by John Crowley
The subjects had, from the first, inherent advantages unknown to the objects (who knew nothing). The subjects had the ability to apprehend, above all; they also had communication, organization, administration, a chain of command more or less complete, with weak links of course but weak links that were known about at least and therefore perhaps less damaging. They could conceive of orders, and give them. The objects had only extension, multiplicity, and a large number of simple qualities—hardness, softness, color, and so on—which they could put forth more or less continuously in the presence of subjects. The objects had the advantage of numbers, however; there were far, far more of them, and they cared nothing for casualties.
The subjects also had the advantage of being the only ones who understood that a war was being waged, though in the end it is clear that this was not solely an advantage but in certain critical moments actually counted as a disadvantage, even a disaster. Most of the major setbacks of the subjects came just at those moments when their own knowledge, and the obdurate ignorance of the objects, was most apparent to them (to the subjects; the objects knew nothing of it either way). In fact it can be said that any attack of the subjects on the objects could be considered identical to a counterattack of the objects on the subjects.
The original strategy of the objects, metaphorically speaking (objects having no strategies as such), was divide and conquer. What was divided, however, was not the enemy, the subjects, but the objects themselves, in a continuous raid upon the subjects’ powers of discrimination, a bewildering (for the subjects) and terrifying (for the subjects) proliferation that could only be opposed by an equally continuous generation of new categories by the enemy. Subjects caught unawares could find themselves suddenly surrounded by crowds of discrete and well-furnished objects, whose numbers quickly rose to virtual infinity as the trapped subject shifted its consciousness here to there in rising panic. Grains of sand, items of scenery, vegetation parts, incoming waves, stars, inches, geometrical figures, tools, all had to be instantly forced into the right categories or at least into categories perceived as correct by the battling subject, whose consciousness rapidly filled, reaching toxic levels that could result in sudden loss of apprehension, and therefore reduction to object status, at least temporarily: a state referred to (by the subjects) as “pawn capture.”
The objects’ strategy had an advantage and a disadvantage, from the objects’ point of view, a point of view which certainly did not exist. The advantage was that only the subjects could perceive the objects’ strategy, and therefore in every encounter between subjects and objects the subjects became immediately (even anteriorly) involved in carrying it out. The disadvantage was the same as the advantage: every perception of the objects by the subjects, which could have been counted as a victory by the objects if they could have counted, was also counted as a victory by the subjects; the more objects there were perceived to be, the more of them could be considered (by the subjects) to have been captured.
For a very long time now the victory has hung in the balance as the two sides march and countermarch. But wars of attrition (which is essentially what the subjects were engaged in) can only end in one way, if the courage and application of the side engaged in the attrition of the other remains high—and this is the one thing the subjects can be sure of, that they will never, in effect can never, surrender, cease, or even pause for a moment in reducing further objects to cognition.
The objects, of course, don’t see it that way. No relentless production of new categories by the subjects can effectually reduce their numbers. The subjects may believe that very capacious categories—categories such as “all that stuff,” “things out there,” “this and everything like it,” “big things,” “matter,” and so on will eventually cause the objects to surrender willy-nilly (the only way in which they could surrender). But the objects do not, agree, in fact cannot. All that the objects can be said to know, or to behave as if they knew, which itself is a distinction that only the subjects can make—what the subjects in their dark watches and lonely trenches suspect that the objects really somehow do know in their unimaginable nonexistent hearts—is that the subjects’ categories are in fact only further objects. There is no end.
There is no end. Only the subjects understand this, as well as everything else that is understood. There will be, can be no final annihilation of the objects: that is the vow, the promise implicit in all the strategies and all the tactics of both sides. The war may go badly, has gone badly since the beginning for the objects on many fronts, but it will never be over: will not be over until the last subject finally closes its eyes in sleep or death, and knows no more.
Permissions
“Antiquities” copyright © 1977 by Stuart David Schiff. First published (in a slightly different version) in Whispers, edited by Stuart David Schiff, published by Doubleday. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.
“Her Bounty to the Dead” under the title “Where Spirits Gat Them Home” copyright © 1978 by Charles L. Grant. First published (in a slightly different version) in Shadows, edited by Charles L. Grant, published by Doubleday. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.
Excerpt from “Sunday Morning,” appearing in “Her Bounty to the Dead,” from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens, copyright 1954 by Wallace Stevens and renewed 1982 by Holly Stevens. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
“The Reason for the Visit” copyright © 1980 by John Crowley. First published (in a slightly different version) in Interfaces, edited by Ursula K. Le Guin and Virginia Kidd, published by Ace Books. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.
“The Green Child” copyright © 1981 by John Crowley. First published (in a slightly different version) in Elsewhere, edited by Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold, published by Ace Books. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.
“Novelty” copyright © 1983 by John Crowley. First published in Interzone, Autumn 1983. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.
“Snow” copyright © 1985 by Omni Publications International, Ltd. First published (in a slightly different version) in Omni, November 1985. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.
“The Nightingale Sings at Night,” “Great Work of Time,” and “In Blue,” copyright © 1989 by John Crowley. First published in Novelty: Four Stories by John Crowley, published by Foundation/Doubleday. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.
“Missolonghi 1824” copyright © 1990 by Davis Publications. First published (in a slightly different version) in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, March 1990, Vol. 14, No. 3. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.
“Exogamy” copyright © 1993 by John Crowley. First published (in a slightly different version) in Omni Best Science Fiction Three, edited by Ellen Datlow, published by Omni Books. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.
“Lost and Abandoned” copyright © 1997 by John Crowley. First published in Black Swan, White Raven, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, published by Avon Books. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.
“Gone” copyright © 1996 by Mercury Press, Inc. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1996. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.
“An Earthly Mother Sits and Sings” copyright © 2000 by John Crowley. First published in An Earthly Mother Sits and Sings (illustrated chapbook) by John Crowley, illustrated by Charles Vess, published by DreamHaven Books. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.
“The War Between the Objects and the Subjects” copyright © 2002 by John Crowley. First published in Embrace the Mutation, edited by
William Schafer and Bill Sheehan, published by Subterranean Press. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.
About the Author
JOHN CROWLEY lives in the hills above the Connecticut River in northern Massachusetts with his wife and twin daughters. He is the author of Dæmonomania; Love & Sleep; Ægypt; Little, Big; and, most recently, The Translator.
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Praise for the Work of John Crowley
The Translator
“Thrilling…. [Crowley] succeeds with what no prudent novel ought to attempt.”
—New York Times
Dæmonomania
“Haunting…gripping…astonishing.”
—Washington Post Book World
Love & Sleep
“A master of language, plot, and characterization, Crowley triumphs in this occult and hermetic tale, at once naturalistically persuasive and uncannily visionary.”
—Harold Bloom
Ægypt
“Ægypt is a must; it is a land of questions, more questions, and mysteries, because crafting mysteries is what John Crowley, an original moralist of the same giddy heights occupied by the likes of Thomas Mann and Robertson Davies, does best.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
Little, Big
“The kind of book around which cults are formed, and rightly so. There’s magic here.”
—Los Angeles Herald Examiner
The Deep
“Crowley writes with style and wit, creates characters that live and breathe.”
—New York Newsday
Beasts
“Haunting, thought-provoking…extraordinarily touching.”
—Booklist
Engine Summer
“A strikingly original and involving book…with uncommon sensitivity and grace.”
—Washington Post Book World
Also by John Crowley
THREE NOVELS
Beasts
The Deep
Engine Summer
Little, Big
Ægypt
Love & Sleep
Dæmonomania
The Translator
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
NOVELTIES & SOUVENIRS. copyright © 2004 by John Crowley. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition October 2007 ISBN 9780061750946
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