the Large Door (original title: Gateway ) is a novel of Science-fiction of the author states-unien Frederik Pohl published in 1977.

Argument

Robinette Broadhead, a rich person American citizen who lives in New York under a dome called the “Large Bubble”, consults every week Sigfird von Shrink, its computer-psychoanalyst, who helps it to overcome the traumatisms related to his past of prospector of the “Large Door”. This asteroid given up since a million years by mysterious “the Heechees”, a race alien disappeared, is a astroport which makes it possible to explore all the galaxy on board small vessels to the canned destinations. If the intersidereal missions of exploration can be the occasion dreamed to make fortune, they also involve many risks and much from prospectors never return from there.

Presentation of the novel

the Large Door is a novel of Science-fiction of the author states-unien Frederik Pohl published in 1977. The novel is designed as a double narration which alternates, of chapter in chapter, between the present and the past of the hero, Robinette Broadhead. The successive chapters are intersected with pages of publicity, of extracts of newspapers, classifieds, reports/ratios of mission or interviews of scientists specialists in the Heechees which describe various aspects of the universe of the “Large Door”. The style of Frederik Pohl is always alert and full with humor.

Situation in work

This account, which opens the Cycle of the Large Door (original title Heechee Series ), will be followed of three other novels ( the pilots of the Large Door , 1980; Go to the Large Door , 1984; Annals of Heechees , 1987) and of a collection of news ( Through the Large Door , 1990), whose reputation however never equalized that of the first novel.

Kind

The universe of Science-fiction of the “Large Door” is simply outlined, because Frederik Pohl privileges the development of the psychological of the characters and socio-critical dimension of its universe. From a formal point of view, the world of the “Large Door” calls upon traditional elements of the Science-fiction like the construction of domes protected for most fortunate, the voyages intersidereal, the care for depression managed in psychological tanks and the technological advances achieved by medicine and the surgery. The “food mines” where one extracts from the shale oil to provide for the vital needs of the population seem to be on the other hand an original invention of the author.

Without being really new, have can find also there the idea of a technology able to cross the event-driven horizon of the black holes, one of the keys this series, and also the idea of energy black holes. The reflection on the conscience, via the data-processing I.A. amongst other things, there is also central, and historically traçable.

If Frederik Pohl also makes profitable this other literary kind that are the great accounts of explorers like Christophe Colomb or the American pioneers (both expressly quoted in the novel), it is especially to describe the little reluisantes slides of them: the fear, the doubt, the misery or the cupidity which push with the great exploits and the omnipresence of death.

Summary

Robinette Broadhead , a rich person American citizen who lives in New York under a dome called the “Large Bubble”, returns to visit to Sigfrid von Shrink its machine-psychiatrist. It tries to overcome various traumatisms related to its childhood and its past of prospector on an asteroid called the “Large Door”.

Robinette Broadhead starts to work in the food mines of the Wyoming as of the twelve years age and dream to become prospector. At 26 years, it gains with the lottery and embarks finally for the “Large Door”, an asteroid which does not contain less than thousand vessels built by a race alien disappeared since a million from years, the Heechees . The “large Door” is managed by the “Corporation”, a firm international, and supervised by the military forces of various nations. The “large Door” is the starting point of missions of exploration of which the goal is either the collection of scientific data on the universe, or the discovery of artefacts heechees which can make the celebrity and the fortune of the crews which bring them back.

While arriving on the asteroid, Robinette Broadhead discovers a confined and glaucous world, equipped with a foul air and nauseous, with cells of dwelling narrow and dark tunnels. Worse, he learns during his formation that the missions of exploration are very dangerous and that many explorers never returned from there. Tétanisé by the fear, it gives up any prospection temporarily and decides to be made engage as gardener by the Corporation. One day, however, overcoming its fear, Robinette decides to leave on mission with Gelle Klara Moynlin , its mistress, and three other team members homosexual. The mission shows a failure, but each member of the crew receives a small premium of the Corporation. Some time later, after a violent argument with Klara which moves away little by little from him, Robinette balances all its compltes, wastes its money with the casino of the “Large Door” and embarks for a solitary mission in a small vessel heechee . At the end of the voyage, it is found in front of the other asteroid heechee , “Large Door II”. Deeply disappointed not to have found neither fortune, nor death, Robinette try to modify at the last time the destination of its vessel, but does not succeed that to destroy it before being collected by the personnel of “Large Door II”.

When it returns to the “Large Door”, Robinette escapes the heavy financial sanctions envisaged by the Corporation for destruction from vessel heechee , because its adventure made it possible to calculate a new faster trajectory between the two doors. In courage by his/her friend Shikitei Bakin , Robinette embarks with Klara for a last richly equipped mission. It is about an scientific experiment conceived by the Corporation: to program two vessels heechees on the same destination, to make them leave at a few seconds interval and to observe what occurs. Unfortunately, the mission finishes in catastrophe: the two vessels stop near a black hole who attracts them unrelentingly. Whereas the crew makes a last operation despaired to try to escape the attraction force of the black hole, Robinette, wedged in another part of the vessel, firm a hopper of separation and engages the firing, thus believing to save the life of its fellow-members. Finally, it is its vessel with him which succeeds in escaping the black hole.

Of return to the “Large Door”, he is celebrated like a hero, touches a premium of several million dollars, then turns over on Earth. Since, it carries out a life of luxury among the privilégis of the “Large Bubble” of New York, but its conscience is undermined by the feeling involuntarily to have assassinated the love of its life: Cold Klara Moynlin. This driven back culpability pushes it each week at Sigfrid von Shrink, its machine-psychiatrist, who finally succeeds in making him accept the death of Klara.

Main characters

The principal characters of the novel are introduced in the alphabetical order:

• Robinette Stetley Broadhead , also called Bob or Robbie , hero of the novel;

• Professor Hegramet , academic and lecturer, specialist in the Heechees ;
• Shikitei Bakin , roadmender of the “Large Door”, originating in Japan and amputee in the two legs;
• Forehand , family of prospectors who seek fortune with the “Large Door”;
• Emma Fother , executive secretary of the Corporation;
• Francesco Hereira , member of the Brazilian fleet in orbit around the “Large Door”;
• Susie Hereira , member of the Brazilian fleet, cousin of Francesco, flirt of the hero;
• Mr. Hsien , director of the “Large Door”, originating in China;
• S. Ya Lavorovna , mistress new yorkaise of the hero, specialized in Artificial intelligences;
• Sylvester Macklen , historical discoverer of the “Large Door”;
• Dane Metchnikov , homosexual Russian prospector;
• Cold Klara Moynlin , instructor with the “Large Door”, great love of Robinette Broadhead;
• Sigfrid von Shrink , name given by Robinette Broadhead to its machine-psychiatrist.

Heechees

Knowledge of human on the Heechees is extrèmement reduced. As in Rendez-vous with of Arthur C. Clarke Rowed, published five years earlier, it is simply starting from the their artefacts that the scientists try to include/understand the way of thinking and the technology of the Heechees . The navigation system of the vessels heechees equipped with one, three or five places, is very complex and their code forever really bored.

The speculations on the Heechees go good progress, whether it is on behalf of the scientists or in the public opinion. A crystal artefact which is unfolded in range is quickly baptized “Évantail with prayers” by the population, while the most eminent anatomists formulate courageous assumptions on the shape of the buttocks of the Heechees by studying the seats of their vessels. Other specialists think that the Heechees ate comets.

Comments sets of themes

An anti-hero?

The history of Robinette Broadhead resembles first of all true a success story , that of a young underground worker who succeeds in making fortune with the danger of his life. However, to look at there more closely, Robinette has all the anti-hero. It seems loose, undecided, petrified fear with the idea of trying the adventure, traitor towards friends like Shikitei Bakin and violent one towards his great Klara love. Its successes and its exploits are always the fruit of largest chances: at any time of the account, it does not seem to control anything in its own life. However, Frederik Pohl succeeded in making of it a deeply human character attaching and, making the choice propose its existential weaknesses, its doubts and the naivety of its hopes.

Lottery and human Destiny

The lottery, the play and the chance play a big role throughout the novel and the “Large Door” itself ends up resembling a vast metaphor of the Large Wheel of the Destiny. The prospectors play their life with each time they take to seat on board a vessel heechee for a new mission of which anybody never knows neither the destination, nor dangers. The various protagonists seem of as much less controlling their destiny which they face at every moment the unknown and the chance.

Social cynicism

Frederik Pohl describes a world where economic precariousness and social growth individuals to take ill-considered risks in the hope of a better future. Many pays of their life. It is also a world where one must sometimes sell his bodies to survive. The economic world presented by Frederik Pohl is a world where one exchanges human dignity against vain hopes of celebrity and richness. From this point of view, one finds in this novel all the typical elements of the phenomenon of the “gold rush” transposed in stars.

Satire of the psychoanalysis

The humor of Frederik Pohl appears especially in the scenes between the hero and his computer-psychoanalyst. The author had fun besides to give to the two protagonists names in relation one with the other: Broadhead (in French broad head ) is opposed to Shrink (popular name usually given by the Americans to their psychiatrist and which means head shrinker ), in the germanized version of Sigfrid von Shrink which points out the Austrian origins of the psychoanalysis freudienne.

At one time when the american company inserts the psychoanalysis in manners, Frederik Pohl reviews all the commonplaces of the kind: hidden significance of the dreams, infantile sexuality, driven back homosexuality, phallic and vaginal symbols, lapses (“I was mistaken” instead of “I had fun”), the death instinct, the Oedipus complex, psychoanalytical voyeurism (reading of the confidential files of other patients) and the popularization of the technical terms of the psychoanalysis.

But the psychoanalysis of Robinette Broadhead culminates at tops of humor when the hero explains to his machine-psychiatrist that his unavowed taste for the anal homosexual relations goes back to its more tender childhood, one time when the only true sign of affection which his/her mother gave him was this rectal thermometer which it used to take her temperature when it was sick!

Lastly, the irony of the therapy of Robinette Broadhead resides in the fact of having to entrust one lived painful and of the strong emotions to a machine which is completely deprived by it.

Literary prizes

The novel of Frederik Pohl the Large Door gained several prices:

• Price Nebula of the best science-fiction novel in 1977;

• Hugo Price of the best novel of science fiction in 1978;
• Price Locus of the best science-fiction novel in 1978;
• Price John Wood Campbell Memorial of the best science-fiction novel in 1978;
• Price Apollo in 1979.

French editions

• Frederik Pohl, the Large Door , translated from American by E.C.L. Meistermann, Calmann-Levy, coll “Dimension SF”, 1978;

• Frederik Pohl, the Large Door , translated from American by E.C.L. Meistermann, French General Bookstore, coll “the book of pocket science fiction”, n°7069, 1981;
• Frederik Pohl, the Large Door , translated from American by E.C.L. Meistermann, I have Lu, n°1691, 1984.

Traditional of the science fiction

This novel is regarded as a great classic of the Science-fiction in the following reference books:

• Jacques Sadoul, Anthology of the literature of science fiction , Ramsay, 1981;

• Investigation of Fanzine Carnage society man near his readers, 1989;
• Stan Barets, science-fictionnaire , Denoël, coll “Presence of the future”, 1994.

Criticisms specialized

In its History of the modern science fiction , Jacques Sadoul declares in connection with this novel: Fred Pohl signs with this novel, which was worth Hugo to him the following year, one of his best successes where humor and the sensitivity dispute it with the invention. .

Quotations

The numbers of page of the following quotations refer to the edition I have Lu (1984) quoted in bibliography.

• “ All the television programs has publicities to inflate us the moral one while saying to us how much our work is important, how much the whole world counts on us to nourish itself. ”, chap. 2, p. 19;

• “ Sigfrid is very intelligent if one thinks of wide of his silly thing. ”, chap. 3, p. 22;

• “ I hate the idea to be killed. I hate even the idea of dead which will come one day: more living being, to very see stopping, to know that all other people will continue to live, to be sent in the air and to treat to a section of it without I being there to take my share. ”, chap. 6, p. 34;

• “ They is curious the fun. I did not test it. I knew that it was the only reason which pushed me to remain, but I did not have the impression to be afraid, to only be reasonably careful. ”, chap. 12, p. 115;

• “ It is the kind of brawl between man and woman whom I test as often as possible to allot to a premenstrual tension. ”, chap. 20, p. 184;

• “ the sick companies rejects the adventurers like grape pips. The grape pips are not entitled to the word so much. I suppose that the same applied with the sailors of Colomb or the pioneers who led their carriages covered through the territories comanches; they were to have a terrible fun, like me, but they did not have the choice so much. ”, chap. 22, p. 233;

• “ Freud said that any boy who is persuaded to have been the favorite of his mother cannot become nevrotic. ”, chap. 25, p. 260;

• “ culpability? It is a painful thing; but because it is painful, it is modifying of behavior. ”, chap. 31, p. 317.

Adaptations

The universe of the “Large Door” was adapted to the United States in the field of the video games:

• Frederik Pohl' S Gateway , Legend Entertainment, 1992;
• Gateway 2: Homeworld , Legend Entertainment, 1993.

The first of these two video games under DOS is downloadable free starting from the site: '' Home off the Underdogs ''

External bonds

• Short presentation of the author and work on the Cosmic Cockroach

Random links:

Royal decree | Mâ Ananda Moyî | Massimo Ravazzolo | Thalassianthus aster | Refrigerant