Brian Aldiss not only introduced ecological themes into his work but also new ways of seeing the natural world through experimenting with form and language. In the 1960s Aldiss produced experimental works that showed the natural world as strange or distorted rather than simply as background or as a resource.
In 1968 Aldiss published Report on Probability A, in which three observers G, S, and C watch a house in which they were formally employed. This main narrative is framed as a report read by two people in another reality, who are in turn observed by people in a third reality and so on in an almost infinite series.
A recurring motif of Report on Probability A is the analysis of a pastoral painting called ‘The Hireling Shepherd’ (1851) by William Holman Hunt. The painting depicts a maid leaning against a shepherd in a meadow.
All three of the primary observers of the house own a reproduction. The readers and observers in the alternate realities are puzzled by the recurrence of the image and attempt to judge its significance and meaning. Aldiss suggests that the way we see nature depends on who views it and the value they place upon it.
The Spanish translation of the novel reproduces the painting and places it in multiple frames to underline the many interpretations explored in the narrative.
The Brian Aldiss Library, University of Liverpool SC&A, uncatalogued
Aldiss first wrote Report on Probability A in response to the 1950s French literary movement the nouveau roman. The movement was exemplified by Alain Robbe-Grillet and Marguerite Duras who both attempted to break with the traditions of the mainstream novel by using experimental techniques in their writing.
Aldiss's text, originally called 'Garden With Figures' was rejected by his publisher Faber & Faber in 1962. However, it was published in New Worlds magazine in 1967 with the addition of the multiple layers of observers and the motif of the Hunt painting.
During the 1960s, Aldiss became closely associated with New Worlds under the editorship of Michael Moorcock.
Moorcock promoted experimental narratives and new themes in science fiction (including ecology)- a set of attributes that came to be known as the New Wave. Aldiss, though uncomfortable with the term, was held up by Moorcock as an example for others to follow.
The September 1965 issue of New Worlds was dedicated to Aldiss to coincide with the World Science Fiction Convention held in London at which Aldiss was Guest of Honour.
Encouraged by the possibility of an audience for experimental science fiction, Aldiss wrote his most formally daring novel in the late 1960s - Barefoot in the Head (1969).
Set in the aftermath of a world war in which bombs containing hallucinogens are deployed, the novel follows a messiah figure, Colin Charteris, who leads disciples across a war-torn Europe. Charteris preaches that reality is not linear but a series of alternatives splitting off into separate realities.
Aldiss mirrors both the increasing distortion of reality caused by the drug warfare and Charteris's gospel of possibility in the language of the narrative which descends into puns and wordplay.
Barefoot in the Head is made up of seven chapters, each of which was first published as a short story in British science fiction magazines between 1967 and 1969.
The first story, 'Just Passing Through', was published in the final issue of SF Impulse edited by Harry Harrison. The remaining six stories were published in New Worlds where they became emblematic of New Wave writing dealing as they did with sex, drugs, and spirituality in experimental prose.
The final episode of Barefoot in the Head, 'Ouspenski's Astrabahn', was published in the January 1969 issue of New Worlds and illustrated by artist Pamela Zoline.
The story ends with Charteris sending his disciples onwards without him and settling, Buddha-like, under a tree. In one sense, materialism and society are given up for nature. However, even this final return to nature is obscured by the word-play. Nature, Aldiss appears to say, is always mediated by language and human perspective.
Zoline's artwork highlights this notion. Labels such as 'Is this a Tree?' and 'Rat' hang underneath images of a tree. The questioning and mislabelling of the tree question the link between nature and its representation.