Downward to the Earth
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Average rating4.3
From the shrouding fogs of its Mist Country to the lunatic tropical fertility of its jungles, the planet Belzagor was alien in the extreme. Before the decolonization movement, it had been part of Earth's Galaxy-wide empire. But the Nildoror and Sulido-ror, Belzagor's two intelligent species, had been given their independence, and once again they ruled themselves.
Edmund Gundersen, a former colonial official from Earth, was returning to Belzagor after an eight year absence. Officially, he was a tourist, but in reality he was seeking redemption—redemption for the crimes he had committed against the Nildoror and Sulidoror.
Even now, he still found it hard to accept their independence. The Nildoror were great elephant-like beings; and the Sulidoror, husky bipeds covered with dark red hair, had long arms tipped with terrifying claws. How could such creatures, without any technology to speak of, run an entire planet? Yet they did, and they had one thing that had always eluded human understanding—the ceremony of rebirth.
Somehow this mysterious rite linked the two species, and the act that weighed most heavily on Gundersen's mind had occurred in connection with it. During an emergency, he had commandeered a group of Nildoror for a labor detail. Using a fusion torch, he had forced them to obey, and on his account they had missed their rebirth.
To atone for this deed, Gundersen had decided to journey alone through Belzagor's jungles. When he reached the Mist Country, he would offer himself as a candidate for rebirth—even if it would mean the end of his life as a human!
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ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.
After being back on Earth for eight years, Edmund Gunderson returns to the formerly colonized planet Belzagor where he used to be one of the human rulers of the two intelligent species who live there ??? the nildoror, who look much like elephants, and the sulidoror, who look like apes. While Gunderson was on Belzagor, he considered these species to be soulless and stupid, but now that the humans have given up their control of the planet, he realizes that he sinned against the nildoror, and he wants to cleanse his conscience by undergoing their ritual of rebirth.
When Gunderson arrives, he finds that the planet is gradually reverting back to the wild (the nildoror don???t have opposable thumbs, after all) and he marvels that the nildoror and the sulidoror are now working and living together ??? a practice which they did not keep when the humans ruled the planet. After he gets the nildoror???s permission to travel freely, he sets out across the planet and travels to the place of rebirth. Along the way, he encounters the beauty and the terror of that wild planet, learns more about the species that inhabit it, and begins to fully realize the evil he committed there.
If this sounds a little familiar, that???s because Robert Silverberg???s Downward to the Earth (1970) is his tribute to Joseph Conrad???s Heart of Darkness (1902), which explored the Belgians??? cruel colonization of the Congo. Silverberg makes his homage transparent by naming one of his characters after Conrad???s Kurtz. Like Heart of Darkness, Downward to the Earth was first serialized and later published as a novel. Also, like Heart of Darkness, Silverberg???s descriptions of the coexisting beauty and horror of Belzagor are the best parts of the book.
The title Downward to the Earth, comes from Ecclesiastes 3:21 (???Who knows that the spirit of man ascends upward and the spirit of the beast descends downward to the earth????). Not only does Silverberg consider the question of what happens to the souls of humans and beasts, but he also asks how we should distinguish a human from a beast. Are some ???beasts??? more human than we are?
Downward to the Earth could be considered as Christian allegory because it beautifully illustrates the pain of guilt and loneliness, the desire for redemption, the relief of forgiveness and liberation, and the pleasure of unity with like-minded souls. There is much Christian symbolism, too, including a serpent who offers a drug which promises the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:5). Silverberg portrays the drinking of the serpent???s drug as a great sin, but the commission of this sin leads to the understanding of the need to be reborn (???through the law comes the knowledge of sin??? ~Romans 3:20). The allegory eventually breaks down (as allegories usually do) when we see how the redemption is accomplished, but I enjoyed this thought-provoking aspect of the novel.
Blackstone Audio produced the version I listened to which was read by the magnificent Bronson Pinchot, one of my favorite readers. Downward to the Earth is a beautiful story and the audiobook is a great way to read it.
