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MICHEL BUTOR
pedagogical, social, etc. . . . This scientific guarantee may become in–
creasingly loose, but it nonetheless constitutes the definable specificity
of SF: a literature which explores the range of the possible, as science
permits us to envision it.
It
is,
then, a fantasy framed by a realism.
The work of Jules Verne is the best example of SF to the first
degree, which is justified by the results achieved and which uniquely
anticipates certain applications. Wells inaugurates a SF to the second
degree, much more audacious but much less convincing, which anticipates
the results themselves. He lets us assume behind Cavor's machine, which
will take the first men to the moon, an explanation of a scientific type,
one that conforms to a
possible
science which will develop from the
science of his time.
II
The SF tourist agencies offer their customers three main types of
spectacles which we can group under the following rubrics: life in the
future, unknown worlds, unexpected visitors.
1)
LIFE IN THE FUTURE
We start from the world as we know it, from the society which
surrounds us. We introduce a certain number of changes whose con–
sequences we attempt to foresee. By a projection into the future, we
open up the complexity of the present, we develop certain still larval
aspects. SF of this type is a remarkable instrument of investigation in
the tradition of Swift. It readily assumes a satiric aspect. We shall find
excellent examples in the works of Huxley
(Brave New World),
Orwell
(1984), Werfel
(Star of the Unborn),
Hesse
(Magister Ludi),
Brad–
bury, etc.
2)
UNKNOWN WORLDS
It suffices to mention the name Ray Bradbury, whose best-known
work is called
The Martian Chronicles,
to see that an altogether dif–
ferent element occurs here, almost of necessity.
Technological progress has for its goal not only the transformation
of our daily life, but also the satisfaction of our curiosity. The new
instruments, the new sciences must allow us to discover domains of reality
which are hidden from us today. Within the scientific representation of
the world, there are enormous districts which our imagination is free
to populate with strange beings and landscapes according to its whim,
