out to be as nightmarish as Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

I think Dirda’s questions are misguided, confusing individual actions and individuals making choices with freedom – as is done so often in the debates surrounding free will, and possibly something Asimov himself was confused by as well. Either way, it is very clear Asimov has written a book about a deterministic universe, and that deterministic universe is clearly the basic idea underlying Hari Seldon’s ‘psychohistory’ as well – indeed, the foundation of the series. I collected all the relevant quotes during my reading, but I’ll use just a few to make my point.

I’ll start with a quote from Second Foundation, that basically lays down a reductionist view of reality:

Psychohistory had been the development of mental science, the mathematicization thereof, rather, which had finally succeeded. Through the development of the mathematics necessary to understand the facts of neural physiology and the electro-chemistry of the nervous system, which themselves had to be, had to be, traced down to nuclear forces, it first became possible to truly develop psychology. And through the generalization of psychological knowledge from the individual to the group, sociology was also mathematicized.

Whether or not Asimov believed pyschohistory would be ever really possible is beside the point – in his writing here it seems that he did believe in the general underlying principle, which is something else than its feasibility.

There are lots of quotes wherein characters are clearly described as determined.

Bail Channis was young, and Bail Channis was Unconverted. That is, in plainer language, his emotional makeup had been unadjusted by the Mule. It remained exactly as it had been formed by the original shape of its heredity and the subsequent modifications of his environment.

or

[they] excused themselves delicately by declaring that they had merely followed the dictates of their judgement and their conscience

It is of note that also the Mule, the character that symbolizes the wild, unpredictable factor, is determined. It’s important to recognize that unpredictability operates on another level (the epistemic) than determinism (the ontological level), and as such you can’t reduce them to each other. That’s also the reason chaos theory and quantum effects aren’t solid arguments by themselves against determinism.

Anyhow, back to the Mule. It is explicitly stated that he is determined by his glands (his meagerness), his genes (having mental powers, being sterile) and his social surroundings (being an outcast), and so the Mule as well is played by his own emotions. All this is recognized both by the people of the Second Foundation, as by the Mule himself.

“Your emotions are, of course,” said the First Speaker, “only the children of your background and are not to be condemned – merely changed. (…)”

&

“I have no sorrow for what I did in my necessity. (…)”

Some characters do grapple with all these confusing notions however, and Asimov has characters stress multiple times that psychohistory doesn’t work on the individual level.

“You mean that this art of his predicts that I would attack the Foundation and lose such and such a battle for such and such a reason? You are trying to say that I am a silly robot following a predetermined course into destruction.” “No,” replied the old patrician, sharply. “I have already said that the science had nothing to do with individual actions. It is the vaster background that has been foreseen.” [Bell Riose]

&

“But they have their weakness. Their work is statistical and only the mass action of humanity is truly inevitable. Now how I play a part, as an individual, in the foreseen course of history, I don’t know. Perhaps I have no definite part, since the Plan leaves individuals to indeterminancy and freewill. But I am important and they – they, you understand – may at least have calculated my probable reaction. So I distrust my impulses, my desires, my probable reactions.” [Dr. Toran Darell in conversation with Pelleas Anthor]

I think it is important to distinguish between what the science of psychohistory can’t do – predict the future on an individual level because of enormous biological & social complexity – and between claiming that, because their actions can’t be predicted on the individual level, individuals have free will and are not determined. (Again: there is a difference between epistemology and ontology.)

Time and time again in the novels, Asimov describes characters (and planets & cultures) that are clearly determined. Fully in line with the basic idea of the first quote in this section, not once is there a character doing something in full, undetermined freedom, not in the slightest.

It is not because some characters claim they have free will – which by the way is a very realistic thing to portray as a writer, given this powerful idea of free will that most humans experience – that the books advocate humans having it. And so, when in the final pages of the final book, Jole Turbor, one of the conspirators, thinks “Galaxy! When can a man know he is not a puppet? How can a man know he is not a puppet?”, Asimov makes it the central question of the book, even though he doesn’t answer it directly.

The text however, doesn’t leave a lot of room for interpretation: it shows that humans – like everything else above the quantum level – are determined by causal chains that are for a very, very large part beyond their own control. People in chains are not free.

The question whether an individual can have an impact on society – of course they can, just look at the Mule, or, even better, Hari Seldon himself – is simply not relevant to the question of determinism: some individuals  – determined by nature and nurture – do indeed impact society at large.

It’s ironic that the trilogy’s larger story arc was improvised. Asimov didn’t have any idea what the Second Foundation would be or do when he put it in as some kind of back-up at the very beginning, and the character of the Mule was inserted because of advice Campbell had given, to break the pattern of Seldon’s predictable happy endings to each successive crisis. One could say the overall story wasn’t predetermined by Asimov, true, but that would not be an argument pro free will or contra determinism, it is just a matter of timing, and at best an argument pro the complexity of human creativity.

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A final thing from Dirda was his remark about Sherlock Holmes. “Hari Seldon is virtually an avatar of an all-knowing Sherlock Holmes”. Dirda continues by writing “Each individual story’s protagonist is also a kind of detective, faced with a mystery or complicated problem” and “The astute reader soon realizes that almost nobody in the series is quite what he or she appears to be, and that everyone is either playing a port or being unconsciously manipulated.”

These three sentences guided my rereading experience, because they turned out to be very true indeed. It is also what provides the basic joy of these books, aside from the awe evoked by things like the planet Trantor in the first chapter or the fictional mathematics in the third book.

The Foundation trilogy basically is about smart people outsmarting other smart people, and that scratches a particular itch, at least for this very reader. And so, yes, when Dirda writes that it’s “essentially an ideas-based conversation novel”, he is right again, and basically talking about that same itch. It’s also what draws a decent chunk of science fiction fandom to SF: aside the adventures & awe, it’s a genre of ideas first and foremost.

There’s no denying these novels have some weaknesses: because of the serial origin story, they are a tad too repetitive, and Asimov should have edited those instances out. And, yes, indeed, there aren’t that many female characters. But it also needs pointing out Bayta Darrell is a strong character and a heroine, and Arkady Darrell plays a prominent, independent role – even if she turns out to be determined too, like everybody else.

I have read complaints about the prose, but I do think it does the job just fine. I’ve have read much, much worse. The same goes for characterization: indeed, the novel is primarily about ideas, not people, and so this criticism seems a bit of the mark. It might not be to everybody’s taste, sure, but it’s a bit like complaining a margarita pizza doesn’t have a lot of ingredients. To Asimov’s defense, I think that both Hari Seldon and the Mule are towering, larger than life, original and compelling characters – there aren’t that many characters in fiction I remembered so vividly 10 years down the line. The Mule is an icon. Also on the character front, I have read much, much worse – in titles published much, much more recently.

Specifically for my reread, I have to admit the mystery of both the Mule and the location of the Second Foundation were a whole lot less compelling, but I had forgotten the specific details, and those were still puzzling, and Asimov’s plotting intricate enough to keep my mind occupied.

So by all means, it is not a perfect read. But there’s mystery and the exotic, lots of twists, and solid detective-ish parts. Asimov also keeps things varied, e.g. by making a failure – general Bel Riose – one of the central characters in the middle book, as opposed to the infallible Salvor Hardin before.

And maybe most important, Asimov’s basic idea remains fundamental to human existence. As such, the trilogy confirms a suspicion that I have long held: what underlies big parts of literature is the way we relate to us being determined.

Is it a coincidence that 3 of speculative fiction most central texts – this trilogy, The Lord of the Rings and Dune – can be easily read in that light? I don’t think so. More so, as I have tried to argue in their reviews, these books first and foremost show that human beings are indeed “formed by the original shape of its heredity and the subsequent modifications of his environment”.

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Someday I will reread Foundation’s Edge (1982) and Foundation and Earth (1986). Given Asimov’s spotty track record, I don’t expect a lot anymore from those. Will Asimov manage to impress me again with his mysticism, now that I’m more than a decade older? Could very well be, given my reaction to the Krasznahorkai I recently read. I also wonder if Asimov will have changed his outlook on determinism more than 30 years down the line.

As a final judgement: I don’t think I will ever reread this trilogy. In that respect it is different from Dune, a book I plan to reread at least one more time. And I won’t list the trilogy anymore among my favorite science fiction titles like I once did, but I did enjoy rereading it, and there is no denying it was and remains seminal in my own adventures exploring fiction.

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