Report on Probability A

by Brian W. Aldiss

A controversial novel from Science-Fiction’s Grand Master. Report on Probability A explores surveillance, boredom, and fear.

This remains one of Aldiss’s most controversial novels, and one of his own favourites. Three observers, from cramped and disadvantaged positions watch, via naked eye, telescope and periscope, the activities around a house from which they were expelled. A Mr and Mrs Mary live in the house. The atmosphere is threatening, but the boredoms of everyday life bring nothing to resolution.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Novels, Literature, Science Fiction Fantasy, Unfinished, Audiobook

148 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Pseudonyms: Jael Cracken, Peter Pica, John Runciman, C.C. Shackleton, Arch Mendicant, & "Doc" Peristyle.

Brian Wilson Aldiss was one of the most important voices in science fiction writing today. He wrote his first novel while working as a bookseller in Oxford. Shortly afterwards he wrote his first work of science fiction and soon gained international recognition. Adored for his innovative literary techniques, evocative plots and irresistible characters, he became a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1999.
Brian Aldiss died on August 19, 2017, just after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family and closest friends.

Brian W. Aldiss Group on Good Reads

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

The blurb on the book cover for Report on Probability A should contain the following warning:

Conceptual Fiction, Story Without Plot or Action, SF New Wave Novel as Complete Head Game

For a sense of what's going on here, listen to a clip from a composition by composer Simeon ten Holt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-4bh...

Keep in mind this musical composition lasts 2 1/2 hours! I suspect some, like myself, will perceive a unique beauty in this music but some other listeners might be driven up a wall.

Same goes for Brian Aldiss and his short novel Report on Probability A. Although I count myself among the few who are captivated by the repetition of small events and the layering of observation, I can appreciate many readers, even those usually drawn to New Wave SF, find this one of a kind novel both frustrating and boring.

Turning to the work itself, we have a tale in the form of a report (more details below) separated into two basic levels:

Level One: It's an overcast January day and we're in an English suburb, on the grounds of writer Mr. Mary and his wife, Mrs. Mary. Three ex-employees - gardener G, secretary S, chauffeur C - sit in their respective outbuilding on the grounds and watch the movements (through the windows) of Mr. and Mrs. Mary along with the couple's comings and goings, a keen watching as if something terrible is about to happen.

Level Two: Two men, Domoladossa and Midlakemela, read a report called 'Probability A' about Mr. & Mrs. Mary and the three watchers. Secure in their remote location, via advanced technology, these two gents are also watching the couple and the three watchers. Meanwhile, via other advanced technology, Domoladossa and Midlakemela are being watches by a group of 'Distinguishers,' who are, in turn, being watched by men in New York, who are, in turn, being watched by watchers in a warehouse.

As you can see, lots of watchers and watching going down here. So, keeping the above framework in mind, let's immediately turn to a number of themes and questions surrounding this weird novel:

Alain Robbe-Grillet and the French New Novel
Brian Aldiss acknowledges the influence of Nouveau Roman on Report. Indeed, the British author takes his time in describing objects and happenings in precise detail. Here's a snip on G's lodgings in relation to the main house: "The wooden bungalow had been constructed facing the north-west side of the house. It did not face it squarely, but at an angle of some twenty degrees, in the direction of east-south-east." Sound familiar? So vintage Alain Robbe-Grillet Jealousy and Le Voyeur.

Uncertainty, Anyone?
Brian Aldiss also stated directly his idea for Report came from German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and its corollary that "observation alters what is observed." We believe you, Brian! So many watchers watching in your short novel. Also, to juice up the uncertainty, those groups of watchers are probably each on a different level of reality, as in parallel universes, as in many-world theory, as in the multiverse. In this way, fans of New Wave SF will be reminded of Moocock's Cornelius Quartet and PKD's Ubik.

Window on the World
At one point, Midlakemela says, "Probability A is an entirely new continuum - we can take nothing for granted. The laws of our universe may not obtain there." The question then looms: What assumptions must be dropped in one continuum for a second continuum to be seen accurately? Is such objectivity even possible? In other words, are we as humans forever trapped in a shell of subjectivity, doomed to interpret events through a specific lens, a specific perspective?

Painting Popping Up All Over
Curiously, the world of art is added to the mix - many watchers, G, S, C included, own a reproduction of The Hireling Shepherd by Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt. Ha! We can ask: What's the difference between viewing this artwork scientifically or aesthetically? If aesthetically, is a viewer lifted to another realm of perception, one possessing greater value?

Privileged Character
One of my favorite lines in the entire novel: "As he read, Domoladossa felt a sense of privilege." What does it mean to view the world (or worlds) from a privileged position? What would be the criteria for deciding who has such privilege and who does not? Would privilege derive primarily from a more inclusive continuum? From the woman or man having specific knowledge or 'higher' consciousness?

Report
The novel begins with these words in italics: The Report begins:. Does the report consist exclusively of the events and happenings in an English suburb on that overcast January day? Or, does the report embrace all of the watchers and watching; in effect, the entire novel we are reading? Either way, are we as readers of this novel given the ultimate privileged position? Would our privilege be enhanced if we read this work aesthetically, opening ourselves to all of its literary flavors and rasa? Questions, questions, questions - such a provocative work. Thank you, Brian Aldiss.


British author Brian Aldiss, 1925-2017

"Let us call this continuum we are studying - the one containing Mr. Mary and his wife - Probability A. We know it is closely related to our continuum, which I like to think of as Certainty X. Nevertheless, even superficially, Probability A reveals certain basic values that differ widely from our own." - Brian Aldiss, Report on Probability A

[Paul Bryant · Rating 2 out of 5]

REPORT ON REPORT ON PROBABILITY A

Samuel Beckett and Ingmar Bergman go to Ibiza for a lads holiday. On day two they are lying on the beach surrounded by dozens, possibly hundreds, of skimpily attired young ladies.

“I’ve got nothing to read” moans Samuel.

“But didn’t you bring Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus?"

“Yes, I finished it last night.”

“Last night?” says Ingmar in disbelief. “Didn’t I see you cop off with those two girls from Newcastle?”

“Sure I did,” says Samuel, “And a lot of fun it was too – you should try that! But after they left I finished the last three chapters and now I have nothing to read.”

“Well okay,” says Ingmar. “I can lend you this one. It’s only 150 pages though.”

“Report on Probability A?”

“I couldn’t get on with it myself. It’s sort of annoying.”

“Okay, thanks,” says Samuel. “Hey, look at that one over there. Phwoaaarrrr! You don’t get many of those to the pound.”

The following day the lads are back at the beach.

“I couldn’t be doing with that book,” says Samuel. “Mind you, I was well rat-arsed when I was reading it. But you’re right, it is kind of annoying. I think this Brian Aldiss must have just discovered Alain Robbe-Grillet and watched Last Year at Marienbad and then dropped some acid. Anyway, I met an air stewardess called Moira last night. And she had a friend, know what I mean? And get this - she lent me a copy of The Anatomy of Melancholy! What a stroke of luck! Hey, check out those two over there…it should be illegal...cor blimey….”

[Manny · Rating 1 out of 5]

M opened the review form and paused indecisively. Report On Probability A, by Brian Aldiss. He noted the date he had read it - some time in the mid 70s - and tentatively gave it one star. Two would evidently be excessive. "It's kinda weird," he wrote, then stopped, searching for further ideas. What else could he say about the book? He saved the review. Maybe something would come to him later.

Moments later, M's text appeared on N's screen. She considered it thoughtfully for a second and added a question. "Weird in what way?" She closed her laptop and went to make herself a cup of tea.

In Birmingham, S noted the interchange between M and N and tried to remember his impressions. "Yeah, it's weird alright," he typed. "Not much happens. And there's something about a Holman Hunt painting. The Hireling Shepherd." He italicized the name of the picture, then pressed the Comment button.

On the other side of the Atlantic, W was following the conversation with moderate interest. "I haven't read it yet," he hazarded. "My edition has the Hunt painting on the cover. Except that there's a book by the shepherd's hand called Low Point X. Does that come into the story?"

"I can't remember," typed S.

"Me neither," typed M.

"I don't think I'll read this after all," typed N. She unchecked Email Me When People Comment, then took her empty cup of tea back to the kitchen.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Otro ejemplo de las infinitas formas que puede lucir la ciencia ficción.-

Género. Ciencia ficción.

Lo que nos cuenta. En el libro Informe sobre probabilidad A (publicación original: Report on Probability A, 1968) G observa su entorno diario y, en especial, a la señora Mary; pero no es el único que la observa y, en realidad, él también es observado a su vez mientras sus observadores también están bajo observación (sí, en serio…).

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than any other novel I’ve read, you need almost superhuman patience for this one. First there’s the style—“pedantic, meticulous” doesn’t begin to describe it—and then the plot (or lack of one): it’s like a detailed attempt at describing nothing happening.
    And yet, clearly something did happen here in the recent past. The focus is a house with a large garden around it; in this garden are a wooden shed, an old brick coachhouse and a garage—and hiding, one in each of these, are G, S and C who are keeping the house itself under near-constant surveillance. Why? Well that’s one of the things the people watching them would like to know—G, S and C are themselves being observed by Domoladossa (or at least, he is sitting in a chair reading a detailed report on what he calls “Probability A”). As he does this though, Domoladossa is himself being observed through some sort of portal or aperture by the Distinguishers; who are, in turn…and so on. We too, of course, are a link in this chain, or this stack of levels, or sequence of parallel universes, observing them by means of Aldiss’s book. Makes you wonder who’s observing us.
    There is a mystery here: why are the three men, G, S and C (former gardener, secretary and chauffeur at the house being observed) all in hiding? The focus of their attention seems to be the woman who lives there…her husband, meanwhile, is glimpsed at a window holding a rifle… Yet the way even the most mundane of details are described—drips of rainwater for instance, leaking through the garage roof—is so sharply, so microscopically, observed it’s like seeing it all through a magnifying lens, or in a piece of film run at half-speed. The overall effect is strange; but not in a freaky, wildly surreal, barking mad kind of strange. The very opposite in fact.
    Which I think is the point: that, if you could see it all fresh, as if you’d never set eyes on any of it before, even the everyday world would look downright peculiar. This is an attempt at describing raw existence, and the real mystery is of any of it being here at all.

[Julio Bernad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un idiota se sienta frente a un portátil. Esta escribiendo algo en una página web. La página web es completamente blanca y va llenándose lentamente de palabras. Al idiota parece estar costándole elegir las palabras, pues el texto se desenrolla despacio y las palabras se forman poco a poco. En la habitación debe hacer frio, pues además de la bata tiene el regazo tapado por las faldillas de una mesa camilla. El texto va tomando forma y ya aparece un muro sólido de texto. No hay nadie en la habitación, tan blanca como la página en la que se escriben estas últimas palabras. El idiota se detiene, se levanta y se marcha. El texto se detiene también.

Gemebundo aparta los ojos del informe y lanza una desconcertada mirada a Trifasio

-La lectura de este informe es fascinante- dice Gemebundo-, pero no parece contener evidencia suficiente para aseverar que se trata de un mundo de probabilidad A. Quizá estemos ante un espejismo, un mundo-réplica en que alguna ley física no se aplique, o donde sus habitantes presenten patrones cerebrales por completo diferentes a los humanos.

-Trifasio, eres demasiado impaciente y lees demasiado rápido- le amonesta Trifasio, quitándole el informe y leyendo el último párrafo-. Es evidente que la clave probabilística se haya en el texto que está escribiendo el hombre. Una vez acabado la clave será evidente. Presta atención.

Gemebundo suspiró. Llevaban horas leyendo. Pese a que Gemebundo había calificado de fascinante el informe, la paciencia lectora tiene un límite.

Desde la habitación de un alto edificio de oficinas, un hombre se sienta frente a un monitor con un bol de fideos instantáneos para observar a Gemebundo y Trifasio continuar con la lectura

El idiota vuelve y se coloca bajo las faldillas. Coloca las manos en las teclas y sigue escribiendo en el ordenador. La página blanca cada vez está más decorada de palabras. Se detiene nuevamente y mira por la ventana. Por la ventana se ven una serie de edificios prefabricados, con las fachadas idénticas y misma altura. Solo una ventana está iluminada, aunque los estores bajados impiden ver si hay alguien en la habitación.

El señor X, sentado en su butaca, coloca frente a él un telescopio y orienta el instrumento en dirección a la ventana, con la lente apuntando a través del store para ver la ventana que hay en el edificio de en frente. El señor X ajusta el objetivo y se detiene para encenderse un cigarrillo. Vuelve a ajustarlo y observa a un joven en bata, con el regazo cubierto con una faldilla, sentado frente a un ordenador en el que no para de teclear.

Trifasio se detiene. La aparición de un nuevo observador le desconcierta. Tambien se siente desconcertado el hombre con el bol de fideos instantáneos. Quizá este nuevo observador sea importante para determinar el estado de probabilidad A de este mundo-burbuja. Trifasio pulsa un botón para llamar a su superior directo e informar sobre el hallazgo. Luego continua la lectura del informe

"... y es por esto que Informe sobre probabilidad A es una obra tan fascinante como exasperante, un experimento literario que desafía al lector a encontrar sentido entre la constante repetición de escenas presuntamente triviales. No la recomendaría a cualquiera, tan solo a aquellos lo suficientemente pacientes, atentos y osados para descubrir qué tramaba Aldiss, si es que tramaba algo."

[Roddy Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember reading this novel when I was about fifteen. I liked it, although I didn’t understand it one bit. I’d previously enjoyed Aldiss’ short stories and had read ‘Earthworks’. Thinking about it now, why, if Earthworks at the time had seemed a more satisfactory novel, can I remember very little about it, while ‘Report…’ hangs in my mind like a stubborn dream?
These days, it makes a lot more sense to me, but the persistent dream element is still present.
In some ways it is reminiscent of Ballard’s ‘Concrete Island’ in its minimalist setting and is one of those books that should have been a cult classic. If it ever was, it was a very minor one, which is a bit of a shame. As strange and surreal as it is, it’s a brave and oddly compelling novel which begins on an ordinary suburban setting, bordering on the banal, and grows steadily weirder.
Written in the form of a report, it is composed in the main of a third person monologue of obsessive detail, following the movements of three men who inhabit various outhouses in the garden of a Mr Mary. These men are known respectively as G, S & C.
They spend their day watching the house, each of them obsessed with observing the mysterious Mrs Mary.
The report is being analysed by humans in a parallel universe, who themselves are being watched by another group who are also under observation. The chain, we are led to believe, continues into infinity.
It is a tribute to Aldiss’ power of narrative that the very obsessiveness and banality of the observed ‘probability’ detailed (literally) in the report becomes an intriguing portrait of a world in which the process of Time has broken down. The various characters are trapped in their respective roles while the world decays around them. G is an ex-Gardener, bound to his garden shed where his clocks have wound down and stopped. S is Mr Mary’s dismissed Secretary, living in the attic of an old coach house and re-reading the same episode of a Boy’s magazine adventure serial; ‘The Secret of The Grey Mill’. C is a Chauffeur who lives out his dream of driving Mrs May about while sitting in his garage home, behind the wheel of a car which will never leave the garage again.
Outside the grounds of the house, the world becomes even more surreal. The men in turn visit Mr Watt’s café across the street and engage in stilted conversations about – ironically – the price of fish and a possibly non-existent strike at a local factory. Mr Watt also watches Mr Mary’s house while his customers eat poached haddock.
The link between them – which is a metaphor for the universe in which they exist – is the painting ‘The Hireling Shepherd’ by pre-Raphaelite artist, Holman Hunt, a copy of which hangs in each of their respective domiciles. It depicts an ambiguous relationship between a hired hand and what might be (as is suggested in the text) the wife or possibly daughter of the employer. It is obvious that the shepherd has an interest in the woman. He has his arm around her and is attempting to show her a deaths-head moth he has in the palm of his hand. She is not looking at the moth. She is looking at him, but whether with a look of romantic interest or amused contempt is not clear.
The artist and painter, in differing forms, are also common to the other universes too, although the watchers do not recognise the painting’s significance.
Like the painting, the universe of these people has become fixed at a point of potential. They are trapped in their roles, but unable to function or progress.
The chauffeur does not drive, the secretary reads but does not write. The gardener sits watching from his shed while the asparagus beds sit empty.
All the men seem to have been dismissed but cannot leave the environs of the house, and Mr Mary seems powerless to even attempt to make them leave.
The chauffeur has a home-made periscope which gives him a view of the street from the garage, but the view is a disturbing one. Images of Death abound: hearses, people dressed in black, men carrying a mangled bicycle on a stretcher; men riding in cars with their hands over their eyes.
The servants seem to be all waiting for Mrs Mary to initiate something, just as the Hireling Shepherd is waiting for the woman in the painting to give him some sort of sign.
In the last few pages we discover that Mrs Mary herself is a watcher, employing a screen in her bedroom to view events in the next universe down the line.

[Jason Mills · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book's reputation goes before it, and it's a shame it doesn't wave a red flag too. Famous for being intentionally boring, it certainly succeeds in its aims.

An ordinary house is being closely watched over the course of a day by men who live in its surrounding outbuildings. The universe in which this thrill-less adventure occurs is known as Probability A by the people in a parallel universe(?) who are reading the eponymous report (along with us), never wondering about what kind of maniac would write it. They too, it transpires, are being observed from another world, and once you've grasped that trick - it's turtles all the way down - there's no other developments worth a mention.

The Probability A world is described - and this forms 90% of the book - in numbing detail, deliberately devoid of excitement and internal characterisation, "enlivened" only by the odd snatch of Pinterish dialogue. There are one or two hints of oddness about the place ("vivisection clinics" - does this mean vets' surgeries??), but it is essentially crushingly mundane. The guys watching the house seem obsessed with the woman who lives there, but we are denied more than the tiniest crumbs of back-story. Instead, the reader is required to plough through bloody-minded prose like this:

The puddles were not all of the same size. Some were bigger than others. The bigger ones were larger than the smaller ones. The smaller ones were not as big as the medium-sized ones... The puddles lay on the floor. The puddles wetted the floor. The floor was wetted by the puddles lying on it.

It's like chewing through cardboard. I'm sure Aldiss is making several important points about perception and consciousness and stuff: about how it is emotional affect that lends significance to existential reality, and how any narrative we find in the world is interpretive rather than intrinsic, and so on. But, while I applaud his technical achievement in sustaining this for 150 pages, I think he could have done it far more effectively and accessibly in short form.

It's possible there is some subtle clue I missed - there is much discussion of the symbolism of Holman Hunt's The Hireling Shepherd, for instance, which reflects off the story - but really I think it's as dull as it looks. Original, certainly. But dull.

[Stephen Curran]

Inspired (according to the author's account) by Werner Heisenberg's theory that the act of observation changes the phenomena being observed, 'Report on Principal A' would make a good basis for a study of the anti-novel.

Three people spy on a house, from which they have been expelled. A separate group of people keep watch over their every move, apparently from the vantage point of another dimension (although this is never confirmed). The report that they write forms the bulk of the novel's text (hence 'Report on Probability A'). It later transpires that this second tier of watchers is also being watched, again from a separate existential realm. And they, too, are being observed. Back at the house, almost nothing happens, and little of it is understood. The written report comprises mainly of the physical movements of its subjects. Here's a passage selected at random: " The eyes under their heavy lids sometimes looked this way and sometimes that at the objects being given attention in the sink or being brought out of the sink and placed on a shelf or ledge next to it; also the head moved, not only from one side to the other, but - on one occasion - tilted upwards as the woman gazed vaguely into the garden beyond the window, her attention possibly being distracted (without being definitely attracted) by a brief flight made by a pigeon" .... and on and on and on.

As a literary experiment it fails, because nothing being observed is altered through the act of observation. And it is so boring as to be almost unreadable.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charming, mystifying story. Not an easy read - the endless descriptions of Probability A are quite dull, until their repetition becomes almost hypnotic. I think it helped that I went into this one knowing that.

A book about observation, and the effect of observation on a world. Several worlds, actually.

3.5 stars

[Thomas Hale · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is 156 pages long, a paperback printed in English with black ink and written by a famous English science fiction author. The prose is laden with infinitesimal detail about the most inconsequential aspects of its characters and main setting. It is written in the manner of an academic report, which it is: the main "story" of the book comprises a lengthy and detailed report on a possible alternate reality. It is a book inspired by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, in which observation changes the nature of the thing being observed. Every character is an observer, being watched themselves, in a possibly endless string of observer and observed. Those who watch discuss the purpose of their observations, the interpretations they seek to impose on the core narrative, and time and again the characters' viewpoints are described as distorted, mirrored, skewed. The idea is excellent, and what spurred me to pick up a copy.

It is unfortunately, very, very boring. The titular report is interminably slow, the asides are trite and obvious, and the core narrative held no interest for me. For a book all about failing to see the forest for the trees, it would have been nice if I'd ended up caring about the forest at all instead of just waiting in vain to see if things resolved at all. I liked the running theme of the shepherd painting, but that was the only satisfying part of a novel that is much better in concept than in execution.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, I don't know what to tell you. Certainly I do not regret reading this. I think I am a more well-read individual for having read it. Unlike others on this review thread, I did not find the reading experience particularly boring. The experiment is interesting, and funny. If you dig it, you'll get through the book, probably with a few smiles along the way. If you skip it, no loss. As I said, it is an experiment more than a novel, and because Aldiss is a brilliant writer, even a throwaway experiment of his is worth attending to.

Basically, if you're a fan of Brian Aldiss (which you should be), or if you're interested in the so-called New Wave of science fiction that erupted in Britain in the 60's, you'll want to check this out. It won't take more than a few hours, and, depending on your literary sensibilities and threshold for literary experimentation, you may in fact get more out of this book than I did.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 4 out of 5]

What the fuck is this? I'd swear it's Aldiss's novel-length practical joke. Something very, very different, and in my opinion, successful.

[Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

tfw boredom becomes trippy

[Alien · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wenn man was von Brian Aldiss liest, weiss man nie, was man erwarten kann. Es kann eine eher konventionell erzählte Geschichte sein oder sehr kompliziert bis unverständlich.

"Report über Probabililtät A" fängt sehr leicht begreifbar an (wie ich eherlich gesagt mit einer gewissen Erleichterung zur Kenntnis nahm): Der Mann G lebt in einem gammligen kleinen Gartenhaus, im Garten des Hauses von Herr Mary und seiner Frau. Über Seiten hinweg wird das Gartenhaus beschrieben. Dann das, was Herr G tut. Dann der Regen, die Entwicklung des Lichtes.

Zwischendurch folgen kurze Kapitel über 2 Beobachter, die das ganze wohl aus wissenschaftlichem Interesse von außen betrachten, es geht irgendwie um Wahrscheinlichkeitsebenen.
Also doch Pustekuchen mit Verständlichkeit.

Nach 10-15 Seiten fällt es mir zusehends schwerer, die inzwischen betäubend langweilig wirkenden Beschreibungen über Herrn G und sein Häuschen weiter zu lesen. Ich muss immer wieder Absätze mehrmals lesen, da mein Gehirn beim Lesen in Standby geht.

Nach nur 20 Seiten musste ich leider aufgeben.

[mkfs · Rating 1 out of 5]

A recursive paranoid masterpiece?
An inquiry into the implications of an observer-defined quantum reality?
A derailing of time across the multiverse?

Nope. Just a long, slow, repetitive read -- probably the idea of what a factual report must look like to somebody who has never read one.

You're not missing anything by skipping this one.

[Norman Howe · Rating 2 out of 5]

You may have had to write a descriptive paragraph in school. You have to describe a scene. The important thing is"," there is no action to further a story in such a paragraph.Brian Aldiss has expanded this concept to an entire novel. Scientists are observing various realities in order to determine which is the Real. But nothing actually happens. A truly maddening read.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

pretty cool how he tricked a bunch of normal people into reading a boring nouveau roman just by writing 'science fiction' on the back cover

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Want to read building descriptions? Want to always know which direction is North? Interested in fish prices?

[Darren Goossens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, this is as close as SF is likely to get to Samuel Beckett -- it even has a character called Watt.



Aldiss was always conscious of writing as a creative art, rather than (solely) a meal ticket. At times, that took him away from producing readable books; though he wrote plenty of those too.

This book consists of detailed descriptions of 3 men watching a suburban house from different vantage points; for example, one is hiding in the attic of the garage and uses a periscope. All seem fixated on working out what 'Mrs Mary', the wife in what might be an unhappy marriage, is up to. One, the chauffeur, was sacked some months ago and we wonder if it was after a dalliance with Mrs Mary.

OK, so that's the plot covered.

The book is, in part at least, about what we really know. In a sense all of us are like these watchers; limited in what we can see, inferring what is 'really' going on based on scraps of information. Our own proclivities and histories shape these fragments of information into a story. Sometimes we might solve the problem by simply asking, but can we trust any answers we get?

The watchers watch, unaware that they are being watched from other (parallel?) universes, and these are being watched and on and on. Watching might be via a strange natural phenomenon of congruence between universes, or technology, or a woman in a trance, or via a telescope, or a mirror; in each case, knowledge is incomplete, and puzzles arise.

Imagine someone was being watched by a person in a trance, who was then describing what they see. The entranced person might repeat themselves, describing a ladder or a row of boxes again and again, possibly frustrating the investigator who is recording their report (and possibly irritating the reader of the book that purports to record it all). And so we get the sections that remind me of, say, Molloy by Beckett, in which Molloy painstakingly explains to us how he can be sure of sucking on all the stones he keeps for the purpose by cycling them through a series of pockets in his vest. Aldiss will tell us that Mrs Mary moved through the kitchen, taking seven paces in a direction parallel with the edge of the table, before stopping at the kitchen sink (or somesuch). What the Beckett has that the Aldiss lacks is humour -- at least, it is rarer in the Aldiss. This is not to say the Aldiss does not entertain in its own way -- I read it quite quickly, and there was a subtle gathering of momentum as the book went on, culminating in events vastly important to Mrs Mary, or so the inferences we make would suggest.

This is a book for readers who like fiction that pushes at the limits of the form, and not for those who like lots of action. Divided as it is into 3 sections, one for each of the 3 primary viewers, I am tempted to to echo the famous review of Waiting for Godot (a play in which nothing happens -- twice), and call it a novel in which nothing happens -- 3 times.

It is definitely science fiction, with its layers of watchers in their (possibly) parallel universes. It is definitely experimental fiction, with its narrow compass and focus on what can be seen -- which makes us think about how any author must choose what they let the reader see and what they omit -- and how consciously it foregrounds the processes of watching, of inferring and of narrative. For the right reader, I think it could be an important book, and make them change the way they think about not just narrative and fiction, but reporting and news, and how they create the internal version of the external world that lives in their head and guides their every choice.

What do you know?

[Tim Pendry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a noble failure. Aldiss was trying to engage with then-current experimentation in the high literary community (there is certainly a Beckettian quality to some of the writing) while trying to remain firmly within the tradition of science fiction as it existed in the early 1960s.

Written in 1962, this had difficulty finding a publisher for understandable reasons before eventually appearing as a novella in 'New Worlds' in 1967 and in the current book form (revised) in 1968. The concept would have appealed to what Moorcock and others were trying to do with science fiction.

In fact, the experimental anti-novel aspects of the work are rather good. The writing surrounding a set of mysterious deracinated observers of a rather mundane suburban house is excellent, keeping the attention despite the intrinsically 'boring' subject matter.

The subtle repetitions and close attention to detail show an observational mastery and discipline that suggests a serious talent that some might think was wasted a little on conventional science fiction. It is the attempt at enclosing the whole in a science fiction setting that fails.

Apparently Aldiss was trying to relate his work to the uncertainty principle and the many worlds hypothesis but the narrative he uses to demonstrate his science fiction credentials is not merely weak, it makes the paucity of style that is standard in conventional science fiction only too obvious.

Critics either love it or loathe it but the right reaction is one of slight sadness that the undoubted writing talents of Aldiss, when it came to his own version of the 'nouveau roman', became bogged down so easily in the expectations of genre fiction.

[Nathaniel Houser · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange series of events happens in this book including a periscope, a telescope, mirrors, a garage, a gun, a cat that eats a pigeon, and s bunch of watchers. There are the watchers from New York. The watchers named C, S, and G whom all watch Mr. and Mrs. Mary through mirrors and reflections and the use of scopes. Whom is watching who? We are all being watched by someone else in the Universe. The strange part of the story focusses around the importance of a painting in the book. An painting of sheep, an captured moth, a shepherd and a young lady; this painting being titled: "The Hireling Shepherd." Within the painting the young shepherd, whom should be watching the sheep is instead watching the desirable lady, whom watches the moth, while the sheep all watch us the viewers. Each creature is watching something else and desiring to be seen by the other watching a far. The story within this novel is about Watchers and the different dimensions of life and mirrors bent in a telescope or periscope to view the future. Who are these watchers and why do they watch; is the question that still puzzles me at the end as I watch the words stop?

[George Bate · Rating 2 out of 5]

In terms of Aldiss I've only read Greybeard, and this was a disappointment in comparison. Report on Probability A brings ideas around multiverses, relativity and subjectivity into Aldiss's attempt at creating the kind of ambiguity of Holman Hunt's Hierling Shepherd (discussed in detail in the text) in novel form. Unfortunately Aldiss chooses to this mostly in the form of a dull, detail-focussed report on a relatively dreary scene being read in a parallel universe. I got much the same sense reading this as I did with Kafka - you can see what he's attempting but unfortunately it fails to hold the attention.

[Melbourne Bitter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interestingly boring anti-novel. (As i found out later). Adding to my puzzlement was the fact that Sphere Publishing had printed pages 97-112 twice, which really threw me. Is this part of the novel? Was Aldiss making more of a statement? Did everyone look up at that point in the novel and go who is watching my reaction? What did the people with hands over their eyes, in a car, signify? How many questions can i ask of one short book? Do I throw in a joke here as a sop to people who think my review is a load of shite?
Why did the chicken cross the road with its wings over its eyes...

[Pep Bonet · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5. I found it boring and lacking interest. The book is a report on three people who are hiding, each aone alone in a different building, the three looking into a house and a café. Nothing happens and the same facts are repeated in a monotonous, report-like tone. Every chapter finishes with an element of distraction, which represents what really happens: very little. And the book finishes without clarifying anything. I couldn't follow the tiny details of the lady with tawny hair and the different windows. My mind went wandering all the time. Not interesting.

[Artur Coelho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Num gabinete, dois agentes lêem um relatório de espiões sobre a vigilância de uma casa. Num escritório, dois homens observam os agentes que lêem o relatório, enquanto são observados por terceiros. E. provavelmente, este encadeamento de observadores não termina aqui. Este não é um romance sobre voyeurismo, embora a constante sensação de observação e o listar exaustivo dos itens que compõem os espaços vigiados possa dar essa ideia. São mundos paralelos que se tocam, secção de possíveis sequências infindas de realidade. A multiplicidade de universos e realidades paralelas são o grande tem deste romance muito experimental de Aldiss.

[Des Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is too simple to call this book Einsteinian. It is, instead, an Aldissian lamp upon our very nature of existence, a lantern’s crack of triangulated light upon a tell-tale heart.
A Ouroboros of not a single snake but of two snakes (reader and author), but which snake swallows which?

The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long to post here.
Above is its conclusion.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

If there is one thing i applaud new wave science fiction for is that it pushed the genre into very interesting directions. This book is a prime example whereby Aldiss channels his inner Robbe-Grillet and for the first part it works. However once part 2 and 3 occur it feels like Aldiss wrote himself into a wall and got trapped as those parts of the book don’t add to anything that was achieved in part 1.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t know what led me to pick this one up, but I think I needed to read it in a lot different context and with a closer eye than I did. I recall very little from this one and found it to be somewhat incomprehensible. This might have also been the point? I don’t know, but I’ll need to probably try this again sometime.

[Steve Crooks · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had thought Brian Aldiss wrote some pretty good stuff; this is not one of those works. Countless reiterations of "observations" to the point of making me ask myself "Why am I wasting time reading this pointless drivel?" I can famously read to entirety all sorts of works but his is just not one of them. Leaves me upset at the time wasted.