"Scientists, when pressed, admit that atomic theory is in certain ways mythological."
A very long time ago, a truth was seen. Then, a book was written and rewritten, trimmed and polished for the indifferent demands of the general reader, gradually acquiring a cover design, an audience, a publisher, while the core idea patiently ripened, undisturbed by litigation and dispute. Now, more than twenty years since its completion, Making Names is neither obsolete nor dispensable. The tragicomic legal struggle does little to lessen the intellectual merits of Making Names - its prose still shines, its questions still stand, and its 'Electra' remains one of the most powerful statements of the human condition written in the last century.
The dialogue between Cause and Effect, philosopher and scientist, effortlessly encompasses the dogmas and agonies of intellectual history from Mill's definition of consciousness to the harnessing of black holes, via Ryle, Hume and the Pre-Socratics. The scope is all the more astonishing in the light of the animated and amusing tone of the discussion. None of the details is accidental, and a carefully placed interjection often carries more meaning than a whole shelf in the philosophy section of a well-stocked bookshop. Yet for all the deliberate orchestration, the dialogue never for an instant loses its natural (if naturalistic) dynamism. The characters, vessels of opposed (but, of course, complementary) views are both full-fledged fictional personae, with the level of development that can be expected only in a good novel. An attentive reader would indeed find that Making Names is easily a good novel, and it is obvious to all that it is nothing short of a film script. The overall impression of the form of the dialogue, quite apart from its brilliant content, is that it is Platonic in the most literal sense - philosophical drama of outstanding quality and readability.
The lambent dialogue, invaluable in itself, forms the display case for the jewel of 'Electra'. A decidedly anti-Sartrian reinterpretation of the Ancients' great and terrible fable that serves the book's fundamental purpose: definition of myth and the consequences of unexamined mythology. Why Electra? Malcolm explains: "Electra is a particularly interesting case - a mythological and an historical figure. She is not in the position of a Greek god or goddess. I'm trying to compare the way Greeks believed in their gods with the way people of future times will regard our belief in atomic theory.
"There are many parallels with the atomic theory: when the going gets tough, one is urged not to take the story too literally, it's presented as a mathematical device intended to explain, as a fiction, as a model and so forth. You need a simple story for the children and the laymen, and never mind that the principles on which the story rests are fundamentally inconsistent. Electra is at some borderline, horizon, where history and mythology meet."
Has the jazz, unobtrusively present throughout the book, got a similar purpose? Malcolm continues: "This little sub-theme shows that even in their lifetimes, before our very eyes, human beings with their rackety lives become mythologized. Our need for that generates deification. Armstrong, Parker, Coltrane were alive in my lifetime. There's a church to Coltrane, I believe, in America. The borderlines between historical and mythological figures are unclear.
Electra is born at the point of this substitution, at the point where the imperative of mythology confronts that of real life. "It seems to be a particularly beautiful story, because it is of people trapped by their mythology, leading self-denying, self-destructive lives. They see themselves as governed, doomed by forces that they cannot control." The atomic theory is often connected with a swarm of 'exculpation theories' - a series of -isms inviting explanation of human behaviour in terms of governing forces of unclear origin. Darwinism, Freudism and Marxism, the traditional trio, are all examined in the dialogue, and the conclusion reaffirms Electra as the tragic heroine.
Making Names has in a sense itself become a victim of a mythology, as unfortunate as it is unnecessary. Perhaps in this conflict, too, Life, with time and understanding at its disposal, will strike down the mass of secondary-source delusion to reveal a simple natural truth: a book that deserves readers' attention must and will be read. In the meantime, doubt.