Child abuse, broken psyches, freaks, cripples, social outcasts, and rejects, these are the things with which Theodore Sturgeon populates his twisted book, More Than Human; it's the Island of Misfit Toys for discerning adults. More Than Human is not a light read; it is not something to flippantly turn to at the end of the day in hopes of clearing one's mind of work.
This book does not put the mind at ease, but instead it invigorates the imagination and stirs the emotional cortex of the reader; while reading it, I was angry, sad, happy, and fearful. This is no sippin' book, this is a book to be devoured, to poor over, a book to study. It is a book full of intricacies, tightly plotted with bold characterizations. It is subtle when it needs to be, full of bombast when the occasion calls. And above all, it is damn good.
Theodore Sturgeon was some kind of mad genius, and he also possessed the power to draw his readers into his dark and twisted imagination. I don't mean to say the man was emotionally disturbed, but after reading this, and The Dreaming Jewels, it is clear that he liked to push buttons and stretch the boundaries of genre fiction as far as they could be stretched for the time.
I didn't simply read More Than Human: I experienced it, I felt it, and I lived within its milieu. It enraptured me. It drew me into its twisted world like few other books have. I approached each reading session with trepidation, because I knew that I would be challenged with each passing page. This is a dense and stirring experience, and I sometimes felt mentally exhausted after spending time with it. And this is a good thing, because compared to what the characters go through, my feelings of anxiousness and tension meant nothing.
At it's core, More Than Human explores what may be the next step in human evolution. It examines what Sturgeon calls a gestalt human, homo gestalt, or a being comprised of many. The book begins by focusing on Lone, a social outcast, a reject, who has the power to make people do things. He recalls moments when he was cold, and people gave him clothing, moments when he was hungry, and people gave him food. However, due to his limited mental capacity, he doesn't quite understand the extent of his powers, but at the same time he doesn't exploit his powers to take advantage of others. His naivety and simplistic ways kept him humble and good natured, but they also lead to some frustration.
Soon, Lone discovers his calling, and is spiritually drawn to a place of learning and peace. Through Lone's experiences we are introduced to most of the central characters. There's Bonnie and Beannie, twins who have the power of teleportation, and are also the victims of child abuse. Because of the their unique powers, they often lose their clothing and spend a lot of their time running around naked. Next is Janie, her gift is telekinesis, and she, too, is a victim of abuse.
Janie becomes the mother-figure for the group and plays a crucial role in the third part of the book. After Janie comes Baby, Lone's mongoloid step-brother. Baby is grotesquely deformed, worse than a vegetable, although his infant mind is capable of profound reasoning and deduction. And finally there is Gerry and Hip, two beings involved in the central conflict of morality and ethics as the homo gestalt comes to terms with its place in a society in which they are together and simultaneously alone.
While the above description may lead you to believe that this is some kind of New Mutants, or some X-Men-like narrative full of remarkable, unique individuals who rise above social rejection to become great heroes, it is, in fact, nothing like this. This is a hard nut to crack, and to explain it only complicates matters. More Than Human is an unrelenting novel; it is dense, and full of far reaching, lofty ambition. It never slows down for the reader to catch up, and it never holds the reader's hand through its twisted and beautifully poetic passages.
The book is a labyrinth of emotional detail and subtlety, punctuated with moments of violence, callousness, sadness, and triumph. What we are experiencing within this narrative is the genesis of a new kind of thought, a new kind of being, and all of the pains of growing up are accounted for. Sturgeon traces the formation of the homo gestalt from its conception through its first steps into actuality, into learning to live as a whole. More Than Human took me to places I've never dreamed of, and through Sturgeon's incredible prose I was introduced to characters and a world teeming with life and nuance.
