Heels and Souls

By R.Z. Sheppard

THE SIMULTANEOUS MAN by Ralph Blum. 238 pages. Atlantic-Little, Brown. $5.95.

What would serious writers do without their dualities, their paradoxes of mind and body, the I and Thou all so neatly parsed in the head yet so hopelessly entwined in the heart? What would reviewers do without such items to explain?

In the case of Ralph Blum's The Simultaneous Man, most of the items in question fit snugly enough into a compelling plot designed to dissuade the itchy finger of exegesis. The book is at once a superior science-fiction story, a polished exercise in literary styles and a deeply personal moral statement.

Identity Transplant. For Blum, the dark powers are impenetrable bureaucracies, military cabals and value-neutral scientists on both sides of the ideological curtain. He sees them as threatening to rob men's souls by corrupting their memories and feelings.

Although Blum's indictment is sweeping, his vision is specific. Workers at a Government arsenal experimenting in mind alterations surgically erase one man's memories in order for him to receive those of another. The input source is Andrew ("Bear") Home, a hulking psychopharmacologist and a survivor of a Chinese brain laundry in North Korea. Significantly, Bear is also the son of a Russian-born mother. The man scheduled to receive Home's memories is a black enlisted man, sentenced to life in prison for killing an officer.

The identity transplant involves taping and filming scenes from Home's life and then electronically piping them into the head of 233/4, as the receptacle is officially known. Around the shop he is called Black Bear. Before the procedure is completed, however, cautious management decides to cut all of Home's post-Korean memories from the input. Instead of a research scientist stuffed with secrets, Black Bear is to be made into a minor scholar of Slavic literature, which is Home's avocation.

Although Home is in no danger of losing his own memories, he nevertheless takes the directive to revise the experiment as an assault on his identity. He ignores instructions, and is banished from Government service. Shortly thereafter, Black Bear escapes and defects to Russia. Home is drawn magnetically toward him and, after some uneasiness and a few pleasures, finally confronts Black Bear. What he discovers is the key to the book.

New Mythology. It is a key that the reader should turn for himself. Although interpretations may vary, it seems clear that Blum's puzzling tale has some roots in the basic myths of the twin culture heroes who father new tribes, cities and even heavenly bodies. Romulus and Remus, or Castor and Pollux come first to mind. But in the case of Bear and Black Bear, Blum's biblical symbolism suggests Esau and Jacob. To this are added a dash of psychedelics and some excellent literary effects. In the early pages, the prose has a deadly metallic precision. When Home goes to Russia, Blum changes his style to a controlled lyricism that quietly points toward a meaning: man can surmount such obscenities as technological soul snatching by confronting his beginnings and forging a new mythology. In Home's case the transcendence occurs during a return to what is literally his motherland. sbR.Z. Sheppard

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