602
MICHEL BUTOR
munication and very much like one another. The classical mythologies
united the common elements of these dreams into unique and publIc
myths.
Now let us imagine that a certain number of authors, instead of
describing at random and quite rapidly certain more or less inter–
changeable cities, were to take as the setting of their stories a single city,
named and situated with some precision in space and in future time;
that each author were to take into account the descriptions given by
the others in order to introduce his own new ideas. This city would
become a common possession to the same degree as an ancient city that
has vanished; gradually, all readers would give its name to the city of
their dreams and would model that city in its image.
SF,
if
it could limit and unify itself, would be capable of acquiriBg
over the individual imagination a constraining power comparable
to
that
of any classical mythology. Soon
all
authors would be obliged 'to take this
predicted city into account, readers would organize their actions in rela–
tion to its imminent existence, ultimate\y they would find themselves
obliged to build it. Then SF would be veracious, to the very degree that
it realized itself.
It is easy to see what a prodigious instrument of liberation or op–
pression it could become.
(Translated from the French
by
Richard Howard)
