Sunshine. At last.
It makes such a nice change to be proved wrong every now and again. The CableGuide synopsis for Nook didn't sound at all promising, and I was expecting the worst, but the episode turned out to be something rather special...
The basis for the story obviously came from The Name of the Rose (a truly fabulous book that inspired a wonderful film): we have the monastic life, the library, the murder of one of the brothers, the final destruction of the Abbey - although Nook took this somewhat further and destroyed the entire planet. There are even rough parallels between some of the characters - Brother Randor becomes a combination of Bishop Abo and Jorge, and Stan has elements of Adso. (Though I can't imagine Kai as William of Baskerville (himself based on Sherlock Holmes). Although he had been reading in the library and has no doubt stored that information in his memory, paralleling William's rescue of some of the books from the Aedificium in the film...) Even the reason for the ultimate destruction is the same - forbidden knowledge.
In The Name of the Rose, this knowledge was the effect of laughter -
"here [in the lost book]... laughter... is elevated to art, the doors of the world of the learned are open to it, it becomes the object of philosophy..... from this book there could be born the new destructive aim to destroy death through redemption from fear...."
(1. Well, it's a noble objective, although I somehow don't think Lexx will accomplish it...)
In Nook, it's the knowledge of change.
The unchanging nature of Nook is mentioned over and over again. It was deliberately designed and built to be an unchanging paradise, a planet of complete harmony. That this was attained by forcing the inhabitants into stagnation has a clear Biblical correlation with the garden of Eden, just as the library symbolises the tree of the knowledge (it's that word again) of good and evil. (Presumably this casts Xev in the rôle of the Serpent - or, in this case, Lizard.)
This brings up the question of just what Nook actually is (other than a planet, I mean). An experiment in social engineering? The ultimate misogynist answer to feminism (or simply the feminine)? A laboratory culture (that's a pun, by the way)? It's a bizarre and fascinating mix of the bucolic and the high-tech. Nookians wear homespun and eat the simplest of foods - and reproduce by cloning the great men of the past (who nevertheless aren't allowed - or maybe simply can't - utilise their 'greatness' in any significant way. Unless, of course, 'greatness' on Nook means those who fit best with the established, unchanging way of life, or who have a particular affinity with horticulture.) What species do you know of that has a self-destruct built in (and no prizes for anyone who says homo sapiens - that's abundantly self-evident....)
On to the minutiae.......
I liked Stan's pointing out the predictability of Lexx - this is a nice, tongue-in-cheek, throwaway comment!
And Xev finally made it. And you poor, 'life'-less boys out there didn't get to see.....
I'm not too sure about Kai's showing off his abilities - it seems out of character. But maybe I just don't like show-offs. (Actually, there's no 'maybe' about it.) More to the point, why was he so interested in the library? The fact that he can read the Nookian books argues that a) the Light Universe has a universal script: b) one of his acquired 'memories' was from an ancestor of the Nookians: c) The Brunnen-G were the Nookians' ancestors. (Now there's an interesting thought!!) d) there's always a 'd)', but I don't have the time or energy to think of one just now......
And Tregor - brave, iconoclastic, doomed Tregor - fell in love with Stan, and told him so. A difficult scene, and one that could have been a disaster. It could have been camp, it could have been ugly, it could have been repellent. Instead, it was superb - believably and sensitively directed, acted and presented. A little slice of perfection in a decidedly imperfect series....
I've really done no more than scratch the surface here. Nook is a thought-provoking, intelligent episode, excellently cast and beautifully directed. It left me with a strange sense of having witnessed only part of something very profound - made more so because I can never learn more than the little we were shown.... So the sunshine was deceptive. The episode was very dark indeed, and desperately tragic. Regardless of how we feel about the - possibly - artificial life the human Nookians were living, can it ever be right to tear apart a viable culture for our own self-seeking purposes? For the English to dispossess the Scottish crofters in order to raise sheep on their fertile lands? For European missionaries to tear down native African and Island faiths, customs and lifestyles because they think theirs are "better"? For immigrants to steal the land from American Indians....? etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum.......
Far more questions than answers, I'm afraid.....
Where did the Nookians come from, originally? And why?
I found Zev's complete disregard for the mores, culture and innocence of the Nookians selfish, irresponsible and gross - pretty typical of most human behaviour, I suppose. A little remorse, rather than that self-satisfied smirk at the end of the episode, would have been nice, but obviously too much to expect. Ah well.... She's lost my vote.
790 was as loathsome as ever. In fact, I won't bother mentioning him again unless his 'character' changes in any substantial way....
And Stan - well, Stan's already had to come to terms with being responsible for the destruction of 94 planets. One more - and an extremely lightly inhabited world at that - is unlikely to make any lasting impression on him. Unfortunately. And at least this time it was, really, Xev's fault......
And speaking of which, that tiny scene on the Lexx' bridge at the end of the episode was objectionable and left a nasty taste in the mouth - but it was absolutely in keeping with the plot, and made the entire story more poignant. They're guilty of genocide, in a small way - and they don't even realise it.........
Where did all the laboratory glassware come from? The time before the landing? Or do they make it themselves (unlikely given the quality of the vessels)?
It's interesting that the Elders provided the colony with a self-destruct facility: not only does it indicate that they could foresee an occasion when it would be used, but the fact also adds weight to the 'laboratory experiment' facet of the story.
Exactly what is Kai reading in the library - and how will it impinge on future episodes...?
I'm most intrigued by Brother Randor's mention of the "terrible time before the landing". Does he know about this simply from his reading? Could he actually have been one of the Elders himself (he's very vague about how long the colony has been in existence)? Did the Elders destroy themselves? And if so, why....? And it's a pity there wasn't enough time to explore exactly what is meant by "justice".....
The self-destruct mechanism is very interesting. If I've understood it correctly, it's comprised of a liquid that reacts violently with sunlight (well, one of the wavelengths on the electromagnetic spectrum, anyway) to remove the water from the organism it infects - but only from a specific point and when in direct contact, otherwise the planet would have exploded instantly (and so would the inhabitants). I found the image of the planet being stripped of its ocean cover, just prior to exploding, horribly chilling. The water that is the source and sustainer of life is ripped away.....
It's terribly sad that Stan can't appreciate the trust that Tregor shows in sharing his "secrets"..... Mind you, Stan isn't particularly sensitive himself: he's been brutalised too often for him to be the least bit empathic towards others. And those who can read do tend to take this magical-seeming skill for granted. And as Stan himself admits, there wasn't much to read on the Cluster and he didn't have the time while working for the Heretics...
Nook is to some extent a study in obsession. It raises the question - why bother to conserve knowledge if you're never going to use it, especially if you believe that most knowledge is "bad"?
(1): The Name of the Rose: Picador: 1983: pp 474, 475.
© 1999 WordWrights.
