A Perfect Vacuum by Stanislaw Lem Read Free Book Online Page A

of
Gigamesh
acquires an unexpectedly profound sense. The Cosmos, after all, is tending, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, to ultimate chaos. Entropy
must
increase, and for that reason the end of each and every being is failure. And so “a gigantic mess” is not only what happens to some former gangster; “a gigantic mess” is the Universe itself (the “disorder” of the Cosmos is symbolized by all the “disorderly houses,” the brothels, which Maesch remembers on the way to the gibbet). But at the same time there is the celebration of “a Gigantic Mass”—in German,
Messe
—of the transubstantiation of Form into final Void. Hence the connection between Sadi-Carnot and the cathedral, hence the embodiment, in it, of Boltzmann’s constant: Hannahan
had to
do this, for
chaos
will be the Last Judgment! Of course the Gilgamesh myth itself finds full expression in the work, but this fidelity of Hannahan’s—to the Babylonian model—is child’s play compared to the interpretational chasms that open up beneath each of the 241,000 words of the novel. The betrayal that N. Kiddy (Enkidu) commits against Maesch-Gilgamesh is a cumulative massing of all the betrayals in history; N. Kiddy is
also
Judas, GI Joe Maesch is
also
the Redeemer (and MESSiah!), and so on, and so on.
    Opening the book at random, we find on [>] , fourth line from the top, the exclamation “Bah!” With it Maesch refuses the Camel offered him by the driver. In the index of the Commentary we find twenty-seven different
bahs,
but to the one from [>] corresponds the following sequence: Baal, Bahai, Baobab, Bahleda (one might think that Hannahan was in error here, giving us an incorrect spelling of the name of the Polish mountaineer, but no, not at all! The omission of the
c
in that name refers, by the principle already known to us, to the Cantorian c as a symbol of the Continuum in its transfinite-ness!), Baphomet, Babelisks (Babylonian obelisks—a neologism typical of the author), Babel (Isaac), Abraham, Jacob, ladder, hook and ladder, fire department, hose, riot, Hippies
(h!),
badminton, racket, rocket, moon, mountains, Berchtesgaden—the last, since the
h
in “Bah” also signifies a worshiper of the Black Mass, as was, in the twentieth century, Hitler.
[Berchtesgaden was Hitler's mountain retreat in Bavaria.
— ED .]
    So functions on every height and breadth
one single
word, a common exclamation, so innocent enthymematically, one would have thought! Consider, then, what vast semantic labyrinths await us on the upper levels of the linguistic edifice that is
Gigamesh!
Theories of preformation do battle there with theories of epigenesis (Ch. Ill, p. 240ff.); the hand movements of the hangman who ties the loop of the noose have as syntactic accompaniment the Hoyle-Milne hypothesis of the
looping
of two time scales in spiral galaxies. Maesch’s reminiscences—his crimes—are a complete register of all the villainies of mankind (the Commentary shows how against his transgressions are marshaled the Crusades, the empire of Charles the Hammer, the slaughter of the Albigenses, the slaughter of the Armenians, the burning at the stake of Giordano Bruno, the witch trials, mass hysteria (Mass!), Flagellantism, the Plague (Black!), Holbein’s dances of death, Noah’s ark, Arkansas,
ad calendas graecas, ad nauseam,
, etc.). The gynecologist whom Maesch stomps in Cincinnati is called Andrew B. Cross: acronymically alphabetic (atomic, biological, and chemical warfare), the name is a conglomeration of allusions—to the Passion, anthropomorphism (android), the BAHamas (the island Andros), and Ulysses (Johnson preceding Grant as president)—while the middle initial, again, is the key of B minor, “The Lament of Dr. Faust,” which this passage of the text incorporates.
    Indeed yes: this novel is a bottomless pit; in whatever place you touch it, roads