Shikasta
Encyclopedia
- For Persian calligraphical style see Shikasta Nastaʿlīq.
Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta (often shortened to Shikasta) is a 1979
1979 in literature
The year 1979 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*V.C...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel by British Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
-winner Doris Lessing
Doris Lessing
Doris May Lessing CH is a British writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook, and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos....
, and is the first book in her five-book Canopus in Argos
Canopus in Argos
Canopus in Argos: Archives is a sequence of five science fiction novels by Nobel Prize in Literature-winning author Doris Lessing which portray a number of societies at different stages of development, over a great period of time...
series. It was first published in the United States in October 1979 by Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
, and in the United Kingdom in November 1979 by Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape was a London-based publisher founded in 1919 as "Page & Co" by Herbert Jonathan Cape , formerly a manager at Duckworth who had worked his way up from a position of bookshop errand boy. Cape brought with him the rights to cheap editions of the popular author Elinor Glyn and sales of...
. Shikasta is also the name of the fictional planet
Planets in science fiction
Planets in science fiction are fictional planets that appear in various media, especially those of the science fiction genre, as story-settings or depicted locations.-History:...
featured in the novel.
Subtitled "Personal, psychological, historical documents relating to visit by Johor (George Sherban) Emissary (Grade 9) 87th of the Period of the Last Days", Shikasta is the history of the planet Shikasta (Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
) under the influence of three galactic empire
Galactic empire
Galactic empires are a common trope used in science fiction and science fantasy, particularly in space opera. Many authors have either used a galaxy-spanning empire as background, or written about the growth or decline of such an empire...
s, Canopus, Sirius, and their mutual enemy, Puttiora. The book is presented in the form of a series of reports by Canopean emissaries to Shikasta who document the planet's prehistory
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
, its degeneration leading to the "Century of Destruction" (the 20th-century), and the Apocalypse
Apocalypse
An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...
(World War III
World War III
World War III denotes a successor to World War II that would be on a global scale, with common speculation that it would be likely nuclear and devastating in nature....
).
Shikasta draws on the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
and is influenced by spiritual
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
and mystical themes in Sufism
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
, an Islamic
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
belief system which Lessing had taken an interest in in the mid-1960s. The book represented a major shift of focus in Lessing's writing, from realism to science fiction, and this disappointed many of her readers. It received mixed reviews from critics. Some were impressed by the scope and vision of the book, with one reviewer calling it "an audacious and disturbing work from one of the world's great living writers". Others were critical of the novel's bleakness, that humanity has no free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
and that their fate lies in the hands of galactic empires.
The story of Shikasta is retold in the third book of the Canopus series, The Sirian Experiments
The Sirian Experiments
The Sirian Experiments is a 1980 science fiction novel by Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing. It is the third book in her five-book Canopus in Argos series and continues the story of Earth's evolution, which has been manipulated from the beginning by advanced extraterrestrial...
(1980), this time from the point of view of Sirius. Shikasta reappears in the fourth book in the series, The Making of the Representative for Planet 8
The Making of the Representative for Planet 8
The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 is a 1982 science fiction novel by Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing. It is the fourth book in her five-book Canopus in Argos series and relates the fate of a planet, under the care of the benevolent galactic empire Canopus, that is plunged...
(1982), and the Zones, briefly mentioned in Shikasta, are the subject of the second book in the series, The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five
The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five
The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five is a 1980 science fiction novel by Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing. It is the second book in her five-book Canopus in Argos series....
(1980).
Plot
Canopus, a benevolent galactic empireGalactic empire
Galactic empires are a common trope used in science fiction and science fantasy, particularly in space opera. Many authors have either used a galaxy-spanning empire as background, or written about the growth or decline of such an empire...
centred at Canopus
Canopus
Canopus |Alpha]] Carinae) is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina and Argo Navis, and the second brightest star in the night-time sky, after Sirius. Canopus's visual magnitude is −0.72, and it has an absolute magnitude of −5.53.Canopus is a supergiant of spectral...
in the constellation Argo Navis
Argo Navis
Argo Navis was a large constellation in the southern sky that has since been divided into three constellations. It represented the Argo, the ship used by Jason and the Argonauts in Greek mythology...
, colonise a young and promising planet they name Rohanda (the fruitful). They nurture its bourgeoning humanoid
Humanoid
A humanoid is something that has an appearance resembling a human being. The term first appeared in 1912 to refer to fossils which were morphologically similar to, but not identical with, those of the human skeleton. Although this usage was common in the sciences for much of the 20th century, it...
s and accelerate their evolution. When the Natives are ready, Canopus impose a "Lock" on Rohanda that links it via "astral currents" to the harmony and strength of the Canopean Empire. In addition to Canopus, two other empires also establish a presence on the planet: their ally, Sirius from the star of the same name
Sirius
Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. With a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, it is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. The name "Sirius" is derived from the Ancient Greek: Seirios . The star has the Bayer designation Alpha Canis Majoris...
, and their mutual enemy, Puttiora. The Sirians confine their activities largely to genetic experiments
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
on the southern continents during Rohanda's prehistory
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
(see Lessing's third book in the Canopus series, The Sirian Experiments
The Sirian Experiments
The Sirian Experiments is a 1980 science fiction novel by Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing. It is the third book in her five-book Canopus in Argos series and continues the story of Earth's evolution, which has been manipulated from the beginning by advanced extraterrestrial...
), while the Shammat of Puttiora remain dormant, waiting for opportunities to strike.
For many millennia the Natives of Rohanda prosper in a Canopean induced climate of peaceful coexistence and accelerated development. Then an unforeseen "cosmic re-alignment" puts Rohanda out of phase with Canopus which causes the Lock to break. Deprived of Canopus's resources and a steady stream of a substance called SOWF (substance-of-we-feeling), the Natives develop a "Degenerative Disease" that puts the goals of the individual ahead of those of the community. The Shammat exploit this disturbance and begin undermining Canopus's influence by infecting the Natives with their evil ways. As Rohanda degenerates into greed and conflict, the Canopeans reluctantly change its name to Shikasta (the stricken). Later in the book, Shikasta is identified as Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
, or an allegorical Earth.
In an attempt to salvage Canopus's plans for Shikasta and correct the Natives' decline, Canopean emissaries are sent to the planet. Johor is one such emissary, who takes on the form of a Native and begins identifying those individuals who have not degenerated too far and are amenable to his corrective instructions. Johor then sends those he has successfully "converted" to spread the word among other Natives, and soon isolated communities begin to return to the pre-Shikastan days. But without the SOWF and Shammat's influence over the Natives, Canopus is fighting a losing battle and the planet declines further. By the Shikastan's 20th-century, the planet has degenerated into war and self-destruction. Johor returns, but this time through Zone 6 from which he is born on the planet (incarnated
Incarnation
Incarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. It refers to the conception and birth of a sentient creature who is the material manifestation of an entity, god or force whose original nature is immaterial....
) as a Shikastan, George Sherban. As Sherban grows up he establishes contact with other Canopeans in disguise and then resumes his work trying to help the Shikastans. But famine and unemployment grow, and anarchy spreads.
On the eve of World War III
World War III
World War III denotes a successor to World War II that would be on a global scale, with common speculation that it would be likely nuclear and devastating in nature....
Sherban and other emissaries relocate a small number of promising Shikastans to remote locations to escape the coming nuclear holocaust
Nuclear holocaust
Nuclear holocaust refers to the possibility of the near complete annihilation of human civilization by nuclear warfare. Under such a scenario, all or most of the Earth is made uninhabitable by nuclear weapons in future world wars....
. The war reduces Shikasta's population by 99% and sweeps the planet clean of the "barbarians". The Shammat, who set the Shikastans on a course of self-destruction, self-destruct themselves and withdraw from the planet. The Canopeans help the survivors rebuild their lives and re-align themselves with Canopus. With a strengthened Lock and the SOWF flowing freely again, harmony and prosperity returns to Shikasta.
Background and genre
Doris LessingDoris Lessing
Doris May Lessing CH is a British writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook, and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos....
was born to British parents in Persia (now Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
) in 1919. Her family moved to Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was the name of the British colony situated north of the Limpopo River and the Union of South Africa. From its independence in 1965 until its extinction in 1980, it was known as Rhodesia...
(now Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
) in 1925 where she later dropped out of school at the age of 14. Over the next decade she pursued various careers, including journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
, and published several short stories
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
. In the early 1940s Lessing was attracted to a group of "quasi-Communist[s]" and joined their Left Book Club
Left Book Club
The Left Book Club, founded in 1936, was a key left-wing institution of the late 1930s and 1940s in the United Kingdom set up by Stafford Cripps, Victor Gollancz and John Strachey to revitalise and educate the British Left. The Club's aim was to "help in the struggle For world peace and against...
in Salisbury (now Harare
Harare
Harare before 1982 known as Salisbury) is the largest city and capital of Zimbabwe. It has an estimated population of 1,600,000, with 2,800,000 in its metropolitan area . Administratively, Harare is an independent city equivalent to a province. It is Zimbabwe's largest city and its...
). Her interest in "the race issue", prominent in Rhodesia at the time, prompted her to join the Southern Rhodesian Labour Party
Rhodesia Labour Party
The Rhodesia Labour Party was a political party which existed in Southern Rhodesia from 1923 until the 1950s. Originally formed on the model of the British Labour Party from trade unions and being especially dominated by railway workers, it formed the main opposition party from 1934 to 1946...
. Lessing moved to London in 1949 where she began her writing career. She also joined the British Communist Party
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
and became an active campaigner against the use of nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
s.
.jpg)
The Grass Is Singing
The Grass Is Singing is the first novel, published in 1950, by British Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing. It takes place in Rhodesia , in southern Africa, during the 1940s and deals with the racial politics between whites and blacks in that country...
was published, a story of racial conflict based on her experiences in Rhodesia. It was followed by several others, including her semi-autobiographical Children of Violence series, and her 1962 "breakthrough" novel, The Golden Notebook
The Golden Notebook
The Golden Notebook is a 1962 novel by Doris Lessing. This book, as well as the couple that followed it, enters the realm of what Margaret Drabble in The Oxford Companion to English Literature has called Lessing's "inner space fiction", her work that explores mental and societal breakdown...
in which she broached the subject of feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
. In 1964, disillusioned with Communism, Lessing turned her attention to Sufism
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
, an Islamic
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
belief system, after reading The Sufis
The Sufis
The Sufis is one of the best known books on Sufism by the writer Idries Shah. First published in 1964 with an introduction by Robert Graves, it introduced Sufi ideas to the West in a format acceptable to non-specialists at a time when the study of Sufism had largely become the reserve of...
by Idries Shah
Idries Shah
Idries Shah , also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el-Hashimi , was an author and teacher in the Sufi tradition who wrote over three dozen critically acclaimed books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies.Born in India, the descendant of a...
. She described The Sufis as "the most surprising book [she] had read", and said it "changed [her] life". Lessing later met Shah, who became "a good friend [and] teacher". In the early 1970s Lessing began writing "inner space" fiction, which included the novels Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971) and Memoirs of a Survivor
Memoirs of a Survivor
The Memoirs of a Survivor is a dystopian novel by Nobel Prize-winner Doris Lessing. It was first published in 1974 by Octagon Press. It was made into a film in 1981, starring Julie Christie and Nigel Hawthorne, and directed by David Gladwell.-Plot:...
(1974). In the late 1970s she wrote Shikasta in which she used many Sufi
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
concepts.
Shikasta was intended to be a "single self-contained book", but as Lessing's fictional universe
Fictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
developed, she found she had ideas for more than just one book, and ended up writing a series of five
Canopus in Argos
Canopus in Argos: Archives is a sequence of five science fiction novels by Nobel Prize in Literature-winning author Doris Lessing which portray a number of societies at different stages of development, over a great period of time...
. Shikasta, and the Canopus in Argos
Canopus in Argos
Canopus in Argos: Archives is a sequence of five science fiction novels by Nobel Prize in Literature-winning author Doris Lessing which portray a number of societies at different stages of development, over a great period of time...
series as a whole, fall into the category of soft science fiction
Soft science fiction
Soft science fiction, or soft SF, like its complementary opposite hard science fiction, is a descriptive term that points to the role and nature of the science content in a science fiction story...
("space fiction" in Lessing's own words) due to their focus on characterization and social and cultural issues, and the de-emphasis of science and technology. Robert Alter
Robert Alter
Robert Bernard Alter is an American professor of Hebrew language and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1967.-Biography:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
suggested that this kind of writing belongs to a genre literary critic
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
Northrop Frye
Northrop Frye
Herman Northrop Frye, was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century....
called the "anatomy", which is "a combination of fantasy and morality". Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
placed Lessing's "science fiction" "somewhere between John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
and L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...
".
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
and mystical themes in Sufism. This switch to "science fiction" was not well received by all. By the late-1970s Lessing was considered "one of the most honest, intelligent and engaged writers of the day", and Western
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
readers unfamiliar with Surfism were dismayed that Lessing had abandoned her "rational worldview". George Stade of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
complained that "our Grand Mistress of lumpen realism has gone religious on us". The reaction of reviewers and readers to the first two books in the series, Shikasta and The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five
The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five
The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five is a 1980 science fiction novel by Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing. It is the second book in her five-book Canopus in Argos series....
(1980), prompted Lessing to write in the Preface to the third book, The Sirian Experiments
The Sirian Experiments
The Sirian Experiments is a 1980 science fiction novel by Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing. It is the third book in her five-book Canopus in Argos series and continues the story of Earth's evolution, which has been manipulated from the beginning by advanced extraterrestrial...
(1980):
Further criticism of the Canopus series followed, which included this comment by New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
critic John Leonard: "[o]ne of the many sins for which the 20th-century will be held accountable is that it has discouraged Mrs. Lessing... She now propagandizes on behalf of our insignificance in the cosmic razzmatazz." Lessing replied by saying: "What they didn't realize was that in science fiction is some of the best social fiction
Social science fiction
Social science fiction is a term used to describe a subgenre of science fiction concerned less with technology and space opera and more with sociological speculation about human society...
of our time. I also admire the classic sort of science fiction, like Blood Music, by Greg Bear
Greg Bear
Gregory Dale Bear is an American science fiction and mainstream author. His work has covered themes of galactic conflict , artificial universes , consciousness and cultural practices , and accelerated evolution...
. He's a great writer." Lessing said in 1983 that she would like to write stories about Red
Red dwarf
According to the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, a red dwarf star is a small and relatively cool star, of the main sequence, either late K or M spectral type....
and White Dwarves
White dwarf
A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a small star composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. They are very dense; a white dwarf's mass is comparable to that of the Sun and its volume is comparable to that of the Earth. Its faint luminosity comes from the emission of stored...
, space rockets powered by anti-gravity
Anti-gravity
Anti-gravity is the idea of creating a place or object that is free from the force of gravity. It does not refer to the lack of weight under gravity experienced in free fall or orbit, or to balancing the force of gravity with some other force, such as electromagnetism or aerodynamic lift...
, and charmed and coloured quark
Quark
A quark is an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. Due to a phenomenon known as color confinement, quarks are never directly...
s, "[b]ut we can't all be physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
s".
Lessing later wrote several essays on Sufism which were published in her essay collection, Time Bites (2004). She was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
, and was described by the Swedish Academy
Swedish Academy
The Swedish Academy , founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden.-History:The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786 by King Gustav III. Modelled after the Académie française, it has 18 members. The motto of the Academy is "Talent and Taste"...
as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny".
Lessing dedicated Shikasta to her father. While she was still a child in Southern Rhodesia he often used to gaze up at the night sky and say, "Makes you think – there are so many worlds up there, wouldn't really matter if we did blow ourselves up – plenty more where we came from."
Analysis
The name "Shikasta" comes from the PersianPersian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
word شکسته (shekasteh) meaning "broken", and is often seen used as the name of the Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian national style of Persian calligraphy
Persian calligraphy
Persian Calligraphy is the calligraphy of Persian writing system. It has been one of the most revered arts throughout Persian history. It is considered to be one of the most eye catching and fascinating manifestations of Persian culture.-History:...
, Shekasteh Nastaʿlīq. In the book Lessing does not state explicitly that the planet Shikasta is Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
, but many critics believe that its similarities to Earth's history make it clear that Shikasta is Earth as seen by the Canopeans. Some of the documents in the book written by Shikastans refer to geographical locations and countries on Earth. Other critics, however, interpret Shikasta as an allegorical Earth with parallel histories that deviate from time to time.
Shikasta has been called an "anti-novel", and an "architectonic novel". It is the story of the planet Shikasta from the perspective of Canopus and is presented as a case study for "first-year students of Canopean Colonial Rule". It contains a series of reports by Canopean emissaries to the planet, extracts from the Canopean reference, History of Shikasta, and copies of letters and journals written by selected Shikastans. The history of Shikasta is monitored by the virtually immortal Canopeans, from Rohanda's prehistory
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
, through to Shikasta's "Century of Destruction" (Earth's 20th-century), and into Earth's future when the Chinese occupy Europe and World War III
World War III
World War III denotes a successor to World War II that would be on a global scale, with common speculation that it would be likely nuclear and devastating in nature....
breaks out. The book purports to be the "true" history of our planet.
Shikasta alludes to the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
, Gnosticism
Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...
and Sufism
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
, and draws on several Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian is a term used in the United States since the 1940s to refer to standards of ethics said to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, for example the Ten Commandments...
themes. Lessing wrote in the book's preface
Preface
A preface is an introduction to a book or other literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a foreword and precedes an author's preface...
that it has its roots in the Old Testament. Her SOWF (Substance-Of-We-Feeling), the "spiritual nourishment" that flows from Canopus to Shikasta, is also a word she invented with a pronunciation similar to "Sufi". A reviewer of the book in the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
said that Shikasta is a "reworking of the Bible", and the Infinity Plus website draws parallels between the Canopeans and their emissaries, and God and his angels from the Old Testament. A New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reviewer wrote that the "outer space" where the Canopeans come from is a metaphor for "religious or inner space". Thelma J. Shinn in her book, Worlds Within Women: Myth and Mythmaking in Fantastic Literature by Women described the struggle between Canopus and Shammat, played out on Shikasta, as the "eternal struggle between good and evil", and the "Degenerative Disease" that strikes Shikasta as a metaphor for the original sin
Original sin
Original sin is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred...
. Lessing said in an interview that the final war (World War III
World War III
World War III denotes a successor to World War II that would be on a global scale, with common speculation that it would be likely nuclear and devastating in nature....
) at the end of the novel is the Apocalypse
Apocalypse
An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...
. Phyllis Sternberg Perrakis wrote in The Journal of Bahá’í Studies that Shikasta is the "symbolic rendering of the coming of a new prophet to an earthlike planet", and relates it to Bahá’í
Bahá'í Faith
The Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are an estimated five to six million Bahá'ís around the world in more than 200 countries and territories....
principles.
Reception
Paul Gray wrote in a review in TimeTime (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
that the documents that make up Shikasta allow Lessing to stretch the novel out over vast periods of time and shift perspective "dramatically from the near infinite to the minute". He said that the book's cohesiveness is its variety, and noted how Lessing interspaces her "grand designs" and "configurations of enormous powers" with "passages of aching poignancy". Gray said that Shikasta is closer to Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's Travels
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels , is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of...
and the Old Testament than it is to Buck Rogers
Buck Rogers
Anthony Rogers is a fictional character that first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue....
, and may disappoint readers interpreting her "space fiction" as "science fiction". He found Lessing's bleak vision of Earth's history in which she suggests that humans "could not [...] help making the messes they have, that their blunders were all ordained by a small tic in the cosmos", a little "unsatisfying", but added that even if you do not subscribe to her theories, the book can still be enjoyable, "even furiously engaging on every page". Gray called Shikasta "an audacious and disturbing work from one of the world's great living writers".
Author Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
wrote in The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
that Shikasta is a "work of a formidable imagination". He said that Lessing is "a master" of eschatological
Eschatology
Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
writing, but added that while her depictions of a terminal London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
are "very real", as a whole the book is "never quite real enough". Vidal also felt that Zone 6, Lessing's alternate plane
Plane (esotericism)
In esoteric cosmology, a plane, other than the physical plane is conceived as a subtle state of consciousness that transcends the known physical universe....
for the dead, is not as convincing as The Dry Lands in Ursula Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
’s Earthsea trilogy
Earthsea
Earthsea is a fictional realm originally created by Ursula K. Le Guin for her short story "The Word of Unbinding", published in 1964. Earthsea became the setting for a further six books, beginning with A Wizard of Earthsea, first published in 1968, and continuing with The Tombs of Atuan, The...
. He compared the Canopeans and Shammat to Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
's God and Satan in Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
, but said that while Lucifer's "overthrow [...] of his writerly creator is an awesome thing", in Shikasta Lessing's human race with no free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
is too passive and of no interest. Vidal attributed this to Lessing's "surrender" to the Sufis
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
and the SOWF (Substance-Of-We-Feeling), and not her inability to create good characters.
New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reviewer George Stade said that Shikasta "forces us to think about [...] what we are, how we got that way and where we are going", but complained that the book is filled with "false hopes", and that the fate of humankind relies on "theosophical emanations, cosmic influences, occult powers, spiritual visitations and stellar vibrations". When the SOWF is cut off and the Shikastans degenerate, Lessing "both indicts and exculpates" them, implying that humanity is bad, but it is not their fault. While Stade complemented Lessing on the book's satire, and her depictions of Zone 6, which he said "have the eerie beauty of ancient Gnostic
Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...
texts", he "disapprove[d]" of the novel as a whole, but added, "that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy reading it".
The Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
called Shikasta an "epic" and suspected that it may have influenced the Nobel committee
Swedish Academy
The Swedish Academy , founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden.-History:The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786 by King Gustav III. Modelled after the Académie française, it has 18 members. The motto of the Academy is "Talent and Taste"...
when they referred to Lessing as an "epicist of the female experience". Thelma J. Shinn wrote in her book, Worlds Within Women: Myth and Mythmaking in Fantastic Literature by Women that Lessing's history of humanity in Shikasta is "pessimistic" but "convincing". Infinity Plus described Shikasta as a "mainstream novel that uses SF ideas", and said that while Lessing was not able to predict the fall of the Soviet Union and the impact of computers, the novel "barely seems dated" because of her "cunningly non-specific" approach.
James Schellenberg writing in Challenging Destiny, a Canadian science fiction and fantasy magazine, was impressed by Shikasta "grand sense of perspective" and the context of humanity set in a "vaster scale of civilization and right-thinking". He liked the concept of SOWF as a "metaphor of community connectedness", but felt it was an unusual way to build a utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
. The book's fractured storytelling leads to Lessing breaking the "famous dictum of writing – show, don't tell", and while that may work in certain circumstances, Schellenberg felt that that approach does not work very well in Shikasta. The online magazine
Online magazine
An online magazine shares some features with a blog and also with online newspapers, but can usually be distinguished by its approach to editorial control...
, Journey to the Sea found Lessing's inclusion of stories from the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
"entertaining and intriguing", and said she challenges the logical thinker's rejection of these sacred texts
Religious text
Religious texts, also known as scripture, scriptures, holy writ, or holy books, are the texts which various religious traditions consider to be sacred, or of central importance to their religious tradition...
, suggesting that it is "imaginatively possible" that they could be true.
Shikasta gave rise to a religious cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
in America. Lessing said in an interview that its followers had written to her and asked, "When are we going to be visited by the gods?", and she told them that the book is "not a cosmology. It's an invention", and they replied, "Ah, you're just testing us".