SYNTHESIS
Microcosms of Tragedy
by
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From Part I The doctor frequently has occasion to refer to his mentor, Professor Kördein. Questioned by a tribunal ostensibly set up to look into conduct in medical practices the Professor is asked to define "intelligence". 'Put your case, Professor.' 'I speak for the rat. The rat is an intelligent creature - agreed?' 'By some definition of intelligence, yes. Your definition, please, Professor.' 'Adaptable, the rat is for sure. We - the human race - have stepped outside that definition, or, rather, a footnote is necessary.' 'Supply it for us.' 'Human intelligence. That which we must possess in order to define it.' 'Cunning, then?' 'Not quite. The rat has cunning. The rat, however, has not disowned its tail. It sees a clear advantage to running on all four legs. In movement of the body it far outplays us - most animals do. The rat is able to climb all but the smoothest vertical surfaces. If the rat had wings it would show the agility of the raven.' 'What is the case you are making, Professor Kördein?' 'Simply, we, who have disowned our tails and appear to prefer to walk upright on our hind legs have lost the entitlement to be called upright. We have brought ourselves into disrepute through our selfish, arrogant behaviour. We have rendered the planet almost unfit to live upon. Whilst our ingenuity knows no bounds, our compassion is strictly circumscribed.' 'This is dangerous stuff to be passing on to your students, Professor. Hearing adjourned.' From Part IV: The Transit Camp: The wind had got up and the walls of the tent began to flap noisily. 'I don't think we can hope for much from that quarter. As a race we have abandoned all the tenets given to us. The nuclear weapon was the last straw, I would have said.' 'But we haven't used it. Perhaps if we had.' 'It has been used, as a weapon...' 'Not as a deterrent, though. As a deterrent it is supposed to work. So, why haven't they used it?' 'Why ask me?' 'You are intelligence. Intelligence is the nerve structure for the deployment of military strategy. You have let us down.' 'I?' 'Not you alone, your organization. We thought you were above corruption. When all is corrupt, what place is there for the honest soldier? We have been duped. We are all fools, all of us.'
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About the Book
The novel is written in the third person, except for the final part - The Transit Camp. The central character appears to be a Dr. Maurice Wylie, a doctor of medicine that is. Professor Kordein (a pharmacologist whose thesis is the physiology of pain) appears at the beginning of the novel and crops up here and there making a final bow at the very end. The author points out that the novel is as much as anything a treatise on identity. It is important to understand this since the reader must grapple with characters owning the same or similar names - the allotropic grouping? In addition to Wylie himself, we have two other very important characters in the brothers Russell and Warren Styles, the former a mathematician the latter (the younger of the two) who becomes an affluent, successful business man with architectural connections - hence all those towers reaching for Utopia. The fate of Warren we learn - he ends up on a mortuary slab with a waif following a heart attack in which he imagines (?) all his towers to be crumbling around him. Russell, in contrast, appears to find a sort of heaven with the quiet Sister Crosbie (theatre sister in a hospital where Warren works as a porter for a time). Then there is the luckless Curwen. Curwen is a failure in academic terms but an artist in his craft as a hairdresser. (There are two hairdressers in this work, as you might expect - binary.) In an attempt to better himself Curwen runs up against many hurdles all of which appear to floor him. There is the illusive Karmi (assistant to Dr. Wylie) whose mother became pregnant (raped) in the many wars of the Balkans and who dies in childbirth with Wylie as midwife. So, what is the novel essentially about? “My work is about the struggle for survival on a hostile planet; to say any more would be absurd, unless I wished to negate the book.” (The author.) If nothing else, Synthesis is a rich tapestry of characters and circumstance. Paul Draper (from his review) 2008
About the Author
John Vetterlein was born in 1935. He spent the years of the Second World War at Redbridge, on the eastern approaches to London, and considers himself fortunate to have survived the V1 (flying bomb) and V2 (rocket) attacks. His father served throughout that war in the Royal Air Force. Having studied physics and mathematics, Vetterlein went on to work in civilian hospitals as a conscientious objector to military National Service. Before continuing his studies in chemistry and pharmacology, he worked as an astronomer and lecturer. In 1971, following a short spell as a secondary school teacher in London, Vetterlein moved to Wales in order to concentrate on writing and music. He worked in the Music Department, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth from 1983 until its closure in 1990. John Vetterlein is a true polymath. He is a prolific writer: his fiction output alone includes sixteen novels, six books of short stories, long stories, plays for radio and twenty poetry collections. An active musician, John Vetterlein is a member of the Haydn Society of Great Britain, the Rachmaninoff Society and the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society. His association with Orkney goes back to 1970. He has lived on Rousay full-time since 1990 from where he pursues his interests in astronomy, hill walking, music, photography and writing.